From Policy to Practice | Language Magazine

Sara Davila and Mary Scholl share lessons learned in delivering mobile-friendly, online, effective teacher training at scale

Developing an action-oriented curriculum was the first step in supporting Panama’s comprehensive English language education reform (Davila, 2025). However, the success of this curriculum depended on a second critical phase: preparing educators to effectively implement it in classrooms nationwide. To bridge this gap, a large-scale professional development initiative was launched, to ensure that teachers were not only familiar with the new methodologies but also equipped to apply them in practice.

The training initiative was a collaborative effort between English language specialists, including a partnership with Quality Leadership University and the US Embassy in Panama’s Regional English Language Office, and in service to the Ministry of Public Education in Panama (MEDUCA), we developed a nationwide professional development program designed to equip teacher trainers with the skills necessary to cascade their knowledge to thousands of educators across Panama’s ten provinces and four comarcas. The nationwide live training held in February 2025 served as a bridge between curriculum theory and classroom practice, ensuring that trainers were not only familiar with the methodology but also prepared to guide teachers through the complexities of real-world implementation (Nash, 2025).

A key component of this initiative was the delivery of live online synchronous training to more than 100 educators through three intensive Saturday-morning sessions, each lasting three to five hours. These train-the-trainer sessions provided a deep dive into the curriculum, focusing on action-oriented communicative language teaching, student-centered learning, and competency- and standards-based education. However, as we quickly learned, planning such large-scale training is one thing—delivering it effectively is another.

When planning, we anticipated that most teachers would access the Saturday-morning sessions using laptops or desktop computers. While we recognized that some participants might join via mobile devices, we expected that the length and interactive nature of the live online synchronous training would make laptop access the preferred choice. However, over 60% of teachers attended entirely via mobile phones, requiring us to adapt our approach to ensure full participation and engagement.

For many educators, using a mobile phone was not a preference but a necessity dictated by circumstances. While internet access in Panama is widespread in urban areas, it remains limited in rural regions, where only 29% of residents have consistent internet access (Internet Society, 2025). Despite 100% of Panamanians owning a mobile phone, only 62% have access to mobile data or Wi-Fi, leaving many teachers dependent on mobile devices with limited bandwidth and processing power (León et al., 2022). Further compounding these challenges, Panama’s tropical climate—characterized by heavy rains and regular storms—frequently disrupts internet services, making connections unreliable.

Recognizing these realities underscored the importance of adapting the training to be as functional as possible, ensuring that all educators, regardless of their technological constraints, could engage fully and benefit from the program. To do this we worked to unpack key challenges so we could effectively create solutions. Through this process we identified the following obstacles:

• Small screen sizes made reading slides difficult and navigating between applications cumbersome.
• Limited ability to switch between apps meant that using shared Google Docs, chat features, or polling tools was often impractical.
• Slower typing speeds on mobile keyboards discouraged active participation in chat discussions.
• Frequent connection disruptions due to unstable internet made interactive tools unreliable and often created additional disruption.

We proactively adjusted the training to ensure more teachers were able to engage. First, we considered how we could turn weakness into advantages, considering both technological options and universal design for learning principles, to ensure that modifications benefited everyone, regardless of their modality of attendance. The following highlights some of the specific adaptations we made to support educators.

Housekeeping and Platform Familiarization

At the beginning of the first session, it became evident that participants had different levels of familiarity with the selected learning platform, particularly when accessing it from a mobile device. While some teachers were comfortable navigating Zoom or Teams, others struggled to locate essential features such as the chat box, reactions, or breakout rooms.

To address this, we incorporated interactive activities at the start of each session that served as housekeeping opportunities to help teachers navigate resources. For example:  

• We provided clear instructions tailored for users on their phones, such as “If you are on your phone, find the emoji button,” supporting mobile participants and showing everyone that their time and their needs were not barriers or obstacles but anticipated as part of the training.  
• We gave verbal instructions on how to use different controls and shortcuts, like reminding teachers on mobile devices that they could pinch and zoom on slides or use emojis to respond to questions or chat messages, helping both mobile and laptop users more successfully use resources on the platforms.
• We specifically acknowledged users on mobile devices and invited them to open their microphones to participate in the conversation and share their knowledge and experience during interactive sections of the training, which also benefited laptop users who were less comfortable using the chat.

These small adjustments significantly reduced confusion and allowed all participants to feel comfortable and welcome to participate.

Content Delivery Adjustments

Presentations with lots of visual design did not translate well to mobile screens, making it difficult for teachers to follow key points. To ensure all participants could clearly engage with the material, we:

• Reformatted slides to be readable on a 4×6-inch screen, minimizing visual clutter and increasing font sizes.
• Provided verbal descriptions of visual elements, ensuring that participants who could not clearly see the slides still received the necessary information.
• Shared training materials multiple times before, during, and after the session, so that teachers could download content and have access without straining limited bandwidth.

Designing materials with mobile devices in mind ensured all teachers could participate, and these design decisions had the added advantage of improving the overall content presentation for everyone, regardless of attendance modality.

Rethinking Interaction and Engagement

Many standard engagement strategies for online training rely on some type of audio, video, or text-based interaction to support learning, such as chat discussions, collaborative documents, and live polling tools. However, these tools were not practical for a large portion of our audience due to:

• Difficulty switching between applications on mobile devices.
• Slow typing speeds that made chat participation burdensome.
• Connectivity issues that disrupted live polling tools.
• Unanticipated screen overlays or disruptions when navigating between panels.

