TIIE - Program Report

2. Introduction – APD

Universal quality education is still a far cry in most schools in India. This has been corroborated by the The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) which suggest that quality of education is unsatisfactory in most schools. One cause for that is teachers mostly using only the textbook as their teaching resource, and adopting a one-size-fits-all pedagogy. Differentiated Instruction - combining multi-level and diverse resources along with diverse and learner-centric pedagogies are necessary in facilitating education of students at different levels of engagement and understanding. Exposing teachers to technology for accessing resources and approaches, and facilitating their contextualized use would is essential for differentiated instruction.

When it comes to “Inclusive Education” (IE), there is a general lack of awareness and understanding among teachers, parents and education support system. Oftentimes, it is limited to including Children With Special Needs (CWSN) only. Children with learning disabilities and difficulties are being excluded in the classrooms, largely because teachers are unable to understand and address their challenges. Inclusive education is not to be just seen as removing exclusions, it has to be seen as a larger understanding of the nature of learning itself and that children have diversity. Various kinds of challenges exist and every child has a set of abilities. Inclusive education is really the perspective that we need to be able to focus on the strengths of all the children who are in the classroom where all of them can develop to the best of the abilities rather than restrict the development possibilities to a narrow set in which some children become capable and some become disabled.

While there is a lot available on ‘Inclusive Education’ (including policies, processes) on ‘paper’, there is a serious gap in actualizing what is on paper and a lot needs to be done on that front. The teachers and the academic support personnel have practical challenges which need to be addressed so that they are enabled and empowered to practice inclusive pedagogies in the classroom.

With the support of Cognizant Foundation (CF), IT for Change (ITfC) implemented the Pilot Project on “Technology Integration for Inclusive Education” in government aided higher primary and high schools in Bengaluru South-3 Block. This is part of the CF’s flagship program on “Teacher Development for an Inclusive School Education System leveraging Technologies”. The TIIE program was conceived as a 3-year program with a one-year pilot project, followed by 2 years of scaling up of the program. The pilot was implemented in select schools in Bengaluru South-3 block. The program extends our model of teacher professional development, building ‘Teachers Communities of Learning’ at multiple levels - within the school, across subject teachers, and across schools in the block.

In addition to demonstrating Technology Integration for Inclusive Education at a school level and building communities of practitioners, the project published teaching-learning materials on the Karnataka Open Educational Resources (KOER) repository, in English and Kannada languages, for teachers across Karnataka.

TIIE pilot project was implemented in a mix of government schools, aided schools and a residential school from April 2022 to March 2023. This document discusses the work done during the pilot, the project observations, experiences, key insights and our learnings. It also lists out a few recommendations based on our experience and learnings.

3. Program Objectives – APD

The following were the objectives of this pilot project.

1. Demonstrating integration of digital technologies to make-classroom an effective learning space for all children.
2. Building multi-level learning modules on select subjects for-inclusive teaching-learning.
3. Capacity building of teachers and teacher educators to-support inclusive teaching processes.
4. Supporting teachers in creating Open Educational Resources-(OER) for their Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and for-use in inclusive teaching-learning.
5. Enabling students to access digital technologies for-learning.
6. Establishing a teachers’ resource center, to facilitate-creation and sharing of resources for inclusive education.
7. Supporting schools to use digital technologies in-administration and management processes.

We planned to achieve these objectives through a combination of specially designed modules, ongoing resource creation, classroom work, teacher training and establishing a resource center. The approach included a combination of intensive and event-based school level work in select Government and Government-aided High Schools and sharing and learning at block level.

4. Program Design & Methodology – APD (include whatever is already there in program design document; include baseline report link)

The following were the underlying concepts and principles of the program design:

1. Our inclusive-pedagogies included-Multi-sensory,-Constructivist and learner-centered-approaches-to address learning difficulties, and-we adopted-following-technology-enabled-strategies:
   1. Peer--learning, experiential learning and--use of exploratory,--co-operative--and--collaborative methods--in teaching-learning.
   2. Explore--the use--and--adaptation of--different technologies--to--support--individual--learner needs.
   3. Use of games, crafts--in teaching-learning /--activity--based learning to facilitate Constructivist--opportunities.--
2. We adopted-differentiated learning-including differentiated-instruction and assessment for effective teaching in the identified-schools. This involved-developing-teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students-within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences-in their contexts,-interests-and abilities.
3. We designed, developed and transacted technology integrated-modules and demonstrated in select schools, new pedagogies-emphasizing inclusive education.
4. We focused on integrating Free and Open Source (FOSS)-applications and Open Educational Resources (OER) in teaching.
5. We developed-a digital-resource center to encourage teachers-to come together to create, share classroom resources, and discuss-different possibilities for classroom-intervention.
6. Our work included the use and continuous enhancement of our-resource repository Karnataka Open Educational Resources (KOER); in-collaboration with teachers.

Key components of the program

The Technology Integration for Inclusive Education program had the following key components.

1. Selection of Schools
2. Development of modules to support inclusive education.
3. School Work - continuous engagement and event based-engagement.
4. Teacher Capacity building – through workshops and-learning-sharing.
5. Setting up of the School lab.
6. Setting up of a Resource Center

Each of these components is briefly discussed in the subsequent sections.

Selection of Schools

The program was implemented in 12 select schools which were a diverse mix of Government and Government aided higher primary schools and high schools in Bengaluru. The selection of schools was be based on identified criteria, including the school size and composition, availability of relevant infrastructure and support from the teachers, HM and management (last for aided schools).

Module Design and Development

For the implementation of the program it was important to identify the specific learning difficulties in students of select classes. We developed tools and tests along with the help of experts to assess and identify students who face specific learning difficulty in the classroom. The diagnostic assessments were used to identify learning difficulties in children and enabled the facilitators to develop structured modules for the intervention. Continuous assessments were conducted during the implementation of the program to understand if students' learning needs are being met and identify areas where they need additional support.

