TEACHER SUPPORT ACTIVITIES FOR ACTIVE LEARNING

Background

The support activities for teachers for the initiation of active learning in the classroom are also situational like in the case of classroom teaching. The nature of supports to be provided differs with the situation faced by the teachers in respect of their own teaching capacity, conditions of learning spaces, availability of teaching resources, learners’ background and their learning styles.

While talking about the situational analysis, I remember the teachers’ views on quality education which they shared during cluster level meetings. It was in 2006, during my posting in South Sikkim District, we started a program called ‘Going to Cluster’. This was the program of visiting clusters by the officials from district office and conducting teachers’ meeting there. Normally this type of meetings used to be held at district headquarter with poor attendance and time limitation as the participants from far off places want to leave earlier to catch bus or taxi. I also remember the supports provided by Shri A.B. Gurung, the then Joint Director and Shri M.K.Rai, the then Deputy Director of District HRD Office for conducting these meetings. The agenda of the meeting was ‘Quality Education: Our present Status and Our Future Plan’. In the meeting, the representatives from different sections of teaching fraternity were given chance to place their views from the dais followed by open discussions. During the course of these meetings, four senior secondary school principals, eight secondary school heads, nine junior high school heads, ten primary school heads, six post graduate teachers, eleven graduate teachers and fourteen primary teachers selected by the house placed their views on behalf of their respective sections. It was a lovely experience being with the teachers and school heads, listening their views on quality education and plans for the future. I was really touched by their concern for the children. However due to the ill health of my father, the program was discontinued; even if we could cover 50% clusters of the district in which more than 60% teachers and school heads participated.

During discussion, all the school heads and teachers advocated the child-centered teaching learning process but they expressed their inability to design the suitable activities on the basis of grade-wise learning requirements of the children. They also expressed the teaching techniques suggested to them during their trainings are hardly applicable at classroom level or the techniques are not matching with the real situations at classroom level. Since then I began to probe the matter to unveil the secrets of non-employability of the teaching techniques imparted to teachers in the in-service short term trainings. In my every school inspection I began to observe the style of teaching and difference of learning among children in the classes taken by trained teachers and untrained teachers. In many cases it was found that there was hardly little difference in their teaching techniques and learning among children. The event of children enjoying classes, interacting with teachers and peers, working together, etc. were rarely seen. Ultimately the problem was same – ‘The teaching techniques suggested during training is not applicable at our situation.’ This revealed that the teacher education institutes of the State have tried its level best to bring shift in teaching learning process by suggesting the ideas and strategies to make the classroom joyful and child friendly.

The educationists and pedagogues are seen endorsing the focus shifting in teaching learning process since last three decades i.e. post ‘NPE 1986’ period. They have made a table of focus shifting from ‘Earlier Classroom’ to ‘Today’s Classroom’ which has become so famous and might have reached to every personnel working in the field of education. The same table is given below for the reference:

Earlier Classroom	Today’s Classroom
·       Teacher dominated	·       Child-centered
·       Chalk-Talk-Test	·       Activity-based
·       Passing of information and knowledge	·       Development of competencies, desire to learn
·       TLM, Textbooks, blackboard	·       Varieties of materials
·       Uninteresting class environment	·       Stimulating – Child friendly
·       Fixed, rigid time-table (scholastic focused)	·       Flexible – variety of activities
·       School boring – child afraid	·       Interesting – enjoyable and secure

   

Teaching is a highly technical job and teachers are technical professionals. The teaching job involves high range of pedagogical skills and the technicality involved in it is not easier as the learners’ learning mood and learning styles (which are not under the control of the teacher) decide the types of teaching techniques to be adopted in the classroom. Because of this, the pre-set plans and pre-designed strategies never become final until the teacher enters the class and observes the moods of the learners.  

Teacher Support Activities

Considering the volume of the paper, I am taking two major Teacher Support Activities which play the key role in shifting the paradigm of teaching learning processes at school level allowing the entry of active learning inside classrooms. The strategies and activities suggested in the paper relating to above two areas will target the situations mentioned in the background above. These two activities are Training of Teacher and School Monitoring. The trainings mention here are not pre-service trainings which have structured syllabi prescribed by the national apex body of teacher education. My targets here are only the in-service teacher trainings.   

