Teaching kindergarten children online is no small feat—so much to consider and so many challenges. First, there are few restrictions as with in-person classes, so teachers must always be on their toes. Second, children can be distracted by far more things than physical teachers are used to. Add video calls, various methods of communication and chatting, or simply spending too much time trying to figure out the technology involved, and it can be pretty challenging to keep students’ attention focused on classwork. An online survey revealed that 84% of teachers experienced challenges during online classes, such as maintaining discipline, keeping parents from interfering, and figuring out online etiquette.

Many factors come into play with an online class, and teachers must be prepared to change how they teach. As an educator, you must be aware of how these factors affect your teaching style and how you can make the best adjustments to serve your students best. Aside from being creative in your teaching style, it’s also vital that you establish a good rapport with the students and their parents. That said, here are three challenges virtual learners may face and suggestions on how to overcome them.

🤔 Challenge: Students Passiveness

Anyone who teaches has faced the challenge of converting passive learners or disengaged students into a state of active learning. They are present only physically, with their mind elsewhere. They don’t read the materials, do the homework and don’t ask questions, or engage in discussion. Instead, they just watch or listen and let knowledge wash over them. The challenge of teaching passive learners is especially apparent for kindergarteners, who have not yet developed independent problem-solving skills or exhibit autonomy over their own study habits.

💡 Solution: Formative Assessment

There are various ways this can be beneficial, such as allowing students to receive ongoing feedback throughout the learning process. Classroom assessment practices should be designed to enable students to practice the course material under low-stakes conditions before the final assessment. It also helps educators gain insight into whether their students understand the content. Rather than testing what students think they know about the topic, formative assessments allow you to determine how well students comprehend content and guide instruction based on that information.

🤔 Challenge: Limited Interaction

The lack of interaction between teachers and students impacts learning in many ways. If a child is struggling with a particular concept or activity, a face-to-face interaction would help quickly identify and remedy the problem. An online instructor cannot see when students are confused and cannot provide help individually, hindering learning progress. Additionally, some children may feel reluctant to ask questions or admit they are struggling with a concept because they will be embarrassed to ask questions in front of their peers.

💡 Solution: Constructive Feedback

Since online coursework is self-paced, it raises questions about how to give effective feedback quickly yet reasonably. By explaining the reasons behind the evaluation and suggesting ways to improve, you can encourage students to think about their current progress and what they can do to move forward positively. Effective feedback loops are crucial to helping impactful learning happen, no matter which platform you teach on. Without them, distance learning either goes nowhere or runs the risk of being a student’s least favourite class. You may need to use examples and stories or react to a student’s assignment to get your point across in an online course.

🤔 Challenge: Lack of Collaboration

The need to communicate successfully is another essential element of successful online education. Unfortunately, one of the pitfalls of teaching kindergarteners online is that collaboration may be challenging to achieve when children are not physically present together. Children may have issues communicating with other children because of their young age and inability to express themselves properly.

💡 Solution: Frequent Communication

Give your students a chance to give each other feedback and receive feedback from their peers – it’ll help improve classroom participation. You’ll also be helping them build their communication skills, which will pay off throughout their school years and beyond. Model good feedback techniques during mini-lessons before students practice assessing each other’s work.

Encourage your students to share their ideas with each other and then get back in the loop with you. For example, if you notice that feedback from peers is conflicting, or if you hear something from one student that makes you think of something new to try in class, use that opportunity to get feedback from all of your students. You’ll be amazed at how much information you can gather by doing this.

In an effort to aid teachers in teaching online courses, various technologies have been designed to help improve the student experience and effectiveness of online learning. At Square Panda India, we are committed to creating a learner-centric education ecosystem. We understand both challenges and possibilities of technology in classrooms. Our experts collaborate with educators, parents and children to build online solutions that use the power of technology to improve learning outcomes. To know more, visit ecce.squarepanda.in

Foundational Learning is an essential building block for the future knowledge we are yet to attain, for it provides the essential fundamentals of reading, writing, vocabulary, mathematics and literacy skills needed by school-aged children. If children fall behind in the early years of schooling, they are likely to underperform and fail to achieve their full potential. 

