Results, Analysis and Limitations

Results and Analysis

• ·         Career Awareness:

o   Pre-post Comparison: An initial understanding of their career choices and the awareness of career path to their chosen goals was gathered. Initially, gaps were found in their understanding of career paths and discrepancy in terms of the stream to be chosen. After conducting a career counselling session with them, a post intervention test was administered. The analysis revealed a heightened awareness about the appropriate subject stream, requisite tests, sources of information and relevant degrees.

o   Career Path to Traditional options

o   Non-traditional options: Initially, because of social conditioning, traditional career options seemed to be the obvious choice. Post the intervention of webisodes, a curious outlook towards a-stereotypical options was observed.

• ·         Inter-personal Skills & Confidence building:

o   Initial interactions with the kids were characterized by much hesitation and reluctance for public speaking. To come and stand in front of the class to speak or participate with other kids meant struggling with many inhibitions. But a visible change was observed in their confidence level in activities involving public speaking, interpersonal skills, role-plays after multiple meetings and interventions.

o   The kids were exposed to the usage of four “magic words” weaved into the role-plays involving social sensitivity, gender sensitivity and ethical dilemmas. This subtle introduction to these words helped in building a foundation for a more pro-social individual. Later analysis revealed not only a spontaneous recall, but also appropriate usage at various instances.

Limitations and Future Directions

• ·         Need for objective measurement – Most of our interventions relied on observation and increased use as a measure of progress in the children’s grasp of the concerned area. A more structured and measurable approach to gauge the success of interventions (such as the pre-post assessment in our career related session) would have given a clearer idea in some cases.
• ·         Time constraints – The time factor was inarguably the biggest hindrance to a more long-term perspective on several of our interventions.  However, we do believe that through the opportunity this course provided us, we were able to take the first step in what should ideally be a series of such interventions, with a multi-pronged agenda. It would definitely be a good idea if the future batch of students can build upon the interventions that have already been undertaken, so as to positively reinforce concepts and enhance the children’s self-efficacy.
• ·         Academic alignment – The interventions pertaining to vocabulary building, listening comprehension, and spelling were relatively at the surface level. There is a need to engage at a deeper level with the children’s coursework (especially in English and Maths), assess their current level, and align their formal syllabi with such gamified interventions. Again, this can be achieved within a longer time frame, something we would urge our succeeding team to look into.
• ·         Attendance – This was one area wherein we feel we were unable to bring about a positive impact. Post Diwali, several students went home to their villages and hence there was absenteeism. Perhaps the future team working with this batch of students can attempt to understand the causes of absenteeism, and think of constructive ways to deal with the issue.
• ·         Digital gamification – In our sessions, although we attempted to make use of videos, music, laptops whenever possible, we feel that technology and learning media could have been used to a much larger extent. The possibilities for gamifying using digital platforms (apps, learning tools, interactive games) are endless. We would urge the teams who will be taking over the explore an eclectic mix of these with more conventional classroom techniques.

It has been a joyful journey for us – seeing the children blossom, seeing them open up through the course of our sessions with them, laughing along with them at the funny instances in class, noticing the twinkle in their eyes when they are making a mental note of a new idea being discussed in class – we shall carry these experiences in our heart, and hope they do so too. The learning and personal growth has definitely been on our ends as well as theirs.