September 2020 - TIDE Learning

Digital Learning

“You are asking where Javed is? He went out to the local grocer to buy biscuits an hour ago. He hasn’t returned and I have no biscuits to eat with me tea,” laughed Jameela. “When he will return, he will be a newspaper. He will have all the basti news.”

Jameela is talking about her 12-year-old son. When asked if she would enrol Javed into an online learning course, she shakes her head vigorously, commenting, “Can you imagine him sitting in one place for more than 10 minutes? But I am worried about what will happen to him if schools do not open soon.”

We’ll return to Jameela’s problem in a while. First, let us take a look at what has been happening over the past few months.

At the beginning of March, schools started shutting down because of the Covid pandemic. Parents and schools alike were worried, and understandably so, about how education and learning would be impacted if the lockdown continued. Five months on, schools are still closed for the foreseeable future.

But these past five months have not been idle. Multiple versions of online learning have emerged. SCERTs across the country are busy placing digital copies of their revised textbooks online; short learning snippets are being made accessible on YouTube, radio, and TV; schools are organising online classes between teachers and students, following a regimented time-table; new learning apps have cropped up, some which are co-created by governments alongside private partners. In some cases, existing online learning platforms have upped their game and are now generating content at a speed faster than the spread of the virus. Fancy imagery promises to transport the child into a learning space, which may or may not match their context. Then, there are forums which provide supplementary learning modules, which range from how to read and understand poetry, to knowing how a rocket works.

It is exhausting keeping track of all the new forms that are emerging. However, they all have one thing in common – their claim that they bring learning to a child who is sitting at home.

So how does one choose which option to go with? One may like to list parameters like quality and the content being age-appropriate. But unfortunately, it comes down to the whole politics of access. Who gets what is determined by:

Does the family have a smartphone? If yes, can it be spared for the child’s learning?
How many devices do they need, depending on the number of children in the family?
What is the membership fee for different learning apps, and who can afford it?
What is the language of delivery of content?
Can the family afford the data required to stream online content?
Who will foot the rising electricity bill, with an increase in devices that need constant charging?

Let us assume for a moment that we live in a fair, equal world — where everyone can access the same high-quality content, made by experts, which is unquestionably brilliant. Would it still be the way to go? Many parents believe that parental engagement actually increases during online learning. This could vary depending on the age of the child, and how much spare time the parent has to engage with their learning. The question of how to monitor and how much to monitor could also be an individual choice, but at the same time heavily determined by whether the said parent has the required time to give to their child.

Another drawback of online learning, especially with platforms that provide pre-recorded content, is the blanket context it works within. It is standardised, and assumes that everyone will be familiar with the references and the language it uses. For example, a seemingly simple statement like “Look for a Coke can” while teaching the concept of a cylinder, has already alienated a large segment of children. Neither does it have a personal connect. It may be digitally customised to match the pace of every individual child, but the personalised touch brought in by a facilitator is missing.

It doesn’t necessarily become better in a face-to-face online class. The physical and facial cues that a teacher or a facilitator pick up during live teaching, to customise their style in reaching out to each student, is lost on a Zoom or Google call.

Now look at Jameela’s son Javed. An oft-repeated phrase that educationists, or those in the education service industry, like to use with a flourish is how each child is “unique and different”. However, this uniqueness and differentiation is at risk in the wake of a stationary, undifferentiated instructive experience. What will happen to a child like Javed? Or do we consider it a requisite life skill to be disciplined enough to sit in front of a screen and learn?

What happens to the possibility of learning involving different experiences, or learning from the very environment they live in?

This is not to say that online learning is all bad. There are certain practices which are beneficial, and should maybe even continue beyond this pandemic. For example, there is a certain efficiency in submitting your work to the teacher via Whatsapp. It is quick, and feedback could be instant. There is a real-time sharing of information and thoughts. Digital literacy, which the urban middle class had so far coveted, is spreading. More and more people are becoming comfortable with digital usage.

However, the point remains. Digital learning is still unequal and inequitable, and access is limited and defined by the cultural and social standings of those wanting it. It may actually deepen the chasms of access. Another worrisome aspect about its alarming pervasiveness, is how and by whom will content be monitored?

Digital learning is here and it will stay. The thought we are left with and must grapple with, is the extent to which this learning should be allowed to persist and exist. Which practices should one take forward, what innovations can be made with its help, and what should be dropped altogether? And if the whole approach to learning is to turn it on its head, can we still have differentiated learning and experiences, including those that do not need a digital chariot to propel them forward?

For now, let us pause here, and think more deeply about the politics of digital learning, before hailing it as the only way forward in education and learning.

Simrita Kaur

Simrita was the Academics Lead at TIDE Learning from 2017 till 2022. She continues to be an Academic consultant while pursuing her passion for teaching.