The team referred to a variety of web resources and used a number of digital tools in the baseline preparation process – both while designing the module and in actual classroom transaction. These assessments also provided inputs to the module design. They were used to create a student baseline as well as on a periodic basis to check progress on student learning profile. The observations were recorded during these assessments for the analysis of student learning progress on their difficult areas. The baseline created through the student assessment and by classroom observation helped in understanding the students contexts and needs, as well as the school culture and the classroom environment. This provided inputs to the overall curriculum design. The baseline report is available here https://itforchange.net/insights-from-a-study-of-middle-school-students-foundational-mathematics-and-language-skills.

Specific modules were designed and developed to help all the students in the classroom to learn, including those with mild learning difficulties (MLD). The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles were applied in the design of subject specific modules. Integration of digital technologies and methods was a key element in the module design. Digital methods were used in designing inclusive education processes and resources, for contextualizing resources and for interacting on digital networks for collaborative working.

Continuous engagement design

The project aims to identify innovative and contextual inclusive pedagogical approaches for students in grades 6 and 7 through technology integration. Inclusive education allows students with different needs and skills to attend conventional schools and get equal learning opportunities tailored to meet their needs. It is founded on the idea that all learners, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds, gender, physical or mental abilities, or range of skills, should study together. It recognizes that all children have the capacity to learn, takes into account the different learning styles of children, creates a conducive environment for learning, and develops appropriate instructional strategies and tools.

The design of the module was influenced by a baseline study conducted to understand students’ Mathematics competency levels and language proficiency levels. The baseline engaged approximately 175 students from five schools in a series of activities wherein students worked in pairs or individually to complete the assigned tasks. These tasks were used as checkpoints for facilitators to learn more about students’ levels of learning, cognitive skills, and difficulties which they were faced in Mathematics and English language.

The Mathematics and language module has been designed based on various teaching methodologies under Inclusive Education which encompasses considerations and strategies to support the diversity of learners in the given context by minimizing barriers to learning and helping each learner achieve their full potential. The Inclusive education approaches have been considered in developing the module that can be applied across schools to create a barrier-free learning environment for all students. Owing to the behavioral challenges witnessed in students across schools, content selection and activity design will be done in a manner that can help improve students’ socio-emotional learning and interpersonal skills as well as help them develop a growth mindset. The module has intentionally used themes familiar to students and which have also been previously covered in their prescribed language and Mathematics textbooks.

The design and transaction of Mathematics module based on students baseline analysis, the module has been designed to support the development of students' foundational numeracy skills in basic operations of addition, subtraction and multiplication. The aim is to provide students alternate methods to visualize and engage with mathematical concepts such as place value, addition, subtraction and multiplication and help students to make meaning of these concepts and understand them better in these operations.

Since students were found to have a low exposure to the English language in schools and in their homes, the English language module aims to provide a wider exposure to different types of discourses in English to help them become aware of meaningful vocabulary and the correct usage of grammatical structures. The stories that learners read and listen to, the topics they discuss, the role plays they enact, and the activities they engage in, will all have thematic links with issues such as personal and community values including gender, social justice and democracy, health and nutrition, and the environment. They will learn to understand and tackle these issues and develop values as they listen, read and speak.

The Language lab designed to be learner-centric and uses storytelling as a pedagogical tool to develop listening, speaking and reading skills in English. Children enjoy listening to stories and are familiar with narrative conventions. Stories can provide the starting point or act as a springboard for a wide variety of related language and learning activities, and offer an ideal resource for meeting diverse learning needs. They can help children understand the overall meaning of a story with the help of illustrations (which provide clues about the meaning) and facilitator support.

Event based engagement design

In the event based engagement activities like Camps and Science Exhibitions were planned.The aim was to expose students to inclusive education approaches and materials developed in the intensive school interactions. Science activities in the module aimed to build scientific temper in students and teachers, develop science process skills like observation, classification, inference, experimentation, Analysis, etc., The activities designed for Science module are aligned with Karnataka state syllabus and were designed using locally available materials in our surrounding. Technology integration has been considered at two levels, i.e, Planning and transacting the module.Technology while planning involves accessing to various web resources, customizing it to the needs of learners using various digital platforms, documenting and sharing it on a suitable platform to gain insights. Technology while planning involves children using tabs, educational tools, videos to strengthen their understanding on the content.

Also, Science exhibitions are planned in connection with students interest and needs , activities for exhibitions were planned in collaboration with students. Resources and academic inputs were given to students in designing the activities for science exhibition. Students were constantly guided and prepared to demonstrate the activities /experiments selected with confidence.

General Inclusion barriers that the modules intend to address:

1. Linguistic-barriers (difference in the linguistic levels of the speaker and-listener) The digital resources have been created in both-Kannada and in English including supporting text in both languages.-Facilitators will also provide support in other languages such Tamil-and Hindi/ Urdu and Tamil for students who have migrated from these-language-speaking states.
2. Use-of new vocabulary and ‘difficult’ words The vocabulary used-includes a lot of simple and commonly used words as per student-levels. The exercises provided at the end of the story include the-new vocabulary to be introduced along with a corresponding image. Important Science vocabularies have been introduced using pictures and illustrations wherever necessary.
3. Psychological-(lack of interest from the part of the listener) The stories-used have been selected based on themes and contexts familiar to the-students and the corresponding activities have been designed to keep-the students engaged be it in individual, pair or group work. Integrating videos and hands-on experiences as part of science module for sustained interest of the children.
4. Physiological-(partial or total hearing impairment) Although no such student-has been identified, most activities include corresponding texts in-both English and in Kannada.
5. The-activities included focus on areas for developing speaking skills-using mechanics of-speaking (pronunciation), usage (vocabulary and language functions)-and cultural-and social contexts.Use of relevant physical resources , videos, illustrations were used while demonstrating science activities to address the needs of diverse learners.
6. Students-will be provided with multiple learning discourses and encouraged to-read out loud, and will be taught how to break down words or-sentences for the same if necessary.

School Work [move to implementation]

The school work was of two types – intensive classroom work and event based engagement. Specific schools were identified for each type of engagement. We developed strategies to create a safe and welcoming space for students of all levels and abilities to learn, discuss and understand from their peers. We had discussions with the school teachers on this, and they provided valuable inputs.

In the continuous engagement with schools, we visited and worked with schools regularly to transact the specifically designed modules. The focus was on helping every student in the classroom to learn. We adopted diverse pedagogies in the classrooms and developed relevant multi-level content to address the learning needs of all the student in the classroom, including those with learning disabilities and difficulties.

