Philippines’ Department of Education closes learning gap for young learners using Microsoft Teams

Need to close the learning gap

Understanding that literacy is an important key to unlocking the world of learning, the DepEd declared November as National Reading Month in 2011. Since then, the DepEd has celebrated the month with various activities such as weekly reading sessions with reading ambassadors. 

On the back of the results of the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the DepEd increased its focus on programs that drive literacy. To solve the issue, the DepEd recognized that teachers had to understand the learners’ learning difficulties—text pronunciation and familiarization, reading speed, and accuracy—in order to improve literacy. The learners’ varying needs and proficiency levels also presented a need for a tool that could create individualized learning approaches that cater to diverse learning requirements. 

These challenges doubled when the pandemic occurred. Everything from lesson delivery to assessment and feedback had to be delivered virtually. It became even more difficult to provide personalized instructions to 23 million learners nationwide. Additionally, the DepEd had to develop and manage the reading and instruction materials based on online and offline sources. 

Fostering a culture of reading among the learners in such a situation seemed like an uphill task. But not even the pandemic could dampen the DepEd’s spirits, and it rose to the occasion with new vigor and determination. 

Preparing for Reading Month

For 2021’s Reading Month, the DepEd developed a strategic partnership with Microsoft and built a series of customized activities using different Microsoft tools, including Reading Progress. The partnership gave birth to engaging gamified activities for learners such as Flow Reading, virtual storytelling, and the National Reading Cup competition. 

The DepEd embarked on modernizing teaching methods to adapt to the changes. This effort required teachers to undergo training and preparation. Microsoft helped DepEd through a series of capacity-building sessions for teachers and parents, highlighting effective strategies such as storytelling, read-aloud activities, and shared reading among families, enhanced by tools like PowerPoint Recorder, Microsoft Teams, and Reading Progress. 

The application was built into Microsoft Teams to help learners enhance skills through proactive, independent reading. “Through Reading Progress, learners can independently read aloud, record themselves, and improve their reading skills, while empowering teachers to better support them in their learning progress,” said Diosdado San Antonio, Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction at DepEd.

“The Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams allows us to analyze where each learner is, in terms of their reading advancement and improvements,” Areola adds. “We can measure the fluency of our learners through automatically generated reports. Previously we could only focus on reading comprehension, but with this tool, teachers have insights on mispronounced, repeated, omitted, or added words by the learner. Another important outcome of introducing Reading Progress was that it helped generate interest among parents. This is good news for us as we empower parents to track learners’ reading progress even at home.”

A highly successful virtual event

Together with Microsoft, the DepEd introduced Reading Progress in November 2021. Reading Month was a success and proved that extensive virtual activities could drive interest and engage educators, parents, and learners. “We realized that with the right content and proper use of technology, we can have a higher number of virtual participants that include not only teachers and learners but parents and community volunteers as well. We reached 400,000 participants with 3,500 learner outputs from all regions during the Reading Cup activity. It makes one thing very clear: we need to keep using this technology,” Areola shares. 

A permanent addition to learners’ curriculum

Reading Progress has received positive reception and feedback from DepEd teachers, learners, and parents. So much so that the DepEd’s Curriculum and Instruction Strand will be integrating Microsoft Teams and Reading Progress into learners’ curriculum as an educational tech tool to support learners’ skills. This is expected to improve the country's ranking in the 2022 cycle of PISA. Having Reading Progress as an educational tool also means teachers are now equipped to help differently-abled learners, such as those with dyslexia. In the future, DepEd plans to further support the deaf, learners with visual impairment, and other learners with disabilities through the Immersive Reader tool.

“Today, there are a lot of ways to improve teaching and learning outcomes,” Areola concludes. “We will continue to make learning fun and impactful as we explore various ways of using technology to address our learners' needs.”