Behind the Business: An interview with Lift Lessons co-founder Caroline Schaal

Written by Ilana Pearce

It’s been a busy few weeks for the Lift Lessons team following the launch of their home learning resources. In these uncertain times of online classes and social distancing, it is more important than ever that we can provide children with educational tools to support their study outside the classroom. It is the passion to create these resources which has driven co-founder Caroline Schaal, who shares with us the story behind Lift Lessons.

How was Lift Lessons created?

Caroline Schaal: “My co-founder, Andrea, and I were working in a school where she was the manager of the Additionally Resourced Provision (ARP), for students with speech, language and communication needs. We both taught the amazing students in the ARP and we really needed a digital way to assist our teaching. We needed it particularly in science, where we were trying to communicate quite abstract ideas.

As teachers, we are used to hunting high and low for resources but we couldn't find what our students needed - so we decided to build it ourselves. We have been incredibly fortunate to have had a huge amount of help and encouragement from our advisors along the way which convinced us to keep going. We tried to continue teaching at the same time for a while, but being a teacher is really hard work! It was tough to manage the workload so we made the decision to focus on Lift Lessons for the moment.”

"We couldn't find what our students needed - so we decided to build it ourselves." - Caroline Schaal, Co-Founder of Lift Lessons

Who is Lift Lessons for?

CS: “Lift Lessons was designed in collaboration with Speech and Language therapists. The methods we use support students with the technical language that they need. At the moment we have focused on science vocabulary but we will be branching into other subjects in the future. Lift Lessons will give parents and caregivers a tool that their child can use independently, without too much intervention from the adult. The vocabulary in our resources is geared towards students aged 6-14, whose aim is to learn science while practising literacy.”

What challenges do you think parents and caregivers are facing as a result of social distancing?

CS: “I’ve had many conversations with parents and caregivers recently and I really feel for them. There is so much pressure at the moment to be everything to your child. You’re not only taking care of them, you’re having to get them through a really stressful period. It’s isolating and they’re also having to take on some of the responsibility for education so it’s not easy.

I think it is really important to be aware of the specific challenges for students with speech, language and communication needs. For example, in a classroom of 30, 2 of those students are likely to have DLD, Developmental Language Disorder, a very common speech and language communication need. DLD affects how children understand and use language. There are some really incredible parents and caregivers on social media who are talking about these specific challenges. There are many speech and language therapists and SEN educators publishing advice guides to help with the covid-19 situation.”

Here are some links which parents and caregivers might find helpful.

Supporting students with SEN during lockdown – Jules Daulby's notes from a Podcast with Craig Barton
Ellen, a young woman with Developmental Language Disorder, gives her tips for the lockdown
RADLD, resources for raising awareness about Developmental Language Disorder
Parents highlight what educators should learn before the period of social distancing ends

How has Lift Lessons adapted its resources to help out learners during the current emergency?

"Lift Lessons will give parents and caregivers a tool that their child can use independently." - Caroline Schaal

CS: “We have ended up pivoting completely. We’re still developing an online tool for educators to use, but when social distancing was announced we wanted to provide something to support as many students as possible at home. Throughout April and May we are giving away free access to our home learning platform with resources to try.”

Do you think what you've learned from Lift Lessons will influence how you teach?

CS: “From the beginning of Lift Lessons I’ve thought ‘I can’t lose at this. This is something that’s interesting and that’s teaching me a lot.’ I’ve learned so much. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some amazing people who have taught me huge amounts, things which might have taken me a long time to learn. When developing Lift Lessons I have been learning and researching all the time about what techniques are most effective and I’ve been able to do some really in-depth analysis on teaching strategies. This has been really invaluable time.”

What learning strategies did you use when creating the Lift Lessons videos?

CS: “This is something I get really excited about and I start to talk in really technical teacher speak! There’s a range of strategies which we know are tried and tested, published in peer reviewed research, and really effective. Because Andrea and I are teachers, we’ve implemented a lot of these strategies in the classroom as well. We use techniques like dual coding, spaced repetition and explicit vocabulary instruction. 

I’ll explain a couple of strategies we have found really effective. We’ll ask children to draw a word in a way that represents the word’s meaning. For example the noun ‘compression’ being squashed, so that the definition is more memorable. Research also shows that students need multiple meaningful exposures to a term to really remember it, which is what our questions and use of spaced repetition are designed to do."

 

"One strategy is to try to draw a word in a way that represents the word’s meaning." - Caroline Schaal

Can you draw the word 'amplitude', or 'volume', to give a clue to what the word means?

What do you think is in store for Lift Lessons in future?

CS: ”Well, we just launched this home learning platform and it’s already in 17 countries, so I hope that we can continue helping students all over the world! We are also working really hard on a site for teachers with much more functionality. You can sign up for a free trial on our website.