ASSETSCOPE FEBRUARY 2014

The Monthly Newsletter

Issue 101 | February 2014 | www.ei-india.com

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Cover Story: Improve students’ self-esteem

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Educators’ Zone

3 Mindspark World: Research Summaries

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Insight Story: How to Study for exams

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Insight Story: How to Study for exams

Best Practices

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Misconception Series

8 DukeTIP

COVER Story Activities to Improve Students’ Self-Esteem These simple activities are designed to help students of any age feel comfortable and happy with themselves as unique individuals.

about. It is the student’s journal so you might choose to read an entry only if the student says you may.

The Interview Each student is paired with someone they do not already know well. Allowing five minutes per interview, the students interview each other. Then each student tells the class what they have learned about the other, and introduces him to the class.

Designing Self-Collages Have students create a collage using pictures, words, or symbols clipped from magazines that represent things they enjoy doing or own, places they’ve been to, people they admire, or careers they desire.

At the end of the session, post the collages around the room and have the other students guess which collage belongs to whom and state how they made that guess.

The Journal Have your students keep a journal. As a journal entry each student might write a poem, describe a dream, or share something he is pleased about or unhappy

Accentuate the positive Breaking the class into groups of four to six, have students focus on one member at a time. Then have all the students in the group tell all the positive things they can about that person. Encourage compliments that focus on behaviour rather than something that cannot be altered or developed like a physical characteristic. No put downs are allowed. Every comment must be positive. One student acts as the recorder. This list is then given to the person for his journal.

Source: http://www.creativeeducation.co.uk/

Create a “Me” Commercial Each student writes a two- to three-minute television commercial. The topic is “Why Someone should hire them”. The commercial depicts the student’s special qualities. After they work on these, the students present their commercials in front of the class.

Shared Learning At the end of each term, every student rereads the journal and shares one thing learnt about oneself so far this year.

EDUCATORS’ Zone Ms. Ranjita Rao, Principal, The Global Edge School, Madhapur, Hyderabad

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Who has most influenced you to become an educator, and how did they influence you?

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The biggest influence in my life has been my first teacher, my mother.

She was and is an educator par excellence. She taught me with infinite patience and love, how one could impart knowledge, culture, heritage, ethics, etiquettes and training effortlessly. She still continues to be the wind beneath my wings and helps me soar high in every sphere of my life.

This zeal to be an educator was further strengthened by the myriad educators and my mentors from my previous organisations, whom I came across in life through my schooling and higher education and the various schools that I worked in. Each one of them left an imprint on my mind and personality; and shaped me into the person that I am today.

I have become an educator not by choice but by accident! But as the saying goes; once a teacher always a teacher, it is the enthusiasm and the love of the pupils that motivated me into making this profession my calling in life!

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What is your approach to classroom management and student discipline?

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The classroom is the safe haven where the child enters to mould his/her future. It has to be a welcoming, comfortable and “fun” place where the child would long to go…and “hate“to stay away from. The most effective classroom management according to me is to keep the pupil involved in the classroom activity at all times through multiple activities and tasks. An idle mind is indeed the devil’s workshop. A mind without stimulation will look towards distraction which will lead to indiscipline.

If we do not let the learner get bored; the class would be a fun learning centre for all involved.

Student discipline is nothing but mutual respect between a student and a teacher. If that can be established there can never be an issue about student discipline.

SCHOOL Zone SKYPE IN THE CLASSROOM Skype in the classroom is a free and easy way for teachers to open up their classroom, meet new people, talk to experts, share ideas and create amazing learning experiences with teachers from around the world.

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What are your views regarding the ‘Importance of Teacher Training and Development’ in educating Students?

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Training for any professional is a must in today’s world. We live in a fast paced, ever changing society. Developments of science and technology are progressing faster than ever. One has to keep in step with the changing demand of the world and time. Constant training and development is essential for teachers to keep up with the changing times as well as to be one step ahead of their pupils, to be aware of the changes in the education world and the society at large.

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What is your view regarding the ASSET Test?

