Involve Learning Solutions Foundation

Involve Learning Solutions Foundation began in 2018 with the vision of ensuring all children have agency to thrive. We believe that equipping children to exercise their agency is key to them making life choices that will enable them to live happy, fulfilling lives. Within a classroom or school, this begins with children being able to make choices about their learning, have a voice within their schools as well as having opportunities to take ownership of their learning. In order for this voice, choice and ownership to take shape, students require the knowledge, skills, mindsets and exposure. We use peer based pedagogies that are known to build the aforementioned in students. Our flagship program is Peer Teaching, where we have senior students (grades 5 and 8) teach their juniors (grade 1-7). Through the program we focus on building numeracy skills in the junior students (a major challenge in India's government schools today is the gap in foundational numeracy and literacy skills among young learners). In addition the program also builds skills like communication, collaboration, ownership and problem solving. 

Involve has worked with 20,000+ students in rural, semi-urban and urban geographies. We have seen an average improvement of 40% in numeracy scores of our students and 20% increase in skill rubric score (on our internally developed tool). 

Our organization fundamentally operates with the philosophy of “Child at the center”. Towards this we strongly espouse the values of trust, ownership, Respect, Gratitude, Collaboration, Growth Mindset and Having fun! 

Anna Daniel currently leads the Research and Curriculum vertical at Involve. She has been instrumental in designing and creating our numeracy and literacy content for our Peer Teaching and Learning programs. For numeracy, Anna has worked on developing a more game based, engaging learning content using which, student learners showed ~40% improvement in their numeracy skills. For literacy, Anna worked with mentors and advisors to develop a holistic language program integrating language competencies like reading, listening, speaking and writing. The program also was built to engage parents and communities in the learning of the children. 

Over the past years, Anna has also been involved in researching the organization's programs by designing and implementing research projects and case studies. Her experience from her masters degree proves to be a strong value addition to her role. It also allows her to She recently undertook an internal study to compare the impact of Peer teaching on student outcomes and how the pedagogy impacts student perceptions of learning. The study is currently being prepared for submission.

The current structure of the organization At Involve, in 2023 we have dedicated a team to Research and Impact, led by Anna and supported by the Director for Programs and Impact. The primary purpose of this team is to generate ideas, identify questions for research, work with program teams and generate research products. Anna currently spends 70% of her time (roughly 28 hours a week) on Research and Impact, therefore is most ideally placed to lead the LEAP project. 

Her current projects and tasks within research (analysing collected data, writing the current research study and ideating new questions)  take up roughly 20-22 hours of weekly time. Therefore she has a buffer of roughly 6-8 hours per week to engage in new projects.    

Additionally, the LEAP project would also be a strong capacity building exercise for Anna as well, giving her a chance to work with experienced researchers, and learning about how we can structure our own research vertical at Involve.  

Besides the Research and impact team, the project will also receive support from the design and operations team at Involve. In order to put into action the results and evidence generated from the LEAP project, the design team will add the newly created resources into the program design. Execution and feedback from the operations team will be crucial in testing the products of the research project.

Building agency in learners through Peer based learning programs

There is a huge gap between what education today should be vs what it actually is. Not only do we need to improve the learning outcomes of students, but we should also equip them with the skills needed in this century. Hence, the problem we are solving is twofold:

- Low learning outcomes: While 200 million+ students in India attend middle and high schools today, less than 48% of the 5th graders can perform grade-2 level basic reading and arithmetic*. This is attributed to an excessive dependence on teachers, who are overburdened and under resourced.  Excessively high student: teacher ratios (>40:1), lead to inadequate learning support and individual attention in classrooms. Thereby, we are left with a large section of under-motivated and underperforming students.

- Lack of critical skills: Nearly 50% of the occupations today will no longer exist by 2025 – are our students being trained for the future? According to Tony Wagner, co-director at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, students must learn seven survival skills**, apart from academics, to be career-ready in the 21st century. With 75% of India's 230 million youth (15-24 years) entering or preparing to enter the workforce, there is an urgent need to upskill our students for the future. We believe that these skills must be provided to the students right from schools and be a part of their learning. 

Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has exaggerated the problem. 320 Million students were suddenly left without traditional learning opportunities that schools offer. Since an independent and student-owned learning culture was never fostered, students were left stranded. There is a mounting fear that when schools do open, many students may drop out or their learning gaps would have widened into unbridgeable chasms.  

A major reason we believe these challenges exist is because currently there is complete dependency of learning, on the teachers. Students have always been passive receivers in the schools. At Involve, we want to enable students to become self-directed learners. Through our Peer Teaching program, we want to create a culture of shared learning through which we can solve for both academic and skills gaps. 

* https://en.unesco.org/gem-repo...

**http://www.hosa.org/emag/articles/advisors_corner_oct08_pg2_5.pdf

We believe that this challenge can be addressed by giving students ownership of their learning. Through our Peer Teaching program we build academic and 21st century skills in students, while providing them a platform for ownership. Through the program, seniors develop into skilled leaders and juniors evolve as motivated learners, tackling both aspects of the problem, effectively through a single program. In reference to the current scenario, the Peer Teaching program also provides an opportunity for schools to bridge student learning gaps as a result of the pandemic induced academic break. 

We train and mentor senior school students (7th grade onwards, aka Student Leaders, SLs) to teach their juniors (4th-8th grade, aka Learners). Our cutting-edge training and curriculum support enables seniors to teach effectively and make classrooms more engaging and efficient, improving academic performance in the Juniors. As for seniors, teaching is a tool to learn, practice and reflect upon the future ready skills in them.

Through our year long program, with 2 weeks of foundational l training & over six hours of intervention per student per week, we provide a strong value proposition for both stakeholders. For juniors, learning is very personalised since we do 4:1 mapping & classes are activity based. In this manner each learner works through content at their own pace, with the senior students providing mentoring and support. Furthermore learners also have an opportunity to get their doubts addressed in real-time. For seniors we have developed the first ever age-appropriate experience based leadership program. Throught this program senior students undergo leadership and reflection sessions on the topics like communication, collaboration, problem solving, creativity, ownership, growth mindset and empathy. While the leadership sessions introduce students to the skills, the reflection se ssions enable them to make connections to their life.

Foundational research:  

Before we started our programs we conducted secondary research to understand more about Peer pedagogies and their impact on student learning and skill development. Some examples of studies are presented here.

• Peer tutoring enables teachers to accommodate a broad group of students, including those with learning difficulties, in the classroom. With the help of this instructional technique, students will have more opportunities to respond, and more time working on their assignments (Maheady, 2001)

• Various studies have proved a statistical improvement in students marks when introduced peer assisted learning (PAL). The study by Lynn S. Fuchs et.al, that involved 154 first-grade students from six classrooms in understanding the impact of PAL on mathematical development of 1st graders showed positive results.

• The social advantage of peer tutoring is developing skills such as punctuality, time management, problem-solving, communication, and listening skills. In addition to skill building, it develops ongoing friendships between the students. It builds positive relationships with other students, eventually creating a positive feeling of comfort and satisfaction in the schools. The personal advantage of peer tutoring is that it sharpens their personalities. They act as a bridge between teachers and students; hence they can experience both. They gain confidence, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. This tutoring experience of challenging yet motivating component understanding students' struggles interacting with their tutees, the tutors are more likely to develop their leadership skills (Kharusi, 2016).

Formative research

Since 2017-18, we have initiated numerous internal studies to study the effectiveness, efficiency and impact of our programs. Below are some of the studies we have conducted. 

1. Our research paper detailing our approach to Peer Teaching was awarded the first prize at the International Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (2017).

