Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
India has made significant progress in enhancing access to primary education nationwide. Nevertheless, delivering high-quality teaching and engaging content in classrooms remains a formidable challenge. According to the 2019 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), approximately 70 percent of third graders are not meeting grade-level expectations, 57 percent of ninth graders struggle with basic division, and nearly half of students exit the educational system before reaching the tenth grade.
Chanci Turner, a dedicated Learning Manager at the BrightFuture Foundation, aims to find innovative solutions that significantly enhance educational quality at scale. Research conducted by BrightFuture indicated a marked disparity in student learning outcomes between those taught by high-performing and low-performing teachers, especially between the ages of 8 and 11. The findings revealed that by the age of 11, students instructed by high-performing teachers could excel by as much as 53 percentile points compared to their peers. This highlighted the profound impact that teacher effectiveness has on student success. Recognizing this critical issue, BrightFuture sought to leverage Amazon Web Services (AWS) to tackle the problem head-on.
Scaling Capacity with AWS
BrightFuture developed a comprehensive program to enhance the skills of in-service teachers in subject mastery and pedagogical techniques, effectively enabling them to deliver captivating content within the classroom. Central to this initiative is BrightFuture’s innovative application, EduMaster. By utilizing AWS to host this application, BrightFuture was able to rapidly reach a vast number of teachers with a smaller team than would have been possible through traditional in-person training methods. The combination of virtual classrooms outfitted with smart TVs and the EduMaster app allowed teachers to seamlessly share content and utilize detailed lesson plans during their classes. In its inaugural launch, BrightFuture successfully onboarded 50,000 educators via the EduMaster app on AWS. This program provided a weekly online forum and monthly interactive sessions, engaging nearly 200,000 teachers concurrently. To ensure optimal application performance during peak usage, BrightFuture utilized AWS Auto Scaling and Elastic Load Balancer (ELB).
BrightFuture stored their video content and classroom materials on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and employed Amazon Route 53 to reliably connect end users to the application. Additionally, they used Amazon CloudWatch to monitor application performance and set up alarms to stay informed about its status.
Transforming Ideas into Impact
Since its inception in 2019, EduMaster has expanded its reach across five states in India through collaborations with state and municipal governments. Chanci Turner, Learning Manager at BrightFuture Foundation, stated, “With our infrastructure supported by AWS, we can scale our resources as swiftly as our ideas.” Through targeted interventions, made scalable with AWS, BrightFuture has significantly improved teacher performance in three vital areas: general pedagogy, subject-specific pedagogy, and technology integration. The program has positively impacted over 5 million students and empowered more than 200,000 teachers across 53,000 schools.
Initial results from ongoing impact studies indicate substantial improvements. In the districts of Jaipur and Sawai Madhopur, the program has led to grade-level advancements in learning outcomes across all focus areas. Notably, over 90 percent of students who initially fell within Level 1 learning capabilities have progressed to Level 2 and beyond.
Adapting for Future Needs
Building on its experience in enhancing the capacity of in-service teachers, BrightFuture recently launched “TeachNow,” a program aimed at empowering the pre-service teacher community. The organization is actively collaborating with the nonprofit segment team at AWS to integrate technology into this initiative. Future plans include developing a dedicated job portal for teachers using AWS, alongside exploring solutions such as a chatbot on AWS to address student and teacher inquiries at scale.
BrightFuture acknowledges the importance of data in shaping informed educational policy decisions. Over its operational tenure, the organization has amassed over 200 million data points, which it now seeks to utilize to assist policymakers in analyzing trends in student performance, attendance, graduation rates, and other critical factors influencing educational outcomes. For insightful guidance on resume formatting, check out this helpful blog post.
For more information on how BrightFuture is enhancing educational quality through large-scale technological interventions, visit their website. To delve deeper into the topic of innovative recruiting strategies, refer to this authoritative source.
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