To address these challenges, we:

• Shifted from text-based participation to emoji-based engagement, allowing teachers to respond quickly using reactions instead of typing in chat.
• Encouraged users to turn off cameras to save on bandwidth.
• Encouraged the use of WhatsApp for document storage, sharing, and collaboration.

These adjustments made participation more fluid and ensured that teachers could remain engaged without technological barriers. Surprisingly, WhatsApp became a reliable platform for teachers to interact and share insights, evolving into a default community-of-practice space during the training. Regardless of how teachers attended the training, WhatsApp proved to be an important tool. The use of groups and communities made it very easy to facilitate independent collaboration among teachers after the training sessions. Having all our trainers in one organized application made it easy to monitor and track preparation effectively for guidance and intervention.

Breakout Room Modifications

Breakout rooms, while effective for collaboration in laptop-based training, proved problematic for mobile users. Teachers often struggled to:

• Enter and exit breakout rooms smoothly or without being dropped due to slow loading time.
• Navigate between shared documents and discussions while remaining in the breakout session.
• Rejoin the main session after the breakout discussion ended.

In response, we:

• Minimized the use of breakout rooms, favoring structured large-group discussions instead.
• Encouraged verbal participation rather than relying on collaborative documents that required app-switching.
• Allowed for pre- and post-session collaboration, where participants could complete activities asynchronously rather than in real time.
• Assigned a team member to assist with placing people into rooms when we did use the breakout feature.

These modifications ensured that all teachers could participate in discussions without technical disruptions, regardless of how they were attending, as we found that laptop users could also have unexpected challenges during breakout exercises. Here, again, we found post-interaction time on WhatsApp to be a better way to facilitate collaboration.

For others who are designing professional development programs to be delivered at scale to implement in countries with developing infrastructure, the following recommended practices can help maximize accessibility, engagement, and effectiveness:

1. Design for a mobile-first learning environment.
   • Assume that a significant portion of participants will access training via mobile devices.
   • Test all materials on smartphones before delivery to ensure readability and usability.
   • Provide clear, step-by-step instructions on navigating the learning platform, especially for participants with limited experience using online tools.
2. Rethink breakout room usage and small-group activities.
   • Instead of relying on breakout rooms, which can be difficult to navigate on mobile devices and in low-bandwidth environments, prioritize structured large-group discussions.
   • When small-group collaboration is necessary, consider asynchronous alternatives such as discussion boards, shared documents, or pre/post-session activities.
3. Encourage school-based or community participation.
   • Where possible, recommend that participants access training from schools, community centers, or shared spaces with more stable internet connections.
   • Support peer-learning models that allow participants to collaborate in person while engaging in online training.
4. Prioritize pre-session preparation.
   • Distribute training guides and resource links in advance, allowing participants to familiarize themselves with content before live sessions.
   • Provide backup PDF versions of essential documents to ensure accessibility for those with intermittent connectivity.
   • Use messaging apps, such as WhatsApp or Telegram, to create parallel communication channels for content sharing and participant support.
5. Adapt engagement strategies to overcome connectivity barriers.
   • Use reaction buttons, simple polling methods, and voice-based responses instead of relying solely on chat or external polling tools.
   • Offer multiple modes of participation, including verbal contributions and asynchronous discussions, to accommodate participants with unstable connections.

By designing training programs with these considerations in mind, educators can create more inclusive, effective, and scalable learning experiences that reach participants regardless of technological constraints.

Supporting the successful orientation to the new curriculum and preparing trainers across the country taught all of us a critical lesson: effective online training must reflect the real conditions in which participants learn. The expectation that all educators would engage with training in the same way created unforeseen challenges, but by adjusting for differences in technology, connectivity, and available tools, we ensured that every teacher could fully participate and benefit from the experience.

More importantly, this experience highlighted the dedication and adaptability of Panama’s educators. Their commitment to professional growth and their willingness to navigate logistical and technological hurdles demonstrated the value of this training in preparing them to implement the curriculum nationwide. By prioritizing practical solutions and flexible delivery methods, we created a stronger, more engaging learning experience—one that supports long-term success in English language instruction across Panama.

Davila, S. (2025). “Global Approach, Local Impact: Implementing action-oriented teaching in Panama.” Language Magazine. https://languagemagazine.com/2025/03/03/global-approach-local-impact

Internet Society. (2025). “Country Reports: Panama: Internet resilience and accessibility.” https://pulse.internetsociety.org/en/reports/PA

Quality Leadership University. (n.d.). https://qlu.ac.pa

León, M., Svenson, N. A., Psychoyos, D., Warren, N., De Gracia, G., and Palacios, A. (2022). “WhatsApp Remote Reading Recovery: Using mobile technology to promote literacy during COVID-19.” IAFOR Journal of Education, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.22492/ije.10.3.06

Nash, P. (2025). “Panama Launches New English Language Curriculum.” PIE News. https://thepienews.com

US Embassy in Panama. (n.d.). Regional English Language Office (RELO).

Sara Davila is an English language education specialist with over two decades of experience. She collaborates with institutions and organizations worldwide to create engaging and effective learning by supporting curriculum auditing, revision, and reform. She is a passionate advocate for 21^st-century learning approaches that explore and integrate technological thinking. Currently, she’s consulting with Quality Leadership University and the US Embassy’s Regional English Language Office (RELO) in Panama to support the revision and implementation of the national English curriculum.

Mary Scholl is founder of the Institute for Collaborative Learning in Costa Rica and a senior academic consultant with National Geographic Learning and has served as an English language specialist in nine countries internationally, including in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia. She recently supported Quality Leadership University and the US Embassy’s RELO office in Panama to support the introduction of the revised national English language curriculum. With 30+ years of experience, she continues to provide online and in-person training in rural Costa Rica.