Is online learning redefining education? A discussion

Ananya Pathak
Today are we witnessing a changing world of education. While this change has been forced upon us, it certainly seems like this new way of transacting teaching-learning is here to stay in some form or other. So how do we prepare for it?

Showing the soft side

Usha Raman
In the pre-pandemic days life was always rushed. We never stopped to think about anyone or anything. Today, the pandemic has consumed all our lives and changed the way we do things. Amidst all the adversities, it has also provided us with opportunities to learn new things about ourselves; it has shown us that in many ways we are all the same. Hopefully our new realizations will help us create more empathetic and understanding living and learning spaces.

Possibilities of play

Akhila Khanna and Devika Bedi
Your students are as young as five and six. Already trapped inside their homes, they may not be the ideal students that you looked forward to. In these days of online education, how can we keep these children meaningfully engaged? How can we harness their energies? Process drama can help students and teachers bond as they discover and learn so many things together – creative skills, articulation, critical thinking, problem solving, etc.

Crumbs of learning to show us the way

Ardra Balachandran
It has been more than a year since education moved online and it continues to be the primary means of transacting teaching and learning even today. This sudden and forcible shift has been anything but easy for students and teachers. We have heard from every stakeholder about the challenges, shortcomings and other difficulties involving online education; of how teachers and students are looking forward to sharing the same physical space of a classroom again. And as we hope to rejoin our teachers and students soon, Teacher Plus decided to find out if teachers have learnt any lessons from their online teaching experience that they would like to take back to their brick and mortar classrooms.

“Opening” up a school library

Anuradha Pachanooru
Discover the excitement, enthusiasm and learnings that a library can pass on when used properly. This is the story of the transformation of a school library from a neglected storeroom to an active and vibrant learning space.

Private tuitions and the pandemic

Sumbul Danish
The world has turned topsy-turvy for everyone. The pandemic has touched everyone in some way or other. Here is focusing the light on private tutors.

The importance of untruth

Prakash Iyer
As teachers we have not done our job if our students simply take our word and believe something to be true. We need to train our students to imagine, hypothesize, predict and then arrive at a conclusion about any piece of knowledge before assimilating it to be true or not. Then we have done our job as teachers.

Learning about pandemics while living through one

Shruti Singhal
Pandemics are no longer something we used to read about in history. We are living through one right now and perhaps that is why it is also the best time to learn more about them and from them. These are difficult, exhausting and trying times but learning more about pandemics while experiencing one needn’t be hopeless and dark. Here are a few ways of how you can make the subject interesting and worthwhile for your students.

Flight or fight?

Devika Nadig
Another journey, another visit to a holy shrine, another adventure. This time the author is in the state of Gujarat, visiting a school in a Reliance township to train teachers in the best strategies for teaching mathematics. What does she encounter on this trip?