Bharath and I did this visit today - we visited 2 schools where the intervention has already been done (the program ended this March). We also spoke to TTF about some of the queries you had. We were accompanied by Prakash, Padma and Amrita from TTF for the school visits.
Site Visit carried out by:
Deepak Azad - deepakazad@gmail.com
Bharath Sethuraman - bharath.sethuraman@gmail.com
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This visit focused on visiting schools that have worked with TTF and the TSA project in the past (the pilot), and getting feedback from them.
Also, understanding TTF better as an organization, their methodology etc.
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The 2 schools were
- Citizens school - This school is in existence since 1970s and the owner, Mr Khan, is also the principal and is actively involved in the day to day activities. The school has about 1000 students, in standard 1-10. The intervention was done for classes 1-5.
- National school - This school was started in 1995 and the owner is a businessman who owns 2 other educational institutions which are more profitable and hence he is hardly involved in the day to day activities of this school. However the school principal, Shabana, is very passionate about bringing a change in the school and also teaches 5 standard. This school is till 7th standard, and has only 1 section in each standard.

Both the schools were roughly similar to the one I had visited in March.

Talk to heads and teachers
Teachers and heads of both schools liked the TTF program and had mostly good things to say about it. In both schools there is a core group of 'mentors' (or senior teachers), the heads are also a mentor and have undergone the TTF program.
- Citizens school -
According to Mr Khan, the program helped the school get more organized and systematic. Earlier the teachers would just go and teach, however after undergoing the TTF program there is systematic planning on what to teach and how to teach. Mr Khan discusses with the other mentors on a weekly basis on how things are going, what are the things being taught, how are they taught etc. Each mentor and a few teachers (assigned to that mentor) also discuss in a group fresh ideas on how to improve. Each standard has 3 sections, the 'leisure' period for each section happen at the same time, so that the 3 teachers can get together and discuss ideas. New teachers who join the school are also taken through a 'hand holding or guidance' phase where a mentor observes their classes and suggests improvements, tells the new teacher about the practices at the school etc. All these processes started with the TTF program.

We spoke with 4 teachers at this school, one of them was a mentor. They said that earlier they used to just 'lecture' the students, but now they involve students much more for e.g. they conduct group activities like one group forms a set of questions and another group has to find answers to them, role playing for stories etc. They also try to make sure that the slow learners/dull students are involved in these activities. The also form detailed 'lesson plans', that is for each 40 minute class they plan what to teach, how to teach, how to assess and make sure what they assess is aligned with what they teach. So in a 40 minute period, the first 5 minutes are for 'energizing' the students, there is 20 minutes of learning, and the rest of time is spent between the students applying the learning by some means and also the teacher assessing what the students have learned.

Attrition - Mr Khan said, that it is not really a big problem. The school has 40 teachers, 6 of them left at the end of 1st year of TTF program. A few of them left because they were about to become mothers, a few left because they felt the TTF program was a burden and a lot more work (Almost every teacher in both the schools admitted that in the first year it did appear as a burden.)

Continuing with the program - TTF has a 'sustenance' program. which costs significantly lesser than the main program (40k-90k per year - not sure if I remember this correctly). The 2 year intervention was totally paid for by TTF (who in turn got the funds from Susan and Dell foundation), however the sustenance program will be paid for by the school. Mr Khan is planning to join this sustenance program for a year, and will evaluate the need for further continuation at the end of the year.

Infrastructure - A 'resource center' has been setup at this school (it serves 4-5 nearby schools as well). This center contains a number of teaching aids and material for teachers. (I will send you a few pics). TTF paid for these teaching aids and material, and Mr Khan paid for the room, painting, cupboards etc. A library for students and a computer center has also been set up at this school (will send few pics). Part of the funds for this came from TTF and a part from the school (I don't know the split).

- National school
Here we spoke with the head and 2 mentors. Ms Shabana, echoed the thoughts of Mr Khan about becoming more systematic. She said that even before the teachers were doing a good job and the results were good, but now there has been an improvement in student interaction in classes. A teacher mentioned that earlier they used to have 'revisions'  before the exams which were essentially equivalent to telling the students a bunch of questions and answers, the exam paper would be set from the these questions only. Also during the exams they will read out the questions and maybe explain the question a bit and provide 'hints'. Now all this has stopped. Even the kind of questions they ask in the exams has changed. Earlier the answers could be found directly in the books, now for some questions the students have to apply their mind. They even showed us question papers - both before and now. I could see some improvement in them. Bharath should have more details on the question papers as he looked over them more carefully than I did :)

We also saw their 'lesson plan' booklets (will send a few pics), in which they describe in great detail on how a 40 minute class should take place. I assume Citizens school also uses the same lesson planner but there we did not ask for them. The booklets are provided by TTF.

