tess-india newsletter

Key Note from the Country Director

Mr Sushant Verma(Acting ��untr� ��re�t�r � ��SS��n��a�

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UK launch of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2013/14, 7th April, 2014

The UK launch of the EFA GMR 2013/14 was held at the Institute of Education, University of London. The event gave an opportunity for DFID’s, Minister of State for International Development, Alan Duncan to share his perspectives on the report and Director of 2013/14 EFA Global Monitoring Report, Pauline Rose, to present the reports key findings. There was much discussion on the need for all children to receive good quality

education which enables them to actually learn. Globally, 250 million children are not

counting. The quality of training received by teachers has a direct impact on the quality of education children receive. “To ensure that teachers have the best training to improve learning for all children, it is important for those who train teachers to have knowledge and experience of real classroom teaching challenges and how to tackle them. (GMR 2014/15, p50).This aligns with TESS-India’s vision of working towards improving the quality and quantity of teacher education in India.

The summary and full report can be found here: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/reports/2013/

• UK launch of the Education for All Global Monitoring

• 38th Kolkata International Book Fair

• Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) School Education Conference

• Mobile Learning Week 2014

• Proof of Concept Mobile app

• TEC 14

• Presence at TEC 14

• Materials on Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)

• Consultative Meeting in Odisha

• West Bengal activity• TESS-India in Bihar • TESS-India Science

Workshop• Manthan Workshop, Delhi,

Dear friends,

TESS-India is pleased to present the second issue of its quarterly newsletter after the successful launch of its inaugural issue in December 2013.

This issue reports on the successes and challenges of the project over the last quarter highlighting activities that have taken place in all of TESS-India’s 7 states, Assam, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. All of these events have been highly engaging, whether it be the OER Science workshop, Kolkata International Book Fair, Hyderabad TEC 14, Delhi FICCI conference or Mobile Learning Week 2014. This quarter has indeed been

April 2014, Volume 1, Issue 2

an exciting time of the year for TESS-India.

As the states are preparing to use the Teacher Development Units (TDUs) and Leadership Development Units (LDUs) in their training programmes, the entire TESS-India team has been reviewing the work undertaken in the first year of the project. The project has been received well garnering strong support from MHRD, and the States through review workshops, and meetings held on TESS-India resource that they have attended. We encourage you to explore the TESS-India website yourself at: http://www.tess-india.edu.in/resources

Please feel free to write in with your valuable suggestions and comments to help us to improve the quality and quantity of teacher education in India. Any specific opinion or experience is always welcomed.



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Mr Sushant VermaCountry Director

learning the basics of reading, writing and counting. Of these, 120 million have not entered primary education and 130 million attend primary school but have not achieved the basics of reading, writing and

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Mobile phone technologies and ownership are advancing rapidly. Around 75% of people globally have access to a mobile and ownership in developing regions is matching this trend. The rapid growth in mobile use has the potential to open up access to learning, supporting teachers and students alike.

The theme, explored in this year’s mobile learning week (http://en.unesco.org/events/mobile-learning-week-2014 ) at UNESCO is teachers with an emphasis on using mobile to leverage effective use in education, deliver professional development to working teachers and support the training of new teachers.

The week began with a series of workshops including one from USTAD mobile. The following 2 days saw presentations from a varied range of participants including large NGOs, commercial providers, Universities and individual teachers on how mobile learning is benefiting their work in education and development.

Proof of Concept Mobile appThe TESS-India team have been working hard on looking at how delivery of the TESS-India materials can be enhanced through the use of mobile devices.

TESS-India materials are currently available on MicroSD cards that can be used with mobile but this relies heavily on the users’ ability to understand both the relationship between files and how to navigate to them.

The team have developed a proof of concept mobile app that works on android devices. The app allows users to easily navigate to the content while maintaining a distinct relationship between the different subject areas. All content types are available through the app including an epub3 format which allows for the embedding of the video within the units.

If you are interested to know more or support any future testing please get in contact at [email protected]

TESS-India participated in the 38th Kolkata International Book Fair which was held between 29th January and 9th February 2014 at the Milan Mela Ground, Kolkata, West Bengal.

The TESS-India stall was located in the foreign complex among participants from 16 countries. In total 770 stalls and publishers from 29 countries participated in the world’s largest retail book fair.

Visitors to the TESS-India stall were from a variety of different backgrounds including teachers, parents, students and professors. Examples of interested attendees include:

• A policeman was curious because his brother is headmaster of a school.

