Elewa

Benefits of being an Elewa school

Schools that work with Elewa:

- Have seen an immediate improvement in student performance. We have noticed big improvements in end-term exams when compared with mid-term exams in the schools we have worked with. These improvements can directly be attributed to the Elewa tools and approaches that teachers started using.

- Students are learning better because the approaches teachers use and the assessment approaches used are helping make learning more visual and memorable. Students are answering exam questions a lot better, they remember better and they are able to apply concepts a lot better. All this because of the approach used in teaching and the innovative assessments that they regularly use to help them learn each topic.

- Students are enjoying the format and variety in the regular assessments provided by Elewa because they are interesting and test their learning in innovative ways. They also appreciate the immediacy with which they get responses to the questions they answer. This approach is proving to be a great tool for students learning.

- Morning prep, lunchtime preps and evening preps are being transformed into enjoyable sessions for students because they get to undertake the enjoyable assessments that give them feedback almost in real-time.

- Students are saying that they find their education more meaningful because their teachers tell them why they are learning the various topics. This simple message that is given in our topic guides to teachers is making a big difference in the way students perceive lessons. By simply knowing why they are learning, students are more receptive to teaching and are happier to work towards an objective.

- Teachers are now using student-centred methods of teaching that students are enjoying. Students look forward to lessons because they know there will be an interesting activity for them to undertake or something visual that they will enjoy seeing.

- Teachers are more motivated to teach because students are more responsive to them. All as a result of the interesting student-centred lessons that teachers are now capable of delivering.

- Teachers are getting more done and are getting higher quality feedback about the learning of their students because they have assistants that help them perform routine tasks. Because of having assistants that help them assess students and prepare for lessons, teachers have more time to focus on individual student problems.

- The availability of a coach that regularly meets teachers to discuss their practice and listen to their challenges is transforming teachers into more thoughtful and reflective educators that take the time to consider each aspect of their teaching and how it is impacting students.

- School administrators and parents are now getting detailed student reports that enable them understand what exactly happens in class on a lesson by lesson basis. With this understanding, they are able to offer better support to teachers and students and in a timely manner.

Our Approach

The way we help schools to achieve all this is through the teachers. If you reflect upon your own experience in school, you might perhaps agree with me that a teacher is the most important person in the life of a student. A great teacher can make all the difference in the life of a student, a great teacher truly educates and helps students realise their potential.

Our teachers in Kenya need all the help they can get, mainly when it comes to more effective teaching techniques and management of student learning. Most teachers hardly get any opportunity for professional development. The little they get is often too short and not specific enough to help them teach the various topics or to help them manage their students better.

Also, most teachers also do not get the opportunity to closely follow up on the learning progress of individual students due to the large size of their classes or due to the very busy schedules they have. Without knowing how well students are learning, teachers cannot make the required changes to their delivery.

These teacher professional development factors make all the differences between schools capable of delivering quality education and those that are not delivering quality education. The most desirable secondary schools in the country right now, such as Nova Pioneer and MPESA Foundation Academy are offering the same 8-4-4 system following the same syllabus but they put special focus on teacher professional development and teacher support.

The support we offer teachers

- Each subject has topics that each need to be taught in ways that are appropriate for that topic. We cannot use the lecture method to teach all topics. We expose teachers to various methods and techniques that they could use to deliver specific lessons in every subject, the way we do it is through Teacher Pedagogical Guides (TPGs). TPGs can be likened to recipes; a recipe is a simple guide that one can use to prepare a dish that one is not familiar with, similarly, a TPG is a guide that a teacher can follow to deliver a lesson using methods and techniques they are not familiar with. The TPGs are specific lesson by lesson guides for each topic. When one follows a recipe a few times, it soon becomes second nature. Similarly, the TPGs are training tools because when teachers use them often, they learn new teaching methods and techniques. This is a huge advantage over other training approaches because teachers do not need to leave school to attend training. Every lesson becomes an opportunity to get better and better.

- We provide teachers with assessment questions, tools and techniques that they can use to gain detailed insights into student learning very early in the learning process. These assessments are formative and diagnostic in nature. Formative assessments facilitate the formation of new knowledge while diagnostic assessments help identify where students are learning-wise and what they are struggling with.

- Assessment is often associated with the burden of work for the teacher marking and it is time consuming. Imagine being able to perform assessments very frequently without the burden of work and without spending much time? We provide technology that enables teachers to achieve exactly this. What’s more, the technology helps provide detailed reports about student learning that can really inform the learning process.

- In order for teachers to use the TPGs, the assessments and to operate the technology, they need close human support. We offer two layers of human support:

o The first layer of support is teacher assistant that is available in school every day offering teachers assistance with their various tasks. A teacher assistant helps teachers access the TPGs, prepare lesson resources as recommended by the TPGs, assess students using the assessment tools provided, operate the technology on behalf of teachers to mark the assessments and to give teachers reports about the learning progress of their students.

o The second layer of support is in the form of teacher coaches (facilitators) that visit schools every so often, to coach teachers on the use of the TPGs, assessment, technology and the interpretation of the results from student assessment. They help teachers to reflect upon their work and to continuously improve on the areas they find challenging.