This newsletter issue discusses education topics including 15 education startups in India that are being funded, a model of teaching called Gradual Release of Responsibility that shifts responsibility from teacher to student, and interesting links on topics like teaching English to engineers and computer network animations. It also provides updates on training programs the Academy has completed and has forthcoming.

1. April-June 2014 Page 1 of 4 VOL. # 8 ISSUE #2
Inspiring Teachers
Human Excellence
From the editor…..
I would like to wish you all a happy summer vacation, but for
most teachers summer seems to be the time for training, for
making lesson plans for the next academic year and a time of
reflection. Further, summer is not very pleasant in most parts
of India. So, I wonder if I should take back my greeting!
This is the second issue in this year, after we have made it
quarterly. It was quite heartening to hear several teachers
asking me why the newsletter was not being sent. So here it is!
In this edition, we have a news report on 15 start ups in
education in India that are being funded by Pearson and Village
Capital.
I have written an article about Gradual Release of
Responsibility, a model of teaching where the responsibility of
mastering skills moves from teacher to student.
Some interesting links – especially on professional English
Communication – have been included. Based on these links and
also on the professional communication course by IEEE, I have
designed a long term outcomes based language course for
Engineering/Science graduates. Activities and content are given
as guidelines to teachers of this course.
Anyone interested can send e-mail to
inspiringteachers@gmail.com
So read on.
--Uma Garimella
In this issue:
Editorial
Feature: 15 Education startups in India…………… 2
Gradual Release of Responsibility ………… 3
Interetsing Links …………….. 4
Updates at the Academy
Completed programs
• 10-day faculty development program at Indo-American
Technical Campus, Anakapalle, Jan 20th-29th 2014
• 2-day session on designing assessment for NBA criteria –
GMRIT, Rajam, Jan 30th – 31st 2014
• 1-day session on designing assessments for OBE,
NMREC, 8th Feb 2014
• CCE Training (as part of CfBT) at Good Shepherd EM
School Nandyal, May 5th to 8th 2014
Forthcoming
• 10-day faculty development program at Indo-American
Technical Campus, Anakapalle, May 19h-28th 2014
• Pre-retirement planning at DRDL, May 2014
• CBSE approved CCE training with Sikshasri Educational
Consultants
Contact us: inspiringteachers@gmail.com

2. Apr-Jun 2014 Page 2 of 4 VOL. #8 ISSUE #2
Start ups in Indian Education
Well known publisher Pearson’s Affordable Learning Fund and Village
Capital, have selected 15 startups to take part in their Eduprenuers
program. Through this program, a diverse range of initiatives
including tech-enabled rural solutions, direct delivery and teacher
training will be supported to scale up. All these ventures are
concerned with serving students at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP)
in India.
Through a combination of mentorships, in-person workshops and
distance learning, the startups will complete Village Capital’s globally
recognized entrepreneur curriculum, which has been adapted by
Pearson to address the specific challenges of successfully scaling a
BoP education venture.
The startups are:
• Magic Pathshala - Magic Pathshala is a mobile education
program with lessons to impact literacy and numeracy learning
outcomes amongst primary school children in rural India. Magic
Pathshala is a separate business within Magic Software, founded
in 1990 as a K-12 mobile edtech company.
• MangoSense- Mango Sense’s MangoReader allows users to
create, share and learn from stories using simple tools for mobile
and web. Teachers, parents and educational institutions can
create new stories or remix existing content for varying
competencies or languages. All content remains accessible
anytime on any device.
• Sage Services - Sage Services is a low cost private school chain
located in Andhra Pradesh. It targets underserved communities
in mid-sized rural towns, and provides higher quality education
at the same price as competing schools.
• Scholowiz Educational Solutions - Scholowiz offers low-cost,
high-quality consultancy, evaluation, and certification services,
focusing on affordable schools, with follow-on professional
development and training programs that last one calendar year
and are delivered online using affordable technology.
• SEED Edu Corp - SEED Edu Corp invests in selective low-cost
private schools, providing a range of services to improve learning
outcomes and operational efficiencies. Through its curriculum,
training and management support, SEED addresses the gaps in
the low-cost private school segment.
• TeachersLikeMe - TeachersLikeMe is an affordable teacher
training and certification programme that utilises content from
open source Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) delivered
straight to teachers through a platform that integrates analytics
and testing with individualised SMS follow-up assessments.
• Teer Designs - Classalyze, the flagship product of Teer, is an
online platform that uses classroom assessment data to measure
and improve learning outcomes. Teachers are able to design
assessments and analyse scores on a per concept level, and use
insights from analysisto improve future instruction by identifying
strengths and weaknesses in the classroom.
From
http://pressreleasewatch.blogspot.in/2013/09/pearson-select-
15-most-promising.html
• 40K Plus Education - 40K Plus sets up learning ‘pods’
in rural villages which offer gamified, tablet-based
after-school tutoring to students of government and
low-cost private schools. The pods generate
employment by hiring and training a local to facilitate
the after school learning process, maintain equipment,
and report outcomes.
• CallystroInfotech - Callystro offers gamified, activity
based learning programs mapped to India’s NCERT
syllabus for grades 1-8. These are packaged in the
form of an integrated curriculum delivery and
management system for schools (www.cobels.in), as
well as a virtual world for individuals
(www.mapoosa.com).
• EdWell Solutions - EdWell Solutions operates cost-effective
learning centres with an integrated
multimedia tech platform to project live presentations
from urban-based lecturers to multiple rural locations,
targeting students of primary standard. EdWell also
implements e-learning solutions for government
schools in Uttarkhand.
• Effect International - Effect International seeks to
disrupt the achievement gap for millions of children at
the bottom of the pyramid through a scalable network
of sustainable, affordable private schools. A lean
operational model trains qualified edupreneurs to
successfully run individual schools supported by
centralised management staff, with supplementary
curriculum, mentoring, and quality control.
• Experifun Learning Solutions - Experifun sells kits of
hands-on devices to facilitate activity based, hands-on
science learning, mapped to every major education
board in India. One kit serves one classroom, covers
one academic year of science curriculum, and lasts for
multiple years. In-school teacher support is included.
• Jugnu - Jugnu aims to improve mathematics and
English learning outcomes for elementary students in
rural India by developing content suitable for voice
delivery via mobile phones, and delivered in class by
teachers as a supplement to existing curricula.
• Sudiksha Knowledge Solutions - Sudiksha is a rapidly
growing chain of 22 pre-schools in Hyderabad that
taps an overlooked labor pool of educated, usually
married women with no previous professional
employment. They are trained to run franchise
locations near their homes on an incentivised, profit-sharing
model.
• RMinds Education - RMinds Education is an education
management company that works independently or in
association with school leaders to establish, operate,
manage and develop quality-driven, affordable schools
in India.