• One visitor gathered all information about TESS-India for his handicapped brother who is a teacher in a school.

• A gentleman wanted to know more about TESS-India because his wife is a school teacher.

The Kolkata International Book Fair gave the TESS-India team the opportunity to come into contact with people from different areas of society that would not otherwise necessarily have been reached.

More information on the book fair is available at http://kolkatabookfair.net

Mobile Learning Week 2014Extracted and condensed from Tim Seal’s blog post (www.open.ac.uk/blogs/TESS-India/)

Tim Seal at Mobile Learning Week

38th Kolkata International Book FairExtracted and condensed from Suman Dasgupta’s blog (www.open.ac.uk/blogs/TESS-India/) and post-event report

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) School Education ConferenceA one day Conference was organised by FICCI in New Delhi on School Education on March 10, 2014. It was well attended by eminent educationists, and researchers, key representatives from voluntary organisations, national and state level educational institutions and international agencies working in the area of school education. The key note address in the inaugural session was presented by Prof. R. Govinda, Vice Chancellor NUEPA.

After the inaugural session, a number of parallel sessions were planned. Dr. Sandhya Paranjpe, Head Academic made a presentation highlighting the collaborative approach and work of TESS-India, chaired by Dr. Amarjit Singh, Additional Secretary, MHRD. The presentation was well received.

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requested TESS-India to come and present the case for Maharashtra teachers.

Dr Sandhya Paranjpe, TESS-India Head Academic presented the paper ‘From Encyclopaedia Britannica to Wikipedia: TESS-India’s Model of Collaborative Authorship of School-based Professional Development Material’ written by Dr Lina Adinolfi, OER Academic and Dr Alison Buckler, Research Associate, TESS-India, The Open University. The paper

The Teacher Education Conference (TEC) is a symbol of the British Council’s commitment to the development of the English language and also in supporting quality English learning and teaching in India. It has been co-hosted for the last 3 years by the English and Foreign Languages University along with British Council.

This year, the conference was held in Hyderabad from 21-23 February 2014. The main theme of this year’s conference was Innovation in English Language Teacher Education. The sessions of this year’s conference were focused on:

• Innovations in Continuing Professional Development for English language teacher

educators and teachers• Learning from experience• Technological resources

for language education

TESS-India presence at TEC 14

The TESS-India stall showcased the project. Example TDUs and films were displayed so that interested visitors could sample the materials that have been developed so far. The TESS-India one pager, latest newsletter and CDs containing the videos were available for visitors to take away with them. Amongst one of the key interactions was the one with the State Project Director of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Programme for Universalization of Elementary Education for the state of Maharashtra who showed a key interest in the potential for working with TESS-India especially in exploring possibilities of localisation. As well as requesting some TDUs on display, they also

demonstrates the value of harnessing the expertise of Indian pedagogues in the co-creation of technological resources for English language education. The paper describes the Wikipedia approach to developing the TESS-India professional development materials with reference to Elementary and Secondary English, from the perspectives of contributors to this exciting, locally sensitive, collaborative venture.

TESS-India materials on Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) website

TEC 14Extracted and condensed from Neelam Dobhal’s TEC 14 report

The TESS-India draft TDUs and videos have now been uploaded on to the MHRD website. This is very exciting news for the project in terms of exposure and credibility. http://www. teindia.nic.in/TE-Learning_TESS.aspx

Very soon TESS-India materials will also be in NUEPA and state government/SCERT/DIET websites as well.

YouTube channel now live

The project YouTube channel is up and running and currently has 30 videos available for use by teacher and teacher educators as well as promotional and training films. In the short time the

channel has been live we have seen over 2,000 views with Leadership videos currently the most popular. More videos are due for release very soon so keep checking back.

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Website: www.TESS-India.edu.in

Email: [email protected]

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Pictured: Group presentation on English and Language & Literacy during the workshop.

The consultative meeting took place in the Teacher Education (TE) & SCERT conference Hall, Bhubaneswar on 7th February 2014. The main objective of the meeting was to emphasise the importance of TESS-India’s proposed programs in collaboration with MHRD and State Government as a major support to building

Consultative Meeting in Odisha

capacity of teachers and teacher trainers in the state and also to discuss the rolling out of TESS-India’s Teacher Development Unit (TDUs) and Leadership Development Units (LDUs) in Odisha.

