Week 2: Here is what we did…
Day 1: We started the week by diving into an area on Being Vision Driven,
We helped them understand what Vision and Goals are and helped them establish these SMART Goals for themselves.
The link to Passion in their work was also discussed.
Day 2: We had dived into the discussion on Goals and Objectives and linked it to lesson planning.
We Covered the area of Motivation theory – I Can & I Want!
And then ventured into Building Healthy Student Relationships.
Day 3: On Day 3 we asked them to do a mock lesson in Maths and Science in their groups.
There was a significant improvement from the mock lessons at the interview.
Bloom’s Taxonomy was covered, and we discussed how they can link it to classroom instruction.
Then we also dived into the area where we spoke about Teacher Identity: We explored what kind of teacher they want to be and then linked this discussion to Observation and what they would need to observe when they go into schools.
Day 4: We sent them to the schools to observe the teachers.
Once they came back…
Before we went into discussing their experiences, we watched an in–session classroom that had been conducted by a Teach For India Fellow (Which was a brilliant video) and discussed instructional strategies that were used to manage the classroom pace.
Then we spent the rest of the afternoon discussing their observations and their reflections.
Day 5: The teachers went into schools for Observation, and once they were back, we discussed the four areas that were linked to Observation and asked them to structure their thoughts and reflections.
We asked them to choose just one positive thing that would like to incorporate into their teaching and under which area it would fit, along with an example for context and encouraged them to add more to this.
We then had a visit from Shajeevan who the Zonal Officer for Planning at Batticaloa West Education is. Shajeevan, is a very competent and driven government officer that is driven and very supportive of this project.
He spoke to the teachers and explained the importance of their role as teachers and how they would contribute to the change in the Batticaloa West Education Zone.
He also spoke about the many challenges that the zone faces in terms of dropouts and slow learners which was a clear motivational factor for the teachers.
