Case Study: The Role of Data in an Online Teacher Professional Development Programme

An six-month online course was being organised for over 1 lakh teachers of government elementary school teachers teaching Social Science, Science, Maths and Language. 66 State level mentors (SLM) and 3100 District level mentors (DLM) had to support teachers through online sessions related to the course modules.

The six modules ran over 8 months, had two parts – for teachers and for mentors. The teachers had to complete their segment. The mentors had to complete teacher segments and refer to their segments for discussions to be conducted in the monthly meetings.

The course was created for RSCERT by Ignus Pahal with support from UNICEF and UniLearn.

The Problem, the Solution and Role of Data

In order to run the programme well, RSCERT, Ignus, UNICEF ad UniLearn wanted to know –

What	Why	How	Role of Data
How can modules be made accessible to the user i.e., language, volume of content, ease of access and use?	To review and modify the course.	Survey and Informal Interview data from pilot study.	To monitor the course and modify it for increasing accessibility. To plan the roll-out of the course.
How much was being done at each level i.e., teachers, DLM and SLM?	To know the completion rates per district.	Data on module completion at various levels.	Monitoring stakeholder participation. Understand and address gaps where participation was low.
How well was it being done?	To identify reasons for better completion rates.	Association between module completion at various levels. Association between module competence and completion.	Identify processes that led to better completion rates. Motivation for the SLM and DLM teams to maintain effectiveness.
How well is each level stakeholder performing?	To identify the performance at all stakeholder levels i.e., RSCERT, UNICEF-UniLearn, Ignus Pahal, SLM, DLM and teachers	Survey tool and semi-structured interview data to know if, the stakeholders are enabling the teachers to, • Participate in co-creation and their own learning. • Understand how to adapt the learning in their own context. • Learn to include children’s fund of knowledge and skills in their subject. • Attain core competence in their subject. Monitor performance at all stakeholder levels.	Address performance gap by modification in the course module and planning ned based agenda for capacity building workshops of the SLM and DLM.

SLM and DLM

In order to support teachers, the SLM and DLM wanted to know –

What	Why	How	Role of Data
How many teachers are doing the course?	To know completion rates in their district.	Backend access to course completion data desegregated at the Block level.	Monitoring stakeholder participation. Understand and address gaps where participation was low.
How well is being done?	To know how the teachers were responding to questions and support their learning.	Backend access to user response.	To plan support for teachers in monthly meetings. To maintain uptake and effectiveness of the course.
How do I know I am doing it well?	To know what it means to do their responsibility well.	Performance standards and indicators and SLM and DLM manual.	Self-assessment and personal improvement of the SLM and DLM.