Posts Tagged ‘classroom’


August 27th, 2009

Online education – Will it revolutionise delivery of education?

A recent study on online education for the US Department of Education has concluded that “On average, students in online learning conditions perform better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

The study was based on comparative research from 1996 – 2008; some of which was in the K-12 settings. The analysts found that, on average, students doing some or all of their courses online ranked in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile.

The difference in performance although modest is statistically significant. As per Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist “The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction”.

Until fairly recently, online education amounted to little more than electronic versions of the old-line long-distance courses. In the more recent past, universities (especially in the developed countries) have adapted their in-class teaching material and made it available in online format (some of it for free or nominal cost). Universities — and many K-12 schools — now widely use online learning management systems, but that is mostly used for posting assignments, reading lists, class schedules and hosting some Web discussion boards.

While initial attempts in e-learning were not inspiring, the pace of progress has been rapid and encouraging. Enhancements in digital software, e-learning tools and learning management platforms have changed the quality and utility of online education. The arrival of social media, Web-based video, instant messaging and collaboration tools have radically altered the way participants of the online education environment interact with and learn from each other. The absence of collaboration and interaction, which had traditionally been the main drawback of online education is in-fact now posed to be its fundamental source of strength; as online education has the potential of providing an enriching collaborative environment by bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and experiences.

So, what are the implications of this for in-class education?

The development of online education is expected to evolve fairly rapidly, accelerated by the increasing use of social networking technology which will create new and innovative learning communities among students. The real promise of online education is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms and enabling more “learning by doing,” which many students find more engaging and useful.

Online education is already showing healthy trends in freeing education from the four walls of the classroom; and can be expected to increasingly take things out of the classroom. It is not entirely inconceivable that, in the not so very distant future, technology will be able to simulate a classroom environment – while contributing significant benefits of its own – which would make the physical presence of a school a thing of past. If this were to happen, the first casualties would be the less than “A” grade teachers and educational institutions.

For another perspective on this topic, see my blog dated June 12, 2009

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Posted in Education, News, Technology in Education, e-learning | No Comments »

August 14th, 2009

Text-books as curriculum

A long time ago I read, “Teachers are designers”. It has taken me years to understand the implications of that simple sentence. As a teacher who has taught across the grades and continents, I have struggled in designing curriculum (as per school, board, provincial and national standards), teaching-learning activities and assessment tasks. It takes a lot of time and creativity, both of which teachers find themselves deficient in! As an administrator, I have empathised with and supported teachers struggling to play the designer of their students’ learning.

So am I implying that textbooks have no place in a classroom? Certainly not! Textbooks are a tool, one of the many learning tools that a teacher/school uses to make students learn as per expectations/ standards. They are based on a certain syllabus but they are certainly not the syllabus. Textbooks are useful as sources of organised information about topics from the syllabus providing many exercises for reinforcing key knowledge. But they distort how understanding of an issue develops, since they present “only the cleaned-up residue”, “a simplified summation of findings”. The school in general and teacher in particular, need to use it as a resource for what it does well and compensate from other sources/ resources what textbooks do poorly.

Driven by convenience and profit motive, it seems that teachers/schools are abdicating their responsibility of designing students’ learning, passing it off to publishers, who have evolved into a powerful lobby. With the backing of the Who’s Who in the educational boards, they have successfully positioned and marketed textbooks as curriculum itself. Some publishing houses are also making inroads into training teachers about teaching. It’s simple quid pro quo, where the schools order textbooks in bulk from a particular publishing house who in-turn commit to train teachers about teaching learning. It goes unsaid that this training is a means to an end, the end being more sales for the publishing house.

It seems that convention has been turned on its head with teachers becoming a resource for the textbook instead of it being the other way round – textbooks being one of the resources for the teachers.

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Posted in Curriculum, Education, Teacher Training | No Comments »

June 18th, 2009

National Curriculum Framework (2005) – who’s listening?

The National Curriculum framework (2005), a watershed document, provides a basis for radical changes in the Indian education system. The Indian Education Review (Volume 44, No.2, July 2008),the latest published edition as on date of writing this blog, makes some interesting observations, recommending some radical changes from how education is imparted in Indian classrooms. These recommendations include:

i. Linking school knowledge with the child’s out-of-school experiences;

ii. Discouraging rote learning;

iii. Broadening the scope of classroom learning so that it does beyond the prescribed textbook;

iv. Making the examination system flexible and responsive to the child’s overall development; and

v. Developing a participatory [school] identity consistent with democratic governance

Those familiar with the evolution of educational psychology, philosophy and pedagogy know that none of these recommendations are new, but have been endorsed by eminent international (Bruner, Einstein) and national (Gandhi, Tagore) educationalists. It is a pity that, in India, we have at best been paying lip service these theories that have been propounded and effectively practiced around the world since the ancient times.

However, a beginning has been made by NCERT by acknowledging the merits of child centered approach to education and the framers for the NCF 2005 should be commended for vocalising some of the problems rooted in our system. As they say in India Der Aaye Drust Aaye (better late, than never), even though, in this, case we are struggling to reach the start line, while other countries started on their journey a long while ago.

If we were to evaluate the changes that the schools have tried to bring about in their classroom practices in the past three years post the acceptance of the recommendations of NCF-2005, we would get to know the progress we are making towards creating a student centric classroom. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any statistics or research on implementation practices or know of any school that is actively and consciously seeking to implement such a classroom environment. If you have any information related to this I would love to hear from you.

In my assessment, the challenges of moving away from a “prescribed textbook, the traditional methods of teaching which encourages rote learning and the examination system which ignores individual interest and profile of [student] competencies” , cannot be overcome without paying special attention to the needs and mindset of the 3 influential stakeholders of the Indian education system.

