The Monthly Newsletter
Issue 113 | March, 2015 | www.ei-india.com
MISCONCEPTION Series
? Ways to share your...
ASSET
Educators’ Zone
COVER Story How to Improve Student Morale A positive classroom environment can increase student enthusiasm and interest
them to write out a sentence describing the goal, a list of things they'll do to accomplish Your students sleep through class, it and a deadline for don't do their homework, struggle to meeting their objectives. respect each other and often make To help students you feel like you're talking to encourage each other yourself instead of teaching. If your and create community, classroom environment is full of periodically give them malaise and inactivity, a boost in class time to report on morale can infuse your students their progress in small with positive energy for learning. groups. Creative activities, personal goal setting and an examination of your Tap Into Student own attitude can transform their Experiences boredom and indifference into Showing the real-world enthusiasm and excitement. applications of class Goal Setting Gets Done material can increase student enthusiasm and create a positive Setting personal goals can increase environment. Compose assignments classroom morale by giving students that invite students to engage the greater ownership of their learning material on a personal level. If you're process, concludes a study by learning about persuasive writing in researchers from McGill University English class, for example, you might and the University of Toronto. Have ask them to bring in examples of your students come up with goals Internet ads that make arguments for your class, such as getting a about products and causes. If you're good grade on a test or not missing teaching "Romeo and Juliet" in any homework assignments. Ask literature, you might have them
create music playlists that describe the main characters' relationship. Technology, pop culture and social relationships are all avenues you can use to link up with your students' lives. Be Encouraging Always have a kind word to say to your students. They might not get the answers right all of the time, but keep in mind that they are trying.
When morale is high, students are more likely to engage with you and to do their best. Getting good grades is just part of the equation in the classroom. The other part is learning to enjoy the subject being taught.
Student Corner Ways to Share Your Passion for Learning Many teachers would verify that they entered the field of teaching because they love it. Not only do they love teaching others, but the subject material they teach thrills them. Stories abound of would-be teachers switching out of college majors to pursue the career they love. In other cases, teachers work with their subject material – be it English, Math, Science, or whatever – in arenas beyond just their classroom. They gravitate towards those venues. They feel complete when they work with and talk about what they love. And then they meet students who are, shall we say, not quite as enthusiastic. Some teachers can be caught up in a moment of pure passion when talking about a topic without realizing their audience doesn’t exactly sympathize with their sentiment. The truth is that teachers regularly love “this stuff,” whatever it is they may be teaching. The question is, “How can passionate teachers get their students to be passionate, too?” Unless students have some degree of interest in the topic, they are not going to be motivated to excel. 1. Be open with your own passion: It’s unbelievably boring to learn from someone who doesn’t even seem to care about what they are saying. It’s incredibly inspiring, on the other hand, to have someone talk about a topic with pure joy. If you love something, then show it. It’s contagious. 2. Regularly apply your passion, and tell your students: Be an example. If you were thinking about something, working on a project, or just walking along and if you found something interest that relates to class, tell
your students about the experience. What you and your students talk about doesn’t have to be isolated to your classroom. Let them see how what you’re teaching applies to the world beyond the classroom. 3. Get students to apply it, too: Whatever your content is, if students have experience in applying that knowledge to more than a test, they’ll be hooked. The world is diverse and fascinating. Classrooms, on the other hand, are abysmally isolating at times. Give them a glimpse of the real world. 4. Passion is cool: At least, that’s what we adults think. Students often shy away from becoming too “academic” or “nerdy” because school isn’t always presented as something cool. But it is. Constantly remind students that being smart, passionate and
engaged is cool – and give them plenty of opportunities to be cool. 5. Set goals and reward improvement: When students set a goal for their own academic growth, half the battle is already won. Now they have an internal motivating factor that will help propel them to that next level of success. And lavishly reward students who make any improvements. Turning even just one student onto a particular topic is not easy, and getting an entire class passionate is a true challenge. But with the right enthusiastic atmosphere, students might just realize that learning can be really, really cool.
News Bite Three teachers arrested in Tamil Nadu for leaking Class 12 question paper through WhatsApp Three teachers of a higher secondary school at Hosur in Tamil Nadu were arrested on Friday for allegedly leaking the question paper for the Class 12 board exam through WhatsApp. The teachers were on exam duty at Parimalam Matriculation Higher School in the area on. One of the teacher took the photo of the mathematics question paper with his smartphone and sent it to other teachers through WhatsApp. Source: Times of India
MISCONCEPTION Series States of Matter
Q
Class 3: Science
Payal’s school uniform got wet when she was washing her hands after lunch. She felt uncomfortable at first, but soon the uniform dried up. Where did the water go? A
The cloth sucked up the water.
B
The skin sucked up the water.
No. of students 6581
C The water changed into its “gas” form. P D
The water dripped away completely.
Only 38.9% answered correctly
the question).
Students observe different things happening around them. This question was asked to test if students are able to explain one such common thing that they observe almost daily.