Examining the No Detention Policy

When I started working as a teacher, I was in a class where most of my 8 graders were not able to read even four-letter words. To my alarm, the gap between the stipulated curriculum and my students’ level of preparedness seemed to be widening by the day. I started looking for explanations on how this learning gap may have come into being. Since students are never given an agency to speak for themselves and probably because of my self-righteous understanding about teaching I fell prey to the lore that the no-detention policy (NDP) was the reason for the learning gap. The NDP stipulated by RtE 2009, stated that students could not be held back/ detained in a grade until grade 8. My limited understanding about learning and assessments, at that time, led me to make a misplaced judgment that this was the reason that my students weren’t at the expected preparedness level- that they could not be bothered to study since they knew they would not be held back and because they did not have an exam to clear.

NDP and RTE

I am sure that many teachers echo this assumption – that the NDP disincentivized children from working hard as they didn’t have to ‘perform’ in order to move to the next grade. This sentiment is shared by other stakeholders too such as school principals, head teachers, CRPs, all who said that NDP demanded no accountability from the teachers, which in turn is thought to have fuelled nationwide decline in learning outcomes (Taneja, 2018). Based on this popular sentiment and other reasons, the RtE (Amendment) act, passed in 2019 revoked the NDP. According to this amendment, states are now given the choice to detain their students in grade 5 and 8 if need be. But they are not allowed to expel them until they finish elementary education (class 8).

However, I argue that my earlier assumption- NDP being responsible for students’ falling learning levels- is wrong. As I continued along my teaching journey, knowing and getting to understand how children learn, and going deeper into NDP as envisioned by RtE, 2009, my thinking started to change.

The RtE Act, 2009 was thought to be revolutionary because it had a larger vision about learning not defined by just having children present in schools. The understanding that children could learn irrespective of their current level of preparedness is a salient feature of RtE, 2009. It acknowledges that there could be barriers to access that hinder learning and puts the onus of creating positive learning opportunities on adults and the system rather than on children. Moreover, the NDP and its corollary CCE were proposed with the understanding that an environment free of fear is necessary for learning.

NDP and CCE

Instead of stand-alone exams at the end of a term, the RtE 2009 calls for “continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) of a child’s understanding of knowledge and his or her ability to apply the same” (Section 29.2.h, RtE, 2009). The CCE guidelines released by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) addresses the fact that standardized tests might often push students who do not have ‘normative childhoods’ to the margins. It has a dedicated chapter on how instruction and assessments should be planned keeping in mind that there are going to be various levels of preparedness among students in a classroom. Therefore, CCE is suggested as a tool to address diversity in the classroom, and challenge the notion that a single test will provide a complete picture of a student’s learning. Instead a teacher should develop a collection of diverse sources as evidence of and for learning. NDP and CCE in that sense were never meant just a measure to reduce drop-out rates. By doing this, it took into account that not every child learns the same way and therefore, not all children will give their best output in a standardised kind of test (Tomlinson and McTighe, 2001).

Sadly, as we all know, CCE is not perceived in the same vein as it was intended. The Bhukkal committee appointed by the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) in 2012 studied the experiences of implementing CCE and affirmed that the NDP was popularly interpreted as ‘no-assessments’. Thus, what we get in schools in the name of CCE is just two more ‘tests’ that are conducted before the term exam while the defining feature of formative assessments (FA) is that it is supposed to give feedback to students in a manner that will help students better their performance (Sadler, 1989). FA is also supposed to serve as a feedback system for teachers about their pedagogy.

Therefore, the failure is in the understanding of CCE and formative assessments, and the will to develop expertise for the same, and not the policy itself. It is counterintuitive that the CCE would not be instrumental in ‘fostering a performance-driven culture’. If anything, CCE gives ample opportunities to students to keep practicing and bettering themselves such that a standardized test would turn out to be a cakewalk for them. This is possible obviously only if this is done in an environment that is free of fear (of failure or punishment).

RtE and levels of learning

It’s not that RtE is without its drawbacks. One of the major drawbacks of the RtE 2009 is that it fixates on ‘classes’ and assigning children to ‘age appropriate classes’ (Dhankar, 2017). What happens in that process is that it relegates learning to an age, which should not be the qualifier for a child’s preparedness! The principle idea of the RtE 2009 is that all children can learn provided they are in an environment that is free of fear. However, if we are committed to this cause- that all children are born with the ability to learn and should be given the opportunity to learn (free and compulsory education) then- we should also have the maturity to accept that every child learns at their own pace and their learning process shouldn’t be clipped by meaningless deadlines. Instead they should be encouraged to dig-deeper into things that move them and questions that make them restless. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t subscribe to a structure; learning outcomes are the cornerstone of such a system and formative assessments are perhaps the only way we can keep learning alive.

