Principal Seminar on “Improving Student Learning”

EI strongly believes in sharing its research outputs and keeping a live dialogue with the key stakeholders in education: Teachers, Principals and Schools. In continuation with this ethos, EI had organized a seminar on “Improving Student Learning” for school principals on September 29, 2006 in Mumbai.

The seminar was well-attended by over 40 principals and teachers from leading schools across Mumbai. The key-note speaker at the Seminar was Ms. Geeta Mahashabde, Maths Programme Director, ‘Navnirmiti’. Navnirmiti is dedicated to acquiring, developing, innovating, producing and disseminating high quality, low cost/no cost learning methods, tools and systems to bring about universalisation of elementary mathematics and science skills and competencies. Navnirmiti conducts a number of mutually complementary activities to achieve the above objective. It reaches all those who otherwise would not have access to good education.

Ms. Geeta in her address emphasised that ‘universalisation of education’ is possible if we work on pedagogy, low cost teaching aids and systems viz. teacher training, supervision, mentoring and assessment. She drew the distinction between mechanical learning and learning with understanding with interesting anecdotes. Giving examples (number lines painted on classroom walls, grids on the floor) she stated that cost effective teaching-learning resources can be found in the classroom itself. All it requires is a little imagination and out-of-the-box thinking on the part of the teacher.

Ms. Geeta also mentioned that Navnirmiti has developed a comprehensive ‘Universal Active Math’ programme and a complete classroom Math-kit to teach all primary level mathematics through joyful methods. UAM follows a two step method; (1) children first learn with things because the language of numbers is not familiar to them, (2) and then they learn the alphanumeric language. The thumb rule of this method is not to teach but to allow the child to do and discover. This method ensures that 85% children have mastery over 85% competencies. She concluded her talk urging teachers to break the concept of ‘correct answer syndrome’ and spend time discussing the wrong answers as they give a lot of information.

Mr. Sridhar Rajagopalan, Managing Director of EI and a core group member of NEGAEE (National Expert Group on Assessment in Elementary Education-committee formed by NCERT) anchored his talk on ‘why learning with understanding and only understanding’ is important. To exemplify this he screened a video in which graduating Harvard students, when given the task of lighting a bulb with a battery and a wire, could not actually do it, thus demonstrating lack of understanding.

EI’s flagship is ASSET – a diagnostic assessment test conducted for classes 3 to 10 in five subjects – English, Maths, Science, Social Sciences and Hindi. Over 500 leading schools in India, Nepal, Middle East and Singapore with over 100,000 students take the test every year.

Mr. Sridhar talked about new efforts to offer tests that measure ‘creative writing’ and ‘reading skills’. A unique feature now being offered is a PAN Card (Permanent ASSET Number) which allows students and their parents to track their performance across the years from our website.
Mr. Sridhar informed the gathering that EI has carried out research on ‘how students learn?’ Findings show that “children do not make mistakes; they actually answer according to their mental processes”. ASSET result not only measures learning but also gives an indication of these processes. ASSET result analysis throws up ‘common errors’ and ‘misconceptions’ which can aid teachers in planning teaching-learning experiences and formulate new strategies.

Study of student performance on ASSET over a period of years indicates that most children do well on ‘procedural questions’ but skills of ‘measurement’, ‘estimation’ and ‘problem solving’ do not seem to be developing well. Another insight gained from testing is that students learn ‘disciplines in isolation/compartments’ and are unable to ‘join the dots’ and ‘make connections’. To validate these findings he screened an ASSET analysis session in a school with students. The teachers of the class, after seeing the video, felt they have learnt more about their students and their thinking process. ASSET can be a ‘tool’ in teacher’s hand.
Mr Sridhar also explained about EI’s Training Framework like Teachers Effectiveness and Improvement Program (TEIP), Workshop on Effective Question Making, Maths and English Workshops etc.

EI’s research projects with government schools, for example, have shown that superior learning outcomes were sometimes possible in school environments starved of resources and budgets, if there was strong leadership at the school level.

You are aware that EI is a research organization active in the domain of school education for the past five years. The core team is IIM.A alumni. Within a short time EI has got together a team of experts comprising of educationists, teachers, principals and researchers who are working with a single-minded mission of seeing ‘A world where children everywhere are LEARNING with UNDERSTANDING’.

Our endeavour is to develop expertise in the field of diagnostic assessments, teacher trainings, curriculum services and basic research. We work with schools - urban, rural, private, government, aided and un-aided, etc. We also associate with different state governments, Indian and foreign aid agencies, etc with their work in the field of education.

The grand finale was the experience sharing session, Ms. Seema Buch, Principal, Gundecha High School and Ms. Bhattacharya, Principal, Arya Vidya Mandir School took the opportunity of sharing their experience with ASSET. This was followed by a lively question hour session with Mr. Sridhar Rajagopalan.