Damini Online Teacher Education

India's biggest problem in terms of its low-performing educational system is the lack of adequate teacher training. Despite more and more teachers possessing a Bachelor of Education, their classroom performance hasn't improved accordingly.

India's teachers, especially in low-middle and lower class communities, still promote rote learning, memorizing predefined answers by heart, and students that are silent receivers of knowledge instead of active participants in their learning journey.

Teachers don't know how to manage a classroom using positive discipline. They are not able to differentiate their lesson plans in order to cater for weaker, average, and more advanced learners at the same time. They do not know how to use the vast tool box of effective teaching methods available. Their classes are boring, full of pressure to perform while lacking understanding. The Corona pandemic has aggravated these issues. When schools were closed, more than 60% of students did not receive any type of learning materials or activities from their schools (ASER 2020).

Several Indian and international organizations have tried to step in and bring about change. However, they have made little impact, "due to a lack of acknowledgement around the systemic nature of the problem, insufficient supportive systems to ensure effective delivery of these programs, as well as ineffective accountability mechanisms from the state to school level to ensure delivery of a well-integrated solution" (Central Square Foundation, 2022).

Teachers, then, in order to create high quality learning environments, need to be able to do their own research to gain practical knowledge. However, many teachers of low-middle class or lower-class children are not proficient enough in English and research skills to be able to do that. Even teachers in so-called English medium school often struggle with English and are not able to find their way through the vast information presented online.

Since there is a systemic failure in equipping teachers with effective teaching methods and skills, teachers need to be able to work around this lack of support.

This is where Damini Education steps in: For those hundreds of thousands of teachers whose mother-tongue is Hindi, we provide an in-service teacher training app that runs on any smartphone, is video-based, gamified, and based on rigorous research in educational psychology.

Teachers create a free account with their e-mail ID which enlists them to the newsletter. Here, they get regular information on all off-app activities (virtual workshops, facebook groups, etc.).

Teachers follow a pathway with levels. 20-50 levels are grouped together on an island with a school in the middle, according to their content area, such as:

• classroom activities
• teaching language
• classroom management basics
• discipline in the classroom
• giving effective feedback
• learning difficulties

On screen, the current island is centred. Through a button teachers can access their school and classroom. By finishing levels they earn money to buy equipment for their classroom. Each level consists of one of the following:

short video lectures, a multiple choice quiz, crossword puzzles with taught vocabulary, memory games in which to match a concept (e.g. positive discipline) with its definition, videos with sample classes and activities, matching English and Hindi vocabulary for teachers to strengthen their language skills, etc.

For each "island", teachers can download a paid pdf certificate after completing a final test. They can continue for free without downloading that certificate.

The Damini Online Teacher Training is targeted at Hindi-speaking teachers from a lowered socio-economic background. Most NGOs, for example, are not able to pay high salaries and, thus, have to "make do" with less qualified teachers. This, on the other hand, results in a lower teaching quality and lesser knowledge acquisition.

These teachers are not able to do proper online research to boost their skills as teachers. Their English is too rudimentary to properly judge and/ or understand the quality of online search results. Their training in B.Ed. colleges is very theoretical and doesn't equip them with the needs of a teacher in a 21st century classroom. In addition, many of them do not possess a laptop, but only a smart-phone. Thus, they are not comfortable reading long passages of text.

Our app will give the teachers the practical, hands-on input they need in order to support their students - on their mobile, at their convenience, offline. The low-key and gamified approach helps retaining their attention. The language of the videos is simple and informal, so as to make them feel comfortable and motivated to continue.

I have been working at and with NGO schools in North India since 2007 - the problems their teachers face are very close to me. In addition, i have been running teacher capacity building workshops for teachers serving underprivileged communities for more than 10 years. These communities and the teachers that try to serve them are very dear to me. Their continuous struggle with basic pedagogical concepts and activities and their earnestness in trying to improve has been motivating me to become a better teacher myself - and a better teacher trainer.

Most of my trainings start with input by the teachers i'm serving: What are their problems, what are concrete situations in the classroom they struggle to handle? What would THEY like to talk about? On their answers, the whole course system will be based in order to make the app as relevant to them as possible.

I would love to get into contact with people who have knowledge in the technological side - app designing, graphic design, programming, etc. The vast network of Solve could make all the difference for our non-profit endeavor.

Hindi-speaking teacher never before had the possibility to effectively participate in teacher trainings only using their smartphone. Plus, traditional teacher training happens in workshops with small amounts of teachers. This app could make a huge difference: Thousands of teachers could receive basic training for free and implement more student-centred approaches in their classrooms. The Damini Teacher Training could become a staple for all aspiring teachers, tremendously increasing the level of teaching in the schools in North India.