Learning Analytics to Measure Progress and Support (LAMPS)

Empowering teachers to use learning analytics to improve early grade reading and numeracy through personalized support for children

Former President of India Dr. Abdul Kalam truly said, “Our teachers shape the forthcoming generations”. Teachers are one of important pillars of our society and a tool to seeding-up the core foundations among our children, getting them ready for the upcoming events of their life.

Today, the quality of education is something that has emerged as a new challenge and a bigger concern, and the learning crisis is getting worrisome globally. Annual Status of Education Report (2017) -ASER, paints a grim picture of the status of learning in India. Even after 4 years of schooling, primary class students are struggling to read and use basic mathematical functions.

The learning crisis is an imminent threat to the prosperity of any nation and for a developing economy like India, it becomes even more important. Teachers, especially in the public education system, are demotivated and lack a sense of accountability due to many reasons; the major reason being the perceived poor public opinion due to much negative press around it. Let’s restore the pride of teachers and make them a hero in every class.

We are aiming at “Empowering” primary grade school teachers by providing data-driven intervention tools and techniques. A smartphone-based application that analyses learning levels of students and provides: (a) actionable intelligence to the teachers with specific activities based on learning level of student (b) personalized support to every child, (c) help to monitor the changes in learning level and (d) tools to see continued progress of the classroom. The application rests on the smartphone of the teacher and they use the assessment tool from the phone to score the students to know personalized information about each student to provide personalized support. Teacher will also be able to access content for professional development and micro strategies to implement in the classroom to support the students.

Teachers will receive support in the form of curated practical micro innovation to be used in the classroom, the application will also enable the teachers to be a part of a virtual learning community. Thus, the teachers would be able to harness the power of social capital to ask and share ideas to improve teaching in their classroom. The platform will also provide a chance for teachers to be recognized publicly for their efforts in the classroom, thus building motivation among teachers and creating a healthy competition. 

We want to support teachers into reimaging their roles, restoring their confidence and increased accountability which leads to the actual solution. Teachers today struggle to utilize data in daily classroom practices and are not able to leverage the power of technology into their teaching. Whatever little technology they do use, it is only in hindsight; we want to give them foresight into their teaching. Most of the technology-based interventions are heavily dependent on hardware and/or are not designed with last mile delivery in mind, thus limiting both the sustainability and the scalability of the system.

The system is both a new application of existing technology (Learning Analytics) and is a process to solve a challenge (Supporting Ecosystem for teachers). Teachers are supposed to be heroes in the classroom but due to lack of the support they are not able to help the kids as much as they want. With the actionable intelligence input for teachers and curated ideas, it helps teachers utilize their time efficiently and productively. Also, the virtual community of teachers provides unlimited opportunities to explore and collaborate to build social capital and all of this to improve the learning outcomes.

The primary platform, frontend is based on a smartphone application, while the backend is entirely dependent on cloud. Without the technology the system cannot be scaled and sustained over a period. The repository of curated resources over a period and the millions of data points coming in real time, their analysis and response would not be possible without the technology.

In the next 12 months we plan to pilot test the system on a large scale. We plan to train 150 teachers in 75 schools and impact the learning outcome of 3000 kids.

In the next 3 to 5 year we aspire to double the impact numbers every year through public and private partnerships. We want to identify and train people on ground to take it forward themselves. Also our idea is to keep the platform opensource so that more and more teachers can take the benefit of the system. In 5 years we want to positively impact a behavioral change in 50,000 teachers and improve early grade literacy and numeracy levels of 500000 students. 

The solution will be deployed through public and private partnerships. The partner agency will help us train their people who will take it further to the actual beneficiaries, the teachers. The access will be open source through the smartphone application.

The system needs a pilot and hence currently it is not made available for public usage

We plan to impact 150 teachers and 3000 kids and in the next 12 months want to see increased accountability and classroom efforts by the teachers and visible classroom engagement and indicators of improved learning in the children. We believe that once teachers own the data that they input and see the results of their own efforts in the classroom will both build a sense of accountability and personalized support to the kids would result in improved reading and numeracy. We will provide teachers support through a cascading model. In 3 years we want to impact 25000 teachers.

We are very strong on developing the program design, research and operations, which helps us with designing for the last mile delivery. Our strong understanding of the primary education space is a strength area. We have made deep inroads into the government system which gives us the ample opportunity to scale. We are also strong in networking with other like-minded organizations. We believe in collaboration hence we are willing to keep the aim higher than our identity.

We are non profit model so the question is not applicable to us. For long term sustainability we will work directly with the government to scale up the operation and increased impact. 

We may generate revenue by charging a subscription fee to use the application from high end schools and high income parents. Consultancy services to the government can also generate revenue from service contracts.

Solve gives us the opportunity to come on a platform of learning from likeminded organization. We do not believe in reinventing the wheel, hence we want to take advantage of what’s out there already. Solve also gives us opportunity to receive feedback and improve. Similarly Solve would also provide an opportunity to get grant funding to reach out to a larger number.

Technology being so integral part of our solution, the greatest barrier is a dysfunctional technology. Solve can help us with connecting us to people to can help build and support such technology. Coaching and Mentoring would be needed to foresee the future and build accordingly. Being a non-profit enterprise, grants would be essential to keep running the project and Solve can connect us to a larger network of funders who would be willing to invest into a system like this.