Back to School

The first day of the class sets the tone for the rest of the term. It is natural for both students and teachers to feel anticipation, excitement, anxiety, and uncertainty. To reduce students’ anxiety and uncertainty, try to create a relaxed, open classroom environment conducive to inquiry and participation, and let students know what you will expect from them and what they can expect from you and the course. Students do better in class both academically and socially when they are comfortable, relaxed, and “at home”. For the first day, plan an activity that provides opportunities for students to speak to one another or solve problems. Students also tend to work harder and respond more positively if they believe the teacher views them as individuals rather than as anonymous faces in the crowd. Here are some great ideas and exciting activities which you might like to try with your class, it will give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to students and students to their classmates.

Group Sharing
Have each student share with the group the best thing he or she did during the summer, his or her biggest fear or biggest hope for the new school year, and so on. You can supply the list of topics.

Design a T-shirt
Have each student design a T-shirt press-on that talks about himself or herself. Invite each student to display and explain the design to rest of the class.

Wall of Fame
Make a bulletin board where the students can display their things they want to share with others. The students can maintain this bulletin board throughout the year.

“Ours is a long vacation of 50 days. A time to refresh, enjoy and study as well.

After we all come back to school afresh with shining faces, we participate in a debate - ‘Summer Vacations are Useless’. It is unbelievable, how many novel points the students usually come up with. Points to be paid heed of - both in support and against the motion are usually noted. Summer camp in the school itself is a demand from both the sides”.

-Arundhoti Roy Choudhury, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Ballygunge, Kolkata

Explore, Celebrate and share - ASSET WEEK 2010

We believe that being part of the ASSET community is not just about taking the test, but about celebrating learning and nurturing talent. Based on the success of last year’s ASSET WEEK in which more than 300 schools participated, we again present you – an entire week jam-packed with activities, contests and prizes leading up to the ASSET test.

The purpose of the ASSET WEEK celebrations is to highlight the role of ASSET in improving learning at the individual student’s level as well as at the school level amongst students, parents and teachers. The week-long celebrations also aim to help students build interest in the test and understand its value.

We hope that schools will enthusiastically participate in the ASSET WEEK activities, win contests and sweep away a number of prizes!

We will be sending an invitation kit to schools in the month of July along with a list of activities and details about the contest. Schools would need to follow the instructions given in the kit, perform the activities and update their report on www.assetweek.com

The winners will be awarded with prizes and recognized. All the participating schools will get a certification of appreciation from us. Moreover, based on the report of activities, winners will be selected and awards given.

The prizes for the winners are:

For any query, do write to bindu@ei-india.com

Come, join and be a part of a fun-filled week!

ASSET Ambassador

Here is an opportunity for students to become a part of an online community of more than 1000 students across the country by becoming an ‘ASSET Ambassador’. The ASSET Ambassador can in turn invite students across ASSET schools of 2010 to be a part of this Endeavour. This new initiative will help students to build a community for students to share their experiences. The ‘ASSET Ambassador initiative’ aims to spread our vision of ‘learning with understanding’ amongst students and at the same time provide a platform for students to showcase their talent, share innovative ideas and network with peers across the country.

How Schools can participate?
Schools have to select two best students from classes 5 to 9. These selected students have to then upload a two minute video on www.assetweek.com, about Students who have to speak about what Learning with Understanding, what ASSET is and how ASSET helps students in learning with understanding?

The selected students will then be invited for a meet after which they would have to join an online community. These ambassadors from every school will get a chance to interact with ambassadors of other schools on an ongoing basis throughout the academic year and thereby build an active community of students sharing ideas, activities and best practices. Through posts on the ASSET Ambassador website, meets and other communication methods
ASSET Ambassadors will get a chance to be innovative and develop their leadership skills by learning from activities and practices shared by other students and getting them implemented in their own school. Thus, the ambassadors will not just be a role model for the students of their school, but will also act as a bridge between students and teachers across schools.
The ASSET Ambassador along with ASSET Week is coming to your school for an innovative and fun-filled week! Be a part of this these enriching week.

ASSET Photo Contest

We got an over whelming response for the ’ASSET Photography Contest’ with more than 160 entries from schools across the country. The contest was announced in the month of March and the contestants – students had to send their entries within one month’s time. The theme of the contest was ‘The beauty that surrounds us’ and ‘Kids in action’. Schools had to send three entries per school. The main objective of this contest was to cultivate students’ interest in photography and provide them a chance to discover and appreciate the beauty of nature and the activities surrounding them through lens.

“You have come up with a great idea of the photo competition for boosting the confidence of the budding photographers. Our school was very happy to receive an invite and have decided to take part in it.” - - TGES Riverside, Rajkot

Congratulations to all those who participated and to the winners.

The kids have put their heart and soul in capturing the images and becoming the part of this contest. All of them seem to be amateur photographers and will surely go on to become top photographers of our country.

Photography is a great medium to explore things around you. I think with digital cameras available students should experiment much more to understand colour, light. composition and how events can be captured in a single shot. I was particularly impressed how students were able to narrate stories in a picture. - Anar Shukla, Marketing Manager - Mindspark

Going through photographs, particularly photographs clicked by students - was a new experience :) It was difficult at times to believe that the photographs were taken by students of age less than 15! I think schools should consider photography as an optional subject like drawing and craft. – Nishchal Shukla, Educational Fellow, EI

Motivating Students

The process of motivation stems from stimulation, which in turn is followed by an emotional reaction that leads to a specific behavioural response. In the classroom, if a student’s behaviour is regarded as desirable and is rewarded, the positive reinforcement stimulates the student to repeat the desirable behaviour. Conversely, if a student’s behaviour is regarded as undesirable and the individual receives a response with a negative undertone, de-motivation results. Furthermore, anxiety and frustration often result if behaviour thought to be positive does not lead to proper recognition, reinforcement and rewards.