The School - The primary consideration for schools in India is performance in 10th and 12th class examinations. The performance of schools is purely judged by how well the students have done in these examinations and the breadth of success achieved. All classroom activities and teaching methodologies are dictated by how much they contribute towards students scoring high in the “boards”. Child centric teaching practices and the development of creativity is not a consideration; nor a priority.

The Parents – The primary criterion for the selection of a school by a parent for his child is the school’s ability to prepare the students for the 10th and 12th class examinations, i.e. if the school has a good track record in producing students who score highly in these examinations; it is considered a good school. This is because these examinations are milestones in a child’s life and have an unduly high weightage on career options of the child and/or the quality of the institution for higher studies that he/she would attend. All other factors like inculcation of values, emphasis on creativity, co-curricular / extracurricular achievements, and social involvement are inconsequential in the selection of a school.

Institutions of higher learning – The majority of higher education institutions in India grant admission on the basis of board examination results and consider performance in these examinations as the summation of student’s accomplishment till date and a proxy indicator of his future potential.

As evident, the common thread between the stakeholders mentioned above is performance in board examinations, which is considered a measure of success by schools, parents, institutions of higher learning and society in general. As a society we know better, but as individuals we fail to take cognisance of the fact that there are many qualities that define a person and his ability to achieve success.

I would think that if we as a community continue to treat board examinations as the holy-grail of education, it would be extremely difficult to change the mindset of schools and parents. For any changes to occur, it is important that reforms be initiated and at the onset be implemented at the level of institutions of higher learning as well. It is crucial to make systemic changes at this level as this group has significant influence on the thought process of the other two significant stakeholders (parents and schools) and has the added advantage of being more independent in its decision making. The institutions of higher learning would also benefit by selecting a diverse-ability group of students on parameters beyond board results.

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June 5th, 2009

The What, How and Why of Differentiation in Classroom

1 in every 3 students in the US is a dropout, not because they are dumb but because they are bored and schooling expects them to adapt their learning to a curriculum and not vice versa.

While the curriculum in most cases is a rigid entity, the teachers who are entrusted, legally and professionally, with the communication of that curriculum to the students need not be. Everyday, the teacher should make herself increasingly useless in this equation, empowering the students to be independent learners. The teacher who interacts with the diverse body of learners on an ongoing basis cannot adopt “recipe teaching”. There are resources to help a teacher who wants to bring about differentiation in classroom; but that can only guide her – the final design is her responsibility after considering her class dynamics.

So what does a teacher differentiate in order to optimize all students’ learning? This question needs careful analysis and depending on the students’ needs, a teacher could:

 Differentiate the learning environment and materials with which the learners work; for example, in primary grades teachers may sometimes organise students to work at different stations with different resources; or

 Differentiate the content; for example, in a math class some students may be working on 2-digit multiplication, while other with 3-digit multiplication; or

 Differentiate the activities designed to understand the content or assessment tasks; for example, students are given the option to choose from writing an essay or a political cartoon or a parody to demonstrate their understanding of a common historical event or concept.

Students’ needs may vary in readiness, interest or learning profile and differentiation addresses this need. All teachers must differentiate instruction and assessment based on the needs of the learners, to motivate them and to make learning more efficient and accessible. There can be a million reasons for not differentiating instruction and assessment and none of them would be new. In contrast there is one main reason why teachers must differentiate instruction and assessment – respect for students’ and their learning.

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Posted in Differentiated Learning | 4 Comments »

May 18th, 2009

Inquiry-based teaching

“The school needs to have more student-initiated inquiries than teacher-driven ones”, was the observation of the visiting team of IB experts who had come to study classroom practices in the school that I work with. Teacher training is an important part of my job description and is one of the aspects of teachers’ professional development that I have struggled with for the past couple of years. Coming from veterans in the field, persons whose work I have been following for a number of years, made me reflective and empathetic to see it from the lens of the teachers in the classroom who are trying, with varying degrees of success, to adapt to the inquiry-based approach of teaching-learning. 

Our perception of adults in general and teachers in particular, is that they ought to know better than children. As adults, we have experienced life more and therefore ought to have all the correct answers. So in our interactions with children, we assign ourselves the role of “answer provider”. Since there is only one “answer-provider” in a classroom, by implication there can only be one correct answer. Also then only some kind of inquiries can be raised, the ones that the “answer-provider” knows the answer to, and the rest are discarded and disdained as “silly” or “impertinent” or “irrelevant”, no matter how intelligent and relevant they are to the question-poser. 

Even when we do, there is little patience with or faith in the child to facilitate his search for the answer or construction of meaning. It is so much easier and acceptable to provide the answers to the child. Then there is the other element of student led enquiries – how does a teacher assess the work of the student when there is “multiple correct answers”? I will elaborate more on this topic in my next blog. 

Some of the difficulty in letting children initiate and take charge of their inquiries stems from our difficulty in accepting that the child is an individual today with his own perspective, and education should bring out more of his individuality. The urge is to mould him into our image of “a somebody”, so that he can be “that somebody” in the future – with complete disregard to “the somebody” that he is a today. 

Teachers trained and raised with such beliefs, therefore, find it very difficult to adapt to the inquiry-approach which celebrates “multiple correct answers” as the child directs his inquiry and charts the course of constructing meaning. Unlearning the teacher-taught methodology takes longer and is more difficult than learning how to help students generate and find their own answers to those inquiries. But the latter cannot happen without the former. 

So, to the teachers who are working to adopt the inquiry-based approach to teaching-learning and adapting yourselves for it, I commend your efforts.

Keep up the good work……it only gets better!!

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