CCE in action

One of the earliest lessons I had to teach in my grade 8 was the French Revolution. I remember getting worried about how I was going to do this. I focused much of my energy on trying to get my students exam ready. I came with what in my mind was a good lesson plan, with FAs which would help me test my students’ understanding. What I did not do was spend enough time and effort mapping why the French revolution was something that was worthwhile for someone in rural Maharashtra to study or spending enough time to get to know my own students!

As I started with the chapter, and continued to know my students more, I came to realise one thing- my class that had very poor English language abilities was a very curious and thickly-knit bunch. Therefore, anything that involved thinking together in groups would become an instant hit. Slowly, I played to their strengths. Most students were not performing well in the exam or the FAs I had laid down. But if you asked them to work in groups and make a concept map about why everyone should be treated equally or what are the ways they see people being treated differently they would come up with interesting answers. As soon as I started listening to them, rather than wishing for it to happen the other way around, I noticed some changes. Though it meant that I had to re-do my plans, re-look at what strategies will work best for them and not me, it sure was worth it!

Concluding thoughts

But isn’t that what a teacher must do? Establish relevance for what is being studied, dive deeper into what works for her students, know them more and understand each child’s innate ability, and differentiate strategies and assessments so that there is a wide range of information on how each child has performed and what they have understood? To imagine that these students would learn only if they were fearful of not being promoted to the next grade is quite silly. A lot of teachers would agree with me when I say that many children are fearful of attempting to write answers or even answer in class because they have been punished badly for making mistakes in the past. But imagine a situation where students are given feedback on where they have gone wrong and given multiple opportunities to improve on it, would they not be motivated to keep persisting?

My own teaching experience allows me to say confidently that knowing the starting point of each student, identifying their dominant learning style, and giving them a picture of how much they have improved over the course of a term helps them see how much they have grown. It motivates them to own up their learning.

Let’s not write off the NDP because of our own inability to do justice to what could have been a great way of addressing learning abilities and levels in a class.

References

Ambast, S., & Gaur, A. (2015, August 17). Don’t Make the No-detention Policy a Scapegoat for Poor Learning Outcomes. The Wire. Retrieved from https://thewire.in/education/dont-make-the-no-detention-policy-a-scapegoat-for-poor-learning- outcomes

Ambast, S. (2016, June 6). India will grossly fail its children if it revokes the no-detention policy. Retrieved from https://scroll.in/author/11041

Analyzing the No Detention Policy and its impact on the elementary education system. (2017). RGICS Policy Watch, 6(13), 3–6.

Bhukkal, G. (2014). Report of CABE Sub-Committee on Assessment & Implementation of CCE & No Detention Provision (Under the RTE ACT 2009). Retrieved from https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/document-reports/AssmntCCE.pdf

Dhankar, R. (2017). Beyond the Oxymoronic Idea of No-detention Policy. Economic and Political Weekly, LII, 36–42.

Mehta, D., & Saksena, N. (2017, November). SUBMISSIONS TO THE PARLIAMENTARY STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT. Amendment of the

no detention policy in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017. Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

NCERT. (2019). Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.ncert.nic.in/announcements/pdf/CCE-Guidelines.pdf

Rai, A., & Majumder, S. (2019). Withdrawing the No-detention Policy: Punishing Children for the System’s Failure. Social Change, 49(2), 353–360. doi: 10.1177/0049085719844671

Ramaprasad, A. (1983). On the definition of feedback. Behavioral Science, 28, 4-13.

Rao, P., Shrivastava, S., & Sarkar, T. (2020, April). Towards an Inclusive Education framework for India. Retrieved from https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/InclusiveEducationReport_final_28A pril_0527PM-1.pdf

Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18(2), 119–144. doi: 10.1007/bf00117714

Singh, A. (2019, January 15). No-Detention Policy: Boon, Bane or Both? . The Bastion. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Sharon Daniel/Downloads/CCE DI/THE BASTION_No-Detention Policy_ Boon, Bane or Both_.html

Taneja, A (2018). No Detention Under the RTE Act: The Policy Options. Education Policy Brief, CARE India, New Delhi

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, REGISTERED NO. DL—(N)64/0007/2003—09.
https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/upload_document/rte.pdf

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Act, 2019, REGISTERED NO. DL—(N)04/0007/2003—19. https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/upload_document/rte_2019.pdf

Thomas, G., & Loxley, A. (2007). The knowledge-root of special education. In Deconstructing special education and constructing inclusion (pp. 22–46). Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Tomlinson, C. A., & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction & understanding by design: connecting content and kids. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. (2019, December 11). Faculty Conversation: Carol Tomlinson on Differentiation. Retrieved from https://curry.virginia.edu/news/faculty-conversation-carol-tomlinson-differentiation

Sharon Daniel

Sharon Daniel has taught social sciences to senior classes. The class she mentions in the post was in an NGO run school in rural Maharashtra. Her interests are inclusive education, social sciences and assessments. She was previously working as a Social Science Specialist at TIDE Learning.