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I am an ardent fan of the ASSET test! It is a well defined comprehensive test which gives a very detailed analysis of a child’s as well as the teacher’s class performance. It is extremely diagnostic in nature and helps in understanding and identifying the strong and weak areas of a learner. This helps in early intervention and solving of learning gaps and difficulties in a learner. It’s simply amazing!!!

Over the years, ASSET has become a far reaching tool for the students’ nexus. It has not only benefitted the parents and the teachers but has helped me immensely in understanding my students better. I, being a school head, believe in knowing each of my students well. ASSET has been instrumental in making us aware of the child’s abilities not just in a broader perspective but to get a profound understanding. What impresses me the most is the way the ‘ASSET Student MyBook’ is constructed. It gives a comprehensive and critical analysis of the students’ strengths and weaknesses. The circular skill profile is an exemplary way of depicting the student’s core competencies and shortcomings at a glance.

This book has helped me uncover those silent achievers in the school, who would have otherwise gone unnoticed. We can now hone the skills of the students in the areas that they need to improve while polishing their strengths.

It helps the teachers understand their class better, by giving an insight into the performance as individuals and as a group. It also helps in deciding the instructional strategy to help students surmount their weaknesses.

Parents find the ‘Student Mybook’ exceedingly effective in recognizing the areas of improvement of their child. It not only pinpoints the shortcomings but also gives personalized practice questions to each child which helps the parents know the kind of questions which will help the child overpower his weak areas.

MINDSPARK World MINDSPARK - RESEARCH SUMMARIES Summary of Research Studies Summary – Diagnosis and intervention on – three dimensions to developing numeracy in all children The paper talks about how, through well-focused processes of diagnosis and intervention, students can be helped to develop the conceptual understanding, fluent processes and self-confidence needed to acquire and use mathematics so as to become numerate.

View the actual research paper written by George Booker

Summary – Linguistic influence on numerical development The paper focuses on linguistic influence on the numerical development of children. It describes briefly studies and research conducted on the same and reviews the controversial issues among these papers.

View the actual research paper written by Mangoo Park

Mindspark prides itself in being a research based service. To ensure that Mindspark is up-to-date with the latest features in the field of learning, the team regularly reads research papers by well known researchers and educationalists, around the world. Together the team has read papers by celebrated researchers such as Alistar Mcintosh (Number Sense), Julie Sarama & Douglas Clement (Geometric shapes, Concepts in measurements), Kaye Stacey (Decimals), Constance Kamii (Fractions) and many more. The learning from these papers then takes the form of implementation. The team

customises the learning found in the papers and studies how receptive students are to it through student interviews. Together with the learnings from the research papers and student interviews we are able to create a pedagogically grounded service.

These summaries along with the original research papers are then also shared with Mindspark teachers (through the teacher interface). Hence the teachers can either access the original paper or read a shorter summary with key learnings.

GOVERNMENT SCHOOL PROJECTS - BHASHA & GANIT For last 3 years, Mindspark (Bhasha and Ganit) in Gujarati language is being enjoyed by more than 4000 students and 200 teachers, in various semi-urban and rural primary schools of Gujarat. Mindspark is duly modified to cover the Gujarat Board curriculum. The Gujarati Bhasha product is a product in Gujarati, teaching Language nuances through the digital medium to the primary school students of Gujarat. The teachers of

these schools get continuous and face-to-face support on teaching content as well as methodology for the core subjects.

Regular assessment of the performance of these students indicated a very positive and motivating improvement.

The project is supported by the Torrent group as part of their CSR initiative.

TESTIMONIAL We believe that every child is unique in his/her learning, and hence learning should be individualized. In general, Mathematics is taught as a PROCEDURE. It is neither taught as a concept nor taught for understanding. In this context Mindspark assumes the role of a self-directed tutor. Children love this program and get individualized support and review. Can Maths be fun? Yes, when it makes the children think and help them work on their grey areas. MINDSPARK does it.