Digital technologies were used in classroom processes like lesson planning, classroom transaction, and conducting assessments – both baseline and endline assessments. The resources developed were also published, along with, experiences and insights on a portal (KOER).

In the event based engagement we conducted activities like Camps and Science Exhibitions. Each event had specific learning objectives. The aim was to expose students to inclusive education approaches and materials developed in the intensive school interactions. Science activities aimed to build scientific temper in students and teachers.

Teacher Capacity Building [move to implementation]

The efficiency and impact of the program depends significantly on the support and participation from HM and teachers of the select schools. Through the program, we had regular interactions with HM and teachers. We conducted school level and block level workshops and awareness campaigns to help teachers develop and implement inclusive pedagogy and practices in their classroom. These workshops discussed the school work, demonstrated resources created, shared our observations and learnings, and how all these can be taken to the classrooms. The aim was to both encourage teachers to adapt the project materials and methods, and collect their feedback on the possibilities as well as challenges for inclusive education.

Teachers were encouraged to use, contribute and share the teaching-learning resources – both at the School level and at the block/cluster level. This was done by setting up a lab in select schools and establishing a resource center at the block level.

Setting up Computer Labs in Schools [move to implementation]

As part of the project, we set up and maintain the Computer Labs in 8 Schools – including both Higher Primary and High Schools. These labs are being used by both the teachers and students. Our team also conducted regular classes on ‘digital literacy’ in some of these schools and in some others, they provided support to the teachers to conduct the classes. The objective of these classes is to enable children to become comfortable with the use of digital devices and technologies in their learning process.

Block Level Activities

At the block/cluster level, the program activities included designing and conducting programs for Continuous Professional Development (CPD), establishing a Resource Center as well as organizing orientation programs for the Block Resource Persons (BRP), Cluster Resource Persons (CRPs), SI’s, ECO’s and other relevant department personnel. Workshops were conducted for Cluster Resource Persons (CRP), Block Resource Persons (BRP) and Block Integrated Education Resource Teachers (BIERT) to discuss our work in schools, and to create awareness on how the resources can be used to support teachers for implementation.

Setting up of Digital Resource Center for Inclusive Education [move to implementation]

A ‘Digital Resource Center for Inclusive Education’ has been set up at the Vijaya Teachers College, a prominent Teacher Education Institute in Bengaluru. This is a (Bengaluru South 3) block level resource center. The resource center has information both about inclusive education in general, and  about the modules & resources developed as part of the project. The Resource Center is important for accessing and sharing of resources that could be useful for student learning in an inclusive setting. We are also working with the Block Education Officer (BEO), to set up a resource center at the block level where all teachers can access, contribute, re-use and share.

5. Implementation – GMP, NB, RB

Continuous engagement :

A team of 5-6 facilitators visited the school twice a week regularly to engage 35-40 children for about 80 minutes for a period of 9 months. Students were divided into 2 to 3 groups based on their mathematics and language abilities assessed in the baseline. Sessions were organized in such a way that Math and language activities were conducted parallelly at different places available in the school like lab, library and including their classroom and the group would be swapped after 25 minutes such that each facilitator get to interact and engage with 6-7 students. Math session focused on basic operations of addition, subtractions and multiplications and the language session focused on listening, speaking and reading skills. For the school sessions, we gave everyone a 100-page notebook to use for practise and to record the ideas they had during our interactions.

Mathematics sessions focused on understanding the concepts of place value and basic operations such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication. The Concrete Representational Abstract approach is used in the teaching of mathematics concepts, and the misconceptions that may exist in children's understanding are discussed. This approach uses physical and visual aids to help children understand abstract concepts. Students are introduced to a new mathematical concept by using concrete resources (for example, the unit ten hundred (Fat long unit-FLU) model, chits, objects, and so on). When they are comfortable with physical aids, they are given problems with pictures, which are usually visual representations of the concrete objects they were using in worksheets.Students then are asked to solve problems with only the abstract, such as numbers or other symbols. Building these steps over the lesson of a session can help students better understand the relationship between numbers and the real world, allowing them to retain their understanding of the mathematical concept they are learning.

Students enjoy playing games, and significant progress has been made in the field of game-based learning, which requires students to be problem solvers while working on specific goal. This approach blends in our session for students to achieve targeted learning objectives through complement's game and hand cricket game. After the each concept discussed students are given some   opportunities, such as working with Phet simulations on place value concepts, hand-on practise in Tux maths and Gcompris tools on arithmetic operations in systems to practise and demonstrate mastery in by drawing solutions at the abstract level before moving on to a new maths concept/skill.

Language sessions were aimed at increasing students' exposure to English and improving their listening, reading and speaking skills. Stories were an integral part of the sessions - meant to ensure that students can learn to read a given text with comprehension, locate details, and identify the theme, sequence of ideas and events - as reinforced in sessions on 'story elements'. The sessions utilized the existing lab infrastructure in schools, laptops, projectors and speakers, along with customised, context-based, multilingual and multilevel resources for students. A mix of individual, pair and group activities (such as role plays, games for revising concepts taught, etc.) were used in the sessions in order to drive more effective collaboration and ensure efficient classroom management. Students were also encouraged to use multiple means of output (speech, writing, making posters, role plays) as per their comfort level. After each session, the team held internal discussions about it, recorded their insights, observations, and difficulties in an internal database organised by school, and made the necessary changes to the plans for the following session.

The intention of the language lab was not merely read the stories by themselves and check for reading comprehension, but to enable an immersive language experience. Customized digital resources have been developed based on select stories in order to facilitate interaction in English. Stories from Pratham books’ Storyweaver have been used and some have been repurposed to create audio-visual resources in local languages using FOSS tools like Xerte, Audacity and Kdenlive to help apply a multilingual approach to teaching. Some of the activities included in this module are based on KITE’s E-Language Lab software (an initiative by the Kerala Education Department). They include themes such as empathy, teamwork, managing emotions, and other interpersonal skills. The digital audio-visual resources contain level-appropriate listening and reading components, as well as assessments based on comprehension, vocabulary and grammar which can be used by learners individually or in groups, so that children can then respond according to their own language proficiency level and cognitive ability.

