Vibha joined Rocket Learning in its early days, when much of the journey was still uncharted, and it was difficult to foresee the full potential of the organization. As one of the early team members, she had the unique opportunity to witness the transformation of initial challenges into innovative solutions and to be part of the remarkable growth that has shaped us into what we are today.
Q: What inspired you to join Rocket Learning, and what were some highlights from your time here?
I joined Rocket Learning rather early on in the journey when very little had been figured out and it was hard to visualise what the organisation would become over time. Two factors sealed the deal with me after my initial conversations – First, I was excited to work in the early years. We’ve also seen how school education, in several aspects, has become rather regimented and does not leave enough room for child-centred pedagogies. In contrast, the early years are less structured and rigid and leave immense room for innovation and play.
The second factor was the warmth and steadfastness of some of the people I spoke to – Utsav, Namya, Azeez. They came from interesting backgrounds and were excited to build something new – I think I was drawn to the possibility of creating something fresh along with this group and to experiment with learning at scale, using technology that places learning at the centre. This continues to be a core area of interest even today.
Q: How did your teaching experience shape your approach to creating educational content?
Oh, tremendously! I remember when we started creating content at Rocket Learning I was very clear about a couple of things. Our technology was simply the medium through which we would deliver learning, engaging with the technology was not representative of the actual act of learning. I had seen through my teaching years that children learn through interacting with the materials in their environment, constructing meaning and knowledge along the way. And this rarely happens in isolation, children learn when they interact with their peers, their parents or any of the adults in their lives – they make dialogue, they pretend, they construct meaning through those interactions. What I’m talking about, I guess, is the socio-constructivist approach to learning which has now become rather popular as a pedagogy of the early years.
Actually this led us to some of the core design principles for our content – most importantly, the content had to be an effective trigger for action. That is to say, that watching our videos was meant to initiate real world play for the caregivers and the learners using existing materials in their environment. But in order for the content to be an effective trigger for action, it also has to address, head on the barriers to action – so is the content something that they look forward to and create a habit around? This relates to the time at which it’s sent, the look and feel of the content, the characters, facilitators and even children in the content. Second, reducing the cognitive load for caregivers facilitating learning – so the instructions have to be clearly outlined with a clear and simple call to action and there shouldn’t be too much effort associated with decoding and implementing the task to be performed whether in terms of gathering objects.
I’ll wrap up actually, I think I can go on about this topic forever, with one example. All of our parent or teacher facing content follows a show-don’t tell approach. This allows someone watching to learn implicitly instead of having to do the extra work of decoding instructions again and again.
Q: What’s your vision for Early Childhood Education in India?
Honestly, I’m constantly blown away by the science of the early years. It blows my mind even today, when I read papers that point to the kind of impact the early years can have on a child’s life. And truthfully, the early years – from birth to about eight – are deeply emotional years. I guess my vision is that the children of our country grow up, surrounded by caregivers who are aware of this responsibility. No parent or caregiver can be perfect, you know, our circumstances – poverty, hunger, stress – everything, affect our interactions with the young ones in our lives. But if we collectively recognise the importance of these years, and our own power as adults in their lives, there’s a possibility that we can all support each other and balance out the good with the bad whether by participating in their play, teaching them something that I know and enjoy, and offering them safety and support in small interactions.
That sounds rather vague, I apologise. But the science is telling us again and again, that no learning – pre-literacy, pre-numeracy, etc . None of this is going to happen without providing children with that foundation of security.
Q: What made Rocket Learning special in your eyes, and what do you think set it apart?
There’s too many things that are special about Rocket Learning. Where do I begin! But first and foremost, I think it’s the culture of respect – I was so lucky to be around from the beginning when we were a much smaller team, from the early days, I was thrilled to be surrounded by people that listened to everyone’s voices, and although not everything was always possible and though choices had to be made to support a larger vision, everyone got a chance to express their ideas. Many other things make it special, of course, but the people more than anything else.
Q: Where do you hope Rocket Learning will be in five years?
I hope Rocket will be steering the country, as it already is, towards equitable access to high quality ECCE. As an organisation, and for its people I hope that it continues to remain humble, curious and agile.
Q: How does your work with Navchetana connect with your goals for education?
Firstly, I think I’ve said this several times over this interview, but the first three years are extra-ordinarily critical. Let’s imagine child A, who grows up in a home where there is limited conflict, receives great nutrition, parents talk to the child, play with the child, offer the child love, time and support. And then there’s child B, whose caregivers have a hundred other responsibilities, they are stressed about food, about money, about their own survival, or whatever else you know. They lose their temper with the child, they are scared to verbalise or talk with the child because of social or cultural factors. There is a significant difference in the way these two children arrive at school – A is secure, the mind is open to and capable of learning. B is insecure, the child’s cognitive abilities are actually hampered or diminished as a result of this security, making school and learning a challenge.
Recently, I received some feedback on Navchetana from some department or official – that it was too simple. I think this, actually is the secret sauce to the early years, it is to keep it simple for the child and for the caregivers. To isolate a few critical things, responsive caregiving and opportunities for early learning – in this case, and keep that at the centre. And to design around it.
To summarise – if adopted in the right spirit, it has the potential to reduce stress for children during later years of schooling.
Q: What advice would you give to educators and the Rocket Learning team for making a big impact in education?
I think the same thing that I said before, to stay humble, curious and agile.
Q: What was one challenge you faced at Rocket Learning, and how did you overcome it?
Several, I think. But one that stood out to me as a creator or designer is the tension between what I have studied, or read and believe to be ‘right’ vs what the user wants. I think we came across this challenge in practically everything we have ever created at Rocket Learning – it’s a blessing the day both these elements align. And truthfully I think there is no perfect answer in these situations, eventually one has to make a choice in order not to be paralysed, but what it did teach me to do was to listen more and to listen better.
A couple of examples – detailed lesson plans for teachers vs short bite, short-term rewards, English language.
Q: Can you share a memorable success story or impact story from your time at Rocket Learning?
There’s been so many, honestly. Rocket has achieved so much over the last 4 years. I’ll speak about a more recent success maybe – for as long as I can remember we have had conversations at Rocket Learning about wanting to gather on-going evidence of learning for our children. To explain this a little bit, children within any group learn at different times, in different ways and at a different pace and when the learning program is designed at a class average it becomes rather difficult to address the needs of these varied learners. So we tried several experiments to gather good learning data. We first created a quiz chatbot, which in terms of engagement was a large success. But what we learned was that the learning data from these assessments did not show sufficient variation pointing towards the fact that parents were often answering the questions and were afraid of their child giving ‘wrong’ answers. The most recent experiment in this regard was the hybrid learning app which sends out digital learning games. The assumption was that the game-like environment, if designed effectively, could eliminate this fear of wrong answers. I am extremely thrilled to say, that after 3 pilots now with several design iterations, we were finally able to collect some varied and rich learning data. I’m incredibly excited by the prospect of this, given it is possibly one of the only solutions that exists in India that can gather this kind of data at scale. This opens up extraordinary possibilities for understanding the status quo of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in our country.