Harmonizing Learning
A case of state-level structuring of content dissemination
The Context
As schools continue to remain shut across Punjab owing to the COVID crisis, the teachers and officials across government schools in Punjab have been working hard to ensure students are able to continue their education. Although there are multiple initiatives by several states across the country, an area of concern continues to be — the disconnection among pieces of content, activities, and instructions being received by students and teachers. Towards enabling continuity of learning and engagement of children, the Punjab Education Collective along with the Department of Education, Punjab, initiated ‘Mission Ghar Baithe Sikhiya’, with the objectives:
A first step towards this mission was to understand the challenges faced by the students regarding different mediums available to them. This was done through the Virtual Parent-Teacher Meeting in May by the department of over 5 lakh students which included the component of collecting data on resources and access to media. Once a collective sense of what the current reach looked like was built, the next step was to design a program which would allow us to reach as many students as possible, as well as engage them in learning and well-being.
Multi-pronged, yet coherent
Through the survey conducted during the virtual Parent-Teacher Meeting, there were key insights around — reach of mediums like TV, radio, and smartphones. It was clear that a multi-pronged approach needed to be undertaken in order to effectively engage students at scale. While the reach of TV was high in families, and phones in teachers, there was the compounded effect of factors such as parents going for work and not being able to monitor or engage their children. Keeping these factors in mind, a common timetable of topics and different channels gets created and shared — enabling teachers to plan ahead, and enabling children to follow a simple routine and see connections among the different pieces of content and instructions they receive. This also helped ease some of the feelings of uncertainty among teachers and students. With the objective of helping students feel comfortable with online learning and providing a structure to their day, daily time-tables for classes 6–10 are being shared with the students.
Keeping in mind the schedules of parents and families at large, daily slides are sent in by 6 AM, allowing parents to share the resources, or to share the instructions with children before they leave for work. These time-tables give the students information about the TV lectures for the day, which are played on DD Punjabi and SwayamPrabha, along with links to related learning audio, video and reading material, assignments and activities to be completed. A specific day of the week has also been assigned for each subject for activities and innovative projects, which promotes learning beyond the textbooks and makes learning fun for the students.
The timetables have brought coherence in the different mediums used, helping students further bring about a structure to their day. Assignments and reading material supporting the TV lecture are shared, following which a test is conducted online (though google forms) at the end of the week on the topics learnt. ‘The Daily Dose’ breaks down the TV lecture into simpler concepts for the students, which helps them learn better. We are able to ensure uniformity and quality of the content being shared with the students’’ shared Mr Hardavinder Singh, Education officer from Mohali, who is a member of the Digital Sikhiya Team. This exercise has given a platform for members of the Digital Sikhiya team to build on their technology and content creation skills, shares Mr Vidya Sagar, an officer from Pathankot. He said ‘I am happy to get the chance to learn new skills and help my students better.’ Sharing the daily schedules has also helped the teachers plan their day better, making sure they are able to support the students with doubts and hold discussions with their class. Teachers teaching higher grades are engaging their students primarily through Google classroom and Zoom, whereas those teaching lower grades are primarily involving parents and students together on normal phone calls.
A Collaborative Effort
There are three key processes that work to make the content streamlined and coherent, and are owned by different teams:
- State Resource Team: Creation of TV lessons
- Digital Sikhiya Team: Creation of supporting resources like audio-visual content, quizzes, activities, and assignments
- Digital Sikhiya Sahayak Team: Review of, and feedback on TV lessons as well as other resources being created.
While the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has laid down guidelines for following the syllabus, a state-level task force called the Digital Sikhiya Team was created to convert those guidelines and syllabus into learnable, shareable, and teachable resources for students and teachers. The Digital Sikhiya team focuses on making content simpler and more accessible for the students, as well as finding innovative ways to engage students in learning even beyond the textbook through various projects and activities. Creation of this team was an opportunity to reimagine the roles that leaders and the system could play in education going forward. This 32 member team consists of district and block-level instructional leaders of different subjects from various districts. They underwent training, held by the Punjab Education Collective which covered topics around imagining remote learning, and the role that different channels like apps, TV, radio, and so on could play. This also included training on creating, curating, and reviewing content to ensure that quality content reaches students. This team works in tandem with two other key teams. The broad process is outlined below:
An important part of the process is continuous feedback from stakeholders on the content and resources being shared. This is being led by the newly-formed Digital Sikhiya Sahayak Team, which reviews the content on aspects such as rigour of content, how engaging the content is, as well as basic checks on the usability of the content. This review is aided by a review form on Darpan — an app which is used state-wide to capture and make sense of various kinds of data, all the way from support being given to teachers, to challenges faced by parents, to review of content.
Voices from the ground
Mr Vidya Sagar, who is a member of the Digital Sikhiya Team, shares how the daily schedules have impacted his students positively. ‘The schedules have reduced the number of files shared with the students- all the assignments and learning material is now available in one place, which makes it easier for the students to access the resources’. He also discussed how working on the team has motivated him to learn new technical skills. ‘From not knowing how to even connect my phone to the computer, to now being able to create content and upload them on the platform, my skills have improved. I am happy to learn new things every day and proud to be a part of this team.’
‘The teachers have started calling us and asking for the daily schedules, making sure we are not late in sending them. We have also been getting feedback and suggestions from them, which helps us improve our work’ shared Hardavinder Singh, an officer from Mohali.
‘I am happy my child’s education is continuing even though schools are closed. She sits in front of the TV and watches the lectures everyday’ shared a parent of a Grade 7 student in Patiala.