Julie Cowan

Promoting Quality Teaching practice in Albanian schooling: Where political history and pedagogy meet

Julie has a background in international development and has lived and worked in South-Eastern Europe, most recently as a teacher in Albania.

She “has a passion for Albania”, the fourth poorest nation in Europe, a country that has spent over 30 years recovering from communist totalitarian rule.

Her aim is to work with Albanian teachers as they develop their pedagogical practice in line with the government’s aspirations to modernise teaching and address teaching quality, as many teachers in Albania still adopt a traditional textbook- based approach.

Julie spent the 2022-23 academic year in Albania working with Albanian pre-certified teachers to introduce them to the Quality Teaching (QT) Model and associated coding process. Despite distance and language barriers (Julie does speak a little Albanian, and has had the Classroom Practice Guide translated into Albanian), she hopes the QT professional development will continue to encourage Albanian teachers to critically engage with their own practice as a means of developing capacity to continually improve, which, in turn, will help Albanian students better engage in learning.