December 2011 Volume 5, Issue 12

Inspiring Teachers
Driving educational change through excellence in teaching

Editors Comments
I attended and participated in the 18th State Level Annual Conference by Maharashtra Council for Education Management and Administration. This Articles this month:
Faculty of the Month ...2 Third Choice ..3 Caption Contest .3 Must Watch Websites .4 Comments on Newsletter .4 Open Source Teachers Handbook 5

super computer PARAM in the 80s, was there to inaugurate and give the keynote address. Several other luminaries in education from the state spoke. The message was loud and clear. Education cannot continue the current ways if we need to leverage the huge population of youth in the country. Apart from inculcating thinking and values, education needs to restore dignity of labour by including some manual work in the curriculum. The role of faculty and the need for training and motivating them was also underlined. Uma Garimella

years theme was how to make higher education meaningful and value based?. It was on 31st Oct and 1st Nov at Sholapur, hosted by AG Patil Institute of Technology. The partner of this conference was Gokhale Education Society. This society, established in 1918 operates 91 institutions with more than 1,00,000 students, 3100 staff and a budget of 100 crores in three Zones Nashik, Mumbai & Thane with 16 Centres. It was a pleasure to hear the proceedings conducted in chaste Marathi any language when spoken without adulteration is always a delight. Anyway, due to this, no one used LCD/Presentations and it was even more delightful to listen to passionate speakers on various issues of education. There were several sessions and panel discussions on challenges in higher education, embedding values, using technology, training faculty and interdisciplinary teaching. Dr Vijay Bhaskar, the architect of Indias

November / December Events

1. Addressed Alumni at AMS School of Informatics Hyderabad, 26th Nov 2. Classroom management, Using ICT and Differentiation lectures at UGC Academic Staff College JNTU-H Nov 13th , 23rd 3. Speaking at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing at Bangalore 15th Dec in student track Learning how to learn 4. Visiting NIT Trichy, 19th Dec 5. Meeting VNIT Alumni to chalkout a learning improvement initiative Dec 24th, 25th

Inspiring Teachers Faculty of the month

(Read full interview at www.theprofessor.in) What kind of teaching methods do you use to keep students interested in your classes? I try to take some language puzzles or language activities which involve them. I gather Joy Anuradha is an Assistant Professor in Language and Communication at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad since 2009. She specializes in Technical Communication and ELT in Technical Education. Her areas of interest are teaching and training , curriculum design, psychology, communication and soft skills, personality development, classroom management and educational administration. She obtained her Ph.D from Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages in 1996. She worked in the Humanities and Management Group from BITS Pilani, Goa and at Aurora Consortium. language gaffes to entertain them and hopefully to drive home the point. I also give them a chance to practice their communication skills by encouraging them to participate in a discussion on current events. At BITS we have the freedom to choose our own materials, an article on a website or a paper clipping also works well in the class room. How do your colleagues react to your ideas and initiatives? How do you respond? Im basically a functionalist in my approach to teaching language. Some of my colleagues who are more traditional and formalist in their approach could never see eye to eye with my acceptance of certain

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Dr Joy Anuradha, BITS Pilani, Hyderabad
workshops and refresher courses also can be a stimulant for improving teaching skills. What are the challenges you face from students and how do you overcome them or turn them around? In my current position, I teach technical communication skills, both oral as well as written to future scientists and engineers. We have large classes with students whose communicative competence is a wide spectrum. Reengineering their communication skills to suit professional contexts is a major challenge. Fortunately, BITS Pilani has a Practice School component as part of the curriculum in the second year of the coursework to familiarize the students to the industry. That experience to a certain extent changes the orientation of the students.