While educators can’t make or teach students to be self-motivated, they can encourage and promote this highly desirable personal trait. Generally, students will show some self-motivation if they: (a) know what is expected of them, (b) think the effort is worthwhile, and (c) feel they will benefit through effective performance. Teachers should take care of points mentioned below

Explain
Recent research shows that many students do poorly on assignments or in participation because they do not understand what to do or why they should do it. Teachers should spend more time explaining why we teach what we do, and why the topic or approach or activity is important and interesting and worthwhile. In the process, some of the teacher’s enthusiasm will be transmitted to the students, who will be more likely to become interested. Similarly, teachers should spend more time explaining exactly what is expected on assignments or activities. Students who are uncertain about what to do will seldom perform well.

Reward
Students who haven’t yet got a powerful intrinsic motivation to learn can be helped by extrinsic motivators in the form of rewards. Rather than criticizing unwanted behaviour or answers, reward correct behaviour and answers. Remember that adults and children alike continue or repeat behaviour that is rewarded. The rewards can (and should) be small and configured to the level of the students. Small children can be given a balloon, a piece of gum, or a set of crayons. Even at the college level, many professors at various colleges have given books, lunches, certificates, exemptions from final exams, verbal praise, and so on for good performance. Even something as apparently “childish” as a “Good Job!” stamp or sticker can encourage students to perform at higher levels. And the important point is that extrinsic motivators can, over a brief period of time, produce intrinsic motivation. Everyone likes the feeling of accomplishment and recognition; rewards for good work produce those good feelings.
Care
Students respond with interest and motivation to teachers who appear to be human and caring. Teachers can help produce these feelings by sharing parts of themselves with students, especially little stories of problems and mistakes they made, either as children or even recently. Such personalizing of the student/teacher relationship helps students see teachers as approachable human beings and not as aloof authority figures. Young people are also quite insecure, and they secretly welcome the admission by adults that insecurity and error are common to everyone. Students will attend to an adult who appears to be a “real person,” who had problems as a youth (or more recently) and survived them.

It is also a good idea to be approachable personally. Show that you care about your students by asking about their concerns and goals. What do they plan to do in the future? What things do they like? Such a teacher will be trusted and respected more than one who is all business.

Mindspark Principal Seminar - Indore

There have been lot of talks about how the future of education would be. Well education has to be personalized. A team of experts from Educational Initiatives recently did a seminar in Indore on ‘Adaptive Learning’. The seminar was aimed at spreading awareness on the changing scenario in education and how adaptive learning can help bridge the gaps in the current learning system. A total of 33 Schools participated in the seminar.

“A good try to the next generation as perfectionist”. - Mr. Shantanu, Correspondent, Raghuwansh Public School, Sendhwa

“It would help students in concept clearing”. -Mrs. Sangita Sood, Principal, Delhi International School, Indore

Mindspark Summer Program - Preventing Summer Loss

A research synthesis conducted by Cooper et al. (1996) integrated 39 studies examining the effects of the summer vacation on standardized achievement test scores. The metaanalysis
indicated that children’s tests scores when they returned to school in June-July, were lower than the scores they achieved when they left school in April-May.

Summer School is an alternative, but children would like to enjoy their summer and not worry about the pressures of school and subjects they might have had trouble with. They don’t want a Summer School, but they want a Summer Break. So, inorder to give an opportunity to students to enjoy their summer break with learning Mindspark’s Personalised Learning Program for a duration of two months was organised in Ahmedabad. More than 25 students participated in this programme.

Mindspark Team invited for conference at California

A Maths research group has invited Mr. Sridhar, the MD of Educational Initiatives to a conference in San Francisco. They wrote to us:
The conference is to bring together mathematicians and educators to talk about how to promote sense-making in mathematics at the school level. In the US there is a lot of concern that the testing that has been instituted over the last five to ten years has resulted in “teaching to the test”. Part of President Obama’s stimulus plan is to design new academic standards (the “Core Standards”); these emphasize conceptual understanding. The challenge now is to think about how to teach and test for real learning, not just memorization, in mathematics. The conference, while not restricted to the new standards, focuses on this issue. My understanding is that your organization is a leader in India in the area of testing for understanding. We would be honoured to have your participation in the conference, as I believe that the US has a lot to learn from you.

Sridhar along with Suchismita Srinivas (VP – Mindspark) and Anupriya Gupta (Educational Specialist) from EI will be attending the conference in June, 2010.

Mathematics - A Part of Life

Mathematics is essentially like a language and in some respects more then a language. Usually a language is a means of expressions and communication using written or spoken symbols, and by this criterion mathematics is a language, in fact a” language of complete abstraction”. But unlike ordinary language, Mathematics comprises “chains of logical reasoning”. Study of Math helps in developing the skill of quantification of experiences on real life. It promotes reasoning, abstract thinking and problem solving. There is hardly any school subject that does not have some relationship with Mathematics.

Every person irrespective of his/her status and vocation utilizes the knowledge of Mathematics in one way or the other. A housewife managing the family budget, the milkman who delivers milk and collects his dues after a month, the newspaperman who supplies the newspaper from door to door, the shopkeeper, the banker, the engineer, the farmer even the labourer use some knowledge of Mathematics in their professional and personal lives. The health of national economy touches every citizen’s life directly or indirectly. Illiteracy in Mathematics can be a tremendous handicap in effective management of money, as well as the property. The shape and structures of various objects, natural or manmade, adheres to and illustrates the principles of geometry. Patterns of change in natural phenomena e.g. seasons, rotation and revolution of planets etc. also illustrates mathematical principles.

