As the academic year 2016-’17 drew to an end, we received a message on Whatsapp from our Principal, Ms. Annie Thomas. It was an invitation to apply for a ‘fellowship training’ for English and Maths teachers from std. I to VIII. This fellowship was being conducted by CEQUE – Centre for Equity and Quality in Universal Education. The program is known as ‘Teacher Pages Innovator Fellowship’ (TPIF) which is being offered in partnership with the Tata Institute of Social Scienes, Mumbai.
The aims of the fellowship were:
- To develop teachers’ skills to innovate creative methods of teaching.
- To help teachers to assess the students and understand where they are falling short.
- To help teachers create effective lesson plans thereby making classroom teaching interesting.
Any teacher can become a part of TPIF through a rigorous selection process. We had to submit a lesson plan with some innovative ideas and methods of teaching. We were lucky to clear the first round of selection. The second round was an interview with the subject expert. We cleared that round too and were finally selected for the fellowship.
Three teachers from Sharon made it to TPIF – Ms. Reena Babu, Ms. Pranali Gaikwad and Ms. Shailaja Nair. The fellowship began on 5 th June 2017 with a seven day residential workshop which was held at J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Research, Pune. All the arrangements made for our stay by the CEQUE team was commendable.
The first day began with a round of introductions of participants and the panel members from CEQUE. We were introduced to the founder director of CEQUE, Ms. Anju Saigal and the CEO, Ms. Uma Kogekar. We were also introduced to the language experts, Ms. Meenu Thomas and Ms. Varsha Sahashrabuddhe, a senior consultant. Ms. Vipula was the maths expert.
Our training from 6 th June to 11 th June was truly a different experience. We were introduced to many activities which can be used in our class to teach different topics in different ways. We learnt how to develop the four basic skills of learning i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing, in sessions led by Ms Varsha. Ms Meenu was the facilitator for introducing innovative strategies to make teaching and learning a fun experience. Some activities conducted were Bloom’s Ball activity, Picture Talk and THIEVES.
On the last day of the training, we were introduced to the 5D framework of teaching or the five dimensions of teaching and how it can be implemented in our teaching. All in all, it was a wonderful experience. Teachers from different states and districts interacted with each other and shared their experiences which added to our knowledge.
The fellowship will continue for an eight-month period during which some of us will be mentored and selected to create videos of our innovative teaching practices. This will be added to CEQUE repository of teaching videos which can be found at www.ceque.org
TEACHING GRAMMAR INNOVATIVELY
Ms.Shailaja Nair,
English Teacher, Primary