Prerana: Me and Myself

“What will be the objective for the workshop?”

This question from a teacher a week before the workshop made it obvious that the first Module of Prerana was a highly anticipated event, not just for the WST team but for all the teachers as well. Some teachers were present at the venue over an hour before the module was to begin! Fortunately the WST team was there an hour before as well and engaged the teachers in thoughtful discussions about their curriculum planning.

The objective of the module was to help teachers identify their personal qualities and how these contribute to student learning

Through carefully planned activities and reflections , teachers began speaking about how the person they were in the classroom did affect how their students learned. Although the teachers were from different schools, the group activities helped them to get to know each other better and they were able to share their thoughts and opinions quite freely in their groups.

For their exit slip, each group was required to make a chart that summed up how a teacher should interact with students. Here is what they had to say:

Posted by Raisa Romer, Coordinator - Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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Celebrating Whole School Turnaround at GHPS Yelheri.

'Whole School Turnaround' is a two year project, in which we make very intensive effort aimed at improving schools under four domains namely leadership and management,teaching and learning, student environment and community involvement. Our intervention in schools ends with putting systems in place and ensuring sustainability of the impact of the project. Whole school Turnaround at Government higher primary school, Yelheri in Yadgir district of Karnataka has been successfully completed.To celebrate success and to recognize  teachers for their contribution, a graduation ceremony was organized by The Teacher Foundation in the school for the headmaster and  assistant teachers  on 23 June 2011, at    GHPS ,Yelheri.  The school was certified and each individual in the school was acknowledged for his/her effort in brining about a change in the school. This was an occasion for the teachers and TTF to share their happiness, thoughts and exchange gratitude.

Over 25 people took part in the programme, out of which 6 were heads and 6 were teachers from other WST schools. Block Resource Co-ordinator, Cluster Resource Person, SDMC members and one member from Grama panchayat graced the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Devji Rathod, teacher of the Yelheri school said "TTF used school improvement framework as a tool to grade  our school under  four domains. This was carried out  in a  democratic way. It  helped us to understand  where we stand and what needs to be done to improve our teaching,school environment etc. We were able to implement the plan of action successfully because of the hand holding support given by TTF facilitators. They helped us develop professionally "

Mr.Nagayya one of the teachers said ''I am very grateful to TTF for the support given to me on how to teach actively in the class and ensure involvement of students''. Mrs.Jayanthi Geetha, Asst. teacher who is promoted to high school commented ''The feedback sessions and the demos helped me to gain confidence. Because of the TTF I have learnt many new teaching techniques.I have become more active and I am happy about my job''. Mr.Mahalingayya ,TTF Co-ordinator for the school narrated the story of success with the support of the relevant data. He said the school has moved up in overall grade from 1.8 to 2.6. Mr.Sharanappa, ECO who spoke on the occasion appreciated the effort by The Teacher Foundation and asked TTF to work with more schools in the region.

Posted by Nana Madarkall , Centre Co-ordinator, TTF Yadgiri Centre

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TSA: Curtain Call!

The day dawned bright and cheery but it was with mixed emotions that we said farewell to our group of sixty teachers. The team worked hard to ensure that the day included many components which would express our gratitude to our teachers for their willingness to hear us out and to try and incorporate our ideas in their reality. We were so proud of the journey we had taken together, but were a little nervous at the thought of letting them continue the journey on their own.
It was their turn to calm us down as they proved to us that not only had they learned a lot of what we were trying to teach them but that they were confident about taking it to their schools and their classrooms in years to come.



This was evident, not only in what they were able to say, but also in the displays that the teachers of each school worked on to depict what the last two years meant to each of them. Their succinct depictions of their struggles, their successes and their future plans for their schools were inspiring to see. One of the teachers who was asked to share her experiences with the group echoed the words of a Principal when she said, "When TTF first came to us, we asked ourselves why we had to go through this. We were like LKG children crying on the first day of school but now I can proudly say that we are confident that we can take this forward. In fact, it is because of TTF that I am able to speak so confidently in front of you today."

The culmination of the change process facilitated by TTF was the actual ceremony during which certifcates were distributed to the schools, Principals, teachers and mentors. It was heartening to see their excitement and pride in their accomplishment, and in it the promise of a brighter tomorrow for their students - both present and future.

Although we will not be working closely with this group of teachers any longer, we hope that our association will continue - not just through frequent phone calls and visits but also in carrying forward the ethos of the change.
Posted by Amrita Randhawa, Co-ordinator, Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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TRC Inauguration: A milestone achieved

Early in 2010, having a Teacher Resource Centre was an exciting new idea for the management and teachers of our five schools, under Turning Schools Around Project.. Teacher Resource Centers are universally defined as a central locations which contain resource banks for teachers from various clusters of shools. In the goverment structure, Cluster Resouce Centres or the Block Resource Centres exist and sometimes run to help the teachers but such is not the case with the private sector.

To address this gap, it was decided that a resource centre for our group of five schools would be set up at Citizens' English High School. The school was chosen taking in to consideration the enthusiasm and vision shared by the management and the teachers alike. It was envisioned as a central space where teachers from all five schools could collaborate and work towards achieving their goals.