In India, many children do not have access to a preschool or childcare program, and there are very few pre-primary schools that focus on the needs of very young children. To ensure all children are on the same playing field with respect to learning, it is crucial to prioritize education during these early years.

The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) released a report on the State of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) in India, highlighting the importance of FLN in the Indian context. The report establishes a composite index on the five key domains that govern the learning environment for children aged below ten across 41 indicators. These domains include:

1. Education infrastructure 
2. Access to education 
3. Basic health 
4. Learning outcomes, and 
5. Governance. 

The methodology adopted to assign the weight in the index is Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

The study indicates that some states lagged behind in the Governance pillar, with over half of the states scored below the national average—the lowest across all pillars. This data helps states assess their budgetary measures and identify any gaps hampering progress in education.

Following are some key takeaways from the report:

• Kerala leads the pack as the top-scoring region among smaller states, with a score of 67.95
• West Bengal is the top-scoring region among large states, with a score of 58.95. 
• Lakshadweep is the leading Union Territory with a score of 52.69, while Mizoram is the highest ranked state in the Northeast state category, with 51.64%. 
• Some states score higher than others on the issue of access to education. Rajasthan and Gujarat score 25.67 and 22.28, respectively, whereas Bihar scores 18.23%. By contrast, the northeastern states as a whole do significantly better in terms of access to education. The states in this region average 51.3%.
• The educational standards in Kerala are vastly different from the rest of the country. This significant variation has been noticed in the learning outcomes and educational infrastructure, which needs immediate attention from all the states. There is a marked difference in the percentage of literacy in various states. The highest literacy rate was recorded in Kerala, with 96.2%. The lowest was registered in Rajasthan, with 69.7%.
• The findings in the report reveal a literacy gap between males and females. While the national literacy rate for males is 84.7%, the literacy rate for females is only 70.3%.
• Although all states can gain critical insights from high performers, they can also learn from each other, even if some are lower performers. Finding out what is working in other states when addressing challenges might be a helpful starting point. 

Speaking at the report’s release, Dr. Bibek Debroy, Chairman, EAC-PM, said, “Education leads to positive externalities, and the quality of education imparted is essential, especially during the formative years. The present attainments in literacy and numeracy and the variations among states should be the focus for remedial action.”

Offering his perspective, Square Panda India MD Ashish Jhalani had this to say: “Right education, accessibility to resources, teacher-child relationship and lastly educational infrastructure especially in rural areas are the key areas which our country needs to focus on. Expansion of technology in education will not replace teachers but enhance the solutions for children in the existing education system.”

The report, co-authored by Square Panda India MD Ashish Jhalani, presents evidence of factors contributing to India’s low learning outcomes in early grades and offers pathways for improvements. 

To read the full report, click here: https://competitiveness.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Report_on_state_of_foundational_learning_and_numeracy_web_version.pdf 

Square Panda India has been at the forefront of research in education technology and is now leveraging that to deliver high-quality early learning products to preschool children across India. With our research in pedagogy, we have configured our content and blended it with an interactive digital platform to be specific to the Indian content standards and benchmarks highlighted by the National Education Policy. As kids become increasingly tech-savvy, it’s essential to develop them as critical and creative thinkers at an early age so that they can meet the demands of today’s fast-paced world.

To know more about our work across the education ecosystem, visit https://ecce.squarepanda.in/ 

While many students are excited to join a virtual classroom and take part in learning experiences that are usually more hands-on, others may be reluctant about taking part. Additionally, digital platforms such as Skype, Zoom, and Google Meet can also exacerbate the problem by making it difficult to know when it is appropriate to speak up.

