Tanaya Vyas
Field visits are wonderful learning opportunities. However, if the students are not aware of what to expect during the visit, there will be little or no learning. Here are a few things you should keep in mind before planning a field trip for your students.
Month: January 2022
Teacher education and NCTE regulations
Zayan
Improving teacher education is one of the promises made in NEP 2020. One of the first steps towards realizing this objective is the launch of a four-year Integrated Teacher Education Programme (ITEP). This four-year programme, however, is not a novel idea. Here’s taking a look at ITEP and two other four-year teacher education programmes through the National Council of Teacher Education’s regulations.
Building collaborative ideation
Anisha Malhotra Dalvi
Most problems in the world today need creative solutions. We need to train our children to start thinking differently so that they can come up with unique solutions to the world’s problems. Here are a couple of simple ideas that will not only help your students think creatively but also encourage collaborative ideation.
What colour do you see?
Sheel
Colours bring our world alive. We are naturally attracted towards them. We are more likely to pick the most orange of carrots on the vegetable cart or the deepest red rose from a bush. Colours impact our moods, colours delight us. The natural world uses colour to both attract and hide. Go on this most fascinating journey of the physics, biology, language and art of colours with your students.
Plants that care for you
Nandini D
The purple coloured tincher plant to help heal a wound or the tulsi to boost your immunity. What garden would you like to grow this month? A croma garden or a self-help garden?
Bolstering conceptual understanding
Aruna Sankaranarayanan
Being a teacher takes a lot more than being an expert in the subject you teach. A knowledge of good educational practices, an understanding of the different theories in education and an insight into a child’s way of thinking are as essential if not more to be a good teacher. Teacher Plus brings you another new column, where the author will discuss books on education – classic and contemporary. We hope this column will ignite the reader in the teacher and help her grow in her profession.
What’s the deal with the EdTech boom?
Anuradha C
COVID may have hit many industries hard, but one industry actually prospered because of the pandemic—the Ed Tech industry. The fact that learning apps are sponsoring sports teams and are booking prime time TV ad slots is enough to tell us how fast and how much this industry has grown over the last two years. What are the pros and cons of this development?
Johnstone’s approach to understanding gas laws
S. Athavan Alias Anand
Chemistry is a subject that needs to be understood at three levels — macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic — if any learning has to take place. Our current pedagogical practices take care of the macroscopic and symbolic aspects of learning chemistry. With little or no microscopic understanding of chemistry, our students are not able to engage with the subject at a deeper level. Here’s how to use Johnstone’s (who first proposed the three level understanding) Triangle to teach chemistry.
Forests – an introduction
Geetha Iyer
When we think of forests, the mind’s eye conjures up a lush green world, where the Panchatantra tales played out, where animals rule, where there is a little bit of mystery but mostly magic. But forests lose all their charm in school, where children learn about different types of forests from their definitions. If we want our children to care for forests and think about their conservation, we need to bring back that charm of the forests. Here are some interesting ways of teaching forests.
Talking inclusion
Timira
“Special” or differently-abled people are as much a part of this world as are the able-bodied; it is time that they felt included and at home in a world that is now largely meant for “normal” people. As teachers we have to nurture an empathetic and sensitive generation by introducing small changes to our pedagogical approaches so that tomorrow we can create a truly inclusive and understanding world.