- Mr. M. Srinivasan, CHAIRMAN, GEAR Innovative International School, Bangalore

www.mindspark.in

INSIGHT Story

HOW TO STUDY FOR EXAMS

Exams are a necessary a to study in ways that ge skills. Adapt them to you

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Create a Timetable

Rewrite your Notes to Aid Memory

Find the Right Hours

Budget your time wisely to ensure that you cover all the topics covered in the exam. Remember to take regular breaks and get out and exercise.

Rewriting your notes is great if you're a kinesthetic learner. Mind mapping is the most effective way of doing this. Also, when you rewrite something, you will probably think about what you are writing, what it's about, and why you wrote it down. Most importantly, it refreshes your memory. If you took notes a month ago and just found out that those notes will be relevant in your exam, rewriting them will remind you of them when you need it for your exam.

Don't study when you're really tired. It's better to get a good night's sleep after studying for a short time, than to push on till two in the morning. You won't remember much and you're likely to see a performance drop the next day.

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Don't Cram

Different Subjects Call for Different Studying

If you are Studying for a More Social Subject, Re-read your Notes, or Re-write them!

Cramming the night before is proven to be ineffective, because you're taking in so much information at once that it's impossible to memorize it at all — in fact, you'll hardly retain anything. It's true: Studying before and going over it multiple times really is the best way to learn the material. This is especially true with things like history and theoretical subjects.

If it's Maths you're studying for, work on the problems. Don't just read over it like you would for a history class, because you can actually do Maths, but you can seldom do history. Working problems out will help burn them into your mind, and remember: if you can't solve the problem before the exam, you won't be able to solve it on the exam either. For subjects based on calculations, it is important to do questions because this is essentially how you are going to be tested.

Make sure you know what you're talking about (rather than just memorizing your notes)! Don't simply copy your notes over and over again. This tends to lean towards memorizing the exact wording of your notes instead of the actual concepts. Instead, read and think about the content of your notes (such as think of examples), and then re-word them.

and stressful part of study. Since they are so important, you need et the best results. Here are some ways to improve your study ur needs and environment to make the best of your education.

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Choose Good Surroundings

Take Breaks

Plan Ahead

Some strategies for managing your surroundings include the followings:

You need some time to have fun and it is better to revise when you are feeling relaxed than to exhaust yourself studying all day! If you have trouble bringing yourself to study, instead of long uninterrupted sessions, chunk your work into 20 minute periods, taking a 10-minute break at the end of every period. Make sure that you structure the chunks logically so that you're not breaking up concepts across chunks, as this may make it more difficult to remember concepts in their entirety.

Always create a plan before you start studying.

Remember that this plan has to be achievable. If 3 out of 5 lessons are easy and can be finished fast, finish them first, so you can spend quality time on the difficult lessons without fretting.

Small tricks like these will help you complete your portions quickly.

Step 10

Step 11

Step 12

Review your Notes

Ask for Help

Be Prepared on the Big Day

When you are finished studying one page of your notes, before you move on to the next page, ask yourself questions relating to the material on that page to see if you can remember what you have just studied. It also helps to say the answers to your questions out loud as if you were trying to explain it to someone else.

If you need help, ask someone who is good at these subjects. Friends, family, teachers are all good options. If you don't understand what the person helping you is communicating, don't be afraid to ask them to elaborate.

On the day of your exam, look at your notes before the exam so that the information is still fresh in your head. Get plenty of rest the night before.

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Make sure you are studying in a clean, quiet and orderly room, maybe a public library.

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Studying in a well ventilated bright room with little noise helps focus better.

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Keep the TV and music system turned off as it will make it more difficult for the brain to prioritize information acquisition (rapidly swapping attention between studying and watching TV).

Content source: http://www.wikihow.com/Study-For-Exams

Image source: wikihow.com

BEST Practices SIX PRACTICAL IDEAS FOR LESSON PLENARIES Plenaries are a fantastic opportunity to reflect, recap on and consolidate the learning that has happened in today’s lesson. They can also be used to introduce ideas that will be visited in the next lesson, forming a bridge for continuous learning.

Plenaries are often badly executed due to timing issues, sometimes caused by a relentless drive to squeeze too much content into one lesson. It is important to make sure that, at the end of the lesson, you allow time to bring everyone together to take part in an activity or in a Q & A session, to reinforce the learning that has taken place and to highlight the progress that has been made.