Many teachers feel that changes in the classroom have been affected by the increased prevalence of an online curriculum. 84% of teachers report challenges in providing education digitally. They are concerned about gaps in their student’s knowledge and skills and managing student behavior. 

Teachers who teach online courses often find that their students do not feel involved enough in the class and that their attention spans diminish with every class period. Simply posting class materials and having them read them and respond in writing could be effective, but that alone doesn’t always work. 

Here are some strategies geared for reluctant participants that you can use to energize your classroom discussions.

📌 Increase Teacher’s Presence

Online classes should require the same workload as a traditional class does. Teachers should take advantage of the online classroom to interact with students individually. If a student is taking an online class, it should take up the same effort as a traditional face-to-face class. You need to make yourself visible and interact with their students more often to get the full effect of what they are trying to learn. Teachers need to respond to email and any other available tools so that the student knows that their opinion is valued. 

Students who have attended an online class will tell you that they appreciate that the teacher is easily accessible, has a real voice and can be heard and seen, as opposed to a video or audio recording. Teachers can see each student’s reaction to the material they present at any given time, as well as their facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice. This allows teachers to gauge better what is working and what is not working when teaching the course material. A teacher in an online classroom can also hear every comment made by every student in real-time. This allows for a more interactive experience for both the teacher and the students. 

📌 Regularly Provide Feedback

Use private and public feedback to encourage your students to participate in the discussion. Focus the conversation on class-related issues or questions, and keep it professional. Encourage students that provide thoughtful and insightful responses. Offer them praise and positive feedback, such as an email or a public grasp. Tell students that you notice their contributions, even if they don’t get private approval from you. Provide constructive feedback to students who aren’t meeting the class expectations with their response rate or quality of answers. If a student isn’t putting much effort into answering discussions, it’s essential to give them guidance and advice to meet the expectations. 

📌 Make Student Monitors

The most effective way to take a true-to-life concept like group work and apply it in a classroom setting is to create student monitors in an online class. After students have had several weeks to hone their collaboration and presentation skills, make student monitors to run the class forum, assign topics or areas of discussion, monitor the online community and ensure it runs smoothly. These students answer questions, remind students to wait their turn, invite quiet students to participate, and point out those who break the rules. They make sure that everyone’s voice is heard and that there are no lulls in the discussion. Together, student monitors and teachers can build a regular interaction and engagement culture within your class.

The Final Word

The social aspect is an essential component of the success of an online learning engagement and cannot be left out. Regardless of the course itself, students will be more likely to participate in your online course and become invested in it if they feel part of something larger than themselves. To create the best online learning community possible, teachers and students need to work together to provide a truly unique experience and opportunity for growth.

Square Panda’s educator empowerment programs work to bring about a paradigm shift in the way parents and school administrations approach interactive early education. Our training program is designed to equip teachers with the methods, tools, and knowledge they need to be effective in today’s classrooms. We train them in tools for improving student academic performance and behavior and teaching for equity and inclusivity. To know more, visit ecce.squarepanda.in.

Learned helplessness is considered a debilitating mental state, where a person believes that they cannot influence the outcome of a situation. This condition, as well as crediting “failure” to be a learning opportunity, has had dramatic effects on the education system, most notably by contributing to chronic underperformance and high dropout rates.

Research indicates that students who have experienced repeated failure from a young age can develop an emotional state of helplessness. These kids actually start to believe there isn’t anything they can do to change their situation, and even if there were, they think they don’t have the skills to do it.

For many students, failure is accepted as a normal part of their school experience in India. They see themselves as helpless to control their own grades and outcomes, but educators can encourage students to reframe their experiences in positive terms. This leads to more engagement with learning, and it offers students the opportunity for more engaging learning experiences.

