The workshop for varied disciplines was scheduled on 22nd July, 2017 at different CBSE schools of Vadodara and surrounding area under the aegis of Sahodaya Gyan Sarovar, an initiative started initially with six CBSE schools of Vadodara to introduce innovations in teaching and to chalk out the problems faced by like minded teachers of various disciplines dedicated to put their best foot forward for effecting better teaching and learning environment. The teachers to attend the workshop were informed about the venue, time and the required things to be carried (like textbooks, compass box, graph papers, pencils etc) well in advance. The teachers reached the venue sufficient in time on 22nd morning as the schools were given a holiday.
Soon after the lamp lighting, prayer, and felicitation of Resource personnel’s for the day and the introductory talk by the Principal of respective schools, teachers were directed to the rooms where the workshops were to be conducted. The purpose of these workshops were to empower the teachers by filling the gaps of In-service training programmes and thereby impart innovative methods and approaches to teaching and to come out with constructive strategies for classroom management.
English Workshop - Venue - St Kabir School & D.R.Amin Memorial
Resource Persons - Ms Kinjal Shah (grade 1&2) Ms Hema Srivastava (grade III & VIII) & Ms Barnali Sengupta (grade IX & X)
Workshop Content - Ms Kinjal Shah, a teacher of English for grade I & 2 with more than 15 years of teaching experiences talked about certain interesting ways and means to impart the instructional process with emphasis on phonics. The kinds of activities that could be carried out were discussed and worksheets pertaining to the teaching items were distributed. As the practicality of the activities carried out dawned upon the teacher educators, they have decided to apply the knowledge in their classes.
The session for grade III to VIII conducted by Ms Hema Srivastava, a teacher Educator with more than 20 years of experience and with 15 workshops to her credit was found interesting, innovative and application based with emphasis on Writing skills. The participants were grouped and were subjected to activities like story writing, notice writing etc with emphasis on the right way to begin a story or a letter (formal) or a notice. The kind of vocabulary to be used was given special emphasis. The resource person emphasised that the errors of the learners to be brought to their notice instead just correcting and giving away their notebooks as they hardly bother to correct their mistakes marked in their notebook and continues to make the same mistake again and again.
The session for grade IX & X was conducted by Ms Barnali Sengupta, a teacher Educator of New Era Sr. Secondary School, Vadodara. The session was purely based on the recent changes in assessment schedule and pattern as notified by CBSE in January having done away with CCE. She discussed on the difference between CCE and the recent assessment pattern, the assessment criteria for note-books, the difference in subject enrichment activities than the FA's and S.A's, the kinds of enrichment activities that can be used for English classes etc. The assessment pattern for setting English question paper with the way to frame questions (i.e. to avoid asking 'wh'questions) with emphasis on using words like could, enlist, explain , expound, discuss, comment, describe etc. The participants were subjected to many activities like writing stories, framing questions of a particular chapter from class IX or X text books, to find the errors in two given letters etc.
Mathematics Workshop - Venue - St. Kabir School & Navrachna school, Sama
Resource Persons - Ms Sudha Ranjith (grade 1 & 2) & Ms Poornima Menon (grade VIII to X)
Workshop Content - Ms Sudha Ranjith, a teacher Educator in Mathematics for class 1 & 2 discussed about innovative methods of teaching Maths through games and activities.
Ms Poornima Menon, the teacher Educator for Mathematics for classes VIII to X created a very interesting learning platform for Mathematics. The usual difficulties faced while teaching certain topics in Maths were discussed and appropriate solutions were given for the same through interesting acitivities.
Social Science Workshop - Venue - St. Kabir School & New Era Senior Secondary school
Resource Persons - Ms Shalini (grade 1&2), Ms Reshma & Ms Archana Nayar (grade III to VIII) Rupa Sarma (grade IX & X)
Workshop Content - Ms Shalini, an Environmental Science Educator focused on learner centred activities that could be carried out in the classroom or in the school premises. According to her these activities are so well designed that they not only impart application of the learned concept in a new situation but also takes care of classroom management problems.
For grade III to VIII, the resource person discussed and demonstrated by making clay models of varied relief features in the class which would enable the learners to relate the land features to the miniature clay models made by themselves in the class which would test their psycho motor skills. It would also raise them to appreciate their work thus affecting the Affective domains. Discussions were carried out as to how to go about doing integrated projects in Social Science, its enriched outcomes and the rubrics to be used. The importance of learning Social Science in daily life was emphasised to make the subject interesting and to realise its utility in human life. The resource person then discussed on, ‘how S.S could be associated with developing the habit of newspaper reading in learners’?
Science Workshop – Venue St. Kabir School & Vibgyor School, Vadodara
The Resource personals were Ms. Shalini, for Environmental Science for grade (1 & 2)
Ms Padma Prabhu, Ms Karim Arjun for grade (III to VIII)
Mr. Aditya Kavalankar for grade (IX & X)
Ms Shalini talked about innovative methods of teaching Environmental Science in proximity with nature and explained certain scientific principles that could be taught better outside classroom. Besides certain strategies that could be helpful for classroom management were also discussed.
Ms Rakhi and Ms Smita Chitnis and Mr Sanchit Shastri attended the workshops from our school. They found the sessions very useful as practical insights for learning Science was imparted to the participants. The Physics resource person discussed about the kind of subject enrichment activities, different types of graphs and their interpretations and also discussed on general topics of Physics and how to make its learning interesting by relating it to day to day life situations.
Third Language Workshop:
The venue for third language was MGKM School, Kandari, Vadodara.
The resource personals were Mr Syed Matheen Ahmed (for Hindi) an Educator from Hyderabad,
Ms Naina Parmar (for Gujarati) an Educator from Podar World School, Sherkhi,
Ms Smruddhi Marathe (for Sanskrit)
The Hindi resource person talked about the relevance of languages in general and in specific about Hindi in the era of globalisation. Besides he talked about interesting ways and means to make teaching process interesting, of relevance knowledgeable and communicative. The Sanskrit Resource personal, Ms Smruddhi Marathe too talked about the increasing demand for Sanskrit language among common folks and their desire to impart its knowledge among their children as a part of third language. It was a matter of prestige for Podar World School, Sherkhi, as one of its teacher Educator; Ms Naina Parmar conducted the workshop for Gujarati language. She talked about the new assessment system and the marking criteria to be followed while assessing note-books and papers. She even shared a few ideas as to how to teach the learners to write poems and other writing skills. She shared her ideas, on assessing the papers at the board level with emphasis on content and expression rather than on spelling and grammatical errors.
Ms Preeta Pillai, the Principal of Podar World School, Sherkhi adorned the venue at MGKM, Kandari as the Chief Guest. Her presence, as the Sanskrit educator has said was indeed a ‘boon in disguise’. She shared that she got a lot of moral support and on the whole, the session was soul satisfying. She expressed her gratitude for having instilled unfaltering faith in her.
The teachers received certificates from all the venues for their active participation in the workshops. On the whole the workshops were highly enlightening and energizing as it provided umpteen constructive ideas for activities to be carried out in the day to day instructional process.