2. Case studie - Nandanam_Case_Study 

3. Shifting academic outcomes in students using Peer Teaching- A case study

4. Use of Peer Teaching and inquiry based learning in science to improve STEM abilities in students- case study

5. Understanding the impact of peer teaching on students' learning outcomes  in the context of Indian Government schools.- Research study (in progress)

6. Understanding the impact of peer teaching on students’ learning outcomes in the context of Indian Government schools.- Research study

The secondary research showed us how Peer teaching and allied pedagogies can be strong methods to improve student learning, build skills and mindsets among students towards the ultimate goal of giving them more agency in their classrooms. These initial studies were what prompted our program design and led to our Peer Teaching program. The experience of Peer teaching, the type of grouping between student tutors and tutees, the additional sessions like reflections, leadership sessions etc. that are holistically required to improve student outcomes were included based on many of these secondary research studies. 

Since our program implementation began, we have been continuously studying and researching our program components, to improve the design, delivery and measurement. Through these studies we have identified the following improvements to our programs

• Creating new content material that is context appropriate (from our case studies in the tribal and rural geographies) we realised that our students were unable to relate to the examples used in our content material. This allowed to use more relevant examples going forward

• Redesigning leadership sessions: based on our case studies in schools, we analyzed that leadership sessions based on knowledge pieces alone is not interesting for students and does not help students visualize and apply the concepts. Based on this data, we re-designed the leadership sessions to be more activity based and directly related to application. Through the various games students now learnt the concepts much better and were able to take their learning outside the classrooms. 

• Scaling our program: based on an internal comparative assessment (comparing centers with peer teaching to those without) helped us pitch our program to scale. We began our program in 27 learning centers, and based on the data from the comparative study we were able to scale the program to 121 learning centers and are looking to scale further in the coming year.  

• Onboarding districts to our program: using our data and research over the past 5 years, in 2023, we are now preparing our program to scale through partnership with district governments.

It has been 5 years since we have been working with the government schools & communities in a vision to build age-appropriate agency in all the students. Introducing the pedagogy of peer teaching, we bridge the foundational numeracy learning gap of the learners and enhance our leaders' subject knowledge and leadership skill sets. With our monitoring and evaluation programs, we can show the student’s academic shift with the intervention of peer teaching pedagogy in schools. However, to establish a clear impact, we also need to measure the qualitative and subjective aspects of the programs. Academic marks/grade improvement alone do not define the success of our program.

Along with the peer teaching program, the leadership training that we provide to the leaders and the encouraging spaces we create through quarterly projects, foundational training, and reflection sessions have shown strong cases and examples of students taking the initiative, solving problems, becoming confident, more assertive communicators, and more. However, due to the lack of indicators to measure, we face difficulties in measuring & generating strong evidence other than stories of changes or case study examples in bringing up the development of these skills in our students. Hence one significant aspect of our program remains less noticed & studied. 

As pioneers introducing peer teaching pedagogy in Indian schools and have been in the ground for 5 years, our research team also identifies the literature gap in academia on this topic in the Indian cultural context. Hence, we started a few research studies to collect evidence from the ground showing the program's impact and in the hope of publishing them. We are also looking to expand our programs to different states of India through government and other partnership programs. We are also preparing for a third-party evaluation of our program in the coming years. Thus, reliable evidence and visible changes from the program's impact need to be strengthened.

1. How to give classroom/student-centric definitions for the given skill sets: Collaboration, Communication, Ownership, Problem-Solving, and Resilience. 

2.    How to build age-appropriate learner-centric strong and simple indicators to measure the skills mentioned above for the students in our program with different starting points of baseline and knowledge? 

3.    How to use these indicators to design data collection tools for our students from urban, semi-urban, rural, tribal, and other multicultural diverse communities? 

The outputs we expect from the LEAP projects are 

1. To have clear definitions for communication, collaboration, problem-solving, ownership, and resilience for students. 

These skill sets are extensive, and it varies according to the context of profession, place, age, etc. We need to bracket these skill sets defined to the learning space of our students, their age, and the cultural context. We are thus looking for child and age-appropriate definitions of these skills that can be observed and evaluated in the context of a classroom. 

