On 26th June 2019, an extensive workshop on Emerging Challenges in Education was conducted by Dr. Usha Ram at The Indian School-Second Shift. Dr. Ram said that the teacher must be responsive to the socio-cultural ethos and national development. The students, on the other hand, should be equipped with 21st century literacies, including multiculturalism, media, information, emotional, ecological, financial and cyber. She spoke about the four core-contents of the wholesome development of the students i.e. Head, Heart, Hand and Health.
The challenges faced by teachers as well as the students are to do with the impact of media, inclusive education, development of life skills etc. Dr. Ram emphasised that its the responsibility of the teacher to enable the child achieve his/ her potential and become global citizens. She dwelt upon the qualities of a good teacher, the basic principles and significance of experiential learning (EL), the right set up for EL, Kolbs EL model and the 5 Stage EL Cycle (Experiencing, Share, Process, Generalising and Applying).
Dr. Ram highlighted the differences between experiential and conventional learning. She shared ways and methods to incorporate EL in classrooms. Talking about assessments, Dr. Ram mentioned that learning outcomes play a vital role in the education system for which planning the right kind of activity, is crucial.
[gallery link="none" ids="20222,20221,20220"]The next topic was collaborative learning (CL) in which students learn together to explore significant topics and create meaningful projects. She explained the difference between collaborative and traditional methods of teaching, the evolution of CL over the years, the principles of CL, the collaboration life cycle and the strategies and benefits of CL.
Last but not the least was the discussion on enquiry based learning (IL) which is the science of how to continue learning. It is beyond textbooks, parental help and security, teacher and school. She shared the enquiry-based teaching strategies and structuring enquiry by using the 6 thinking hats i.e. White Hat- Information Processing, Blue Hat- Thinking about Thinking, Green Hat- Creative Thinking, Yellow Hat- Noticing Good Points, Black Hat- Cautious Thinking and Red Hat- Thinking about Feelings.
The session culminated in an activity for the teachers based on Integrated Learning where the teachers made a cross-curricular plan on a topic and made sure that every subject touched topic creatively through various activities. Each team of teachers presented their creation on integration. Dr. Ram gave her valuable feedback to all the teams.
The speaker concluded the interactive session by summarising the key points discussed. As takeaways, we, teachers, learned about our roles as facilitators in the 21st century where the education system is going through a pervasive change owing to the dramatic technological revolution. Its the time to explore, grow and find joys in the challenges that might last a lifetime.
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