Human culture and civilization at any time reflect the use of Mathematics. The entire design of the great pyramids rests on Mathematics .The concept of zero was formulated by ancient Indian Mathematicians and it led to place-value based number system. The famous Brihadshwara temple of Tanjore and the placement of its “kalash” would not have been possible without the knowledge of mathematics. The leaning tower of Pisa in Italy stands even today because of its mathematical design. Art, music, games and sports, poetry, painting, architecture, town planning etc. are Mathematics in different cultural settings and enhance its quality. There is hardly any school subject that does not have some relationship with Mathematics. Physics comes closest to Math and a good knowledge of Maths is a real asset in learning physics. All chemical reactions and combinations involve the use of Mathematics. Map-making; preparing population charts, studies of density of population in geography and study of Astronomy involve the use of Mathematics. At first sight Biology may not appear to be related to Math, but it in fact involves a fascinating use of Math- The volume of human body and of the blood in it, weight, size amount of oxygen we breathe in and the carbon dioxide we breathe out-all these involve the use of our knowledge of Maths. Mathematics can help us in understanding why there are no small animals in arctic regions - even the size of a penguin increases as one reaches the pole.

Thus knowledge of Mathematics improves one’s capacity to think and reason. The teaching and learning of Mathematics disciplines the mind. Thus as far as possible, the learning of Mathematics should be made a joyful activity for all the learners.

Contributed by Shivani Kotwal, Gyan Vihar School, Jaipur

Teacher’s Bite

Mr. Roshan Menezes
Administrator, Carmel institutions, Bangalore

The one thing that is constant in this world today is CHANGE. Education and teaching cannot remain static and has to move ahead with the changing times. Gone are the days, when one could speak about the good old times especially regarding teaching. We have to accept the fact that there is a generation gap. Teachers, now-a-days need to change their thought process when dealing with the present day students.

The basic methodology of teaching is taught at the university level, but for one to be an effective teacher, one needs to constantly upgrade his/her teaching skills by undergoing teacher development programmes. This calls for a very positive frame of mind, wherein the challenge is to first unlearn and then relearn newer methods of teaching. To be an educator is a vocation and not just a profession. A true educator must have a broad vision of his/her profession and its end result i.e. he/she should want the students to really learn and understand and not merely acquire bookish knowledge.

There needs to be a significant paradigm shift in the education system, although that is currently being addressed by the Govt. of India. The present day teacher needs to be technology enabled with an all inclusive approach. For this, the powers-to-be need to have a broad outlook and work towards empowering teachers. Herein lies the importance of teacher development programmes.

Preparing students for success in life is the fundamental goal of any progressive school. The teacher community is the most important factor in achieving learning outcomes and teacher quality is central to the improvement of the education system. Lots of advancements are occurring in the field of education. Focusing only on the classroom will not expose teachers to innovations in the education field. Regular teacher development programmes would help to bridge this gap and equip the teacher with the current teaching methodology, use of resource materials and teaching aids which are more apt for modern day learning. Teacher development programmes will thereby help to integrate what is happening around them and also add value to their skills.

Activity with the Newspaper

The newspaper has always been, and remains, an important resource in our lives. Introducing newspapers in the classroom can help students strengthen their comprehension and research skills. Community news keeps it relevant to the kids, enhancing motivation to discuss and learn more about what they are reading. Newspapers are extremely flexible and adaptable to all curriculum areas and grade levels. They bridge the gap between the classroom and the “real” world. They contain practical vocabulary and the best models of clear, concise writing. While the delivery format has changed and now includes electronic editions and websites, newspaper content reflects people’s needs and interests.

The newspaper can be a very useful resource to help students develop and apply reading skills because:
• The reader is already familiar with the content as it refers to local people, places and events.
• The newspaper contains linguistic and non-linguistic texts to inform the reader.
• The newspaper includes a variety of genres, discourse structures and visual elements.
• Newspaper activities encourage thinking at many different cognitive levels.
• The socio-cultural context is familiar because it reflects the reader’s daily life and experiences and serves the reader’s needs, making the newspaper a highly motivational text.
At least once every week, take a few minutes to tell students about something you enjoyed reading in the newspaper, such as:
• a comic strip that made you laugh
• a movie review that has convinced you to see a particular film
• a television review that makes you think differently about a particular program
• a sports story that revisits a game you saw on television or tells you about a game you missed
• weather information that caught your attention
• a letter to the editor that made you smile or think differently about the topic
• a graphic or image that made a news story more meaningful
• a map that helped you understand more clearly where a story took place

Expand your vocabulary with this activity
Assign each student a letter of the alphabet. Ask students to browse through the newspaper, find five unfamiliar words beginning with the assigned letter, and look up the definition of each. Then have each student create and illustrate a dictionary page containing the five words and their meanings. Combine the pages into a classroom dictionary.

In a variation of this activity, you might ask students to look in the newspaper for any of the following:
• words with a particular suffix or prefix
• words containing a particular vowel sound or consonant blend
• compound words
• words in the past, present, and future tenses
• possessives
• plurals

Contribute Educational Articles and Best Practices

We invite readers to be a part our newsletter by contributing educational articles and Best practices followed in their school. Here is a perfect opportunity for you to showcase your writing skills, your expertise and share your knowledge and get exposed to 7000 schools.

This is a platform for you to share the interesting educational articles you have written or you have read and have found useful; how you taught a particular topic in class and made it interesting for students, innovative methods used for teaching, best practices followed in your school, about educational trips etc.

Send us the write-up in not more than 500 words along with your School Name, City and with one or two photos. We would be glad to publish it.You can mail the contents to assetscope@ei-india.com

India report of ‘Student Learning Study’

Educational Initiatives (EI), has released the India report of ‘Student Learning Study’ carried out in 18 states and 1 Union Territory on 24th May, 2010. The study was conducted for classes 4, 6 and 8 in 2,399 government schools in rural and urban areas and is the first study of its kind at this scale. Overall, 1.6 lakh students were tested in Mathematics and language (medium of instruction) in the study. The study was supported by Google.org and was conducted with permission from participating states. The assessment was carried out in 13 languages based on the medium of instruction of each state.