answers that students give. For me it is always the function of a piece of writing that was relatively more important than its form. Formats keep changing with times yet the art of expressing oneself clearly in a variety of situations is very important to me. What could be a sustainable model to improve the teaching skills of existing faculty? I would recommend every institution to make a practice of publishing at least once a year the best teaching practices/methods used in their respective class rooms. There are lots of good and successful teachers around and everyone can benefit if their experiences are shared. That kind of newsletter or a bulletin exclusively for teachers can also update teachers about the latest trends and methodologies being used across the world. Encouraging faculty members to participate in seminars, conferences,

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Two doctors discuss the possible problem about a man limping towards them. One thinks it is polio and because one is a neurologist and another an orthopedic. A third man who overhears their conversation suggests they should ask the limping man himself. Well, I broke my sandal strap finally the limping man tells them. Mr RM Yeole was a very interesting speaker who started his talk with this story and had several others during his speech. The moral of this one was not to diagnose problems based on OUR tools and expertise but to find the truth. I am sharing with you two situations that he handled in an interesting way. The first incident was when he took over as principal of a high school (including XI and XII), he was told that the school was notorious for not able to curb copying during exams at its centre. And his mandate was to change that. So instead of doing something during the exam, he started at the beginning of the academic year. He first The second incident

Inspiring Teachers
found out all the schools whose children come to his centre for exam and visited them one by one. He spoke study tips and exam tips. At the end, he told them that if they are found copying during exam, he is going to act tough. And yes, his idea worked. There were three surprise raids by three different agencies that year during exams, and they could not find a single instance of mal practice. students started to think. In the course of the discussion, he brought out the point that probably having a goal or taking the next step towards it was a more appropriate way of asserting that they were adults. By the end of the talk, they had a plan. Mr Yeole quickly organized an exhibition of 120 career options through posters and information brochures for three days, through some agency. To his joy, even much later in life, several of the students of that batch told him how they benefited from that exercise. One fellow joined the army and he said that was possible only because of that exhibition. The point is Life is not just yes or no. Adolescents dont like to be shown the rod. But agreeing to everything they say is not good. It harms the student as well as the institution. But there are always innovative options available provided we have an open mind and open ears and the right questions. Mr Yeole is also actively involved in improving maths teaching in his state. Unfortunately or otherwise, he is not on internet! Neelu Vig : To Worker Bee or not to Bee...... Chrys Cattirisetti: Try to BEE someone :-) Know a lot to have a super powerful edge over others Dolly Sandhu: TEACHER! Leave those kids alone... to find their own path those kids alone... to find their own path
Dolly Sandhu TEACHER! Leave
Caption describing picture or graphic.

Third Choice - a high school principals strategy

another thinks it is fracture, to the students and shared

happened during New Year. Several class XI, XII students asked for permission to wear normal clothes and not uniform on 31st Dec and 1st Jan. Now, he had a choice of agreeing (and setting a bad precedent) or turning down their request. He tried a third choice. He asked them why they chose this way of celebrating New Year. The students said they were soon going to be adults and wanted to assert that. Then he asked them was dressing the only way to assert adulthood? Is that why they come to school, to show their dresses?So the

Inspiring Teachers
academy teachers of the world can be Anita Saxena Head co-ordinator- Staff Training of not only the students but also of and Development Programs, the society towards teachers and Blue Bird Senior Secondary education. School, Aligarh I have received the letter celebrating the 50th issue of the academy. I present my heartiest congrats and best wishes for the academy. I am in this teaching profession for 18 years and it is made aware of the changing attitude

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throwing away corruption,etc. and will surely be able to build a developing world. I hope I have not wasted your precious time. If ever you feel that I can be involved in any of the session as a part of your academy to attend any workshop or session; its a humble request to you, to please inform me. I will be highly obliged. Waiting for your motivating words eagerly.

