After attending teacher workshops by CEQUE and The Teacher Foundation regarding different teaching strategies, my way of teaching has changed to a large extent. I understood the impact of collaborative learning and activity in the classroom. I can see my student’s involvement and active participation in class which often leaves me pleasantly surprised and astonished.
As I have been doing group activities in class from the beginning of this academic year, I don’t face many discipline issues or too many problems in making groups. In fact, I do n’t even have to make groups, since my students are now used to collaborative learning and group activities they divide themselves into groups with ease. I feel very happy to see them making groups and following the ground rules. I feel my students understand the importance of group activity and they have learned to respect the views and opinion of their peers also. All this has contributed to a change in my classroom culture. I feel motivated seeing my student’s involvement and active participation.
I would like to share an activity which I took in my grade III class to enhance student’s imagination and ability to create something original. This was a ‘Story Map’ activity and the objective of story map was;
- To introduce the elements of a story like a title, setting, characters, problem and solution
- To help students to imagine and create a story collaboratively
For the story map, I used a picture from the cover page of the Balbharati Textbook of grade 3. I used this everyday resource as it saved me time and I wanted to draw students’ attention to the cover page, something most students overlook. Then I introduced the elements of map and asked the students to brainstorm on story ideas in groups using the story map which included all the elements of a story. As a warm-up, I had a picture talk in class. After this class discussion, everyone proceeded to make stories in their own groups.
Once the group, have written their own story in the given story map worksheet. The leaders of the groups came forward to briefly narrate their stories. I was astonished to hear 10 different stories from 10 different groups using one image. Some groups made funny stories whereas other groups came up with serious stories. I was really thrilled as I being a teacher could not think as my kids did. I also felt proud of my students.
Here are some story ideas they came up with.
Contributed by Reena Babu,
Teacher, std. III