Design Opportunity for Learning Aid in Multi-grade Schools

in Rural India

Riken Patel & Anirudha Joshi IDC IIT Bombay

For IndiaHCI 2015 “Design for Bridging”18/12/2015

Typical School

pic courtesy: Sandeep.jgupta 

Multigrade School

• A school in which two or more grades study together in same physical class with same teacher

• A necessity in rural area

Multigrade Schools in India

Primary Schools According to Number of Teacher in India

Multigrade School

Issues• Course curriculum, academic calendar, and teaching

aids are all designed keeping in mind monograde

Multigrade School

Potential Benefits: Desired social habits• helping attitude, • group learning • discussions due to interactions

• ‘Manitoba Education and youth, Canada’ reports school adopting multigrade model by choice due to it’s benefits

SDT and Multigrade school (our take)

• Higher grade student can act as more knowledgeable other

• Effective interaction among peers due to similar world view

Can do

can not do

World view of lower grade student

Method of study

• Study in 5 multigrade schools in Anand Dist., Gujarat

• Shadowing in classroom• Four to five hours each day for 2 weeks • Video Recording

• Interviews with teachers

Demographics of Classrooms

• text

Classroom environment

Learning issues

Difficulty in reading comprehension

• Very common issue among all grades

A digital book/tablet which will speak out the words and sentences on sliding finger

Less instruction time

• 20 minutes of instruction time in 1 hour period• Less individual attention

Automate the learning for repetitive things (like mathematical operation: +,- )

Difficulty with complex exercises

• Copying without understanding concept

Exercise-books: One can borrow the other’s book and understand it step by step (by using screen-record and playback)

More group activities (game or quiz with multiple mouse, remote control or multiple-voice recognition system)

Students unable to articulate their learnings

• Difficulty articulating the concepts as they may be abstract i.e. reading minutes in a clock

Interactive props and animation video can help, for clock, children can change the time and clock will show the time and speak it out

Class setup & spatial movement related issues

Diversity of class combination

• Combination was based onBased on Teacher’s personal preferenceNumber of student in a grade

• Trade offMore instruction time v/s Common topics

Suggest best class-combination or develop time-table for easy planning and efficiency

Variety of class setups

• Setup were based onAvailability of physical infrastructure Teacher’s convenience

Provide engaging intra-grade activity like digital games or specially curated TV programs supporting learning

Spatial movement

• Free movements• Forming circle(Will providing bench would help in this context?)

Administrative issues

Unavailability of teachers

• Unplanned meetings at other schools (major issue)

Reserved set of interesting & engaging activity for peer-learning

Course curriculum

• Can not complete the course curriculum

Dynamic rearrangements of topics from the book based on time(‘Basic concepts first’ approach)

Tech-savviness of teachers

• Online blogs to download new content like poems, stories, daily news etc.

Platform for sharing resource material among various schools through web? (Crowd-source)

Technology perception in Rural EducationBasic infrastructure v/s Moonshot

SummaryFew of the ideas…• A digital book/tablet which will speak out the words and

sentences on sliding finger• Automate the learning for repetitive things • Exercise-books: One can borrow the other’s book and

understand it step by step (by using screen-record and playback)

• Dynamic rearrangements of topics from the book based on time

• Platform for sharing resource material among various schools through web? (Crowd-source)

Thanks to…

All the teachers and students associated with studyProf. Venkatesh Rajamanickam, Prof. Pramod Khambete, Prof. Girish Dalvi and Prof. Ravi Poovaiah, IDC, IIT BombayMs. Anisha Malhotra, Ms. Bindu Chowdhry, Prof. Jhumkee Iyengar for their feedbacks

Thank You

Thank You

Riken Patel (riken312@gmail.com)Anirudha Joshi (anirudha@iitb.ac.in)

IDC, IIT Bombay

References

• 8th AISES Provisional Statistics for 2009. Retrieved September 1, 2014 from http://aises.nic.in/surveyoutputs

• Dan S. 2009. Designing for Interaction: Creating Innovative Applications and Devices. New Riders.

• Independent Together. 2003. Manitoba Education and youth.

• Learning Well Together. July 2002. Retrieved September 5, 2014 from http://www.wholeschooling.net/WS/WSPress/WSRptMI/WSR%20AToc.html

• Mathot G. 2001. A Handbook for Teachers of Multi-Grade Classes: Volume one. UNESCO, France.

• Riddle E. 1991. Lev Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory.

• Schacter L., Gilbert T. and Wegner M. 2009. Psychology. Worth Publishers.