Overview of TCF’s Distance Learning and Support Plan

Objectives

• Ensure TCF students stay connected with the culture of formal learning during school closure
• Enhance functional literacy and numeracy in TCF students
• Mitigate the emotional impact of the pandemic on TCF students by providing them with a sense of routine, stability and progress

Background on Our Audience

• TCF students of grades 1-8 who are at home since February 2020 (school closure)
• Generally, functional literacy is a challenge for our audience and their families
• Their learning is disrupted, especially for those with no or minimum access to digital avenues.
• Need to harness a variety of other, more traditional forms of media, such as television, radio, SMS, telephone, and print to ensure the continuity of learning amongst our audience
• In a recent study for Pakistan shows that on average parents/guardians are willing to allow their children to use the phone for 2 -3 hours per day on average. However this allowance may be different for the male and female child
• Radio penetration is very low in Pakistan. It is not a preferred medium and has very limited penetration in terms of usage

Literature Review

The role of education efforts in such context

• Education response efforts in West Africa, post-Ebola crisis, emphasized that education’s role during a crisis like this should be that of providing positive reinforcement, mitigating psychosocial impacts (Rising Academies) of the disaster and establishing routine; not focusing on ensuring stability of academic learning. Hence, programs designed during such crisis should begin with foundational SLOs (Rising Academies) and over time introduce new content if needed (Global Education Cluster).

Medium (print, audio, media etc)

• Students in our context have minimum access to digital avenues so we need to harness a variety of other, more traditional forms of media
• Research shows that while using print media for children’s magazine, it is especially important that the text follows a predictable structure, is divided into logical segments (Tavakoli & Esmae‘li, 2013; EBSCO Post, 2016), is contextual, offers multiage suited topics, formats, genres (Gabriel, Allington, & Billen, 2012), provides content specific visuals (Van Der Molen & Van Der Voort, 2000) and allows a child an interactive feedback avenue (The Handbook for Research for Educational Communications and Technologies)
• Audio educational content can be used to increase engagement – and should include numeracy, literacy, health and hygiene, exercise and games evoking joy and psychosocial messaging (Rising Academies program; Global Education Cluster programs in Guinea and Sierra Leone).
• Self-study packets should be designed for independent student practice, categorized by grade (or grade clusters) and subject, either to be distributed at once and arranged according to dates or can be distributed over regular intervals. (Government of Nova Scotia; Detroit Public Schools Community District; Liberman, Levin, & Luna-Bazaldua).

Parental engagement and support

• Parental engagement is specifically important for distance learning programs. It can be achieved via SMS and WhatsApp groups, IVR (USAID 2015), hotline or a media outreach and awareness campaign to provide orientation and explicit teaching guidelines (Global Education Monitoring Report, 2020; World Bank Report, 2020).
• Parents need to be brought on board with this new approach of teaching and learning so they can minimize obstacles and support the process. As we are likely dependent on parents to allow their children to use their phones, their buy-in is very important. For programs designed to rely on the mobile phone of parents/guardians, it is important to investigate the allowed mobile phone usage for children. In a recent study for Pakistan shows that on average parents/guardians are willing to allow their children to use the phone for 2 -3 hours per day on average. However this allowance may be different for the male and female child (Google Bolo, 2020).

Feedback loop

• Submitted homework can be treated as formative assessments and feedback can be provided on the solved self-study packets (Government of Nova Scotia; Detroit Public Schools Community District; Liberman, Levin, & Luna-Bazaldua)
• Additional support and feedback can be provided by teachers holding office hours, to inquire about child’s wellbeing and learning, via telephone or hotline (Government of Nova Scotia; Detroit Public Schools Community District).

Available resources

• TCF Books and Teacher Guides
• Access to magazine content of various magazines
• Pool of local teachers
• Distribution spots (schools as well as pharmacies and grocery stores)
• Functional postal service
• Mosques for local announcements

TCF’s Approach

Timeline: Assuming schools will open in the first week of September

Phase I

TCF initiated the first phase of its Continuity of Learning/Distance Learning and Support program in April/May 2020. This phase consisted of two components: a weekly, hour-long television show called “Ilm Ka Aangan” airing on PTV’s Tele School channel as well as various private channels, and an 8 page edutainment magazine by the same name. Given that schools are likely to remain closed for an indefinite period of time, the organization must now move towards devising its strategy for the second phase of its continuity of learning program.

 

Phase II

Immediate Action (in addition to Phase I solutions)

• Gathering feedback from our audience on Phase I solutions (TV show and pilot magazine) – also adding a basic need-analysis component in the survey
• A magazine/study pack for secondary grades as well (6-8) targeted specifically towards TCF students
• Total of 6-10 issues planned during this period
• Topics: Literacy (Urdu, English), Numeracy, Digital Literacy for secondary, and Socio- emotional Learning
• The study packs will be supplemented by a few audio files for support and engagement
• Students will drop their completed written homework when they come to pick up the next issue of the self-study packet from the pickup point (ideally without human contact – dropbox)
• The checked homework and relevant feedback will be returned with the next issue (to be discussed and decided).

 

Gradual Enhancement

• Audio files will include:

Recordings of select material or instruction

Explanation of select SLOs

Health and hygiene

• Content for well-being: Mindfulness, Exercise

Answers/Solutions of all questions in the study-pack

• Audio clips will be made accessible through various channels – some of them are still being explored –could be a combination of transferrable sound clips and an academic hotline, where academic content will be available as audio files and the student will be able to explore content via a menu
• Teachers could be given SIMs that they can use to call students to check their reading
• Progress tracking charts which would allow teachers to award to students that attempt to complete work shared through WhatsApp and SMS.
• Teachers could share checklists with parents via WhatsApp for tasks that they have assigned to students. Parents could send back completed checklists to teachers to ensure that their role remains consistent.
• Teachers would share progress reports for individual students with their parents during fortnightly or monthly telephonic check-ins. This would help motivate and engage immediate parents to discuss their child’s progress
• We will allow our solutions to be adjusted to the findings of our survey and analysis of the feedback we gather from our audience

Things to Explore:

• Alignment with TCF TV Content played on Teleschool and Taleem Ghar
• Autonomy for Action