1.     Training of Teacher:

Teacher Training is an integral part of teaching-learning process and it cannot be separated from this. It is only an effective way to eradicate teachers’ pedagogical inadequacies and update them as per the requirements of effective teaching learning for the targeted learners. However, while providing trainings to teachers, we very often miss to relate the teaching environments of teachers and learning style of learners for which the teachers are being trained. This makes them confuse and the training outcome results to null. Moreover, the shift in classroom activities is a chain process for which the first shift should occur in curriculum, then training process and ultimately in classroom teachings.  To make the training effective, the following activities are must:

Before Training:

a)     Training Plan: The first activity before training is the preparation of training plan. While planning for training on pedagogy, a training institute has to have a thorough observation of the teaching situations of the teachers. The assessment of the teaching capacity of the target group teachers for whom the training is being planned is also equally important.

b)     Identification of target groups: If the planning is for need-based training on active learning, the identification of target group is very important on the basis of nature and degree of requirements. Within this targeted group also we may have the teachers of varying capacity which need different sets of training strategies. Hence to ensure the effectiveness of the training it is pertinent to avoid ‘fit to one solution’.  

c)     Fixing of Desired Outcomes: Normally during the formulation of training plan we use to draw its objectives and it is very good practice also. However, sometimes these objectives would be more hypothetical than practical.  Hence, fixing of desired outcomes for the training being planned with appropriate and verifiable indicators will make the training an outcome oriented. These indicators can be employed while assessing the impact of training in the later stage. Some of the examples of desired outcomes for training on active learning can be as follows:

·       Participant learns to convert/design the text/content/chapter of the textbook into activities tuning with learners’ environment, daily experiences and observations;

·       Participant learns to conduct designed activities in more stimulating manner making the learners to work together in groups or individual; learners working together, cooperating and talking/asking questions/ answering questions without being afraid;

·       Participant learns to bridge the cognitive variations of learners and learning takes place collaborating entire class – idea of inclusive activity;

·       Participant learns to insulate learners and make them engross in activities in such a way that they hardly bother the happenings outside classroom; the buzz of the activity overrules the whole environment even if the class is being held outside the classroom – increase in learner’s engagement time and teaching load reduction;

·       Participant learns to harmonize curriculum, syllabus, textbooks and TLMs during pedagogical processes;

·       Participant learns to develop study skills in learners and make them self-reliant learner;

·       Participant learns to develop better mathematical thinking/skills in learners and make them perform measurably better;

·       Participant learns to conduct assessment during activities (ability to remember, understand and apply knowledge) without revealing the assessee that they are being assessed and support those who are falling behind;

·       Participant also learns to assess the learners on their social skills and life skills and tries to inculcate the values like helping others, respecting other’s views/opinion, ask helps if required, etc.

·       Participant learns to prepare indicators/tools to make the assessments continuous and comprehensive;

·       Participant learns to prepare progressive learning ladders to make the assessment continuous.[i]

The plan also needs to include the list of materials that are to be suggested to use while conducting teaching activities at classroom level. This suggestion should include such materials which can be easily available in school and the training should focus on using those materials in teaching activities to make the classroom joyful and stimulating. Suppose if the training focuses on the use of power point presentations in the classrooms, this may not be feasible in the government schools as they do not possess this facility.

  

d)     Preparation of compact session plan: Compact but joyful training sessions help to insulate the participants/trainees from going astray. These types of session plans also make the trainees to feel the discipline and decency of training for which they are invited.

During Training: This is the most crucial stage of training – the implementation level, where all the earlier exercises are to be materialized. Since this is training on active learning, the trainer needs to adopt such stimulating strategies which make the class active and the trainees bound feel ‘yes this is active learning’. As such the trainers should keep following points in their minds while preparing instructional plans for this training:

(a)   Trainees may feel that the training for joyful teaching learning process is not interesting and joyful.

(b)   Trainees may want to see the model class for joyful teaching learning process during the training itself.

(c)   Trainees may want to see how teaching activities tuning to the textbooks are designed and conducted in the classroom.

(d)   Trainees may also want to experience the extent of joyfulness and magnitudes of learning outcomes through the teaching techniques on which they are being trained.  