2. Develop a list of indicators to measure these skill sets in students. 

Currently available indicators for these skill sets are neither age nor context appropriate and hence largely unusable in our classrooms. Additionally direct indicators for these skills often require very high intensity tools, that are not scalable. Hence we are looking to create some simple yet effective indicators that can measure these skills in students. This would mean exploring what sort of actions and behaviors explains and express their ability to communicate, collaborate, solve the problem, take ownership, and be resilient , within a classroom/ school context. 

3. Needs to prepare a student-centered methodology to collect these data from the students. 

Surveys and direct interview questions are efficient tools used to collect data from adults, and the same is often used by researchers to collect data from children. Apart from these techniques, we need to explore and identify a few other data collection techniques and tools which are more child-centered and friendly. And needs to ensure the applicability of the designed tools for the students who are coming from urban, semi-urban, rural, tribal, and other communities.

The definitions, indicators and tools derived as a result of the LEAP project will be tested across our programs for their validity and usability. We believe that these outputs would significantly enhance our ability to generate more evidence for our programs. 

Pilot the program

After the completion of the LEAPs project, having a concrete student definition for the skill sets, indicators to measure, and tools to collect the data from the ground, we redesign our program according to the need and will pilot it with our Maargadarshi Project team in Bangalore, to check the validity of the indicators and tools. For this, the designed indicators and tools will be shared with the design team to evaluate our current program and to bring the necessary changes. After that, the three operation leads of our program will be trained on the indicators and tools of data collection. The operation leads will then prepare our 30 associates on the same matter, who will then ensure the pilot runs on the ground and collects the data. 

Check the reliability of the tool.

To measure the consistency of the program and whether the results are reproduced under similar circumstances, we will also roll out the tool in other districts where we work with schools and students - a similar program like Bangalore, but in a slightly different geographical context. 

We will also roll the program in a slightly different context, like Madhya Pradesh, where we run our program in partnership and work with the community centers, not schools. Here, the program remains the same, but the stakeholders and context are different. Piloting the program in different contexts gives us an understanding of the scalability of the design in a diverse country like India. 

Scale

Having an understanding of the indicators and tools, and with the generated strong evidence on the validity and reliability of the program, we intend to scale the program with the district government partnership of the states. Running the program in an entire district with 1000+ schools will prove the program's reliability. Different organizations and states can adapt it to measure the skill sets we are trying to build in our young student population together. 

Short-term outcomes

By defining the skill sets required for specific programs, our programs can better align our content, teaching methods, and learning resources to meet those needs. This clarity enables us to focus on the most essential aspects of the program, ensuring that students receive the highest quality of the program.

In addition to defining skill sets, building measuring indicators is essential for assessing student progress and program effectiveness. These indicators serve as benchmarks against which students' performance can be evaluated. By establishing clear and measurable criteria, we will be able to trace students' development in the desired skills and identify areas that require additional attention or improvement. This will allow us to design interventions and personalized support, ultimately enhancing the overall learning experience.

Furthermore, the process of defining skill sets and measuring indicators facilitates the design of new programs. By analyzing the existing programs and identifying areas for improvement, we will also be able to  develop new initiatives that address the evolving needs of students. The focused parameters derived from these skill sets and indicators ensure that the new programs are tailored to meet specific objectives.

long-term outcomes

Expressing the qualitative aspect of the programs effectively is crucial for demonstrating their value to stakeholders. By accurately articulating the skills and competencies developed through the programs, we can showcase the tangible benefits to students, teachcers, education department officials and the broader community. This clear communication helps generate support and resources for the programs, ensuring their sustainability and continued success.

Moreover, developing a solid and valid evaluation of skill sets through appropriate indicators enhances the readiness of programs for third-party assessment. External evaluations provide an objective perspective on the quality and effectiveness of educational initiatives. As we prepare for an external evaluation of our programs in the upcoming years, having standardized indicators and tools would be imperative for our readiness. This, in turn, enhances the credibility and reputation of the programs, making them more attractive to potential students and stakeholders.