Ideally, Effective Plenaries: • They usually occur at the end of lessons but can also be used at other points in the lesson if appropriate.

• They bring the whole group together to participate.

• They are used by the teacher (and to an extent by the pupils) to check on learning so far and to identify any misconceptions that need to be corrected.

• They direct students to the next phase of learning.

• They help pupils to understand not only what they have learned, but also how they learned it.

1. Guess the Question • Provides students with answers and get

them to guess the questions!

2. Just a Minute • Split the students into groups of three • Give each group an envelope with key words from the day’s lesson • The students take it in turns to explain the key words to the rest of the group in under a minute • The person to guess gets to choose the next key word to explain to the group 3. Topic Tennis • Split the students into groups of three – two players and a scorer • The teacher names the topics then the two players take it in turns to say words related to that topic until one player can’t contribute.

• The third person notes down the words and decides the score – one point every time the other person can’t think of a word (or use tennis scoring) • If there is time, share the best words with the class 4. Noughts and Crosses • Draw a noughts and crosses grid and number each square, one to nine on the board • Split the class into two groups – team one (noughts) and team two (crosses) • Team one choose a number from the grid • The teacher reads a question pre-assigned

to that number • If team one answers correctly they get a nought in that square. If they answer incorrectly, team two gets a cross in that square • Regardless of whether a nought or cross was awarded, it is now team two’s turn 5. Memory Game • Show all the keywords from the day’s lesson on the board • Give the students two minutes to memorise them in groups or pairs • Then remove the prompt and give the students three minutes to see how many words they can recall in their groups • The group who remembers the most (and who has spelt them correctly!) wins!

6. The KWL Approach It may also be useful at the end of some lessons to use the KWL approach to gather information which can help you to decide what to do in the next lesson.

Ask pupils to send the feedback to you: • What I already Know • What I Want to know • What I have Learnt Sometimes the best plenaries can be quite simple. The key thing is that they should be contributing something to the lesson. When utilized fully, plenaries can be a very useful tool.

THOUGHTFUL Story THE WISE FARMER'S DONKEY One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out a way to get him out. Finally he decided it was probably impossible and the animal was old and the well was dry anyway, so it just wasn't worth it to try and retrieve the donkey. So the farmer asked his neighbours to come over and help him cover up the well. They all grabbed shovels and began to shovel dirt into the well.

At first, when the donkey realized what was happening he cried horribly.

Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down and let out some happy brays. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well to see what was happening and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was shaking it off and taking a step up.

As the farmer's neighbours continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he

continued to shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, to everyone's amazement, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off.

The moral of this tale is: Life is going to shovel dirt on you. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Through applying wisdom every adversity can be turned into a stepping stone. The way to get out of the deepest well is by never giving up but by shaking yourself off and taking a step up.

The moral is what happens to you isn't nearly as important as how you react to it.

MISCONCEPTION Series Reading for Understanding – Extended Reasoning

Class 4: English

MANOJ AND HIS MOTHER

Q

A . 5.5%

Mother: How many sums did the teacher give in the test today?

Manoj: Five Mother: And did you get them all correct?

Manoj: Leaving out the first two ….. and the last three, I got all the sums correct.

How many sums did Manoj get correct?

D. 47.3%

A

the first two sums

B

the last three sums

C

all the sums

No. of Students P 6686

C. 12.5%

not even one sum D P

Only 47% answered correctly

information – it is this tendency of not reading further and assuming the meaning of the sentence, that leads students to make erroneous judgments.

1 Why was the question asked in ASSET test?

Humour mostly requires us to “read between the lines” or interpret that which is not explicitly explained. Often one thing is said, but the meaning of it is quite another. Paying close attention to information and breaking it down into bits helps in understanding that which is expressed in the humorous text. This question assesses whether children are able to grasp humour by processing information in the text.

2

Possible reason for choosing A: Very few students chose this option. It is possible that they made a random guess.

