The Big Question: What makes a student learn better?
We often tell our children if they are clever enough they will become topper in class. We say this because it’s what we’ve been taught by our own schooling experience. Success is defined by your rank in class. What we fail to realise is when it comes to learning, we all learn and understand things at our own pace. If we redefine our metric of success to a level of understanding, every student has a chance of being equally successful. Every child is different and takes a different amount of time to learn and master concepts. If every student in a class is taught the same concepts and moreover, at the same speed, we’re not helping them.
We believe, teaching should be focused on providing a better learning experience to the students and not just completing the syllabus. And this is valid for all the teachers and students, no matter how old they are. Be it a primary grade classroom in the remote regions of Uttarakhand or a training workshop in a corporate company located in the suburbs of Mumbai. The idea of ‘teaching’ needs to be redefined.
What is personalised learning?
In a traditional classroom scenario, teachers follow the syllabus and are restricted to timelines. This, in turn, affects students as some struggle to catch up and end up skimming over the topic instead of mastering it.
A student using a tablet to learn in class
Personalised learning recognises that every child’s abilities are different and allows each student to learn and master concepts at their own pace without being restricted to classroom syllabus and deadlines.
Where is this?
Pindey valley - Uttarakhand
The project site is located in the Pindar Glacier valley of Uttarakhand. This site is located at approximately 2300 metres above sea level with limited access to electricity and mobile network coverage. To get here, I usually have to travel for 2.5 days from Mumbai using various modes of transport. The last part of my journey also includes 3-4 hours of trekking through dense forest. The areas frequently experience heavy rainfall, landslides and snowfall which makes it difficult to travel from place to place.
Most of the villagers here earn their living by farming or by becoming guides and drivers for tourists visiting the glacier. My visit to the project site is usually covered over a 2 week period. Since there is hardly any access to the internet or mobile network coverage in these areas, once I enter into the Pindar valley zone, I am off the radar for these two weeks. I consider it to be a good social media detox. ; )
Project Background
Zaya Learning Labs Pvt. Ltd. and The Hans Foundation (THF) partnered together to work in Uttarakhand as part of THF’s Integrated Village Development Program (IVDP) to improve student learning levels by using Zaya’s personalised learning platform in 5 government schools in Pindar Valley, Bageshwar district of Uttarakhand. These 5 government schools are located in Khati, Wacham, Badiyakot, Kilpara and Sorag villages which are at 2200m above sea level with limited access to electricity and mobile network coverage.
While the world is going digital in every which way, the education sector is still trying to catch up. Education technology is being leveraged to better learning outcomes and eliminate achievement gaps in schools around the world. However, this opportunity has mostly been available to schools with expensive internet infrastructure. In the schools that need education technology the most, limited broadband connectivity and intermittent electricity have been barriers to harnessing the power of ed-tech.
Since these villages in Uttarakhand do not have stable electricity and mobile network coverage, solar panels were set up by THF to generate electricity.
Zaya is implementing the Personalised Learning Program (PLP) in these schools with using the ClassCloud device which is an offline, easy to use, plug-n-play, portable, classroom specific wireless device with a learning platform designed to store, access and deploy curriculum and content.
Our Work
We are working with students from Grades 1-5 in 5 government primary schools. Since these villages had no electricity, solar panels were set up to generate electricity and power up the ClassCloud device. The personalised learning program we selected helped to focus on every student’s performance rather than the success of 1 or 2 quick learners.
Currently, our focus is to improve learning levels of students in the English subject. Teachers use the PLP program as a supplement to classroom teaching to help children master concepts before they move on to another topic in class. Zaya’s platform provides teachers with over 250 hours of video, practice, quiz and block assessments for students. Lesson plans are also provided for every module so that teachers are equipped to conduct the classes. The English program is bilingual and helps students learn English from their native Hindi language.
Teachers at the school were trained regularly to use the tech products and for the implementation of the PLP in the schools.
Teacher Training Session
At present, our teaching volunteers are in the midst of conducting the baseline test for the current students in these 5 schools. Once we have that available, students will be divided according to their reading levels and taught accordingly using both - PLP and textbooks.
- Rishabh Shukla
Product Implementation Lead, Zaya Learning Labs