There was a time when parents and students had a blind faith on teachers; whatever a teacher said was always taken as God's words. Now we need to change the teaching techniques and also try to make our students be aware of the rapidly

my passion. I love to teach as well changing society and enable them to as interact with the students. I take the right decision. Because I feel conduct grooming sessions and motivational sessions for the students of classes XI and XII. I feel that through your prestigious these students are the future citizen of the society who can bring the desired changes in the society

Must watch websites

1. Atlanta's solution to finding math and science teachers? Train them!
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/atlantas-solution-to-finding-1227499.html 2. Top Indian Academics Press Government to Allow Foreign Universities http://chronicle.com/blogs/global/top-indian-academics-press-government-to-allow-foreign-universities/31476 3. Reliance announces entry into Education in a big way http://www.educationinsight.in/2011/news/reliance-industries-to-enter-education-in-a-big-way/ 4. Virtual schools are multiplying, but some question their educational value http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/virtual-schools-are-multiplying-but-some-question-theireducational-value/2011/11/22/gIQANUzkzN_story.html 5. CBSE moots Integrity Clubs for value addition in kids http://www.indianexpress.com/news/cbse-moots-integrity-clubs-for-value-addition-in-kids/879729/0 6. Indian Engineering Congress http://iec2011.in/ 7. Stanford puts its CS lectures free online http://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/3361-stanfords-free-computer-science-courses.html

8. Video games that teach math http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-11-29/video-games-college-learning/51478224/1

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Inspiring Teachers

Open Source Teachers Handbook

Many people understand what is Open Source in software a philosophy which gives access to the products source material. It is also a philosophy where people contribute and cooperate to build a product. Bhagirathi Behera, a teacher with more than 10 yrs experience and now working as a principal has initiated a book compilation project with the help of the community of teachers. He has partnered with Teachers Academy to bring out this compilation of experiences, opinions, ideas and expertise and make it available to all teachers. Your contributions will appear with your name in the book. What do you need to do? Please respond to the following questions and send to us along with your picture and brief profile (include information about high school, college, activities, honors, work experience, why you have chosen teaching as a career, what are your strengths as a teacher, your career goals in next 1, 3, 5 and 10 yrs ) QUESTIONS Your philosophy of teaching 1. Think of your best teachers. What positive characteristics do you believe these teachers had? Which of these characteristics do you believe you have? 2. Think of your worst teachers. What mistakes did they make or qualities did they have? How are you avoiding those mistakes/qualities? 3. What three words would your students use to describe you? 4. Define student and school according to you. 5. How do you see the teachers status and role in society change in the recent past? Beyond class 6. What is the purpose of homework / projects? What is your typical homework / project? Involving Parents 1. What role have parents played (and are playing) in shaping todays education system? 2. What are some ways you involve parents in your student development strategy? 3. How do you approach a parent who is upset and and/or angry? Teaching 4. Explain how you structure the 40/45 minutes of a class period? 5. How much effort do you put in planning this lesson? (in terms of subject, method, aids) 6. How do you cater to the different needs of students in your class? 7. How do you incorporate technology into your instructions? Classroom management 1. How do you handle disruptive students in the classroom? Any special strategies for the occasional and for the repetitive behavior? 2. How do you create an atmosphere of tolerance and friendship among students in your class? Deadlines 30 March 2012- Last date to receive responses for questionnaire. 30 April 2012- Announcing editorial team and title of the book 5 September 2012 Inauguration of the book at Hyderabad If you want to be on the editorial team Any educator interested to be a part of the team can contact personally on 8084125247, or 9440607287 Mail us at bhagijune19@gmail.com/rediffma il.com info@inspiring-teachers.com Project Coordinator: BHAGIRATHI BEHERA PRINCIPAL GREEN VALLEY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL,MALINAGAR SAMASTIPUR ,BIHAR-848125

Inspiring Teachers
Teachers Academy

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Send in your New Year goals

Hyderabad

Its already the last month of the year! Time for reviewing the past year and working
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for a better 2012. A time to appreciate your successes and work in the areas of improvement. If you have set yourself some professional and personal goals for the year 2012, theres an opportunity to share it with the community.

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