Cluster meetings- NB

Sharing inclusive strategies in teaching few concepts in Mathematics and Implementation of Language lab and in the Cluster Meetings:

Cluster meetings were held once a month. Different South-3 zones where 2-3 clusters of different schools are combined in one particular school for learning sharing by teachers on various pedagogical strategies. Following our CRP Workshop, CRPs were invited to attend cluster meetings to share our work. Each cluster had 20–30 teachers and two CRPs. Our primary objective in participating in the cluster meeting was to share our understandings of inclusive education, demonstrate inclusive strategies in teaching for a few concepts of mathematics, and introduce the Language Lab work, which was customized digital resources developed based on our experiences and learnings with the KITE E-Language Lab study. During the meeting, one of the stories was shown using the projector, speaker, tabs, and so on. Teachers were given tabs and laptops to explore various stories in various languages; perhaps they found it more interesting to use in their classroom. Language lab was converted to mobile version due to a lack of adaptive technology at schools, as it is easily accessible to teachers in the offline version. The kiwix application was installed on their phones, which encouraged the teachers to use it in their classrooms. So far, the team has attended 9 cluster meetings for both primary and higher primary school teachers, reaching out to nearly 250 teachers.

CRP workshops - RB

Across every block of each district, there are CRPs/BRPs/BIERTs, who support schools in their academic work. Apart from collecting/distributing information with schools and organising teachers meetings and sharing teaching resources, they are also expected to observe classroom transactions and provide feedback and support to the teacher to make improvements while also appreciating the things that went well. The CRPs/BRPs must be able to access resources to help the teacher. This may be through linkages with the Cluster/Block Resource Group or the DIET.

As part of the TIIE program implementation in the Bengaluru South 3 block, IT for Change designed and conducted a digital literacy capacity building workshop. This was to all the CRPs/BRPs/BIERTs in Bengaluru south 3 block. The objectives of the workshop were to assist these professionals in effectively using Free and Open Source (FOSS) digital tools in their everyday work, such as collecting data from schools, sharing resources with schools, creating resources for teacher development programs and establishing mobile-based communities of teachers and CRPs to discuss academic work and share IT for changes inclusive education-related resources created as part of the classroom intervention in five schools in the 2022-23 academic year.

During the workshop rround 25 participants attended. All participants actively engaged and explored a variety of digital tools and resources related to inclusive education. In addition to the digital tools explored in the workshop, the CRPs and BRPs are eager to explore and share the multi-lingual language lab resources with teachers in their cluster meetings as well. The Multi-lingual language lab resource was developed by IT for Change as part of the TIIE program, and was derived from the English Language Lab created by Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE).

The digital literacy capacity building workshop was conducted successfully and provided valuable insights into how digital tools can be used to enhance the effectiveness of CRPs/BRPs/BIERTs and using Multilingual resources for classroom teaching. IT for Change is committed to continuing its efforts to support the professional development of CRPs/BRPs/BIERTs and other teachers in the block.

As a result of the workshop, all the CRPs/BRPs wanted to organize these kinds of workshops regularly to help their explore more FOSS digital tools for their routine work and also to exchange teaching/learning resources between them and from the IT for change.

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BIERT - GMP

Block inclusive education resource teachers (BIERTs), we got to know about them from the BEO office and made plans to meet with them. There are four BIERT’s in Bangalore South 3 block, two for primary and two for secondary school, and they specialise in Learning disabilities, Visual and hearing impairement, and Mental reatardation during their Bachelor of education training. We met these resource persons informally for about 3 hours over two days with the goal of discussing our TIIE project work, learning about their work nature, pedagogical support, teachers training from the department on IE, and government schemes/facilities to support CWSN. Nearly 347 CWSN students in Bangalore's south 3 block were divided into three groups: those who attended school at home, those who were prepared for school, and those who attended school but had certain disabilities as listed by the department. 50 students from higher primary and high school in South 3 Block are currently struggling with ID and LD. For severe CWSN students (those unable to attend school), the government arranges twice-weekly psychotherapy sessions. It also provides MR kits and scholarships for those with UDID (Unique disability identification card). We are in contact with these BIERTs in order to obtain mutual support for hospital diagnoses for some children who have learning difficulties. In the discussion, we focused on the IE resource centre, whether they maintain any IE resources, if so, what kind of resources they have, and whether they are helpful to our resources, as well as sharing our IE resources with the resource centre.

Public Health System - GMP

During our school visit, we found that some of the students were having learning difficulty in the classroom teaching-learning activities. We discussed the children with their teachers and began observing and recording their movements in the classroom. We designed a few activities for their level and conducted some individual interactions with those children to better understand their difficulties, and we decided to get diagnoses for a few children, for which we met with BIERT's and sought their assistance. Since the BIERTs were preoccupied with their work, they suggested taking them to the hospital and informing their school HM. We select three students from one of our chosen schools who are experiencing learning difficulties and meet with their parents with the assistance of teachers to gain their support. We first went to Sanjay Ghandi Hospital, and then we understood that only NIMHANS and Victoria hospitals in Bangalore care for children with learning disabilities. Then, with the presence of parents and teachers, three children were taken to the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NIMHANS, where they having undergone detailed and comprehensive clinical evaluation and assessment. For one child they have been able to identify that the child have severe intellectual disability disorder and owing to the child’s difficulties we registered to the child’s Unique Disability ID(UDID) as per the ‘Rights to of person with Disabilities(Ammendments) Rules’ (2009), Government of India. This process has been initiated and is likely to take about 2 to 3 months for completion. Considering child’s learning and parent’s financial and logistical difficulties we plan to put her in a residential special school called Samartham trust located in HSR layout based on their parents' wishes. For other 2 childrens due to some NIMHANS hospital procedures, one student referred to Victoria hospital for an IQ test because her appointment is not until September, and another student referred to Venkateshwara hospital in Tirupathi because he has an Andra state Adhar and ration card. However, we hope to complete the diagnosis of these two children by the end of April.

