A behind-the-scenes look at a virtual classroom being recorded. This was the very first day that Virtual Classroom lessons began to be recorded at Telaprolu Academy. The recorder with the laptop is Samatha Anil Kumar (People Officer at the Support Office in Vijayawada), and the ‘teacher’ is in fact Teloprolu’s Academy Manager, Sarath Babu.
At NewGlobe, we’re used to overcoming the toughest challenges to deliver access to a high-quality education. We know that its value can be life-changing, and so we take very seriously our responsibility to remove any obstacles standing between pupils and the academic experience they deserve. In March of 2020, COVID-19 presented us with an obstacle the likes of which we’d never seen. We joined the rest of the world in trying to make sense of this new reality when the ~800,000 pupils in classrooms supported by NewGlobe saw their schools begin to close. The safety of pupils has always been a prerequisite for learning, but COVID-19 threw it into sharp relief.
As is often the case at NewGlobe, our Academics team came together (virtually, of course!) from all corners of the globe to share ideas and brainstorm ways forward. While each region we work in faced varying infection rates and unique complications, a common constraint was limited access to any sort of online learning. During this time, many teachers in higher-income settings transitioned their classroom experience online, with the whole class logging on to participate in a Zoom lesson altogether. This was not an option for us: eating up phone data, tying up the phone such that other school-aged siblings or working parents were locked out — it was a non-starter. An asynchronous solution was essential, and the team quickly got to work creating a variety of workable options within that constraint, each one tailored to the needs and practicalities of the communities where NewGlobe works in support of educational transformation.
Sandeep Kumar, our Academic Manager for Bridge Andhra Pradesh, cites the audio lessons in EdoBEST as a key source of inspiration for a creative at-home learning option. Knowing that the pandemic presented not just logistical but also emotional challenges for all of our pupils, providing a comforting and familiar sense of the ‘before’ was key to his thinking. He liked that the EdoBEST audio lessons resembled the structure the pupils were used to, centring around “the same teacher guides we usually use in the classroom. They hear questions and responses being given. It makes them feel … closer to Bridge.” After learning that over 80% of Bridge Andhra Pradesh families have a smartphone at home, he decided to iterate on what he’d seen his colleagues at EdoBEST do, and create a video option for Bridge Andhra Pradesh. Such was the beginning of Virtual Classrooms.
Sandeep describes Virtual Classrooms as “a space where students feel comfortable to learn from the ease of home… a safer environment during this pandemic time.” The basic idea is that it is a video of a Bridge lesson led by a Bridge teacher, recorded in a Bridge classroom, available to pupils to watch at their convenience, and as many times as they want.
Our Andhra Pradesh teachers and academy managers are a talented and dedicated bunch… but not necessarily well-versed in filmmaking! Sandeep wanted to be able to provide clear instructions that resulted in strong videos, so, embodying the ‘fail fast’ ethos that drives so many innovators, he started by taking matters into his own hands, and recorded videos of his own at the support office in Vijayawada. Virtual Classrooms are a two-person job — one person is the teacher, while another records and serves as the voice of the pupil from offscreen — and so he called on others at the support office in Vijayawada to help him.
Those early Virtual Classroom videos looked a lot different than they do now. Compare the above photo of Sandeep to this one of Teacher Shammu Shaik delivering a maths lesson from Telaprolu:
Notice the distinction in visuals: videos were to be shot horizontally using a cellphone placed on a tripod. All excess information on the blackboard was removed, to make it easier for pupils to focus on the content that they were learning. Windows were shut to reduce background noise and eliminate glares. These directorial choices, coupled with the classroom setting and the uniformed Bridge teacher, made for a much more professional look.
When the time came to transition from filming the videos himself to working with academy staff, Sandeep found a willing partner in Sarath Babu, the Academy Manager at Bridge Telaprolu. “As it’s the closest academy to the office,” Sandeep explained, “I went there once weekly to collect the videos on a hard drive and uploaded them to the office.” Sarath was Sandeep’s point person, but Sandeep would use these visits to engage the whole team working on Virtual Classrooms. He’d playback videos of the lessons for the teachers to watch, so they could discuss how to improve. “This gave me space to observe how teachers are doing, provide them instant feedback by reflecting on their own recordings and imagining themselves as a viewer.”
Sandeep set up Sarath with a laptop, so he could email him the teacher guides for each week, would email Sarath the teacher guides, Sarath and his teachers would record the videos, then upload them onto Google Drive, where Sandeep would do any editing necessary, and finally share them on WhatsApp to parents. It was quite the team effort!
Each video lesson follows the exact teacher guide for the same classroom lesson, timed for 40 to 45 minutes, with a few teacher adaptations as there are no pupils in class — so for example, no turn and talk and independent time to solve. Pupils pause the video with the questions and solve and then replay. The length of the video lessons varies from around 14 minutes to 25 minutes, with English as the shortest and Maths the longest.
Early on, some parents were reluctant to hand over their smartphones to their young children. As time went by, though, more and more parents began to see the value in this alternative style of learning while the real classrooms remained off-limits. Raja, a parent of a Standard 4 pupil at Moriganipalli said of her son, “He is learning more things daily. He is watching classes daily. It is useful to him,” and added that any time they have doubts, they call their class teacher. As Raja alludes to, many Bridge teachers have made themselves available to pupils and their parents, calling them to follow up on whether they watched the lessons, asking some questions to assess their mastery of the content, and making themselves available to answer any questions pupils might have had about the lesson.
Since recording the first Virtual Classroom video in August of 2020, the team has recorded 2,500 or more, and the number is growing by the day, so long as the pupils of Bridge Andhra Pradesh remain out of school.
It’s very good news that schools in Andhra Pradesh are now due to reopen on August 16th and pupils will be able to safely return, to see their friends and teachers in person every day once again. We are proud that for the long time schools have had to remain closed we have been able to work together to provide a safe at-home alternative to keep learning going.
Annie Pinnell has been with NewGlobe Education since 2013 and currently serves as the Chief of Staff for its Academics and Schools Groups.