After Training

Pauses are highly recommended in several researches either within the activities or in between the activities. It is recommended that a teacher should pause within her teaching activity to assess the learners’ attention and involvement in the learning process. In the same way, pauses are important in between the trainings as well. These pauses are for looking back and see how the trainings already provided to teachers have changed the classrooms and impacted the learning among the children. The pauses are also to assess the shortcomings and further plan for remedy. The changes in terms of teaching learning processes and enhancement of learning among learners should be visible and measurable.    

2.     Monitoring of Active Learning:

After the enactment of RTE Act in the country, we have seen that the monitoring of normal functioning of schools have been shifted to community. The monitoring mentioned here is the tracking of teachers’ skills to conduct active learning class vis-à-vis learners’ skill development.

Monitoring of quality in education is highly technical job which requires decent degree of expertise; mere expertise does not suffice, it needs proper planning as well. Thus before going for a monitoring, a monitoring officer has to prepare a plan considering all the parameters like backgrounds of the school being monitored, school location, availability and conditions of space for scholastic and co-scholastic activities, class size, pupil-teacher ratio, availability of basic amenities, etc.      

A teacher very often encounters with difficulties in teaching. She tries to find out the solution of the issues within her range of supports like asking to her head teacher, colleagues, referring available literature around and finally she leaves that even if she could not get the solution. In many cases, there may not be the culture of taking helps from head teacher or colleagues. Taking helps like this may not be considered nice and this is true too because I have the experience that a teacher who takes helps from other is considered inferior. As such, the school monitoring plays very important role in the situation like this. It can diagnose the issues, provides acceptable solutions and gives suggestions for further improvements. Moreover, the active learning demands the change in social environment of the school and the monitoring only can makes it possible.

School monitoring for quality education is vast area which, I think, I should write another paper on the topic that include planning of School monitoring, techniques of identification of major thrust areas and desired outcomes, devising strategies, assessment indicators, tools, etc.

The effectiveness of monitoring depends on its specificity. More detail and specific monitoring plan endow its effects and helps to achieve the targets. The monitoring of active leaning demands detailed activities. Some sample activities are given below:     

Case No. 1

Situation: Manish, a 12 years old student picked up a piece of paper lying in the assembly ground and threw it in the dust bin lying in the corner. A teacher Ms. Malati, who was entering from school gate, saw him doing that and called him near her and patted on his back saying something. Manish bowed respectively to Ms. Malati and proudly ran inside a classroom. 

             

School campus and classrooms were clean and well-kept. The walls and columns are decorated with diagrams of alphabets and content related picture, frequently used ground level black boards.  

Your observations: What do you think Ms. Malati said to Manish? Do you think Ms. Malati a good teacher after observing this? Why? What is the use of diagrams and pictures?

School Culture: School has the culture of encouraging children for the tidiness of campus and classrooms. School concerns for the improvement of child-friendly elements in the school.

Case No. 2

Situation: In Class III EVS Class of 41 students, students were working on groups. There are seven groups and drawing a diagram of ‘Water Cycle’ in chart papers. The children were looking happy and actively participating in the activity. Mr. Ravi, the teacher of the class, was attending every group and supervising the children’s activity. Mr. Ravi said, ‘’Now only 2 minutes left.’’

           A chart of ‘Solar System’ on which a comment written with red marker was pasted in the children’s

           activity Board. The comment was like this ‘Best Diagram prepared by Group C’ followed by name 

           of children participants of Group C.

Your observations: What method was Ravi using to teach ‘Water Cycle’? What good practice you see in Mr. Ravi’s teaching style? Why? Comment why Ravi has written this sentence with red marker - ‘Best Diagram prepared by Group C’

School Culture: School has the practice of teaching through activities and displays children’s works on notice board to encourage them. School encourages positive comparison among children.

Case No. 3

Situation: Mrs. Hangma entered into Class V. Students stood up and greeted in synchronized voice – ‘’Good morning mam!’’

She smiled and looked towards students as if she sees everyone and said, “Very good morning my dear children!”

