Teaching and Learning Moments with Teacher Plus

Teaching and Learning Moments with Teacher Plus is a programme on education and various aspects of teaching and learning in and outside the classroom. With new episodes every week and different guest speakers coming in and sharing their experiences and Read More …

Dangerous times, dangerous spaces

Usha Raman

The recent Peshawar tragedy has forced us to ask some questions. Have places of education become unsafe? Are children living in violent times? How can children trust their teachers? While the Peshawar massacre is an outcome of politics between nation states, the violence that happens within school spaces needs to be tackled. For this, children need to be educated about their own safety and given physical and intellectual tools to protect themselves.

Negative thinking for positive results

Sinny Mole

Rules in math learned without understanding are the root cause of many misconceptions that children have. For instance, when teaching negative numbers, teachers must ensure that children master the concepts and for this a familiarity with vocabulary is essential. Numbers are abstract for some children but when the numbers have meaning or relevance to their own lives, it becomes easy to understand. Here are some activities that simplify the concept of negative numbers.

Fun with patterns and ideas

Yasmin Jayathirtha

Have you tried puzzle templates, anagrams, crossword puzzles, mazes and word searches to make your chemistry class both fun and doable ? If your children find it hard to remember the details like formulae, names, terms etc in chemistry, here are simple and effective ways you can change your class from being boring to being a lot of fun.

No mantra for motivation

Aditi Mathur and Ratnesh Mathur

Does external motivation really work? According to the authors, it rarely works and instead, they suggest internal motivation. The best way to do this is to provide an environment for children that will make them feel motivated from inside. Read on to get a few tips.

Round and round about

Sheel

Can you think of a number of objects that are round in shape? If you care to look around, you will find them everywhere in all the utility tasks that you do on an everyday basis. Our theme for the Project this time is Wheels. From mathematics to language to art, the wheel and its circular motion is present. Read up this interesting article and get your class to do a project on wheels.

Short on time

Manaswini Sridhar
How can children at the primary level be taught life skills and study skills that will guide them throughout their lives? Most of the concepts related to these skills need to be taught in a way that children will understand and appreciate. This can be best done through games and activities and not through abstract lectures. A few games are discussed in this article.

A slide, a saviour, a solution

Geetha Durairajan
A small, yet important incident in a park where children play sparks an idea for this article on human-centredness.

Before the bell rings

Wrapping up a lesson at the end of a class can sometimes be disappointing. More often than not, children are in a hurry to leave and they can be seen chatting with their friends while the teacher tries in vain to get some answers out of them. Here are a few five- minute activities that can effectively wrap up a lesson.

Multi-threaded math

Ragini Ramalingam
Is mathematics only about numbers? Is it too abstract? How can one get interested in this subject? This article explains why mathematics can be a life-changer and how it is linked to other sciences.