Newsletter Nov 2010
- 1. Nov 2010 Volume 4, Issue 11 Inspiring Teachers Pic above: Six-day workshop at Learnium School, Hyderabad Articles this month: Classroom Management Tips – Editor ……………..….2 School Leadership for the 21st century – Behera ………………..3 Upcoming Conference – Sunanda Verma ……………….4 Humour - KV Jayakumar ……………….5 Driving educational change through excellence in teaching This month we have a new author – Bhagirathi Behera. He is a very motivated teacher who has entered this career by choice and who wants to be heading a school in another few years. He has put together a list of qualities for the school leadership of 21st century. We are almost coming to the end of 2o10 and it is time to Editor’s Comments October and November at Teacher’s Academy 1. Sessions for Effective Teaching Skills for CfBT’s programs at Aditya Engg College and Swarnandhra Engg College 2. Effective Teaching Skills – six day workshop at Learnium School, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad Oct 4th to 9th 3. 4th batch of Teacher Training Program at Enhance Edu, IIIT- H from Nov 1st to Dec 5th. 4. Next technique training at Adam’s High School, Hyderabad assess our performance and plan for growth. There are some ideas that need to be validated from all of you. They are in the covering mail. Please visit our website regularly and answer the poll question. We find surprising answers! Coming back to this issue, this time we have given announcements of a number of conferences related to teaching and learning. Our regular humour section and some pictures from the Inspiring Teacher Awards event are other offerings. What they say after adopting techniques from the training Mr Salim, Principal, Adam’s High School says all his teachers started using graphic organizers (mind maps) after training by Teacher’s Academy and their students are also making them now. Vasu Krishna, N Srinivasulu and others in Nalla Malla Reddy Engg College have started sharing learning objectives with students and find that it is a very effective way to generate clarity and focus in the students thereby improving interest and understanding.
- 2. Inspiring Teachers Page 2 of 5 Surprise! One of our poll questions on who is your best teacher – more than 70% voted for a teacher ‘who encourages you to go beyond the syllabus’. ‘explains well’ came third, after ‘makes you work so that you learn’ Think about it! How to handle latecomers Latecomers disrupt the learning of the rest of the class, give negative attention to the latecomer, disrupt the teacher's train of thought, often become disruptive talkers after they sit down, and then ask questions about what you just explained…so here is a way to handle themLeave five or ten empty chairs by the front or back door for latecomers. Students who are late are not to walk in front of the room or to go to their regular seats. They must take one of the "late seats" by the door. This will prevent latecomers from disturbing the class already in progress. Do not talk to latecomers. Don't accept an explanation during class. Ignore them as they come. Establish classroom rules Use the first class in your academic session to involve students to form simple rules of behavior and academic issues that will be followed. This activity works because students also want Classroom Management Tips Uma Garimella the same rules (believe it or not!).Since they are the ones who made the rules this works much better than teacher posting rules without input from them. You may ask them to get into small groups, brainstorm and come up with a list, which can be posted on the blackboard. Review it, rephrase if necessary, vote on contradicting rules and you should have some basic standards set for the class. Handle backtalking students – either in your room or in the class: Here we are not only talking of arrogant students but also those who keep explaining why your comment about them is wrong – for example you tell a student to concentrate on her work and not talk, she answers that she’s not talking or that her neighbor is disturbing her and then you respond and it goes on. There are two reactions – in the first few seconds stay calm. And then don’t keep up the conversation - It takes one fool to backtalk. It takes two fools to make a conversation out of it. If you don’t keep talking, the back talk will not continue – for obvious reasons. Just give your instructions and ask the back talking student to follow them. Noisy or disruptive behaviour: Usually teachers ask questions to students who haven’t been paying attention. This doesn’t work for two reasons: 1. The student can’t answer the question and he/she feels humiliated 2. Since anyway the student has been caught, there is no further motivation to pay attention. Instead, it may be a good idea to ask questions to students who are sitting close to this group, but who are paying attention. Since the focus of the class has come near them, the disruptive group is likely to come back to the class flow.
- 3. Inspiring TeachersPage 3 of 5 An educational leader is one who willingly makes all efforts for achieving institutional goals by influencing and making other strive for the same. It involves the achievements of organizational goals and working with people. But in 21st century educational organization are socio- technical systems, unique organizations whose basic components are the individuals and technology. In order to be successful three types of skills are School Leadership for the 21st Century Bhagirathi Behera The nature of educational leadership in 21st century is totally different from traditional supervision leadership. Pragmatic study and analysis instead of inspection; total teacher- learning situation in place of teacher focused learning; many diverse functions instead of visits and meeting; organized and planned objectives in place of poorly understood objectives; cooperative manager in place of imposing and authoritarian; and last but not Strong leaders are key to turning around poorly performing schools, by implementing reforms, and motivating teachers and students. Above: Break time on Teacher’s Day Above: N Chandrasekhar Reddy from NMREC, Hyderabad, touching his guru K Srinivasa Rao’s feet before the award was presented. Mr Rao, who now works in Viveka Vardhini College, was the man to whom Chandrasekhar’s father handed over the responsibility of grooming him. From a child who was below average in school, Chandraskehar got counted as one of the brighter students after he came under Mr Rao. essential for a leader or manager as technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills. Educational leader are to improve the learning situations by working with teachers, to help teachers grow as professional, to develop materials for instructions and learning, to improve curriculum and to arrange for in-service education for teachers and other persons. Other tasks are looking at instructional services in schools of other towns and districts, upgrading evaluation, studying problems and setting new schemes with successful implementation, managing reward systems for teachers, providing a vision for the staff and faculty. This means helping the teachers and other persons concerned to see teaching as a larger picture with a number of interrelated activities. the least, many persons to lead the education field in place of one person. The job of a school leader is multidimensional and the skills they must have are for (1) instructional leadership; (2) management; (3) communication, collaboration, and community building; and (4) vision development, risk taking, and change management. Thus, principals must have a deep understanding of the processes of teaching and learning including knowledge of new teaching methods, student construction of knowledge, and skills in problem solving. In addition, they must devote a large portion of their time and energy to improving teaching and learning. They should be able to provide informed feedback, guidance and support to professional development activities. Caption describing picture or graphic.
