Reflections on Pre-Service Training

Training Areas

1. We spoke to them about their teaching experiences and challenges in each school.
   eg: One of the challenges that stood out was the fact that they had many issues with behaviour.
   – Hence, during the week we did a recap on building classroom culture with standard policies, rituals, and activities toward a shared goal.
   – Rajeeka also did some work around classroom management and responding to misbehavior with them, to build on what we have done in the past.
2. We covered the area of Socio-Emotional Learning, an important area that we couldn’t cover last time.
3. We recapped lesson planning and put in place the need to use a minimum of one alternative assessment which is not an exam as a formative assessment for each module.- For which we taught them how to create assessment criteria that are linked to their learning objectives/outcomes.
4. We also covered a workshop on Growth Mindset to help them think about stepping out of their comfort zone to face the challenges that they have head-on.

Professional Development Activities.

1. We had one-on-one discussions and have arranged for continuous mentoring sessions to be handled by Rajeeka, Ramesh and Myself.
   This was an important one because it helped us give personalized feedback and put in place procedures to solve gaps that we saw.
2. We had a special guest join us virtually. Noely, the volunteer mentor from Third Space Global, joined us to meet the teachers on Zoom and did her first session with the teachers on Saturday.

5. We also conducted a meeting with the staff and the teachers to ensure that we work towards a common goal of actually improving the consistency of attendance and improvement for the children that attend the centre.
6. We ended the week by giving them their first exam to see how much they remember from what they learned.

Assignments & Follow-Up Work

1. We have given the teachers a 2-part assignment, Part 1 helps them identify real problems in their classroom and set focused goals for their work with the student.
2. Part 2 – helps them measure their students’ performance in a way in which they can monitor their progress in the classroom over the program.
3. We have also asked them to produce a schedule for their work at the CAL Centre, with a plan on how they can make sure that they are doing focused result result-oriented work at the Centre classrooms and work in synergy with the CAL Staff.
4. The teachers will independently conduct regular learning circles where discuss how they can overcome challenges. We hope that Noely will also be involved in the sessions when her time permits.
5. They will also create a dashboard for each school so that we have a broader picture of what kind of schools we work with.