After months of planning, hard-work and gathering resources to make the TRC an enriching environment, it was finally inaugrated on the 13 th of January by the Director, TTF, Maya Menon. At the inaugration, Maya talked about how effective learning is important and what role can the teacher play in making this a reality. She also added how the TRC can be used as a space to encourage collaboration between the teachers and come up with new and better ways of teaching students.

Her address was followed by a few lines from Mr. Khan, the head of the school. He emphasised on the steps and struggles of setting up the TRC and also talked about his plans for making the TRC a vibrant place for educators from not only these five schools, but other neighbouring schools as well.


To add some fun to the proceedings, a treasure hunt and a quiz were organised. The treasure hunt required the participants to move around the TRC and find specific objects. This was followed by a quiz based on what they had observed in the TRC. The quiz was structured around the resources available in the TRC and the specific details about the TRC, which they should have noticed during the treasure hunt. The teachers enjoyed the games and were fairly competitive with each other.

The day was brought to an end with a vote of thanks by Padma Murthy, Project Head , Turning Schools Around. She thanked everybody involved in the endeavour to make the TRC a reality and hoped that the TRC would serve as the ground for creative and enriching teaching practices.

The inauguration ceremony was followed opportunities for teachers from the TSA schools to network with each other as well as teachers from neighbouring schools.

Posted by Noopur Midha, Coordinator - Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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Reflective Teaching: Our month in pictures

In the last few months, the Turning Schools Around team has piloted a few modules of two new programs, Mathe-Logic and Reading Can Be Fun. As the names suggest, the programs tackle basic concepts in English and Mathematics. Both programs involve giving teachers ready-made lesson plans to transact, observing these transactions and giving feedback on them.
Creating ready-made lesson plans was initially a philosophical struggle because we did not want to limit our teachers' freedom in the classroom. However, we realized that the topics, though important, were seldom covered in conventional textbooks and were therefore out of the realm of the teachers' expertise. We then decided to use these plans to introduce teachers to novel material and give them a chance to practice innovative methods of teaching, learning and assessment.
We have been well-rewarded for our efforts in putting the program together because as we see teachers put modules into action, we seem them innovate, create and interact with their students in new, more productive ways.

Within the constraints of the plan, teachers are able to use their creativity to bring lessons to life in their own unique ways.

Teachers are using the blackboard effectively, organizing material in such a way that a single glance at the end of the class tells the story of the whole class.

Since they are confident of the material, teachers are able to focus less on content and more on classroom management. One demonstrable change is that teachers now give clear instructions to students, which ensures that they know what is expected of them.

As a result, students who once struggled to share material and resources, complete work in pairs and groups because they have a clear understanding of their roles.



Since the topics are new to both the teachers and the students, both teacher encouragement of student participation and student participation itself are far more authentic and engaged.


For the members of the TSA team, observing teachers over the last few weeks have been an absolute pleasure.



Posted By Amrita Randhawa, Co-ordinator Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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TSA: Focused on making maximum impact

Photographic evidence of teachers and facilitators working hard through the month of October:







































































































































Posted By Amrita Randhawa, Coordinator - Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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TSA: Learning Together

Through our time with the teachers in the last few months, we have noticed several things which we felt needed to be addressed formally, in the whole group, so all the adult stakeholders involved in the project could be on the same page. Thus, the October training program was created. The training consisted of several modules designed in-house for the teachers from the 5 schools in the Turning Schools Around Project.

Day 1:
The program began on a high note with a Language Enrichment module. Keeping in mind the fact that learners model themselves after their teachers, particularly in the use of language, the activity packed module was designed to improve teachers' spoken English.

The following day, teachers attended subject specific modules for mathematics and English.
Day 2:
The mathematics workshop was designed to equip teachers to execute Mathe-Logic, a mathematics program designed by TTF to address gaps in students' conceptual knowledge. The module emphasized basic steps a teacher should follow in a mathematics class as well as important mathematical skills which need to be developed for students to achieve a solid grounding in mathematics. The following day, a few teachers presented lessons from Mathe-Logic and the plans were critiqued by the group.


TTF has also designed a program called Reading Can Be Fun which focuses on the development of reading skills. The module on English served as an introduction to the Reading Can Be Fun program. Teachers were presented with the idea that reading is a necessary life-skill which encompasses many sub-skills including but not limited to inference, prediction, matching and identification. Following the introduction, the teachers were guided through a lesson plan - this gave them the opportunity to familiarize themselves with what they would need to do to utilize the program. The following day, teachers executed the lesson plans and were given time to critique the plans and raise any questions or concerns.


Day 3:
The third day saw the TSA team discussing Classroom Management strategies with the teachers. Through the module, the facilitators consciously used strategies that teachers would find useful in their own classrooms. At frequent intervals, teachers were given the opportunity to discuss how they might use these strategies in their own classes. A key activity in the module involved a group of teachers role playing common classroom problems and the group critiquing the strategies employed during the role play.