Coinciding with the release of the report, EI conducted a 2-day national workshop on 24th & 25th of May, 2010 in Delhi to explain and deliberate on the findings from the study and provide recommendations for learning improvement. State and central government officials from education departments, academicians, international development agencies, NGO’s, corporate foundations and EI members are participating in the conference. Individual state-specific findings were handed out to be debated upon during the meet.

Fanfare 2009-10 at Sishya School, Hosur

‘Fanfare 2009-10‘was an alluring experience of fun and excitement that Sishya witnessed during the course of the second week of April. A series of events and competitions like Frozen Tableau, Treasure Hunt, Poster Making, drawing, Mime, Music, Dance and Fashion show were organized. The school management provided another platform for the students to exhibit their
talents. The students were motivated and supported by their persistent teachers, eminent house advisors encouraging parents.

The Sishyan flamboyance was indeed a treat to eyes, ears & mind. Students participated in the events with flaming enthusiasm. Children showcased variety of talents in the various competitions that were held. They accepted the challenges and rendered tireless efforts to achieve success. On the whole, ‘Fanfare’ was a fulfilling, enriching and enjoyable experience for the Sishya family. Ms. Deepali Sinha, Educational Advisor with EI, was invited as Chief Guest for the Annual Day program and was also the chief judge for the dance competition

Have Fun this Summer

When the school year ends, most children leave behind something more than textbooks and broken crayons. Educators across the country agree that a phenomenon called “summer learning loss” not only exists, but also poses a problem for virtually every school-going child.
Research from the Centre for Summer Learning at The Johns Hopkins University, shows that teachers spend a good deal of time, re-teaching skills that were lost during the summer vacations. Students fall at an average of almost 2.6 months behind in Math skills.

Summer Learning Loss is based on research that goes back to 1906, which shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer than they do on the same test at the beginning of the summer. If kids aren’t engaged in ongoing learning activities over the summer, they are bound to lose ground in Reading and Math.

One way to combat the summer “brain drain” is to get children involved in educational activities or camps during the summer months. That way, the children will not only learn and retain information, but will also have fun.

Parents can find high-quality summer learning programs in their community. They can find some fun things for kids to do to keep them motivated and learning; think of their interests and find books and resources to explore those interests; visit the public library and participate in summer reading programs; take educational trips to parks, museums, science centres, arts and cultural institutions.

There is nothing better than a good book to stimulate kids’ minds during the summer. Schools should be providing lists of books that kids can read over the summer months, working to create these high-quality summer programs in their schools and partnering with other organizations like community groups that use the school during the summer to run programs. As the school year draws to a close, teachers can communicate with parents of kids in a grade lower than the one they’re teaching, to discuss what those kids should do in the summer months so that they can get ready for the next grade.

In fact, research has shown that the amount of independent reading a child does outside of school relates to their growth in vocabulary, verbal fluency, reading comprehension and general knowledge. Kids who read on their own improve their reading skills, have greater content knowledge and score higher on achievement tests than children who do not crack a book open outside of school.

Another activity is to ask students to create twenty-five questions over material they learned over the last four-to-six weeks. The questions can be over vocabulary, books read, content from the textbook, etc. Students should make sure to write the answer next to the question on their notebook paper. Once the questions are completed, students can make a crossword puzzle from the questions. There are many free crossword makers on the Internet that students can use. Or, teachers can give students grid papers to hand-make the crossword puzzles. If students make their crossword puzzle on the grid paper, they will need to use Math and Language Arts skills.

Students can go online to sites such as ‘Map quest’ or one of the travel sites to help research the journey to and from the vacation site, as well as activities surrounding places where they will be spending their summer vacation. Even if they are not leaving town for a vacation, students could be asked to compile a ‘virtual vacation’ by doing some research and downloading pictures of events that they would like to take part in. One never knows, but maybe the next summer they would be able to actually visit the location!

Students can be asked to make a trip to the grocery store as an opportunity to review Math skills. Cooking is a chance to learn fractions. Measuring items around the house or compound, tracking daily temperatures and other every day experiences can be fun and interesting, while giving kids opportunities to learn the skills they need.

When left to their own devices, kids are the most creative and imaginative people around us. So be sure not to schedule all their time this summer but also give them a chance to play together and just be kids!

Technology Inventions

Planetary Skin

What happens to Earth when a forest is razed or energy use soars? We don’t know because environmental data is collected by isolated sources, making it impossible to see the whole picture. Going by the theory that you can’t manage what you can’t measure, NASA and CISCO have teamed up to develop Planetary Skin, a global ‘nervous system’ that will integrate land, sea, air and space-based sensors, helping the public and private sectors make decisions to prevent and adapt to climate change. The pilot project - a prototype due by this year - will track how much carbon is held by rain forests and where they are held.

Smart Bullet

You fire a bullet, and it explodes where you tell it to. That’s the essence of the XM25, a gun that fires explosive rounds able to neutralise enemies camped out behind cover. Using the gun’s laser range finder and bullets equipped with microchips capable of registering distance according to the number of times they’ve rotated, a soldier can program a round to detonate beyond an obstruction — no impact required. What is the practical value? Soldiers in urban environments can fire over or past walls sheltering their enemies and the bullets will explode on the other side. The weapon is currently under development for the US military by Alliant Tech.

What Makes a Great Teacher?

David Cameron thinks a good teacher is all about having a good degree but, says one member of the profession, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

David Cameron’s proclamation about the calibre of candidates entering the teaching profession betrays the fact that he doesn’t know anything about teaching. As a teacher in various comprehensives for the past 20 years, I have seen many good teachers, and some, it’s true, fit the stereotype that Cameron wants to impose: graduates with good degrees from so-called “good universities”. But I’ve also met a great many excellent teachers who wouldn’t have passed his test. Some didn’t have degrees in their chosen subjects; others didn’t have degrees at all.