She took a chalk and said, “We have started a new chapter yesterday, who can say the name of that chapter?” All the students raised their hands. “This shows everyone knows the name of that chapter” she added. Again a synchronized voice, “Yes”. She wrote on the black board – “The Miser’s Shoes” and asked’ “Is it the name of that chapter?” Again a synchronized voice, “Yes”.

Suddenly a voice came from the middle bench, “What is the meaning of ‘miser’ mam?” It was Shyam who was absent yesterday.

Mrs. Hangma asked the class, “Who can answer Shyam’s question? Raise your hand.”  All the children raised their hands except Shyam. “Ok do you have difficult words in this chapter?” she asked. Again collective voice “Yes”.

“Ok then let’s do an activity. We will make seven groups. From the last bench, you Tashi, you are 1, next 2, ok you...keep on saying but don’t forget your number. Ok now make group of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s and 7s. Now six groups have 6 members and one group has 5 members, isn’t it?” Mrs. Hangma was saying. Sita, a mediocre student, raised her hand and said, “Can I go to group 3 and Lalit wants to come to group 1 which is my group now?”

“No mam, I am ok here in group 3, she is lying.” Lalit said. A big laughter roared in the class.

Radha from group 4 asked, “What we are supposed to do mam?”

Your Observations: She smiled and looked towards students as if she sees everyone and said, “Very good morning my dear children!” Why she did this? Is it necessary for a teacher? Do you think Mrs Hangma’s class is democratic? How? What are the risks in this kind of teaching style? Suggest some steps to avoid the risks. Can you say something about Sita’s style of learning?

School Culture: School provides democratic schooling. Teacher teaches through activities to make the classroom joyful.

Conclusion

Teachers are the base of school education. Their creativity and their knowledge on pedagogy held high place in quality of education. Gone the days when people used to say- ‘anyone can teach and become a teacher. If you are not getting any job, just go for teacher.’ Now the education has become a personal concern. Not even a rag-picker compromises his children’s education. The search for quality in education has resulted in opening of hi-fi private schools that follow active learning; where the teachers are fired if the children fail to acquire requisite level of learning in their subject. A teacher cannot write negative remarks like ‘Failed in Mathematics, try hard’ (I have one report card of my school days with this remarks) on the child’s report card. It is not the child but the teacher has to try hard to make the child pass.

The pressures, now-a-days, are same on government school teachers also. These pressures are to be felt empathetically by whole school education system and devise more efficient approaches to support teachers to initiate instructional change towards active learning. 

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[i] Guidelines for the preparation of Training Modules for BRC Level In-service Training of Elementary Teachers, prepared by State Project Office, SSA-RTE, Sikkim and sent to SCERT and DIETs. 

ACTIVE LEARNING: A NEW PATH FOR CLASSROOM TEACHING

Introduction

As we know, learning is endless process and everything makes us learn something or other in our daily life. Learning can be accidental or intentional. The focus of my paper here is active learning with reference to ‘Learning by Teaching’ which usually takes place in our schools. Hence, all the discussions included and situations mentioned here in the paper are concern to school education only.

A new term which emerged in last decade in the field of classroom teaching is ‘Active Learning’.  To be frank, many of us working in the field of education are still not clear about the meaning of ‘Active Learning’. Many think that ‘Active Learning’ is not other than ‘Activity-Based Learning’. Hence my intention of writing this paper is to clear this confusion in the context of ‘Learning by Teaching’.  

The most common method of teaching that the teachers have adopted since last so many decades is lecturing and still we found the teachers using this method even in primary classes. Further we had the belief that listening can implicate more learning and examples of which are seen in religious gatherings where guruji speaks non-stop and followers listen patiently. However, guruji cannot say that how many of his followers are actually listening to him and understanding what he is saying OR how much learning is being taken place among learners by his lecture. The condition of the teacher who uses lecture method in the classroom teaching would be the same as guruji and this type of teachers always need tests or exams to label the level of learning among learners by his teaching. Moreover, the lecture method hardly promotes long-term retention of information in learners which is an essential characteristic of an effective teaching. The amount of information retained by students declines substantially after ten minutes.[i]        

It is expected that the effective teaching for the children attending schools should implicate the following:

a)     Inclusive or Collaborative learning (leaves no scopes for any learner to fall behind)

b)     Higher order learning

c)     Higher order thinking and imaginations   

d)     Instill reading habits (stimulate learners’ passion for learning), and 

e)     Shape attitudes and viewpoints.