But as the data indicate, many students do not have a reasonable idea about how clothes dry. Instead they have some incorrect prior ideas from other observations and have extended those ideas to this context wrongly. Though it is not wrong to relate a prior idea to a new observation, they should also learn to reason out logically, the correctness of that idea against other ideas and make a reasonable inference. It is important that students are given such opportunities to compare their ideas with other ideas, and give them a conflicting experience wherever their ideas are wrong so that they start appreciating the correct idea.
What did students answer? Only 39% of students could answer this question correctly. 61% of students could not answer it correctly; most of them selected the wrong answers A and D. Possible reason for choosing A: Students are probably relating the observation of water disappearing to it being taken in by something. They might have seen soft drink disappearing from a bottle when sucked, or a piece of sponge absorbing water spilled on the floor, and concluded that the cloth must be sucking in the water. Possible reason for choosing B: Very few students have selected this option and are most probably making a random guess. Possible reason for choosing D: Students selecting this option might have seen water dripping from wet clothes. And therefore they think that when all the water drips away, the cloth becomes dry.
3
Learnings Students may not know the fact that water changes state, from liquid to gaseous, when it dries. However, they are expected to reason this out based on their practical experiences and logically ruling out the wrong options. They must realise that if the cloth is 'sucking in' the water, the cloth must become heavy; but it doesn't. Skin doesn't suck in water and that is very evident from how our skin feels when the water from the cloth is drying. And lastly, if the water were to dry only by dripping away completely, it would take a much longer time and the clothes wouldn't dry fast (as mentioned in
B. 8.3%
P C. 38.9%
1 Why was the question asked in ASSET test?
2
A. 25%
D. 24.8%
4
How do we handle this? Encourage students to observe, analyse and provide reasonable explanations for different processes seen around them. To investigate whether A can be correct or not, ask students to get a piece of sponge and spill some water on the floor. Ask them to weigh the piece before and after putting it on water. Ask them to predict beforehand whether the weight will increase or not. Ask them whether the weight of the wet cloth increases or decreases after drying. Ask them to try it out using a handkerchief. To investigate whether D can be correct or not, ask students to dip a piece of cloth and hang it. Tell them to touch the cloth and check whether it has dried or not, once the water stops dripping. They will say that it feels wet. Ask them to observe whether any more drops drip from the cloth or not before it dries completely. Since they will see that no water drips, ask them to guess where the water went. This can then be extended to other observations like water droplets forming on the outer side of a bottle filled with cold water, water from puddles or a glass kept inside a room disappearing after some time, a bottle filled with perfume or petrol soon becoming empty if kept open etc.
For more information about ASSET, write to us at info@ei-india.com
EDUCATORS’ Zone Mrs. Lola Shiv Shankar Centre Head, San Academy, Bangalore 1. Who has most influenced you to become an educator and how did they influence you? My mother was the biggest influence on me taking up a teaching career. She identified my talent when I used to help her with her playschool at home. She used to tell me that the students whom I taught seemed to learn faster than even those whom she herself had taught! She asked me to take it up as my career, so I started my teaching career as a substitute teacher in a school. Seeing the affection, attachment and love given by children to me, I was influenced to take this up seriously as a career and I enrolled for a B.Ed. degree. 2. What is your approach to classroom management and student discipline? The most important aspect of classroom management is to plan the lesson for every type of learner, with various activities and using different methodologies to gain and hold their attention. Limiting the teaching time to 20 minutes in a 40 minute class enables a teacher to not exceed the attention span of most students; this should be followed by “fun” time in which interactive discussions enable the children to recall key concepts. The above approach ensures that every child is attentive in class; this minimizes distractions and helps maintain discipline. Students like the
teacher for giving them their “fun / free” time and the teacher thus earns their respect and admiration. I believe in being fair to all students at all times and treating everyone equally. Instead of enforcing discipline or punishing them for a particular behaviour, we should listen to them to try and understand the reasons behind a particular behaviour and then make them realise the consequences of that behaviour. Teachers should take up as a challenge, the management and disciplining of especially difficult children. 3. What are your views regarding the importance of teachers’ training and development in educating students? Teachers need training in the latest technologies and innovative methods of teaching; however I do not believe in formal training programmes that have a lot of theoretical content. The training programmes must have more role plays and demonstrations of good practices through video recordings of live classrooms. Most teachers have some strength, like the use of innovative and creative teaching methods, class management, maintaining discipline, holding students’ attention etc.; so teachers must learn to recognize the strengths of other teachers and learn from them by observing their classes. 4. What is your view regarding the ASSET test? It is a good evaluation tool. It analyses each student’s strength and weakness in a particular topic. This report serves as a good feedback for parents. Regular tests conducted in a school do not help teachers identify common / collective difficulties faced by a class. A statistical analysis provided to teachers by ASSET, helps identify such difficulties. This enables teachers to address those issues and improve class performance. The practice questions sent by ASSET to the school, helps children in developing their thinking skills which enables them to crack the HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skill) question.
Fun Zone 1 sin x = ? n 1 sin x = n six = 6 Bookpost
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