Recently I was having a casual conversation with a newly appointed teacher in my school. We exchanged few details about the classes we handle and the subjects we taught. We shared some things about our families too. She asked me, “How many kids do you have?” With lightning speed I answered, “I think I have 23.Last year I had 20.”
She was startled for a second, gave a blank look at me. I tried to recollect, what was her question? (Did I answer it right?) After a momentary pause we both burst out into laughter. She was asking me about my own children whereas I mapped it to the children in my class. I realized it once again like any other day, ‘the moment we enter the school premises, we forget our own world that is outside the school compound and school becomes our family’.
I am sure most of you must have had or shared lighter moments with a peer that makes your day. Like many of you, I have always believed in having a cordial relationship with teachers at school, irrespective of whether they teach primary or high school. There is always some thing we have in common that we figure out in due course of time, it may be about our teaching methods or classroom management techniques.
Informal discussions and talking more openly about the issues we face in class, will fetch us solutions very easily. But there has to be a genuine thought- process and concern in all these discussions, else it may unknowingly turn out to be ‘branding a child with specific issue’ kind of a talk.
In these years of classroom transactions, I have experienced being an assistant teacher in my initial years of service. Apart from those learning, I have picked a few cues and nuances in handling students by observing many of my peer sessions and through visits to other schools.
I realized, just as how every child is unique, every teacher is unique. But there needs to be a constant supply of ideas and resources shared so as to avoid stagnation of thoughts and teaching techniques. This vests purely in a teacher’s hand.
In this article I would like to share some of the practices, which I think were effective classroom techniques and teaching methods that made ‘learners to learn’.
- Science session on ‘light’
The teacher wanted to make her students realize the importance of ‘light’ in their life using senses. Instead of just beginning the session by defining light or asking questions, ‘do you know what is light?’, she darkened the room to an extent and gave every student a sealed carton box (something like a cereal box) with ‘small hole’ on top. She asked them to peep in through the pin hole and to share if they could see any thing. As expected, students replied there is nothing in the box. Then she gave them torch light and asked them to repeat the same procedure. Students were excited to see a strip of paper inside that closed box. The paper had words written on it “I can see with the light”. This experiment took 20 mins of her session but the realization of importance of light and the conceptual learning of light was amazing. They were easily able to define what is light and absence of light is called darkness.
A concept can be introduced in anyway orally/writing the definition on the board or even reading it out from the book as simple as it sounds. If it’s planned with much care then the session continues to sail smoothly and effectively with utmost engagement.
I started believing more in kinaesthetic learning than ‘chalk and talk’ method
- Reciting poems loudly
This was an English teacher who had cultivated the habit of reciting poems just for fun and rhythm. But she made use of it wisely for student engagement in such a way that whenever students know that it is English session, they start reciting the poem one after the other (whatever they have learnt so far). By the time teacher reaches the classroom, the whole class would settle and get ready for English class with books and note books while reciting the poems simultaneously. There was complete focus when teacher arrives. The loud recitation created a good vibration in class atmosphere and that was pleasant for their ears as well. The teacher would seamlessly continue her sessions as planned. This happened every day without fail and I never saw that teacher spend time in settling them after she came in.
I realized how music and rhythm enhances student focus and engagement
- SWBAT –Students Will Be Able To_________________________
Few years ago, I had a chance to visit one of the elementary school in USA. I went around the school and entered few classrooms and dining area as well. One thing that impressed me was, the teachers there always had the habit of sharing the objective of every session with their students. They had mentioned it on the white board as an acronym ‘SWBAT’.
For instance, she wrote Students will be able to …solve the addition problem worksheet independently. She tells it orally as well.Students are clear of what their aim is and what they need to do that day. This was written in Grade 2 classroom.
After implementing the same practice in my sessions I found them to be more engaged.It prepares the students to be present in the class mentally.
E.g. SWBAT: Students will be to -read the passage and find answers for given questions.
SWBAT- Students will be able to recite the poem from the book loudly with rhyme and rhythm
SWBAT-Students will be ableto write adjectives to describe the given scenery
I understood that students need to be aware of the objectives at the beginning of every session
- In Art class
You must be wondering what I would have observed from art classes. It is the place where all their senses are involved. After PE class, the most sought destination could be the art room in every school. What I had learnt from the teacher was the effective time management besides following routines. I observed that though there was enough work planned for the day, the teacher ensured enough time was allocated to train the students to put all stationery back to places wherever it belonged. At the end of sessions, the classroom appears as neat as it was before the students entered. She would also ask children to tell the name of painting technique they had learnt that day before they exit the room. Again, I observed that this practice is done in every session of hers so that the system is well established and students get tuned to their teacher’s expectation.
I learnt, by using time wisely, a teacher can teach the content and skills simultaneously
- A worksheet with difference
As teachers of this decade most of us are aware of using worksheet based on the topic taught. This is done for revising or for more practice .Now a days it is done with ease with so many free resources available online. But in this process, we need to be careful to customize it for our learners.
A math teacher( middle school USA) had designed it in such a way that student’s arrive at the correct answer by eliminating all the wrong answers. They were expected to evaluate all the choices and justify why they were wrong. This way the teacher ensured students are clear with the concepts in totality.She had also given some tips and formulas in a box separately as support. Even though there were only four or five problems given in the sheet, I found students were working out more to find the right option .Though they were taught the right way of solving such problems the approach expected from the students were to validate all options before arriving at the result. Since then, whenever I discuss with my co-teacher on worksheet for math, I have emphasized this method of ‘Eliminating wrong’ as one effective way for student engagement.
I make use of this method even in my English class by writing sentences that are grammatically wrong and ask students to identify errors. While they were at this task, I was able to identify some of their misconceptions too. Based on their responses, I have even altered my sessions to revisit the concepts again.
Even a standard method like using worksheet as teaching aids/tool can be made interesting if a teacher plans carefully.
- Extensive and appropriate usage of walls in classroom
Once a science teacher was asking her students to write the aim, procedure, materials to be used and their guess/prediction on what will happen in the experiment on small chart paper. She put them carefully on pin up boards of classroom in the same order. The next session she made use of those data and their predictions. I found that this was her practice and all soft boards /notice board in class showcased every bit of students learning and their progress every day. It was helpful for students to recall what happened the previous day and make connections to further learning.
This practice of gathering their thoughts on soft boards has helped students to recall and remember concepts taught in math and science session.
From all these observation sessions, one major take away for me was, “Connect with kids and adapt to make your session lively and to enthuse students”
Few other things that impressed me…
- Playing music in the back ground to create an ambiance, relevant to the topic taught. This I learnt from a social science teacher.( I am sure that teacher is reading this blog!)
- Plan to invite a group of older students to teach the younger students for a change. Believe me, it works wonderfully. There is so much of excitement and fun involved in this method. The session becomes a memorable one, for both the younger and the older students. I also observed that older students are so careful and organised when they teach younger ones.
It is proven that we learn the maximum only when we teach. So why not employ this strategy often in our classrooms?
I agree that all these takes effort and careful planning but it’s definitely worth a try!
Please share your experiences, if you can map any of these techniques in your classrooms.
No comments:
Post a Comment