Teacher's workshop (DL)) - RB

On September 7th 2022 and 13^th September we conducted the teachers digital literacy workshop at G.H.P.S Ejipura. Around nine teachers participated in the workshop. As teachers used to work with the computer for their daily departmental-academic work, it was kept in a mind to build their capacity in using the digital resources. Unavailability of a full time computer teacher made their work more hectic, they were really in need of such workshop. The agenda of the workshop focused on introducing the digital technologies for teachers to use in their teaching-learning environment. Nurturing the existing teaching resources to create unique, creative and richer content to positively impact on a child’s learning environment. Focusing on Teachers Professional Development (TPD) which could help them in daily departmental and official work. Examples include sharing phone content with a computer, printing a document, connecting to a mobile internet using tethering techniques etc.

As teachers were not aware of Linux OS environment we had to give an introduction to Ubuntu interface, Application, Places. Connecting to the web to access text and image gave them the idea of proper and ethical way of doing so. They tried working with text editor using English, Kannada and Hindi languages. As per their request, connecting the mobile phone and other peripherals to the system for tethering and transferring files has been taught. The method of accessing emails and composing the email was also the part of the workshop.Teachers showed curiosity about FOSS, what and why it is being used and why it should be used. They understood and appreciated the importance of pre-loaded applications of Ubuntu such as Tux paint and Tux typing, which they thought would be nice applications for those who struggle with handling the input devices such as Keyboard and / or Mouse. They expressed that children can enjoy such applications as entertainment and on the other it could help them to get closer to the digital devices. Working with multiple languages in text documents make them more involved. They keenly switched the writing language to English, Kannada and Hindi. They expressed their joy while learning ‘connecting and learning’ which they thought had help them to know the abundant boundaries of teaching. They felt this gives a vision of ways in which they could make the teaching process more relevant and richer. As most of the teachers depend on the computers provided to schools, the desktop, they eagerly wanted to learn basics of computer operation such as transferring files from a mobile phone to the computer system for taking the printout, connecting the peripherals to the system and surfing the internet etc. They felt these learning would be useful for them in future, which earlier was a challenging thing. They were happy to know information about buying a laptop – how to buy, where to buy. Also they requested and expected regular workshop as to improve their capacity in Digital Literacy. They felt that continuous engagement would make the learning more effective.

Resource centre setup- RB

IT for Change has established Inclusive Education Digital Resource Centers in partnership with Vijaya Teachers College (VTC) and the Block Educational Office (BEO). The primary objective of these centers is to provide a centralised location where all teachers in the block can access a wide range of resources, digital tools, and teaching/learning materials to promote inclusive education and addressing the diverse learning needs of students. In addition to inclusive education resources, teachers can also access other educational materials such as textbooks, teaching guides, lesson plans, and other instructional resources to support their professional development and to enance their classroom teaching methedology. These centers are located at VTC, the Block Resource Center (BRC), and in BEO and the BRC office ITfC is waiting for the BEO approval.

Event based engagement : - GMP

1.Event based camps:

The event based camp was held for two days, with a total of four camps undertaken throughout the programme in various schools for different grades. The objectives of the events is to enable children to experience the essence of science activities and develop science process skills. In language enable children to identify story elements and use it accordingly. In general, the camp would begin by dividing the children into two major groups, and each group was further divided into six sub-groups. At the start, ice-breaker activities were planned and carried out to build rapport with students and gain a better understanding of the children and the schools. Initially, students introduced themselves to the entire class by sharing their favourite things and hobbies through a passing the ball game. Following that, they participated in a treasure hunt in which children were instructed to complete the given activities in sequence and whoever completed all of the sequenced activities first was captured on camera with the group. The children enjoyed doing the activities in groups. They would be eager to complete the activities and would do so with great pleasure.

The whole class would be divided into 2 groups. Of which, one group would be engaged in Language activity on story elements and the other group would be involved in science activities organised in different stations under the names Digestive system, Respiratory system, Acid-base, web of life game, electricity, Shadow exploration and Classification of leaves. We integrate technology into all of these activities, such as using a projector and speakers to display audio-visual-text information, as well as laptops and tabs for students to do hands-on practise. For some concept demonstrations, we used relevant everyday objects, and for electricity experiments, we used a science simple circuit kit that we gave to the students to work on individually or in groups while following our instructions. Children would take turns attending the next station after completing the assigned activities. Similarly, they would participate in the next set of planned activities in science and language at the same time. Students were asked to choose one of the activities in which they participated and present on it, and some of them volunteered to express their views on the camp.

2. Science exhibition:

A science exhibition was held in two different high schools. In each school, nearly 100 students took part in this event. We organised this event with teachers' interest and support. We first gathered all students and announced the science exhibition, and then volunteers from various classes came forward to participate in the event. We conducted a science exhibition brainstorming session and asked them to choose topics from science and maths subjects. Those who chose the same topics were asked to change their topics and were given some ideas to think about. We instructed students to finalize the topics before getting involved in the event process. Students from various classes select their science and mathematics topics for working models and experiments. Some students are working in groups, while others have started to prepare individually. Students spent about 5-6 days working on their chosen topics for 2-3 hours per day.During the preparation period, 5-6 facilitators from our team visited the school, with each facilitator engaging 15-20 students. We distributed the necessary materials and stationary items for making models and experiments after the students' topics were finalised. Students were given tabs and laptops to help them gain an understanding and knowledge of the selected topics before beginning work on them. Students discussed their preparation work with us in person, over the phone, and in a WhatsApp group. We created a WhatsApp group for this event for each class section. Students used that group to share their progress levels, needs, and challenges, which helped us in resolving their issues and having completed their model. We given multiple reference links to help you better understand the concepts. In addition, prepare for explanations during presentations by using additional resources such as charts and videos. On the day of the exhibition, we arranged the models and experiments by theme and created an adequate presentation space. We requested that the school to invite other students from nearby schools to this event.

6. Student Endline – MI, AS

Working document - https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Qq2JeFIc_hRaVjmkr2toESSTmAQSsdKI3oqOeAz7Uc/edit?usp=sharing Charts, etc will be uploaded later on KOER. 