- 4. Inspiring Teachers Page 4 of 5 Conference Name Paper Submissi on Deadline Venue Dates of Conference Topics IC4E 2011 http://www.iacsit.org/ic4e Oct 25, 2010 Mumbai, India Jan 2011 e-Learning, e-Education ETT 2010 http://www.ieee-ett.cn/ett2010/ Oct 25, 2010 Wuhan, China Nov 27 - 28 2010 Education Training and Technology CSEDU 2011 http://www.csedu.org/ Oct 25, 2010 Noordwijkerh out, The Netherlands May 6 - 9, 2011 Learning/Teaching Methodologies And Assessment ITNG 2011 http://www.itng.info/ Oct 30, 2010 Las Vegas, USA April 11 - 13, 2011 Software Engineering Education Track EDUCON 2011 http://www.educon-conference.org/IEEE Oct 31, 2011 Amman, Jordan April 4 - 6, 2011 Learning Environments and Ecosystems in Engineering Education ICIET 2011 http://www.iciet.org/ Nov 10, 2010 Guiyang, China Jan 26 - 28, 2011 Education Technology CSEET 2011 http://conferences.computer.org/cseet/2011/CSEET_2011/ Nov 29, 2010 Hawaii, USA May 22 - 24, 2011 Software engineering Education ICALT 2011 http://www.ask4research.info/icalt/2011/ Jan 17, 2011 Athens ,USA Jul 6 - July 8, 2011 Adv Learning Technologies and Technology-enhanced Learning T4E 2011http://tfore.iitm.ac.in/ February 27, 2011 Chennai ,India July 14 - July 16, 2011 Education Technology ICETC 2011 http://www.icetc.org/ March 25, 2011 Changchun, China July 15 - 16, 2011 Innovative Pedagogies, Learning Models Good leaders must have a vision for their school, a plan for reaching it, and an ability to communicate that vision effectively. But on the way, they must also know about finance and be able to drive successfully through difficult political situations filled with competing interests and demands for resources. In School leadership……(cont’d) Upcoming Conferences Sunanda Verma, EnhanceEdu, IIIT-H Siddhartha Ghosh of GNITS, Hyderabad, speaking in Telugu during a JAM session on 2 nd Oct. His mother tongue is Bengali! addition, good leaders must be good at managing people (teachers and other staff, and stakeholders), time, and facilities. Rather than telling people what to do, effective leaders share their vision and let people set goals aligned to that goal. And they motivate them to achieve those goals. Most important in all this is the ability of the school leader to see what strategy suits his/her school and keep reviewing its effectiveness. If something is not useful, it is necessary to change it, rather than take it as a failure or taking it as a prestige issue. Mr Bhagirathi Science Teacher Shantiniketan Vidyalaya Shamirpet
- 5. Inspiring TeachersPage 5 of 5 Thinking in Indian and speaking in English e-mail fwd KV Jayakumar #Inside the Class: * Open the doors of the window. Let the Air Force come in. * Cut an apple into two halves - take the bigger half. * Shhh...Quiet, boys...the principal just passed away in the corridor. * You, meet me behind the class. (Meaning AFTER the class) * Both of you three gets out of the class. * Close the doors of the windows please... I have winter in my nose today. * shhh... quite, the principal is rotating in the school. * (Facing the Board), Dont talk in front of my back. # About his family: * I have two daughters. Both of them are girls....(?) # At the ground: * All of you, stand in a straight circle. * There is no wind in the ball. # Giving a punishment: * You, rotate the ground four times... * You, go and under-stand the tree... * You three of you, stand together separately. Started three years ago, already 1600 teacher members on-line, 28 colleges and 15 schools touched by the training. Long term projects are being taken up for schools and colleges. Continuous support and multiple initiatives will be included for holistic and sustainable change. About Teacher’s Academy… Teacher’s Academy Hyderabad PHONE: 97011 41118 E-MAIL: info@inspiring-teachers.com See us at: www.teachersacademy.co Please do leave your feedback on workshops on the site About Us Clients say Share articles, useful links, teaching resources and tips for effective teaching with a growing community of our teacher mailing list. If anyone is passionate about changing the education scenario to work with me can send resume and talk to me. --Thanks Uma Garimella Founder