All the above outcomes include in Active Learning.

How pupils learn?

‘How a child learns?’ is a core question for a teacher. The teacher should know the answer of this question before he enters into his class. The teacher also should know that the answer of this question is always situational and the strategies designed to teach the learners of last years may not be fit for the learners of this year even if the class and the subject contents are same. Because of this, a good teacher always feels awkward when he hears any teacher saying – “I am teaching this subject in this class since last this many years, so I don’t have problem in teaching this subject.”

As a teacher we have the experience of learners’ heterogeneity in a classroom - the heterogeneity in respect of family background, personal behavior, personal health and most importantly learning pace. The difference in learning pace in the learner never let a teacher to take entire children of a class all along in same magnitude of learning. As a result, the children who learn slowly in comparison with the fellow learners fall behind. The advance countries like the United States of America has made an Act called ‘No Child Left Behind Act of 2001’[ii] to avoid this. In the context of Sikkim, till recent years (pre-RTE years) we used to hold back a child (system of making failed) in a class intentionally who does not perform satisfactory in the year-end examination. 

Teaching learning process is always been an experiment for an educator/teacher since time immemorial. There is no full-proof teaching process which can ensure cent percent learning among the learners. The main weapon that a teacher always relies on is the textbook though it has been considered as teaching materials like charts, globes, maps, etc. It is seen that many of the teachers hardly start scholastic activities without textbooks in the school. Thus we can say our teachers are habituated with the teaching through textbooks or contents incorporated in the textbooks or teachers are habituated in working on pre-packed assignments followed by the text in the textbooks. Due to this hardly few teachers conduct learning exercises without using textbooks. This we call the ‘Content-centered Teaching’ which is guided by the contents and ignores the learners’ learning moods and learning styles.     

[Now what are learners’ learning moods and learning styles? Is it necessary for a teacher to teach according to the learners’ moods or the styles preferred by them?]

It is always a priority for a teacher to understand the mood of the learners before actually starting the teaching activity in the classroom. Normally the learners have the hangover of previous activities in which they were engaged or made engaged. So a teacher needs to wipeout the earlier events from the mind of the learners and make them ready to engage in the new activity. Further, different learners have different styles of learning guided by their way of living, their surroundings and family backgrounds. As such, the style of teaching should be such that it suits the learners’ styles of learning. Students learn what they care about and remember what they understand.[iii] The chances of higher order learning will be more if the teaching style provides the scope of involvement of learners in the teaching learning process. We shall discuss in detail, how a teacher can involve the learners in teaching learning process in the sub-heading ‘Active Learning’. 

Active Learning

We have seen a normal class of a school. The readers those who are not a teacher may recall back their own class when they were students. The major activity in a classroom, generally we saw till date, is ‘teacher talks and students listen’. It is known to all that the classroom processes in our schools are still not fully democratic. Still there is lot of space for maintaining proximity between teachers and pupils in learning processes. Only brighter students, who are given access by teachers, are seen speaking with teachers (asking questions, sharing and expressing themselves). There is discrimination between high and low achievers. On the other hand, it is expected that the school should make a child capable of becoming responsible, productive and useful member of society. The performance of a child is nothing but the demonstration of different skills inculcated by her school. The skills may not be only cognitive or academic as we say education aims at all round development of a child. Till date, it is seen that every key player of the education system are giving undue focus on academic competencies only.

The situations described above are all conflicting to the conditions which promote active learning. Active Learning is a process wherein students are actively engaged in building understanding of facts, ideas, and skills through the completion of instructor directed tasks and activities. It is any type of activity that gets students involved in the learning process.[iv] This means that the Active Learning can be possible only by Active Pedagogy which demands a democratic environment in the classroom where every child speaks with teachers, asks questions, shares their ideas and even teacher respond them with warmth of love and positive attitudes. The low achievers and slow learners, as any case may be, do not feel ostracized and neglected. Every child enjoys coming to school. They feel every moment spent in school is the most joyful moment, means no place is there enjoyable than the school. Teacher inspires and appreciates children’s activities. Classroom walls are full of colourful charts generally made by students with clearly visible teachers’ (rational) comments. The school campus visually depicts the centre of learning (Knowledge – Gyana). A sense of piousness seizes everyone’s heart while entering into school campus. 