7. Reflections on the program

1. Students (feedback) –

7.1.1 Students Reflections on TIIE - NB

Feedback is an essential part of learning and enhancing student's learning experiences. It helps to evaluate and improve teaching effectively. Every Student has their own perspective towards the teaching and facilitators, so they were given an opportunity to share their views on sessions. Every individual was given a choice either to speak it or write it which is put together and consolidated into a summary

1. Mathematics

Among these sessions Most of the children liked the FLU Model as they were able to understand the Place value and relate to solve the Number Operation. Students were given practice both manually and in the system using Tux Math, GCompris and phet simulation based on the level of the child. The students shared their opinion as Most of the sessions were conducted in the small groups It helped to engage in the activities, also desired to focus on individual learning of the students which develops the deeper understanding of the concepts. It creates a platform to get motivated by their peers towards the common goal and work together to support each others learning.

"gunnakara matte muggi hosa method alli helikottidu tumba use agide" (it was very useful to learn multiplication and tables in new method) was revealed by most of the students because the Multiplication concept has helped them to comprehend the meaning of multiplication as groups of objects to find the product of any single digit number, Construction of the table was found easy using the number of lines and dots, Multiplication of two digits and more was the challenge we faced during regular method but After introducing to Area model helped us to learn in a very simple and interesting way.

"Modalu namage maths astondu barthililla nivu bandmela nanu lekka madodu kalithe" matte "munche ganitha andre kashta anshtitu adre iga aa bhava yella hogide". ("Earlier I didn't understand maths, after your sessions I learned to calculate sums" and "Before maths was so difficult but now that feeling is gone")

There were few games related to foundational numeracy which helped them to relate it while solving the sums, also enhanced the mental ability of thinking and quick calculations.

2. Language:

The module was designed to be learner-centric and used storytelling as a pedagogical tool to develop listening, speaking and reading skills in English. All the Children enjoyed listening to stories and are familiar with narrative conventions. Stories provide an ideal introduction to Multilingual approach based on the students linguistic backgrounds. Most of the students liked the small group activities such as (Body parts game, Model for sticking body parts, Introducing yourself by passing the parcel, skit, poster making, and so on..)

Among all these group activities here are few examples such as, In the skit activity "Nanage acting madodu andre tumba ista, nivu classroom alli acting/ skit madsiddu nanage tuma khushi aythu" ("I love acting so much, I was so happy when you acted/skit in Clashroom") This also helped me to comprehend the story till today, Therefore also learnt how to behave with elders.

I liked introducing myself because "Navu namma bagge share madkobahudu namage yen ista yen ista illa anta helbahudu matte bereavara bagge innu hechhu tilkobahudu" ("We can share about ourselves, what we like and what we don't like, and we can learn more about others.")

This helped students to participate effectively as a group, learning in a collaborative situation had greater knowledge acquisition, retention of material, developed problem solving and reasoning abilities, communication skills, than before.

Most of the students in different schools were migrated from different schools or different states had a very low exposure to English Language so those students have said that "yella kathegalannu bera bera bashay yalli torisiddu, mattu kelavomma niva aa katheyannu bera basheyalli heliddu" adu tumabane upayogavagidde yekendare navu bera bera basheyalli artha madikondvi, matte bera bashe kaliyalu protsaha needidira"(Using Multilingual (Kannada, English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu) approach was implemented to make it understand for every child in the class and it also helped us to comprehend better by repeating the the same story in different languages, Perhaps It also helped to learn other language too).

In the DL sessions The Language lab was implement in two schools and students have shared that "they enjoyed listening and Reading to all the stories and answering the questions in the different activities

Overall feedback

• "Nivu yavaga barthira, yavaga class tagotira anta gate kade nodtidvi" (we keep looking at the gate to see when you will come and when you will take the sessions) because the sessions never made us feel sad or boring.

• All the facilitators were very friendly and Polite, they never spoke-harshly/ raised their voices/ scolded/ hit us.
• They also motivated us to participate in all the activities, perhaps-gave an opportunity to express our thoughts/ opinion.
• Most of the time we were disturbing the facilitators by creating-some new sense in the classroom, Inspite of all these challenges-they helped us to learn the concepts which we were finding-difficult.
• DL sessions has impacted to our effective learning as it created an interest to use them, before we had a fear of using the systems but now we are independent to on the systems and use it in a useful way.
• Using of projector, speaker, tabs and laptops made us to learn through interest.

Few Suggestions by the students:

• Few students in-one of the school felt that they would learn more effective if there-was no disturbance in the class.
• Majority of the-students and teachers are willing to continue the sessions for the -Next Academic year.
• One of the student gave a strong statement as "namma government shaaley galalli ida reeti nivu bandu karyakramagalu madidare government shaaleygalu ondu uttama stanakke beleyuttade"(If you come and conduct such programs in our government schools, the government schools will grow to a better place) this sounds clearly the importance of the sessions after the long gap due to pandemic.

AS, MI - quant of coded part to derive categories, themes;

7.1.2 Students Reflection on Event based engagement:

Students from five different schools in grades 7, 8, and 9 participated in event-based camps that lasted one or two full days. After the pandemic strike students struggled a lot in their learning due to the prolonged learning gap of 2 years and did not have much exposure to Activity based learning. Considering the module was designed based on the students' contexts, grades, needs and interest with specific learning difficulties. Activities were designed which served every student's desire to learn. Scientific ideas were explicitly taught through the teaching-learning process where students were given a chance to investigate and learn via doing(Experiential learning). However, This fosters a scientific mindset towards the subject. Each student enthusiastically involved in every task of the session and shared their thoughts on the camp which is very much needed to improve

When the camp was conducted most of the students felt that “yaro bartidare yeno madtare” but once ice breaker activities was started they felt it as “Evattu namage pata yenu iralla yeno activity games tara madtaray”. We will have a very good time to enjoy and learn. As we got involved more and more it was interesting to get additional information, learn new things.

Science Experiments were very We started to think/ give work to brain in d We also had a very good time with our friends to learn

the facilitators were very helping at each and every step to make us understand the concept clearly. In Acid base experiment was very useful which gave a clear detail to differentiate between the acids and bases. We were observing different leaves but never thought of classification based on colour, size, shape, venation and so on. We were unaware of many things even thought we had it in our syllabus. We also learnt about atoms and its sub atomic particles, also how electricity is conducted due to the flow of charges.