In my experience, there are four types of teachers who are effective: the despot, the carer, the charmer, and the rebel. And none of them, in my experience, requires an upper-class degree.

I’ve come across many despotic teachers in my career. They are the tough ones who everyone turns to when the going gets really tough. They are nearly always very experienced teachers who know not only all the pupils but their parents, too, having taught many of them.

Despotic teachers often extract fantastic work from their pupils, and rarely have to use their full armory – their reputations are usually enough. They are often highly organised, making their classrooms into small fortresses, and in my experience nearly always achieve above-average results, because they teach the syllabus to the last letter.

The opposite of the despot is the carers, who are mostly women. They become surrogate parents for their pupils. Many don’t have degrees, and have been appointed as “mentors” or “support teachers” to help struggling pupils plan out their lives – working out ways in which they can do their work most effectively. Usually, pupils love seeing their mentors, and learn from them the vital skill of “taking responsibility for their own learning”. Unlike the despot, the carer works with lots of people: ­ parents, other teachers, social workers. What she or he manages to do is make pupils see they can control and shape their own lives.

The “charmers”, on the other hand, are quite a disorganised species, living off adrenaline and wits. They are frequently highly academic, and like to be mates with their pupils, to understand them and play with them. With this sort of teacher, the classroom becomes one great big, bouncing playground of learning. Take Martin, one of the best teachers I’ve come across, who would prepare his lessons on the roof after reading the newspaper, and would ­totally change direction mid-lesson if hit by some new inspiration. He was disorganised, but did everything with a wink and a smile.

Finally, there’s the most controversial but often most effective kind of teacher: the rebel. These teachers see school as a place that should aim to transform society.

They believe that our children have been brainwashed by our capitalistic society into making certain assumptions about inequality, exploitation, injustice. They see the classroom as the place where these children can be “deprogrammed” – and make amazing teachers because they are so passionate and persuasive. Even if you disagree with their politics, you have to admit they deliver blinding lessons, whatever their subject.

But the crucial point here is that none of these teachers learned their skills by getting a good degree: they learned them on the job.

Research shows that all the best teachers motivate their pupils to work hard, and assess them very regularly. Recently, I feel I’ve improved my teaching because I’ve learned more about assessing my pupils frequently; instead of concentrating upon my teaching.

There is now a great deal of research to suggest it is not your subject knowledge that’s the determining factor of how well your pupils achieve, but how you use your assessment of their achievements to plan and shape succeeding lessons.

Francis Gilbert

ASSET WEEK Winter Round results 2009 - Click here to read

Technology in Education - helping to bridge the gap in learning

In today’s fast paced world so many innovations are taking place every day and these innovations, like Televisions, iPads, mobiles, computers, video games etc, are easy to understand and are user friendly . Children are the ones who are most benefited, as they live in this era of technology. Earlier kids were glued to the Television sets, now their fancy has shifted to video games, online interactive games etc. Video games have been available to kids for the last 30 years. They are a unique form of entertainment, because they encourage players to become a part of the game’s script.

If we take the example of mobile phones, who doesn’t know what mobile phones are and how they function? I guess, may be only 10% of the people might not be aware of these. Today, more than 70% of people have these gadgets that have made life easier and reduced distances in communication. Now let’s talk about ‘Computers’, one of the wonders of modern technology. It plays a huge part in many of our lives, one way or another. They have many purposes and are used in various types of environments. Computers have made the impossible possible, as everything is available at one click.

In schools a lot of money has been spent on resources, various labs etc. Why? It is because these have helped schools develop and experience an extremely effective and greater impact on education. It has also helped to effectively increase the knowledge of students. Research on classrooms that have put constructivist teaching and learning models into practice also indicates that technology can enhance student engagement and productivity. Technology can help students simplify the tasks, raise student motivation and lead to changes in the classroom.
Why then is it difficult, if not impossible, to find definitive studies which show the positive impact computers have had on teachers and learning?

Teachers need a great deal of motivation when it comes to implementing technology in the classroom. Technology can be very intimidating for many teachers “because introducing technology almost always requires new learning”. Teachers may lack the time and motivation to learn technology skills. The integration of technology into the curriculum will not succeed without giving teachers ample time to practice, explore, conceptualize, and collaborate. Here’s one such example where a teacher has benefitted from using Mindspark – a computer adaptive program. One of his students had problems using protractor and was not able to understand how angles were measured, but practising this through the Mindspark modules, helped him, tremendously. It is the animated sums of angles that clarified his concept of measuring angles with the protractor. This will be followed by more experience sharing by students in the coming issues. If you want to read more about it visit us at: www.mindspark.in

What I will be missing…..

Here are some things which students of grade 2 from Anand Niketan School, Satellite, Ahmedabad have to say about what they will be missing when they pass out to grade three…

I will miss my grade 2 teachers. I will not get a chance to hug Rajvi Ma’am and my grade 2 teachers. I enjoy studying with my grade 2. I would not get a chance to play Hide and Seek in the Jungle-gym with my teachers of grade2. I would miss this old school and my class. I will also miss my friends who will not come with me in grade 3.

I would like Parul Ma’am and Jignasha ma’am in grade 3. I want to study grade 3 in this old school building. I would like to meet my grade 2 teachers everyday. But I would enjoy myself in grade 3 also because I also like to study a lot.
Devisha Patel, Grade 2

We will be in different classes . We will not have a motivation chart. We will miss this building a lot. We will get more projects in grade 3. We will grow older and older when we go in grade 3. We will not have fun at all.
Shrusthi Domadia, Grade 2

I am going to miss Jignasha Ma’am and Parul Ma’am,. Their teaching was a great inspiration to me. When we don’t know something instead of scolding you they would make you understand and if we were quiet, they let us play in the Jungle Gym. (Something you can’t do in grade 3 after lunch)

I am going to miss my classroom. There was a nice view from there. Many hooks were there on the wall to hang our projects. It made me feel cozy. There was even a computer so that Ma’am could transfer the worksheet easily instead of going to the computer lab.