3. Apr-Jun 2014 Page 3 of 4 VOL. # 8 ISSUE #2
I do it, We do it, You do it
From Gradual Release of Responsibility by Pearson and
Gallagher (1993)
Most teachers are concerned that their students are not
ready to do activities or involve themselves in active learning.
Here is a way in which the responsibility for task completion
shifts gradually over time from the teacher to the student.
While many similar models have been in use in teaching-learning,
Pearson and Gallagher were the first to introduce
this term. Their model is based on the ideas of the Russian
educational theorist Lev Vygotsky – specifically the concept
of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This is the gap
between what a student can do independently and what
he/she can do under the guidance of a teacher or more able
peers. In this model, the teaching moves from explicit
modeling and instruction to guided practice and then to
activities that incrementally make students into independent
learners. This method also suits the differences in student
capabilities, where teacher can vary the complexity of the
task, the level of support needed and the learning outcome
in smaller need based groups.
The person who guides the practice is called the More
Knowledgeable Other (MKO) by Vygotsky. This can initially
be the teacher and later the peer group.
The term scaffolding is used to denote the process of
supporting a learner in the early stages of the learning
process. As the walls get higher the scaffolding can be
removed. When there is sufficient evidence of knowledge and
skills having been acquired, we can remove that scaffolding
so the learner is able to 'stand alone', or independent enough
to continue learning 'alone'. As scaffolding is temporary, so
too are the lessons that are constructed to help students as
they embark into unfamiliar thinking.
There are four stages of GRR which are also summarized in
the next page.
Focused Lesson - According to Fisher and Frey teacher
follows this pattern:
1. Name the strategy, skill, or task
2. State the purpose of the strategy, skill or task
3. Explain when the strategy or skill is used
4. Use analogies to link prior knowledge to new learning
5. Demonstrate how the skill, strategy, or task is completed
6. Alert learners about errors to avoid
7. Assess the use of the new skill
8. Students then talk and practice with a partner.
Shared Demonstration
Students are asked to prompt the teacher in demonstrating
the skills or strategy.
Guided Instruction
In small groups, students are allowed to practice the new
strategy or skill under the supervision of a teacher or a more
able peer.
Courtesy picture http://www.literacyleader.com/
This is where differentiated instruction can be used and
groups are temporary – based on the level of their skills.
Collaborative Learning
This stage of is the beginning of the transfer of
responsibility from the teacher to the students. It requires
that each student is accountable for their participation by
producing an independent product while engaged with his
peers.
There are five aspects for collaboration to actually result in
learning. These are valid even in other forms of
collaboration. They are positive interdependence, face-to-face
interaction, individual and group accountability,
interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing.
Interpersonal skills must be explicitly taught to the
students. The tasks must also be designed such that there
is positive interdependence and accountability. Jigsaw
model is especially suitable for these two things to happen.
In Jigsaw activities, the individual students have mastered
different skills/knowledge and the group task is designed in
such a way that each student’s skill/knowledge is required
to complete the task.
Group processing is where the students are guided to
reflect on what they have learnt from each other and how
they have worked together as a group
Independent Tasks
The last phase of GRR enables the students to use what
they have learned in a new situation. Students can be given
a variety of independent tasks and teacher can move
among them listening and making observations.
Due to time restrictions in the classroom, independent work
may be completed by the student at home. This takes us to
the topic of home work / assignment design – which we will
do in a future issue of the newsletter.

4. June 2013 Page 4 of 4 VOL. #7 ISSUE #6
Interesting Links
Lectures aren’t just boring, they are ineffective too!
http://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=131403&org=NSF&from=news
http://news.sciencemag.org/education/2014/05/lectures-arent-just-boring-theyre-ineffective-too-study-finds
Spirituality in Higher Education – 7-year study on the role of colleg in facilitating the development of students' spiritual qualities
http://spirituality.ucla.edu/
English Teaching for Engineering
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Tan-Writing.html
http://www2.aasa.ac.jp/~dcdycus/LAC97/Readtodo.htm
https://www.usingenglish.com/articles/how-to-teach-english-for-engineers.html
http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-english-activities-homepage.htm
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Rajaretnam-Writing.html
http://busyteacher.org/16410-how-to-teach-esp-engineering-students.html
http://www.cambridge.org/us/esl/catalog/subject/project/item5601398/Cambridge-English-for-Engineering/?site_locale=en_US
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Teaching/art1.html
Computer Networks Animations and Activities
http://www.net-seal.net/animations.php?sl=1 (needs registration but is free)
http://www.infosec.gov.hk/english/promotion/security_animations.html (needs translation)
http://www.webclasses.net/3comu/intro/resources/main.html#unit6
Cryptology free download tool
http://www.cryptool.org/en/