The meeting was attended by Prof Nihar Ranjan Pattanaik, Director, TE & SCERT, Odisha; 32 subject experts from the field of English, Education, Mathematics, Science; representatives from Odisha Primary Education Programme Authority

(OPEPA) / Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), RMSA, Directorate of TE & SCERT and NGOs participated in deliberations.

The participants were divided in groups according to their core subjects of Maths, English, Science, Mother Tongue and Leadership. The groups were given an opportunity

to make suggestions and recommendations after looking at the TDUs and LDUs.

Secondary Mathematics & Science Teacher orientation in West Bengal: Pre-consultation was carried out on 8th Jan 2014 in the SCERT auditorium. This was followed by a workshop with a core group of secondary teachers for 3 days (16-18 Jan 2014) to prepare a Teacher Training Framework. A District

West Bengal Activity

Resource Group (150), which is critical to the success of this initiative, is now being Localisation of TESS India materials in West Bengal:

TESS-India Material Review and localisation discussion took place on 5th Feb 2014 in the SCERT auditorium. The State Localisation Guidelines were finalised with inputs from the State Resource Group.

TESS-India in Bihar (Jan-Mar, 2014)

A series of workshops were held at SCERT Bihar with various stakeholders including SCERT, DIET, PTEC and a module development team for preparing papers on a pre-service and in-service course of Diploma in Elementary Education both for face-to-face and Open Distance Learning. LDUs developed by TESS-India were referred to largely while writing the

study materials and relevant activities from those modules were mapped for incorporation in 3 papers - Child Development & Psychology, Understanding School & Classroom Management and School & Education Policy in the study materials. The Hindi versions of LDUs were made available for writers for their reference. Training on ICT was conducted from March 20-22, 2014 at SCERT for SCERT Resource Persons. The objective was to support the pre-service and in-service Teacher Education of the state on ICT by providing “practical” and

“hands-on” experience and to build capacity of Teacher Educators on ICT pedagogy. Following the training, the SCERT trainers have created a Google group of all the participants including

TESS-India State Representatives to exchange data and important information.







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Manthan Workshop, Delhi, 4th-7th March 2014Members of the TESS-India team from the Delhi office, the 7 States, and from the OU UK office travelled to Delhi to take part in a 4-day planning workshop from 4th -7th March 2014. The workshop was named after the Hindi word

‘Manthan’, meaning ‘the churning of the sea’.

The main purpose of the Manthan workshop was to give the participants an opportunity to reflect on activities and progress in

each of the states over the first year of the project before starting to look forward and plan in detail for the remaining time. The workshop also gave a chance for those team members who hadn’t met each other in person before to get to know each other better.

Workshop highlights included:

• State Representatives hearing about and learning from activities undertaken by representatives in other states;

• Team members reading a Teacher Development Unit (TDU) in groups to discuss the purpose of

the different sections and how the units could be used;

• The opportunity to learn about the plans for the TESS-India Focus District Programme in Bihar;

• The internal launch of the Baseline report for UP, MP and Bihar, prior to a wider launch with external stakeholders once the final report is published;

• Discussing plans for the development of a capacity building MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). The Manthan workshop brought

together TESS-India team members from the Delhi office, UK office and 7 states







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TESS-India Science WorkshopAs part of the review by MRHD, the first academic workshop was held in Delhi between the 6th and 8th March. The purpose of the workshop was to start the process of refining the secondary science units, and to work with the ministry expert, Dr Kamal Mahendroo in order to ensure that the units meet the expectations and the requirements of the Ministry of Education.

The workshop was run by Kris Stutchbury, Freda Wolfenden and Jacqui Elton from the UK and was attended by 13 representatives from MP, UP and Bihar, including practising and retired secondary school teachers and representatives from the SCERT in MP.

The team worked together to gain a shared understanding of the purpose and nature of the secondary science TDUs. The workshop was completely interactive with a range of activities including brainstorming, pair work, and group discussion. Most of the time was spent working in small groups discussing the TDUs in detail. We also carried out one of the activities in the units in order to deepen our collective understanding

of the sort of learning we are trying to promote and tried out diagnostic tests designed to support subject knowledge development. Colleagues evaluated the case studies and activities and, if necessary suggested alternatives. The UK team was able to gain a more detailed understanding of secondary science classrooms in India. The Indian team shared their expertise so that the case studies and activities are

truly authentic, and came to a better understanding of the scope and purpose of the units.

Some of the comments in the evaluations were:‘This workshop gave us the motivation to help students understand through activity.’‘Very good learning experience, good motivation’.‘It helped me to think in a better and more creative way’‘I feel very motivated for future teaching’

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