I am going to miss my friends, all of them helped me but few of them are separated. We will see them only sometimes roaming in the building.
Vedant Mahapatra, Grade2

I will miss my classroom because there were so many colourful charts, drawings and filled motivation charts.
Parin Garg, Grade 2

Teacher’s Bite

Ms. Sunita Sen,
Principal,
Ballygunge Shiksha Sadan,
Kolkata

Importance of Teacher Training and Devlopment in educating Students
“A rolling stone gathers no moss”- This is a very common proverb and it exactly applies to the importance of Teacher Training and Development in educating students. In our fast paced world of innovative technology getting developed almost everyday, teachers need to adapt to the changing time. Otherwise, speaking about twenty years of experience does not stand in good stead as what pertained to classroom situations fifteen years back, does not exactly apply in today’s time. The entire pedagogy of teaching-learning has undergone a complete change and no more is a child considered to be a born sinner who needs to be exposed to the correction home of education to reform himself. Jean Jacques Rousseau revolutionised the concept of education and made it completely child centric. Thus to understand the latent talents, qualities and disposition of children, teachers have to be able to mentor them, support them and guide them. One of the laws of E.L.Thorndike states that when a child is ready to learn and is made to learn, learning is most effective. It is the duty of the teacher to create that readiness in children through his personality, his knowledge, his ability to understand and empathise with the child and create a conducive learning environment. All this is possible if teachers continuously go through training and development to be aware of new methodologies and constant interaction with their counterparts so that teaching techniques can be exchanged, new understanding can be developed and the same can be proactively applied to the teaching learning situations to encourage, enthuse and enlighten the world of the students. After all, they are the potters to mould the clay of our future.

ASSET is a test which maps the aptitude and interest of an individual child and enables the students to understand their own selves better. They are then able to work on their grey areas and give themselves a projection depending on their positive traits. It gives an insight to the parents and teachers as well, to be able to comprehend their wards/students strengths and the weak areas so that better guidance can be given to them.

Learning experience in school

It is rightly said that the school is the foundation of the future. Every one has some special experiences in school, which are always dear to them. Even if they grow old, the things which they remember are the days when they were young, the days when they had fun and learnt many things with their friends in school.

Learning is fun in school. School is a place where we learn emotional bonding with our friends. We not only learn how to speak, what to speak, how to behave but also how to make friends, how to face difficulties in life and many other things which mean a lot in our life.

The school is a place where we attain the teachings of life. However, the environment of our school also makes us know the common knowledgeable things that we need.

Learning is not easy till there are no teachers who believe in the saying ‘the teacher is the second mother of a child who teaches him about his life in an official way’. After all, when love comes, respect is there for all. Thus learning experience is great in the school. The time when one is in school can never – ever be forgotten by him / her.
Contributed by Kunika Pawar, VII, The Woodstock School, Gwalior

Exam Fever

Examinations are not a modern-day phenomenon. Competition keeps increasing while the number of seats in educational institutions do not increase at the same rate, so stress during exams is unfortunately here to stay!

According to the children’s author, Monarose Pereira, “Tension brews as examinations are around the corner. Today, this tension is unbearable because a student’s entire life is determined by it. Examinations are no more a positive challenge. They have become a way by which we judge people on all fronts based on one perspective. There are also several empirical forces at play while a student appears for an exam, which are not taken into consideration.”

Pereira further explains, “When children play and read, which, if tapped in the right way, can be transferred into a keen interest in learning. Unfortunately, we swap down this interest and then force it upon children in the name of information and facts. To top it all, we have only one way of grading various types of children which is really unfair. Our education system has to undergo drastic changes, if we need students to take the examination as an enjoyable challenge.”

Today, parents seldom take a personal interest in the child’s study. It is left to the school and the tutorial classes. But education is much more than what is imparted in these institutions. What about the thousands of questions in a child’s head? Pereira says, “These may not necessarily be about the so-called studies. There is hardly any close contact or relationship between children and parents, teachers or tutors. The schools blame it on the numbers; the parents blame it on work. Besides, who is going to teach the students how to handle stress? How to make decisions? Where is the love, the emotional talk, the healing touch that parents are supposed to share with their children? Honestly, children have been living lonely lives for a long time. We have also dehumanised them. We need to relate to their humaneness”

Source:http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/relationships/parenting/How-should-children-deal-with-exam-stress/articleshow/5576717.cms) modified

ASSET’s Relation Enhancement Program

As a part of ASSET’s Relation Enhancement Program, a session on understanding and interpreting ASSET results, analyzing misconceptions and building remedial plans to improve weak skills identified under ASSET was conducted for the teachers and students of Presidency School, Mangalore by Ms. Deepali Sinha, Educational Advisor – Educational Initiatives on 5th March, 2010.

Photography Contest for Students

Confessions of a Frustrated “Deprived” Student

– by Jenny David, Assistant Manager – HR, EI

The school was supposed to guide me and polish me but all I ever got from school was to learn how to put others down, how to beat someone in a race or how to concentrate on scoring the highest. I would attribute my growing up fully as a person, to my first job and the plethora of experiences with people and situations therein. Nothing I learnt in school seemed to help me at all except perhaps the basic plus minus multiplication etc. I sometimes wonder why I wasted 12 precious years of my life struggling to build my confidence based on the inputs of a class teacher in a class of 60 who had her own favourite ‘bright’ students; trying to figure out what is expected out of me.

We were taught not to share notes – much later I learnt that sharing my knowledge helps me build and enhance my knowledge much more. I remember when we were kids and the portions were announced before the exams and I was advised by the ‘bright’ kids to revise and learn by heart the portion thrice before the exam and only then would I score well; I would be laughed at if I were to question or oppose it. Oh, how I hated definitions! We had a particular Maths teacher who used to deduct marks if we did not follow grammar rules while writing definitions. If we wrote “a” instead of “the”, one mark would be deducted, even if the concept had been correctly explained. No wonder my English language is good now and I stopped believing in all kinds of “definitions”.