Day 4:
On the fourth day, teachers attended a module on Assessment. This particular module was designed keeping in mind the specific needs of this population of teachers. The aim was to help teachers realize that assessment can be formative or a diagnostic tool, not just a summative or an evaluative tool. Questioning skills were also addressed in the workshop - teachers were reminded that the types of questions determines the complexity and level of thought behind the answers. Teachers were reminded that a set of questions on any particular topic should cater to higher order skills (analyzing, creating and evaluating) and lower order skills (remembering, understanding and applying) as defined in Bloom's taxonomy.
To conclude, teachers analysed a lesson plan for different levels of thought and formulated questions of their own to address both higher and lower order skills.

Finally, at the end of the fourth day, the TSA hosted a small celebration for the teachers. The festivities were partly to celebrate the succesful completion of the October training program and partly because we wanted to take the time to appreciate the teachers' hard work both during training programs and school-based support as well as in their classrooms. We took this time to give teachers cards and small gifts, play games and bond over good food.


Posted By Amrita Randhawa, Coordinator - Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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TSA: In Preparation for a 4-day training session

Although the schools are on holiday right now, this is an extremely busy time in the TSA project room. We are working hard to create workshops for a 4-day training during which teachers will be taken through sessions on:
-Spoken English
-Assessment
-Classroom Management
-Reading Can Be Fun!
-Mathe-Logic!

We have chosen areas such as Spoken English, Classroom Management and Assessment because as the project draws to a close, we believe it is important for teachers to get final inputs in these key areas. Although they have been exposed to information in these areas through their association with TTF, the workshops will allow both facilitators and teachers to quantify and amend existing knowledge. Furthermore, the workshops will be a time for teachers to voice their concerns and discuss how to best to implement new strategies in their classrooms .

Reading Can Be Fun! and Mathe-Logic are subject enrichment programs that we, at TTF, have put together. Each of the programs include a set of ready-made 2-3 day lesson plans for 5-6 topics for grades 1-5, along with the associated material. They are designed to address problems with basic reading comprehension in English and basic operations and skills in Mathematics. During the training sessions, we will focus on helping teachers prepare to teach using these programs in the coming months.

Stay tuned for pictures and an update of the training session!

Posted by Amrita Randhawa, Coordinator - Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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TSA: A new year, a new beginning.

A new academic year has begun in our five schools, and the Turning Schools Around project is entering its final phase. Thus far, the progress made has been heartening – we have seen much change in many different aspects of all five schools. The schools are brighter, cleaner spaces and, the noise levels in schools and in classes have reduced. Teachers plan regularly and make use of the resources available to them and the heads of school are more involved than ever in overseeing planning sessions and observing classes. Teaching strategies include the use of pair-work and group work and include the use of activity sheets. A few senior teachers in each school have been chosen to be change coordinators. They help their peers to plan their lesson & create supporting materials – teaching aids, worksheets & assessment sheets.

Though much change can be observed in the learning environment and in teaching practices, these changes have not yet been significantly reflected in measures of student achievement. Thus, despite the change that is already evident, the TSA team has much to do this year. We plan to focus our efforts on a few key areas, in the hope that this directed and sustained effort will help improve student outcomes. Although our focus will continue to be at the teacher-level, we will be trying to strike a fine balance between providing teachers with rich and relevant inputs and helping them work independently within their school units.

Subject Specific Tutorials
We have decided to begin with content enrichment tutorials for teachers in English and Mathematics, since changes in these areas seem to predict changes in other core subjects. These tutorials have been divided into two parts. In the first part, the teachers experience the lesson as the learners would, and in the second part, the teachers analyze the demonstrated lesson and spend time planning lessons for their own classes, bearing in mind the lesson they experienced.



School Based Support
After each tutorial, the TSA team goes to each school to help the teachers who have attended the demonstrations plan two consecutive lessons for their own classes. We then observe the two lessons planned by each teacher and give them feedback on each lesson. In general, feedback on classroom sessions has been done on an individual basis. However, this year, in an attempt to help teachers sustain their own growth post-TSA, we have also tried to incorporate group feedback into the process. We see group feedback as a process, facilitated by a person from TTF, during which teachers reflect and discuss their classes as a group based on key questions provided by the facilitator.

Parent Orientation
Last, but certainly not least, we have conducted parent orientations at all five intervention schools. We decided to do so because we thought it important for the parents to know how the school environment and teaching practices have changed in the last three years and to be aware of how these changes are affecting their children. The parents seemed pleased by all the visible changes and some even volunteered to teach children basic sewing, craftwork etc.

Furthermore, parents had previously been invited to the school for Parent-Teacher meetings and collection of report cards. The parent orientation allowed parents and teachers to mingle and discuss ways to better serve their children without focusing on the report card. Thus, an additional benefit of the parent orientation is that it provided an opportunity to foster better parent-school relationships.


August Accomplishments
3 parent orientation
2 half-day workshops
88 observations
44 co-planning sessions
Feedback for 44 teachers
Baseline tests (prepared by Educational Initiatives) administered to 1600 children

We continue to think of ways to improve our existing ideas and strategies to make a difference in this, the final phase of the project.

Posted by Amrita Randhawa, Coordinator - Training and Teacher Support, TTF Bangalore

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