Teacher: Nina Alonso
Meet the teacherLinks
Nina Alonso
Nina is an international educational researcher specialising in equal access to learning and culture. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge. Her wide perspective of the field of education was developed thanks to direct experience in school contexts, informal learning environments, and training teachers. As a researcher, she has worked extensively in low, medium and high-income countries for international public and private organizations. She believes in the value and power of successful stories about education and the oral and written transmission of them.
Overview
Nina presents a podcast called Teachers’ Voices. The podcast aims to raise the voices of teachers as main agents working on the frontlines of education. To leverage the status of the teaching profession Teachers´ Voices showcases dialogue between recent research about learning and development and teacher’s practice. The integration of research and practice that is interconnected with the natural world has been a common thread of all episodes since the podcast’s inception.
Theory of Change
Teachers are one of the most influential and powerful forces for equity, access and quality in education. They provide children and young people with the knowledge, skills, attitude and tools needed to reach their full potential. Through the podcast, Nina gives the teachers a platform to highlight their work and experiences increasing their collective leadership and creating a community of practice that can increase the capacity of teachers and educationalists around the world.
Approach and Actions
Nina started the design of the podcast Teachers´ Voices in the Autumn of 2020, partnering with BOLD, the digital platform on learning and development of Jacobs Foundation. So far, Teachers´ Voices has interviewed more than a hundred teachers and 30 researchers from all the continents, keeping a balance between low-, middle- and high-income contexts. An active defence of green education permeates the three series of the podcast and specific podcasts have directly addressed different aspects of environmental issues and education for climate action.
An illustration of this engagement with green learning is demonstrated through the choice of the following titles to open the last two series of the podcast – ‘How can teachers inspire environmental care’ and ‘How climate education can empower students’. In ‘How can teachers inspire environmental care’, Nina listens to experts and teachers talk about how teachers are integrating climate change education into everyday learning and about projects that teachers around the world are implementing to help children care for their environments as part of a community. The benefits of playing in nature are also highlighted in this episode and the educators´ testimonials follow discussions on a previous podcast titled ‘What is the role of nature in children’s learning and development?’ where Nina discussed with educators how schools around the world are connecting children to nature.
In ‘How climate education can empower students’, Nina gathers experts and teachers to discuss how youth activism can support learning opportunities and examines the components of learning that best support ‘green life skills education’. Direct accounts of teachers who are already helping students develop these skills illustrate how vastly different access to resources can be. As in every podcast, teachers share how their work enables them to support collaborations between students, schools and communities to help protect the environment.
Impact
The podcast has already gathered the testimonials of more than 100 teachers. Its audience reached more than 10,000 listeners so far in 90 countries from all continents. Nina hopes to reach more teachers around the world by partnering with teaching development programs and teachers’ networks such as Teach For All, Aflatoun, the IBO, Schools 2030 and other educational development organizations and universities.