Topic: Capacity Building Programme for Primary Teachers on:
- Raising Readers with joy purpose, and precision.
- Gamification of Learning and AI innovating schools.
- How the Learning Environment speaks to children.
Organiser: Salwan Public School, Rajendra Nagar under Salwan Education Trust
Resource Person:
- Dalbir Kaur, Literacy Strategist and Director, One up Book Store.
- Sonia Wadhwa, Headmistress, SJS, Naraina.
- Monika Mehrotra, Educationist and Founder of Superbuddy Education.
No. of Participants: 60 primary teachers across Salwan schools in offline mode. (Rest of the staff attended in online mode.)
Ms. Sabinder Kaur, Ms. Gunjan Bhatia, Ms. Tajinder Kaur, Ms. Payal Miglani, Ms. Geeta Choudhary, Ms. Harveen Kaur and Ms. Anupam Sharma (from SJS, N.)
Prime Objectives of the Session:
- To enable the students to love books, develop literacy rate and cultivate skills to analyse the text in the books through provision of training to the teachers.
- To create a culture of reading and making learning visible in learners.
- To provide joy in learning by making it interesting through gamification and AI tools for active listening and engagement.
- To assist the teachers in providing interesting and quick worksheets using AI tools and apps.
- To understand the relevance of environment around the learners to support maximum learning.
- To assist the teachers in grasping the value of all kinds of environment to be further able to cultivate enriched learning ambience around the learners.
Introduction
The session commenced with welcome and felicitation of speakers beginning with Welcome Address by Mrs. Mukul Jha (Director, Teacher Training, SET). She stressed on having a united front towards providing excellence in education. The teachers must focus on upskilling excellence in classes, having follow up of the training programmes in classrooms, and being the changemakers in today’s education scenario.
Ms. Priyanka Barara, Principal, SPS, Rajendra Nagar, further set the tone of the say by introducing the first resource person of the day Ms. Dalbir Kaur, a literacy strategist and founder of One-up Book Store. She also encouraged the participants to absorb maximum knowledge from the specialists and bring the love of reading as passionately as the resource person.
Session 1: Ms. Dalbir Kaur, Literacy Strategist and Director, One up Book Store on “Raising Readers with joy purpose, and precision.”
She introduced the passion of reading to the audience by beginning with the facts and figures associated with reading as a skill. She focussed on the importance of reading right from foundation years, irrespective of gender, caste, or financial backdrop of the learners. She also emphasised on how to infuse the love for reading so that the child must pick up a book themselves, by adopting various pedagogies. By proving scientific facts supporting the importance of reading on brain development, she enriched the participants with her pandora box of ideas.
Session 2: Ms. Sonia Wadhwa, Headmistress, SJS, Naraina on “Gamification of Learning and AI innovating schools.”
Ms. Wadhwa introduced the topic by engaging the learners in learning by doing method with Kahoot app. She kickstarted the session with a quiz on the Kahoot app and launching it on the participants on ‘how well do you know your school.’ It was engaging, exciting and reward worthy to work on the app and feel the active engagement of the learners, miming the effect of the same in classrooms.
It was followed by usage of another AI app called magicschool.ai to generate worksheets with rich access to plethora of kinds to work with. This exercise was also introduced by making groups of learners and engaging in time bound exercise with badges for rewards.
Furthermore, it was extended with creation of questions, generating images, and award badges with inclusion of YouTube videos converted into content worksheets. The whole exercise was productive and captured the attention of the teachers not only by participating and winning the rewards but also by generating such unique content using the AI tools and apps.
Session 3: Ms. Monika Mehrotra, Educationist and Founder of Superbuddy Education on “How the Learning Environment speaks to children.”
She equipped the house with the need of focussing on the immediate environment to boost learning in the classes. By decoding the relevance of kinds of ambience in relation to the Reggio Emilia Approach was much discussed vis a vis learning environment for the learners. She also emphasised upon ambience in relation to the subject teaching, learning continuum, differentiated learning, focussing on quality over quantity, process over product and so on. Her theoretical approach in making the audience understand these key concepts with a vision to make a classroom not only print rich learning space but also understanding the physiological and psychological effect of learning factors in children, made a huge difference to the teachers.
Key Takeaways of the Session:
The three-fold learning of primary staff of Salwan Schools was unique, productive, and enriching with providing differentiated approach of the three experts in the house, following different methodologies with broader perspective of learning in key areas of primary set up. The key learning takeaways of the day were as follows:
- A teacher must carry a book to the class everyday to spark curiosity and love for reading in children.
- Have read aloud story session with the class, everyday for 10-15 mins to set a habit of picking a book and read.
- Focus on access+ choice+ time= volume when taking a reading session with the class.
- Bursting of myths and clearing the beliefs while developing reading skills.
- Creation of content using AI apps to gain maximum benefit of technology with exciting quizzes, and assignments.
- Usage of advance version of ChatGPT and its extension in easing out teachers’ work.
- Similar use of magicschool.ai app with extensive usage of all its parameters to bring efficacy in the classrooms.
- Creation of creative reward badges, to generate interest and competitive learning spirit in the classes.
- Using environment as a teacher and in creative props is effective in having a joyful classroom.
- Educating parents to devote some time at home, as prescribed by the teachers to support learning ambience ta home.
- Importance of physical, psychological, and institutional setting in a classroom.
In conclusion, working towards excellence in education, is what is the motto of SET and the educators working on the ethos of it.
