VAATHI COMING!

"WITHOUT TEACHERS LIFE WOULD HAVE NO CLASS" 

Education in general has different approaches to be dealt with and has to be manifold in order to provide the learners with vast and extensive insights.

Our government has revamped the already existing education policy that was drafted about 34 years ago. The main aim of the newly released Education Policy 2020, in short NEP 2020 is to universalize education and make assured and complete enrollment of school education and provide quality knowledge with experiential, rational, analytical, empirical and critical thinking among the students.

To me, I view this policy optimistically and it is merely a good foundation laid in terms of school education and is a mission that has to be facilitated appropriately. A change is always inevitable to bring about a progress that can be witnessed with the help of this policy. But there is still an on-going quest in everyone’s mind and that is – Will this be feasible and who are responsible to make it feasible?

Now the limelight will turn to the “teachers”. Yes, a country’s development is perceived with how efficient its teachers / educators are. A teacher is the one who is responsible to bring out the potential of a student by providing a right, moral and an ethical teaching. They are the people to whom we have to be ever grateful for. But is this job easy? No, because it involves arduous and strenuous work into it to become a good instructor. Despite this, for the learning to do justice, the involvement has to be from the dual sides – both the student and the teacher has to cooperate on account to learn and get educated. This is not just all, it does involve some theories behind this.

 

5 IMPORTANT THEORIES OF TEACHING:

1.     BLOOM’S TAXONOMY:

This theory entails three important steps and indulges both the student and the teacher completely where a student is given “before-class” notes/ materials and asked to take a look on it in order to get him/her to remember and understand the content before coming to the class.

Secondly, the “during-class” phase involves the students to brainstorm or discuss the learnt material or the notes that he looked upon before attending the class. This will also create a healthy group formation.

The third and the final stage which is the “after-class” stage will instigate a student to use his creativity where he/she is asked to get back home and analyse and develop his/her insights or ideas over that particular topic. By this, the student will expand knowledge wide letting him/her to access various other things to learn and stay on track.

 

2.     FLIPPED CLASSROOM:

 

It is also known as the inverted classroom and directs group learning to individual learning. Here, it is similar to what was told before in Bloom’s taxonomy. This model tries to turn the student to be a tutor for himself by learning the material before going to class with his own pace as he wishes to and during class the same information is repeated in the form of either pictures, or presentations or videos to retain the information that can be clarified in case if he/she feels stuck somewhere with their understanding. This phase lets both the teacher and the student to engage and interact with each other. The same can be repeated during the “after-class” hours where the retained information can be analysed and be used for further research on that particular topic.

 

3.     GROWTH MINDSET:

 

It is always essential for both the student as well as the teacher to have a positive attitude and the environment during learning. The mind-set is very important for doing any kind of activity that involves both the cognitive and the physical attributes of an individual. There are five golden rules that makes up a growth mind-set and settles the student to go on further for learning.

#1 Set high expectations – Never say that nothing is possible, the higher you set expectations the higher you can put in the essential efforts to get what you want.

#2 Use conscious praise – Appreciation is good, but it is banked on that both the parents as well as the teachers have to give “conscious” appreciations.

#3 Encourage to be resilient and not give up – Never say that what you did is enough which will stop the student from proceeding further and has to be taught to not give up whatever happens, it is also necessary to be competitive in life to achieve a particular position.

#4 Celebrate mistakes – Mistakes can happen but it cannot be used to demotivate and dishearten the student, it can be celebrated by teaching on what is right and wrong and how it has to be rectified.

#5 Use inspirational role-models – It is okay to have an inspiration, they are the iconic ones who keeps us going and lets us to stay on track. So, it is advisable to have a role model and there is nothing wrong in it. The role model can be any person who is productive and successful. Knowledge can be imparted by anybody and anywhere.

 

4.     SOLO TAXONOMY:

SOLO taxonomy is abbreviated for Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes”. This model is a simple to complex procedure and is also regarded as an alternative to Bloom’s taxonomy and involves a hierarchy of 5 steps and they are:

a.     i.  Prestructural – Here at this stage, the student will not know anything

b.  ii.  Unistructural – He/ she by learning about that particular topic will know something about it

c.   iii. Multistructural – At this stage, he/she will have some awareness and will know more than one aspect about it

d.  iv. Relational – In this stage, the student/ the learner will be capable of relating the concepts he learnt with something else

e.     v.  Extended abstract – This is the most beautiful and the matured stage where the student/ the learner will develop and create new ideas and concepts with the help of the learned stuffs.

 

5.     PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING:

Philosophy is the discipline which teaches an individual about the perceptions of the world, universe and society. This can instigate an individual to behave morally and ethically and can deliver good attributes that helps in bringing a positive change in the society. Philosophy shows the exact essence of life and provides an opportunity to shape and sculpt a person’s character, in general the personality.  

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development says that anybody is capable of philosophical thinking and it develops during the stages of childhood that has to be properly guided through the rest of the lives to become a good person in life.

 

Therefore, teaching is not just a simple art but involves a great effort to change someone’s life by lighting up their whole life. They are the ones who also work for our headway and are the ones to whom we have to be grateful for eternally.

 

Can’t thank all of my teachers enough, but I'm indebted and thankful to all them in my life. 

Happy teacher’s day to all the teachers out there. I would like to end this blog with a Japanese proverb that says, "Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher". 

 

Regards,

A forever student.