Possible reason for choosing B: It is possible that students stopped reading after they came across the words, “leaving out the first two…” and concluded that the remaining three sums were answered correctly.

Possible reason for choosing C: Students may not have read the entire text, but merely picked this option, influenced by the line, “…I got all the sums correct”.

3

• All the wrong options are framed from the final line in the text, which should make it relatively easy to answer the question. In spite of this, a high percentage of children are choosing the wrong options. This seems to indicate that students are not reading even simple sentences completely, and process information as incomplete and disjointed pieces.

• Students need to be actively encouraged to read texts fully.

What did students answer?

Only 47% of 6686 students chose the correct option D, “not even one sum”. 32% students chose B, “the last three sums”, which was also the most common wrong answer.

Learnings Students do not realise that incomplete information may lead to incomplete or incorrect understanding of the text. Students choosing option B seem to have focused only on this part of the sentence – “Leaving out the first two…” After reading this part of the sentence, students 'assume' that this is the only relevant

B. 31.9%

4

How do we handle this?

• Present this joke in class. Do not tell them that this is a joke.

• Ask students to read it carefully.

• Present them with the question and ask them their answer choices.

• Ask them to reason why they chose a particular option.

• Take them through each line and discuss what is happening therein.

• For the last line, break it into three parts – 1. How many sums were there in all?

2. What does, “leaving the first two mean?” How many sums were remaining?

3. When we read, “leaving the first two…and the last three” together as a sentence, what does it mean? How many sums remained in the end?

• Had you chosen the correct answer before? If not, what is the mistake you were making?

• Present children with more such anecdotes in class and help them dissect them, till this dissecting process becomes a habit for them

DUKE TIP Story Defining Giftedness and Its Goals Researchers in the field of giftedness face a major struggle: they can’t agree on a definition of giftedness.

If you were to ask 10 giftedness researchers for a definition of giftedness, you’d most likely get 11 different answers!

Some of the top researchers in the field of giftedness recently took on the Herculean task of synthesizing previous research, and they proposed a new conceptualization in their article, “Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education: A Proposed Direction Forward Based on Psychological Science.” In this article, Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, and Worrell take an extremely detailed in-depth look into the last 100 years of giftedness research and do an excellent job summarizing various perspectives of giftedness, proposing a new definition of giftedness, and even laying out a new goal for giftedness.

They define giftedness as: “…the manifestation of performance or production that is clearly at the upper end of the distribution in a talent domain even relative to that of other high-functioning individuals in that domain. Further, giftedness can be viewed as developmental, in that in the beginning stages, potential is the key variable; in later stages, achievement is the measure of giftedness; and in fully developed talents, eminence is the basis on which this label is granted. Psychosocial variables play an essential role in the manifestation of giftedness at every developmental stage. Both cognitive and psychosocial variables are malleable and need to be deliberately cultivated.”

Nestled in this definition is a reference to what the authors propose should be the end goal for gifted education: “eminence”, or “outstanding achievement”. In another section, the authors expound on this point, stating that “outstanding achievement, or eminence—with its attendant benefits to society and to the gifted individual—ought to be the chief goal of gifted education”.

Their article has garnered so much attention that the editors of the journal Gifted Child Quarterly have dedicated an entire issue to a series

of commentaries [http://gcq.sagepub.com/content/56/4.toc] reacting to the proposals set forth by Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius, and Worrell. The issue includes commentaries on various perspectives about: advocating for gifted students, the goals of gifted education, the equity-excellence balance, education policy, social factors, school factors, and even career development factors.

TIP researchers wrote the commentary on school factors titled, “Teach Students What They Don’t Know but Are Ready to Learn: A Commentary on ‘Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education.’” In the commentary, they wrote that they would, “revise the chief goal of gifted education to be the chief goal of all education: to ensure that all students receive the education appropriate for them at any given time by maximizing the match between individual students’ educational experiences with their individual educational needs.” The title references a goal initially proposed by Julian Stanley, the founder of the talent search model.

As a whole, the set of commentaries serve as an excellent window into the conversations happening between the professionals in the thick of trying to uncover and understand the lives of gifted students.

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