We had predefined rules during exam time: if you do not stay up awake through the night or get up early in the morning, it meant you are NOT studying; if you do not do last-minute revisions then you will not score well; you have to carry a book till the last minute of the exams, if you are not doing that you are NOT a good student.

Even when it came to co-curricular activities, only children whose parents had insights into what they wanted their children to do were encouraged to perform. For example, there was a trained swimmer in our batch and she was the only one encouraged to swim, no one was even pushed to learn HOW to swim.

An incident I find difficult to forget is when I auditioned for a singing competition. I must have been around 13 then, I mustered all my courage to go up to the stage (it was easy to sing at home with just my family as an audience) but this was a big, big thing. One of our classmates was a good singer – her father had his own music band and her uncle accompanied her with the music. I sang and he played for me, he asked me to sing on a lower note and I could not and he commented that I could not sing. It is rather foolish of me but I remembered that remark for years. After that incident, I always had to be goaded to go on stage; the next time I sang on stage was when I was 26 years old! I’ve never been jealous, though it might seem that way; my question even then was – why not help children deal with their fears? I have always hated my school days and I dislike the memories.

When I finished my 10th standard, my parents were not equipped to guide me regarding further education. They were busy working to pay my school fees and make ends meet. When I tried to find out about education on my own, all I met were clichés: science is for extremely intelligent people, arts is for women who want to become housewives and commerce is for the common man; 90% marks=science, 70%=commerce and 60% or lower=you BELONG to arts. I took commerce, did not relate to accounts; shifted to science, did not like physics and finally took arts and loved it.

It is a curse when you know that you are capable of doing better things but you are measured only in terms of preset norms, when your individuality is not respected and nurtured and you are taught, instead, to follow the crowd. I have studied in one of learn; yes they can write definitions with articles in the right place, write exactly three pages to an answer to score well and hence are applauded and constantly encouraged. Somehow, they also belong to rich families. Important educational institutes prefer good scorers and good scorers become managers and lead bright people like us.

However, years of experience and all that I have learnt from life is invaluable, I learnt to make my own stand. Most people are gauged according to the institution they have passed out from and are taught not to understand but how to “crack” exam papers. I now ensure that I keep on learning and help people cherish my intelligence and my uniqueness.

Could I rewind my life all over again and NOT depend on teachers and schools and institutions to guide me to follow a better career path, to be a better human being? I can’t. All I know is that if I could begin again, I would rather not have made these forced choices – if only I knew then as a child what I know now as an adult.

The iPad’s Potential for Education

With the unveiling of the iPad, Apple will more than likely re-invent mobile computing once again. The real magic behind the iPhone became the application store – it unleashed an endless supply of software – making the smartphone much more than just a phone…it became a “weightless office” in the palm of your hand.

The iPad widens the mobile computing ecosystem’s possibilities to include usable applications for education. The iPhone is the first seemingly learner-centred mobile platform – the gesture-based touchscreen combined with a screen size amenable to displaying content, and the Safari browser accesses the internet just like a “regular” computer. However, with its 9.7-inch multi-touch, high-definition screen, a powerful processor, and convenient and flexible form function, the iPad now becomes a perfect mobile learning device: instantly access textbooks, make annotations, connect to social learning communities, download applications with new learning content, upload your own content, assignments, etc. Sure, all these things you can do on a computer laptop…but imagine the ease of use with a device that is much more portable, feels natural in your hand, and is flexible in a multitude of “real-life” situations. No longer will you question whether or not to drag along your laptop with you – your iPad now will be a constant – just like your pen or pencil.

iPad-related innovations for education will widen the discussion about how we educate as well. With access to the software development kit, students can build their own learning applications, or professors may be able to customize applications to present their own content. Even now, many are doing that and even making their content accessible to non-students.

The platform becomes a fertile playground, either for expanded functionality beyond the iPhone, or for innovations in how content is presented, and how it becomes more interactive and experiential. With location awareness, the ability to mobilize learners in remote locations can help engage distance learners as well. At first glance, you may think of the device as just another gadget, a laptop with less functionality.

But remember, many naysayers doubted the impact of the iPhone. What Apple does best is understand how real people use technology, and what their expectations are from their device. A platform like the iPad releases the constraints that regular laptop technology foists upon us – the iPad is nimble, reacts to real situations, and is so easy to use that it feels natural in your hands. That is the difference, and that is how this platform will speed up adoption of mobile learning.

Now, educators need to start figuring out how we build effective learning apps for this platform.

Source: (http://blog.totallearner.com/2010/01/the-ipads-potential-for-education.html) modified?

“Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast!”

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?
Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. The answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones. Cameras bundled with cell phones are outselling standalone cameras. Now, what prevents the cell phone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India ? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).
Incidentally, Airtel is not in the music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him, he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel’s parent company) are breathing easy, you can’t be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit that Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android can make life difficult in the future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The big question is “what is tomorrow’s personal digital device”? Will it be a souped up mobile or a palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – “who is my competitor?” Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says “What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak. Explain.” The smart ones get the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from the Walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. In the same way, Kodak defined its business as film cameras, while Sony defined its businesses as “digital.” Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided, it lost in both areas. Kodak did not ask the question “who is my competitor for tomorrow?” The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared “the internet is a fad!” and then turned around to bundle the Internet Explorer browser with Windows to bury Netscape. The point is not who is today’s competitor. Today’s competitor is obvious. Tomorrow’s is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India? Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and the telepresence services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their headquarters to use videoconferencing to shrink the travel budget. So much s, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I would not bet on. In the short term, yes. In the long term the answer is a resounding no. Remember, if there is one place where Newton ’s law of gravity is applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991, the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of the Blu-Ray disc player) crashed to one-third of its original level in India. The price of PCs dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands.

