Microsoft’s TEALS Program Gets a Tech Upgrade to Expand Computer Science Education
Software engineers from Microsoft and other companies are passionate about sharing their expertise in high schools throughout the United States and parts of Canada. The TEALS (Technology Education and Learning Support) program, a grassroots initiative, has been successfully cultivating computer science education for over a decade. So popular has the program become that its administrators needed to rebuild their operational infrastructure from the ground up.
The program, experiencing growing pains, required a solution to scale its impact. Fortunately, it didn’t need to look far; Microsoft Azure provided the answer. The goal of the TEALS program is to prepare high school students for careers in computer science.
“We’ve finally got the scale that we’ve been looking for. Technology is no longer a limiting factor for us.” – Ganesh Shankaran, principal software engineering lead, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience
To address the program’s rapid expansion, Microsoft recently revamped the TEALS Operational Platform, known as TOP. The new TOP, built on Microsoft Azure, allows TEALS regional managers to incorporate significantly more schools, which will enable the company to place many more volunteer software engineers in classrooms.
“We’ve finally got the scale that we’ve been looking for,” says Shankaran. “Technology is no longer a limiting factor for us.”
With the improvements to TOP, Microsoft can better achieve its philanthropic goals, opening doors to technology careers for students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields across the United States and British Columbia.
The Need for TEALS
Since the dawn of the Information Age, there has been a shortage of computer science professionals. Although many colleges offer relevant degrees, there is a scarcity of pre-college computer science education. In the United States, some states even mandate computer science classes for all students, yet resources to support teachers are limited.
Microsoft’s TEALS program aims to address this growing need.
“In the USA, there are even state laws mandating that every student needs to take a computer science class to graduate, yet there are few resources in place to ensure that teachers can successfully deliver the instruction,” says Emily Fishkind, a senior product manager in Microsoft Digital Employee Experience. “Microsoft’s TEALS program strives to address this ever-growing need.”
Eleven years ago, the Microsoft Philanthropies team adopted TEALS, starting as a small pilot project in a single school. The aim was to bring computer science education to as many high schools as possible, but the necessary management tools to enable such expansion simply did not exist.
Building Scalability on Microsoft Azure
Kip Fern, now a senior program manager lead in the Microsoft Philanthropies Operations team, was one of the original TEALS classroom volunteers. He led the design of TOP, a customized solution built on Microsoft Azure for regional managers to run TEALS.
Over the next few years, the team consistently implemented new features and improvements. “The program would change and add new requirements, which made us add new features on a continuous basis,” Fern explains.
However, with the program’s rapid growth, modifications were no longer sufficient. TOP needed a complete overhaul.
“This growth paired with our inability to scale within our legacy system, posed significant risk to the overall efficiency of our regional managers’ day-to-day operations,” says Fishkind. “Shifting to the new architecture not only addresses compliance issues, but it also helps our primary customers—the folks who make the TEALS program run—more efficient.”
Three years ago, Microsoft leadership aimed to extend TEALS to over 600 new schools with a focus on African American students, but the legacy TOP couldn’t support this directive. TOP was approaching obsolescence and lacked support; it had over 500 bugs and needed accessibility improvements, in addition to poor performance with the increasing volume of data.
“The TOP legacy system was at risk of breaking down, posing significant risk to the program’s operations along with system security, reliability, and availability,” says Fishkind. Crucially, it could not scale. The original TOP, which enabled the program’s initial development, was now hindering further growth and impact.
Architecting TOP vNext
Shankaran describes the legacy TOP as an outdated system posing security risks in comparison. Microservices enable TEALS to avoid total system breakdowns since each component operates independently. Even if one component experiences issues, the others can continue functioning. “This independence not only increases system reliability but also facilitates efficient testing and maintenance processes,” says Shankaran.
TOP vNext’s robust integration with Microsoft Azure Service Bus and other internal message handlers creates a secure bridge between the system and external platforms like TEALSK12—a convenient application allowing regional managers to monitor, update, and access key information in real-time through seamless data exchange across systems.
“It is absolutely better; it is faster; it is more resilient. It has a cleaner user interface now.” – Kip Fern, senior program manager lead, Operations, Microsoft Philanthropies
The sheer size of the TEALS data set requires optimal performance when loading on the grid. Leveraging the power of Microsoft Azure Cognitive Search, TOP vNext delivers lightning-fast API response times, under a millisecond. This ensures efficient access to the large amounts of data at the core of the TEALS system.
Benefits of the New TOP
The new program is superior in every aspect. “It is absolutely better; it is faster; it is more resilient,” says Fern. “It has a cleaner user interface now.”
Scalability for TEALS is now greater than ever. With an improved UI, enhanced performance, and increased efficiency, TOP vNext gives regional managers more time to integrate new schools, improve curricula, and handle the increased data. “It’s blazing fast,” says Shankaran.
With the improved speed of TOP, regional managers can devote less time to tooling. The time savings translates to more students benefiting from the TEALS program.
“If a regional manager can do one more school, that means on average we’ll impact 2,425 more students each year,” says Fern.
“TOP is engineered to meet our scaling needs. It’s now a high performing system that simplifies our regional manager experience.” – Ganesh Shankaran, principal software engineering lead, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience
As TOP vNext can handle increased data loads, regional managers can now support as many schools as they desire. Moving forward, MDEE and TEALS will be able to implement features into TOP, by using the feedback received from stakeholders. The new TOP platform allows for continuous iteration, including a feedback system between TEALS volunteers, regional managers, and stakeholders.
“TOP is engineered to meet our scaling needs,” says Shankaran. “It’s now a high performing system that simplifies our regional manager experience.”
“Its cognitive capability is playing a big part in bringing these experiences alive,” he says.
Key Takeaways
- Legacy programs often fail to keep up with program needs, especially as new features and capacities are added.
- Moving to the cloud empowers you to scale efforts while also giving your solution extensibility.
- Microservices architecture is a prevalent style for building applications that are independently deployable, immensely scalable, and easy to test and modify.
- Including users in your feedback loop is the only way to ensure a solution empowers productivity and creates an impact.
- Feature parity takes time, but if you’ve identified core capabilities, it’s possible to roll out a new solution without creating significant disruption.