Students who have learned helplessness may experience several negative traits while learning in a classroom context. These include: 

• Refusal of help because they feel they won’t need it 
• Frustration with whatever situation comes up. 
• Using whiny or negative language when trying to solve a problem 
• Lack of motivation or initiative for complex tasks 
• Lack of self-worth and self-efficacy (a feeling that indicates whatever will happen, you decrease your chance of success).

Educators need to adopt practical strategies and techniques that target these feelings to effectively address learned helplessness. Here are a few things they can do.

Rethink the Grading System

In many schools around the country, teachers hand out low scores for poor performance on homework or exams, and even a zero. The idea of a zero may be too negative and off-putting, especially when there are so many other ways to highlight the best work. If possible, allow for retakes on some or all assignments, and emphasize that only one opportunity is offered. If a student can show that she tried her best, then giving her another chance to do the assignment may be the best option.

Normalize Failing

Failure is a part of what makes us human. However, failure can often be hard for kids to handle. Kids are very emotionally sensitive, and failure can lead to frustration, discouragement, and even shame. Teachers can help kids reframe failure to see it as a necessary part of life that leads to success. This allows students to create a growth mindset, reinforcing the idea that challenging problems are an essential part of problem-solving activities in school. It also teaches students that effort, not talent, is the critical ingredient for success.

Praise and Encourage

Research shows that praising effort over an individual’s ability has long-lasting benefits on children’s motivation, self-esteem and intrinsic interest towards a particular task. An effort is a more malleable characteristic, so praise for it can have a more significant impact. Efforts are also less prone to attribution error; we are just as happy to praise someone’s effort as we are with their intelligence or skill. Praising effort can change the way students think about themselves and their inherent abilities. When we praise only innate ability, students feel they have limited control over their success. But when we applaud the effort, students see that their actions play a role in determining their success. It reframes success as the result of effort, not because of an already existing, intrinsic ability. And that reframing can be very helpful to help them with learned helplessness. 

At Square Panda, we are passionately focused on enabling children to succeed. Our personalized learning programs enable each student to learn at their own pace. We believe that everyone needs a little extra push to overcome learned helplessness and start believing in themselves again, and realize not just their learning and development goals, but also their full potential. 

To know more about us, visit https://www.squarepanda.in/

When it comes to the world of education and teaching, things are changing rapidly through technology. This has led to a unique transformation process that requires adapting many strategies, policies, and practices fitting with the new standards. There have been many recent trends in education, new applications and programs that will help both kids and teachers. Together, these will make the learning process more transparent and engaging, while also looking at everything from a much more modern perspective.

Although the difficulties of the lockdown and the instructions provided on how to convey information openly and engagingly were unclear, edtech has offered teachers fresh opportunities, such as being able to offer lessons remotely and thus achieving learning goals. Online resources considerably replaced the physical availability of textbooks, exercise books, and class notes. Thus, students shifted from regular books to online ones. Many resorted to documenting management software or even Google Classroom to upload their class notes for after-class reference. 

From learning apps to assistant teachers, smart classrooms are already here to stay. The world of education will soon be one in which entire lessons and platforms are integrated with digital tools. To gain some insight into the future of educational technologies, here are the top 5 EdTech trends predicted for 2022 by experts.

📍 Modern e-Learning Platforms

The convergence of technology and education is producing a massive shake-up in the way learning institutions operate. Simply put, online degrees are here to stay, and as many online degrees are coursework reliant, educational institutions have come up with creative ways to engage students online. 

While there are plenty of education platforms, innovative e-Learning platforms advance the art of learning. They are designed using cutting-edge learning theory and game models. These innovative methods and tools include gamification, social networks integration, visual narration and collaborative communication. They offer a list of features that cannot be found on other platforms like Wikipedia integration, e-Commerce tools, forums and quizzes. These innovative learning tools are not just perfect for students but also for teachers and educators. 

As online education continues to evolve, so does its dedication to providing quality learning experiences. Virtual labs are just one of the trends in online education that go beyond traditional textbooks and connect students with their environment. 