If this trend repeats itself, telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As it is, not too many airlines are making money. India has two passions: films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The film gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans who followed suit). That was when cricket was fundamentally test or one-day matches. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly, an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3-hour movie. Cricket became film’s competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour “tamasha” (entertainment). Cricket season might push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above is “I don’t remember!” For some time, there a mild substitute for the typewriter – the electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came the computer which mowed them all. Today, most technologically challenged people like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters themselves are nowhere to be seen.
One last illustration: 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is an alarm clock. The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker. They were much gentler though still quaintly called “alarms.” What do we use today for waking up in the morning? A cell phone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for writers? Joke spewing machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone, much to the mirth of Silicon Valley). Or will the competition be storytelling robots? The future is scary! The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about competition. He said “Have breakfast…or….be breakfast”! That sums it up rather neatly.

—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a postgraduate in management from IIM, Bangalore.

Sharing the Events and Best Practices

We are covering different events and best practices done in schools across the country in our newsletter. You can mail us the details of the events and best practices done in your school to us. We will be happy to share them with our readers.

The word limit for the write-up should not exceed 550 words. You can also mail us the photographs of the events. Mail your write-up to Bindu Pillai at bindu@ei-india.com
com with the subject line write-up for events or best practices.

Teacher’s Bite

Mr. Santosh Kanavalli,
Principal,
The High Range School,
Munnar
The Importance of Teacher Training and Development in Educating Students
Teacher quality encompasses a range of skills, competencies and motivation. As common sense suggests, specific training is required in order to expect quality services from a teacher or any other skilled professional. Data on training levels are one of the few indicators systematically collected about teachers. This highlights the need for better measures of teacher quality. Do we have any measures to related to teacher quality and training? Do we have a benchmark of teacher’s educational attainment? What is the data we have in our country to show the quality of our teachers?

Research studies have shown positive associations between student achievement and teachers’ academic skills, level of content knowledge, years of experience and participation in content-related professional development opportunities. Teacher training and development must be a part and parcel of the school’s mission statement. There is no denying of the fact that “a teacher affects eternity…” and all efforts must be made in all schools to emphasize the dire need to equip the teaching fraternity with 21st century skills and at the same time to empower the youth with life-building, man-making, character-making and the assimilation of ideas. In the words of Parker J. Palmer, “Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that their students can learn to weave a world for themselves… The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts.”

CCE Corner

In recent years, there has been a growing concern to improve the quality of achievement of all learners at elementary and secondary level. But this aim to improve learners’ quality and to universalize the improved quality is not realized almost wholly due to imperfect teaching and learning processes and improper evaluation practices which are conventional and narrow in their scope. It is a well known fact that the evaluation practices carried out in schools aim to measure the knowledge and understanding outcomes of learners, neglecting the evaluation of skills and higher mental abilities. While one of the major areas of school education is the all round development of the child, hardly any attention is paid to the educative process involved and to the assessment of students’ personal development.

Evaluation should be comprehensive in nature, wherein all learning experiences pertaining to scholastic, co-scholastic and personal and social qualities are assessed. But in the last one year, there have been significant changes in the Indian education sector. One such change includes the introduction and implementation of the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) for class XI students by the Central Board of Secondary Education.

Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation refers to a system of school based assessment that covers all aspects of student’s development. It emphasizes twofold objectives: continuity in evaluation and assessment of broad based learning.

CCE helps in reducing stress of students by:

• Identifying the learning progress of students at regular time intervals on small portions of content.
• Employing a variety of remedial measures of teaching based on learning needs and potential of different students.
• Desisting from using negative comments on the learner’s performance.
• Encouraging learning through employment of a variety of teaching aids and techniques.
• Involving learners actively in the learning process.
• Recognizing and encouraging specific abilities of students, who do not excel in academics but perform well in other co-curricular areas.

Comprehensive evaluation necessitates the summative assessment of cognitive abilities as well as the assessment of health habits, work habits, cleanliness, cooperation and other social and personal qualities through simple and manageable means. It not only helps in checking all the standards of performance in both scholastic and co-scholastic areas, but also in decision making regarding various aspects of teaching-learning process, promoting the students, increasing quality, efficiency and accountability.

“The CCE program is child/student centric and benefits every child with different potential, attitude and abilities. It helps in the holistic development of the child.”

– Ms. Sita Umamaheshwaran, Principal, The PSBB Millennium School, Chennai

Principals’ Seminar on “Helping Every Child Learn with Understanding”

Educational Initiatives (EI) organised a one-day seminar on “Helping Every Child Learn with Understanding” at Ahmedabad on February 13th, 2010. Forty principals from leading schools across the country participated in the seminar. Mrs. Nafisa Binderwala, Children’s Academy, Asha Nagar, Mumbai; The PSBB Millennium School, Porur, Chennai; Ms. V. Savithri, Mitra Academy, Bangalore; Mr. Amol Arora, Delhi Public School, Pinjor; Mr. Vinod Kumar Thakkar, The Rajkumar College, Rajkot; Mrs. Malathy Santhanam, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School, K.K.Nagar, Chennai; Mrs. Shanthi Menon, The Deen’s Academy, Bangalore were few among them.

Mr. Sridhar Rajgopalan, Managing Director EI, Mr. Sudhir Ghodke, Director, Mrs. Deepali Sinha, Educational Advisor and Mrs. Urmila Thaker, Vice President – School Support Services, were the key speakers. Overall, it was an enriching experience both for the delegates and the EI team.

“This was wonderful opportunity to network. Also gained in-depth knowledge of what EI does and is doing. It was very, very relevant and contemporary.”– Mrs. Aprana Ruth, Principal, Ingraham Institute English School, Ghaziabad