Language we were just reading a story but during the sessions we learnt the story elements (title, author, characters, problem and solution in the story, favourite part, beginning, middle, and end) which helps to remember a story in a meaningful way.

2. Teachers (feedback)

Summary of Teachers feedback about TIIE implementation in 4 Schools

Even though It was challenging to involve the Teachers completely while during the sessions because of various reasons as mentioned below in their feedback, few teachers participated in some of our sessions and have given their valuable feedback on our sessions to help us improve upon further.

The challenges faced by teachers during the initial days of the academic year were lack of concentration, behavior issues, difficulty in reading and writing, inhibition to answer,health problems etc., The sessions conducted as part of the project TIIE was satisfactory as it had indicated positive impact on children inhibition to participate, control their distracting behavior, ability to take up an initiative to do the tasks over the year, and their level of confidence has improved over the year and it helped children to develop interest towards learning. Few teachers have mentioned specific examples of few children and how it had impacted on their participation and behavior. All teachers liked the sessions because of two important factors, one was the activities conducted in the sessions like story telling, asking children to draw about the story they listened, language games, dice games and activities strengthening basic literacy and numeracy skills. And secondly, the strategies that were integrated as part of the session like group work, individual attention, focussing on each and every child, working individually with the child who has difficulty in learning, demonstrating care and concern towards children. They shared positive feedback for digital literacy sessions saying that it has exhibited positive impact on children ability to use and work on computer independently and setting up a computer lab in a govt. school function effectively helps children to expose to a digital world. Few teachers were of the opinion that the session had benefited not just students but teachers as well. They shared some of the instances of children coming to them and share about it as well as sharing among-st themselves where children had expressed their eagerness to participate in the sessions, enjoy being in the session, never want to miss the session, being able to understand better by mentioning the strategies and activities like Math games, language games and exploring maths concepts and story telling using computer were mentioned. Few teachers expressed their resentment to not be able to use these strategies because of the limit of time and pressure to complete syllabus.

Some of the reasons that the teachers shared for not being able to be part of the session were assigning some administrative works to them during session, need to engage other classes, pressure to complete the pending work, etc,. Teachers expressed their desire for continued engagement with the school with the following suggestions/recommendations:

• Involving Teachers in classroom sessions, discussion about classroom plans with teachers
• Extending the scope of work to Lower grades
• Focussing on other subjects like Science, Social, spoken english and Kannada
• Activities aligned with textbook/ syllabus
• Orientation sessions for teachers on Digital Literacy
• Classroom resources for teaching

Teachers feedback on cluster meetings

"Technology plays a significant role in education." Majority of teachers are willing to use technology in their classroom, so they have access to resources. The problem is that they do not use assistive technology. As a result, majority of teachers requested basic digital training be provided in the form of a workshop lasting one day or half a day in their schools. This would help teachers how to connect the system to the project, download the system's audio and video resources, connect speakers using Bluetooth, and so on. This clearly reflects the interest of learning digital literacy.

Usage of Mobile is very convenient so they felt it is not difficult to get to the language lab resources through kiwix application. They also thought that it could be used in the classroom without the system or projector.

The majority of teachers gave a positive feedback on Language Lab because they realized How important it is for students to develop foundational literacy in LSRW skills at the desired level. Language Lab inspires students to learn stories through the systems and improves language learning through a multimedia approach. Perhaps the stories are available in multiple languages, this makes child’s Interest, active involvement, and engagement in the learning process are all sparked by story-based activities. It also acts as a means to learn different concepts and themes, also easier to comprehend.

The Language lab not only have a story it also gave an opportunity to multiple activities, which is planned in such it gives openness to every child to learn. The activities are designed in such it gives exposure to Identification of a letter to form a correct word, Vocabulary, formation of sentence structure using the right words helps them to get closer to the language learning process. It gives them a place to share their views on the questions related to the story, which improves their speaking skills better. Writing skills can be improved by the story activities

Once they are comfortable with the interface, the child tries to listen to the story on his own. One of the most effective approaches in the language learning environment could be independent learning. The child's learning quality can be improved. Composing abilities can be further developed by the story exercises. The children have the impression that no one will judge them, and they can try the same task multiple times to advance in their education. Since the story links are open to the public, anyone can use them to improve their language skills. Depending on the child's level, this can be used with any grade student. therefore Language lab made children learning with joy.

Suggestions:

• Teachers requested to provide resources which are applicable for primary level children

• Basic digital literacy training to be conducted for teachers in the school.
• To Create stories from the kalika chetarike materials.
  

- Teachers feedback on Event based camps (GMP)

After the covid pandemic, schools had no opportunity to engage students in social activities. Science exhibitions allow more students to participate in the event and provide some exposure for students to engage in the many experiments over the period of two weeks. Many children were eager to learn so many new things that you brought to the event, and they tried to explore many science concepts on their own by searching the internet and talking with their teachers and friends. Many students have low critical thinking, and when we ask them a question, they don't know how to answer it by applying their concept knowledge, so they get stuck, so this event helps them to know the scientific approach and increase scientific temper, In addition it creates interest in STEM education. It also helps students learn to observe and analyse basic concepts, as well as improve communication and presentation skills.

Students' explanations of their understanding of the model/experiments should be improved during the presentation, in addition to displaying their model or experiments. It is also important to display information in charts. All of this allows other students who come to see the exhibition to encourage them to participate in these activities and increase their scientific temper, as well as motivates others to participate and allow them to learn about the science exhibition methodology. it's pleasurable to see their efforts in creating working models and conducting physical experiments.

Science in school can sometimes appear to be a collection of isolated and static facts listed in a textbook and abstract subjects for those who not involved in observing and experimentation process. Many science concepts that the students had learned in earlier classes and semesters had been forgotten by them. So, a few science concepts they learned from their syllabus are captured to them through the camp activities that are planned. The approach to conducting experiments was good, and the way you made use of materials that are widely available in our daily lives encourages students to connect and think critically about two or more science concepts.

Students enjoyed the activities you had planned for the event, specially the use of technology in some concepts, like the connection of an electric circuit that allows students to use tabs, and the hands-on activities, like the acid-base test and the functioning of digestive system. Few students who were absent-minded in class are participating actively in your activities and freely sharing their opinions and understandings. Many students requested that the event be extended for another two days, so the planned activities are extremely beneficial for the students.