The classroom processes are more stimulating making the children to work together in groups or individual. Children are working together, cooperating, and talking without being afraid. They are laughing, clapping, reading, doing various activities, including cultural activities. Students can ask questions any time and are eager both to answer questions and ask questions, as well as answer each other’s questions. Teachers are attending all the children smiling. Students are so engross in activities that they hardly bother the happenings outside classroom. The buzz of activity overrules the whole environment even the class is being held outside classroom in open. Neither student nor teacher is bothered by the visit of someone from outside.

No students’ memorizing notes or contents from the textbooks. All teachers keep every records of students’ learning (maintaining detail records of students’ performance using different descriptive indicators) covering various aspects of child’s holistic development. Teachers respect potentialities of children, their efforts and hard works. Subject teachers share their views on the development in skills in an individual child, their weaknesses and strengths using specific checklists for different skills. No students are made inferior/ discouraged on the basis of poor grade. "Active Learning" is, in short, anything that students do in a classroom other than merely passively listening to an instructor's lecture.[v]

The treatment and involvement of learners in the way described above in learning process needs various pedagogical strategies. Active Pedagogy aims at the learning of individual students in its process. Thus the strategies requires meticulous designing keeping in view of learners’ styles of learning. Charles C. Bonwell while writing about ‘Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom’ has given some of the major characteristics associated with active learning strategies include[vi]:

a)     Students are involved in more than passive listening

b)     Students are engaged in activities (e.g., reading, discussing, writing)

c)     There is less emphasis placed on information transmission and greater emphasis placed on developing student skills

d)     There is greater emphasis placed on the exploration of attitudes and values

e)     Student motivation is increased (especially for adult learners)

f)      Students can receive immediate feedback from their instructor

g)     Students are involved in higher order thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation)

Obstacle

Our past has the experiences that every new change or reform has to face the obstacles. As such, this process also may face the obstacles. The probable obstacles can be the following:

a)     Teacher thinks himself expert in teaching and unwilling to switch over his teaching towards active learning

b)     Teacher may not be capable/qualified enough to devise active learning activities)

c)     Both teachers and students need time to adapt themselves in new environment of class

d)     Initially (because of sl. No. b & c) the process seems time consuming and the teacher may feel the risk of non-completion prescribed course or syllabi

e)     Devising active learning strategies takes too much pre-class preparation

f)      Large class size may restrict certain active learning strategies

g)     Lack or shortage of materials/resources in the school demanded by devised active learning strategies

h)     Lack or shortage of conducive spaces to conduct active learning activities

Risks

There is hardly little risk from pupils’ side if the strategies are devised to suit their learning situations. However, from teachers’ side the following risks may be seen:

a)     Teacher may not be confident enough to conduct active learning activity

b)     Teacher may not possess the appropriate skills to control the class while conducting active learning activity in the class

c)     Teacher may devise faulty active learning strategies resulting negative impact on learners

Conclusion

In the conclusion we can say that Active Learning is the process which targets higher order learning in the learners by means of various teaching methodologies. It is rightly said that Active learning is an umbrella term that refers to several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning on learners.[vii] ‘Activity-based Learning’ is only a strategy of active learning.

Right now, Active Learning is the best alternative for the teachers of our country especially who are teaching at elementary level to cope with the situations created by RTE Act. However, to switch over from the present pedagogical stage to active learning stage is easier said than done.  It needs time for all of us to change our mind set to accept it, adopt it and get adapted to it.  

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[i] Thomus, 1972

[ii] The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is a United States Act of Congress that is a re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which included Title I, the government's flagship aid program for disadvantaged students.

[iii] Ericksen, 1984, p. 51

[iv] Daniel Bell and Jahna Kahrhoff, Active Learning Handbook

[v] Donal R. Paulson & Jennifer L. Faust, California State University, LA

[vi] Charles C. Bonwell, bonwell@ix.netcom.com

[vii] Wikipedia – Active Learning