Chapter 14: Empowering Science Teachers and Students to Engage in Inquiry-Based Learning: A Team-Based Professional Development Project in Bangladesh

While a large majority of students in the global-North may have access to student-centered pedagogy this ideal has yet to be realized by many students in the global-South. In this chapter we begin by describing the factors impeding implementation of student-centered pedagogy in Bangladesh and other countries in the global-South. We then describe a grant-funded professional development (PD) project that was designed to engage 40 science teachers and 200 students in inquiry-based learning (IBL) in Bangladesh. To facilitate replication of this model we describe how we used a co-mentoring approach and web-based technology to design and implement a study to evaluate project outcomes. We discuss the lessons learned and invite teachers to harness their leadership potential, seek the service of mentors, and design team-based PD to increase students’ access to student-centered pedagogy.