📍 Gamification

Gamification for educational purposes has become quite popular recently. The approach involves using game mechanics (such as points, badges, levels) to increase engagement for learners of all ages. Gamified learning does not necessarily mean developing games; it may also refer to adding elements of games into existing courses or making gamified versions of existing applications. The difference is their high complexity and sophisticated level of interaction in comparison with the early games. Modern technologies allow creating more elaborate scenarios, as well as collecting, storing, and processing data on users’ actions.

Gamified learning is not just about providing rewards for students’ knowledge acquisition. It is an effective way to make activities more engaging, motivate students to take specific actions and improve their performance. At the same time, it can also help boost positive emotions and build self-confidence. By focusing on multisensory learning, Square Panda’s learning platform teaches young learners to read in an enjoyable way that reinforces home and classroom learning.

📍 Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality

Opportunities to apply Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are expected to surge in the near future. These technologies could push the envelope across the education spectrum, and major companies and small startups alike are eager to make the most of this. For instance, Google Classroom VR is a platform that brings together Google’s tools with immersive educational experiences. It offers teachers and students humanized collaboration tools as well as fun and engaging educational activities. In addition, it is also designed to help students improve their attention span by providing a more immersive experience with the help of Google Cardboard technology.

A virtual, augmented reality classroom is a great idea that will help add extra vim and vigour to learning. With the introduction of such classrooms in schools, students will no longer find an excuse not to attend classes. They will be more likely to participate and learn using VR and AR technologies because they are getting to use such new gadgets and tools. The Virtual Reality course at Stanford lets students experience the potential of VR through hands-on interactive activities. The course combines conventional and virtual reality to allow students to be fully immersed in VR environments.

📍 AI-powered Programs

Today’s learners are becoming more tech-savvy and eager to learn on cutting-edge learning devices. Edtech has made the use of Artificial Intelligence ever more prevalent and is helping redefine the possibilities of education. This development has made a considerably different approach to instructing and empowering learning. 

Artificial Intelligence-driven programs are currently tasked with the end goal of changing what it means to be an educator for young, curious minds. This new tech is ready to help educators push new boundaries, and it can also help enhance what educators are doing today. Educators and different learners could take in more by using AI innovation to its fullest extent.

📍 Chatbots

For more than a decade, chatbots have been synonymous with customer service and customer experience. However, the adoption of chatbots in Edtech is relatively low compared to other industries like e-commerce, retail, and healthcare. While introducing this new concept to education was inevitable, the shift happened in recent months, where several educational institutions started deploying chatbot solutions. Students may encounter many of these when making education-related queries, such as clarity on admission dates, courses offered, or even to access course curriculum. Chatbots are starting to become the ideal solution for a comprehensive supporting ecosystem.

Several educational institutions use AI applications like chatbots, robots and predictive analytics to bring competencies into their teaching and learning processes. So, setting up a chatbot would ensure that there is increased accuracy as well as efficiency.

The Future of Edtech

While aspirations have definitely grown for the industry, many educators are still struggling to make the full use of technology as they seek to realize these dreams. The reason being that they are not fully aware of the latest educational technology trends and just how they can play their part in the smooth implementation of technology in the classroom. Many aspects need to be considered before outlining an action plan. 

With the emergence of innovative tools in education, a real and positive change is imminent in the status quo pertaining to the standard approach to education. Education technology has been evolving at a faster rate than ever before. The upcoming years will be termed an era of disruption, as these technologies will undoubtedly disrupt several educational organizations by making them more student-centric, flexible, and collaborative.

Education is a great enabler, and key to unlocking the benefits of India’s demographic dividend. However, to realise its full potential, we need to focus on addressing the cost and reach of education by embracing technological innovation. At Square Panda, we leverage cutting-edge technologies to create accessible, inclusive, and easily replicable learning solutions that can be deployed and scaled up across India. Know more about our work: ecce.squarepanda.in