Attrition - Again not a problem. A few teachers have been going on long maternity leaves, including one mentor we met. But they plan to return to the school.

Continuing with the program -  Ms Shabana is keen on continuing with the sustenance program, but she has to convince the school owner about it as the owner has to invest funds for this.

=> All in all it looked to me that the schools made some sort of a progress while working with TTF.

While driving back from the schools Prakash gave this example - a teacher (in one of the high end schools TTF has worked with) had to discuss a poem on Rain in class 8 or 9. She started of by playing 'November rain' in the class :)

Talk to TTF
TTF has about 48 people working in Bangalore, out of which 3 are in 'content' team and 1 person is in 'research', meaning they prepare 90% of the content in-house. They base their content on widespread teaching methodologies (I presume there are research papers and such things for the field of education, Prakash citied a few examples of the methodologies/ideas they have used.) We in fact also sat in the 'content' team's room at the TTF office for a while, and I could see 2 people working on creating some content there. I will fwd you an email by Amrita with sample material - if you need more she can probably just email more stuff :)  I have not gone through the samples.

The material cost includes things like, the lesser planner booklets, worksheets, cost to photocopy print materials, folders etc. Do you need a detailed breakup ? I think Prakash can probably provide that, he mentioned that he had answered a similar question in an email in march, but he can give more details if needed.

Almost all the trainers have some sort of background in teaching - class room experience, training in education etc OR are subject matter experts in e.g. maths, english etc. There are about 8-10 people in TTF who have been in teaching for about 10-15 years. Others have lesser experience. Amrita for instance did Masters in education from Harvard (yes, Harvard!) and has about 2 years of experience in teaching.

TTF does not have any planned sessions in private affordable schools in the next couple of weeks (as the schools are on a break). However they do have 1 or 2 sessions in slightly upper end schools - Prakash said the sessions are somewhat similar. I can try to attend one if needed.
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Other observations:
the following observations:

1.  Teachers at both the schools told us that the slow-learners have shown a considerable improvement in terms of class participation and test performance after the intervention by TTF. They told us that before the intervention, they used to treat the slow-learners in a negative manner and after getting training from TTF they are engaging these children in an interactive way and encouraging them to come up with answers. This has led to a attitudinal change in children towards learning as they are now more interested to learn.

2. I looked at the question papers at the National English School before and after TTF intervention. I could compare only the Hindi papers of 2009 and 2010 as the papers of English and Maths were not there in the 2010 set. It seemed to me that the papers of 2010 ( after TTF intervention ) had more questions that were aimed at bringing out answers from children rather than the usual rote-learning type questions. For instance, in the 2009 Hindi paper, there was a question that asked children to simply name 3 vegetables whereas in the 2010 paper, there were pictures of vegetables and children were asked to write their names. It would be good if you could ask TTF to send you the papers of Maths,English and EVS ( TTF intervention was done in these subjects ) at one of the schools before and after the intervention so that we could have a look at them too.

3. I looked at an English lesson plan of a story lesson for class IIIrd at the National English School. It contained a description of the teaching objectives, the way the lesson has to be taught and what activities the children have to do during and after the lesson. Similarly, there were lesson plans for English and EVS for classes I and II also. As Deepak mentioned, these lesson plans have been prepared with an attention to details.The teachers at both the schools told us that they were exposed to the concept of a lesson plan only after TTF intervention and that it has helped them considerably in teaching in a planned manner and thereby utilizing the class time effectively.    

4. One issue on which I couldn't get a specific response from the TTF team was about how the schools would carry on after TTF's intervention stops. They told us that they have put processes in place so that teaching continues in the new way. However, what exactly these processes are and how TTF would monitor and ensure the adherence of the school management to these processes still needs to be determined. 

On the whole it appeared to me that TTF is doing a good job in improving the quality of learning in the schools by training the teachers. The TTF team seems to be dedicated to their objectives. I was especially impressed by Padma's ( A TTF member who accompanied us to the schools ) enthusiasm towards TTF's work.