3. HMs

Interactions with few HM's revealed that the sessions on TIIE might have had a positive impact on children's behavior as they could see some of the behavioral challenges which were observed during the initial post-COVID days seem to be disappearing. Also, the fact that HM' s could not take part in the sessions due to various reasons like managing administrative tasks, handling admissions was observed during interactions. They were also of the opinion that children need to get inputs in various school subjects like science, social and Kannada to improve their performance. According to them, DL sessions have helped children to use and work on computer confidently. Most of the HM 's stressed the need for training teachers on digital literacy.

Summary of School/classroom reflections

The five schools that were part of the project ‘Technology integration for inclusive education’ are located at South of bengaluru. Each School consisted of around 300-400 children across grade 1-8. We got an opportunity to work with 30-40 children from each Schools. Medium of Instruction in all the schools was Kannada. However, the schools also consisted of children from various languages like hindi, tamil, telugu, urdu, etc., As far as our observations are concerned, Socio-economic status of the parents is mostly lower middle class and middle class. Also, the educational background of parents is mostly literate/ educated and illiterate/ uneducated. The interaction/relationship between the Teacher and students seem to be Moderate. (No child has neither expressed/shared about their like/ dislike of a Teacher nor interactions with them except in one school). Corporal Punishments seem to exist in all schools. (Teachers walk with stick to the classrooms). Periodic observations of the classroom environment and General interaction with teachers revealed that teachers are not aware of Inclusive education practices and consider addressing needs of students with difficulties as beyond the limit of their resources and practices. Hence, It becomes difficult for a teacher to understand and address the learning difficulties that children are facing.

Regular Classroom interactions with students in all the schools revealed that they could not concentrate or engage in an activity and are generally restless/ Some of the behavioral issues noticed in three schools while during the sessions were disturbing, hitting others, jumping, fighting, hitting and bullying (noticed prominently in one of the Schools) each other throughout the session. Even though we used to divide children in two classes it was difficult for us to manage their behavior. This could be due to the fact that they were forced or made to sit silent throughout the day in their regular classes which made them to exhibit behaviors like Restlessness, disturbing others and constantly disturbing the class. Hitting and bullying others (especially those that used to be quiet in the class), Pushing and pulling each other while during the activity, Constantly jumping and roaming in and around classrooms are the behaviors that were predominantly observed among these children during most of our sessions. There were also issues like inhibition among girls to talk or sit with boys, exclusion in classroom based on their language, Constant bullying or teasing the children who used to be quiet in the class.

Various strategies like splitting them into groups, activities to channelize their energy, discussions on understanding the need to devote their concentration in studies, respecting others and treating girls equally were integrated and practiced along with the planned activities throughout our program. Sometimes the session would completely go out of track because of their behavioral challenges, and we would completely change our plans. Sometimes, we would just spend time on discussions about such issues. In one of the School, we also integrated few socio- emotional learning sessions as part of our planned activities to create self awareness about their emotions and overcoming it when we found that the children were hard to control. We tried suggesting various strategies to overcome their anger through planned activities around the Story. All these strategies and activities helped children overcome anger, sensitize them to gender and language issues within their surrounding.We could setup computer labs in schools long with Ubuntu installation. However, In one of the school where there was an existing lab we installed ubuntu. As a result of which children familiarity to computer and digital literacy seem to be prominently improved.

Even though children have slowly begun to come out of their inhibitions to sit with girls and participate in the activity, understand the need to respect others their other behavior like putting it into practice will happen only if there is enough opportunity for them to perceive inclusion within their School environment. For this to happen, We strongly feel that School as a whole system should work together to implement inclusiveness within the School culture and Practices.

Hence, following are some suggestions/ recommendations that the School (A System as a whole) must reflect upon.

Teacher Preparation and Collaboration- Equipping the teacher to integrate the elements of inclusiveness in his/her classroom using different strategies with a thorough understanding of Universal design principles and Collaborating with the peer teacher in developing lesson plans, co-teaching, and sharing resources.

Involving Parents/families- There are various challenges associated with involving parents family, But, its also important that inclusion is not possible without parents/ families engagement. Understanding the Students and their families, communication with the parents about child, Involving parents and families in classroom activities, Allowing the families/parents to share their ideas will aid in developing inclusive environment.

School as a system- should promote inclusion both in and out of the classroom. They should encourage parents and teachers to use inclusive strategies. They should also take inclusive measures outside of the classroom.

An inclusive school culture requires a shift in the attitudes of all the stakeholders as well as the development practices that reinforce inclusive behavior. Real inclusion is about actions, not just words.

8. Analysis (our perspective)

      analysis of the findings, what could be the reasons, implications, etc.

      case studies – hyperlink externally (RS to review and edit)

      school

   • students

Math:

Initially the sessions were planned for whole class, during the sessions it was found more challenging to draw the students attention, make them focus towards learning. so mostly the sessions were conducted in groups and have observed that the students are more engaged in learning, they show interest towards learning, distractions are reduced,

Language

During the language sessions most of the session were group activities students used to perform the given task with more involvement, discussion,

In the body parts group activity, all the students were engaged in the activity and was eager to complete the given task correctly, working together in a group with developed healthy competitive spirit among themselves.

Multilingual approach has helped students of diverse linguistic background to be involved in our sessions, most of the language sessions were transacted in different language and students were also motivated to respond it in their comfortable language, This opportunity made students feel every language was given importance. this has helped them to express when some

Overall

Most of the times students could not recall what was done in the previous session while some seemed to have totally forgotten due to twice the visit of the session and sometimes we used to get one session in a week for various reasons. sometimes we were not able to complete the planned task in the session.

Effect of gadgets, movies, TV

They have very limited space, no playground

   • teachers

   • parents perspectives, challenges, awareness,

      administrative support

   • infra

   • staff, vacancies

   academic support

   • BIERT

   • CRP

   • block resource centre – IE resources wasn’t already existing

   • inclusive edu resource center

   medical/health support

   • NIMHANS

9. Recommendations

   • School & Teachers

   • School system

       ◦ Academic

       ◦ Administrative

       ◦ Policy