25th National Conference of Sahodaya School Complexes

Theme: Nai Taleem- For a Sustainable Future Organised by: Sahodaya schools Complexes Delhi and NCR Date: 01-02 Nov, 2019 Curtain raiser: 31st October Venue: India Habitat Centre

CBSE and Sahodaya School Complexes of Delhi NCR organized a two-day Conference on the theme Nai Taleem- For a Sustainable Future, also celebrating 150 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, 90 years of CBSE and 25 years of Sahodaya.

Ms Anita Karwal, Chairperson CBSE was the chief guest. Speaking on Nai Taleem, she outlined the future education policy of CBSE and the reforms in the offing. The event was also graced by Mr Emmanuel Joseph, Director (Academics) Dr Biswajit Saha, Director( Skill Education and Training) and Dr Anurag Tripathi, Director  (CTET)besides other senior officials of the CBSE. The day also saw in attendance around 250 Principals from Delhi, NCR and other parts of India.

An exhibition organised by the Sahodaya at the entrance, highlighting the history of Khadi and important events in Gandhiji’s life was much appreciated. Lovely recital of ‘Vaishnav Jan to’ by Diwakar Sharma also paid a tribute to Gandhiji . Dadi Pudumjee, a leading puppeteer in India and the founder of The Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust depicted the ideologies of Bapu through  a puppetry performance. The conference was followed by sumptuous lunch.

Sarv Sahodaya was applauded for a wonderful start- a perfect curtain raiser to the conference.

Webinar by Dr. Rajesh Hasija, Director of Indraprastha School, on the topic “Blended Learning, a new normal!”

The chairperson Ruchi Seth invited Dr Rajesh Hasija to make his presentation on Blended Learning a new normal. She appreciated the fact that he was addressing all the principals of the member schools and their staff. There were 207 participants for the Webinar.

Dr Rajesh Hasija referred to the Principals as Navratnas. He was very appreciative of the teaching community who had taken on the online teaching. He referred to the teachers as empowered Gurus. The role of a teacher is to be passionate, expert communicator and listener. Patient, caring and dedicated. Technology is a tool, a medium, to enable personalised teaching. Technology helps to train and make us highly engaged. In his presentation he gave very good inputs on Blended Learning through technology.

He reinforced that assessment and accountability are the key features. He addressed sound pedagogy, union of parents and teachers as parents are equal partners in learning. Dr Rajesh Hasija answered the queries of the participants.

Webinar-Early Childhood Essentials

Date and Time: October 17, 2020, 4:00 – 5:30 PM Speaker: Ms. Neera Chopra Organizer: Sarv Sahodaya Attended by 349

This webinar was organised with the motive of sharing the knowledge and practical experience of Ms. Neera Chopra, who has been in the field of education for more than 45 years. She has particular experience in Early Childhood Education that provides a child with a range of important skills for their lifelong development. Ms. Aditi Misra delivered the welcome address to this very first public webinar by the Sarv Sahodaya. The webinar, titled ‘Early Childhood Essentials’, aimed to build knowledge and expertise in a number of areas of the early childhood curriculum, with the main focus being on children’s Language Development.

Summary of Presentation

    • Ms Neera Chopra focused mainly on English Language development, the first main area of curriculum in Early Education.

    • The four basic language skills listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing-LSRW should be taught in this sequence.

    • Daily Listening and speaking activities should be listed specifically in the syllabus. Focus needs to be on phonetics, however not to be done in a sequence-abcd. Instead, a set of letters to be chosen where children can make three letters words and read them.

    • She recommended using Jolly phonics, available on the net for the same.

    • There are also words non phonetic in English called sight words or Dolch words- 220 in number to be learnt over four years nursery till class II

    • Besides sight words, there are diagraphs, diphthongs and blends, long vowel sounds, short vowel sounds and r control that are to be done too.

    • Writing should start once the child has understood phonetics and is able to read.
    • Children should be taught to write in the same order as we teach them orally, not in sequence.

    • No patterns – sleeping line or standing line. Instead of using terms as sleeping lines or standing lines, terms used should be from top to bottom, from left to right which is more important as a concept because we read left to right.

    • Students get confused when they read in print but write in cursive. Therefore, the lower case should be taught first and in the print form.

    • Students can be taught to join the letters, taking any slant- writing the way they want to. Speed will come later. Similarly, there should be no writing in capitals because there is no reading in capitals.

    • Every child should have a slate and soft chalks to scribble.

    • Eye contact is important – teacher should be able to hear and see every child. She suggested Work stations that work very well in this case. Children can be divided in groups of 15 or so with one teacher on one table.

    • Recapitulation and regular drilling is very important.

    • Hindi language should be taught in the same manner.
    • She asked the teachers to download NCERT Books for classes I and II available on www.NCERT.nic.in for their reference.

    • The teachers could make parents a part of this entire plan, explaining the logic and seeking their support in the process.

Conclusion

The overall organization and deliverance of the webinar was received well and considered very helpful by participants. Dr. Ruchi Seth thanked Ms. Neera Chopra for a brilliant session that gave an insight into early childhood teaching and gave a visual experience. Teachers were going back with a lot of validity and learning after listening to an expert in the field

WEBINAR On AR And VR

DATE: 25 July, 2020 TOPIC: lec-dem on AR and VR: BRINGING THE ELEPHANT INTO THE CLASSROOM TIME: 11 am to 12 noon PRESENTERS: Dr. Rajesh Hasija with Ms. Suman Tripathi and Ms. Shilpreet Kaur ATTENDEES: Sahodaya member Principals and teachers of their schools This webinar was a continuation of the wonderful presentation given by Dr. Rajesh Hasija earlier on 9th July on the need to integrate technology more effectively in the classrooms and the tools that could be used for the same.

Taking a step forward this Webinar had been organized to throw more light on Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) and also demonstrate how it can actually work effectively in classrooms.

– An enriching talk on AR, VR and MR was given by Dr. Hasija with the help of some slides. The terms AR, VR and MR and the ways to use them were explained well and their importance in giving a personal experience to the students, thereby making teaching-learning not only interesting but also very engaging was stressed.

Dr. Hasija’s talk was followed by a very interesting demonstration by two teachers of Tagore International School East of Kailash branch, Ms. Suman Tripathi and Ms. Shilpreet Kaur teaching Hindi and Computer Science respectively.

– They shared their teaching experiences which could be followed and implemented in day to day teaching-learning process.

– Ms. Suman, using VR technology gave the example of Dandi March in a chapter on Mahatma Gandhi wherein her class children were taken on a virtual March starting right from Sabarmati Ashram, across the Tapi river and reaching Dandi via Surat where Gandhiji made salt and broke the rule. Children moved along with the teacher on the virtual journey, actually experiencing and feeling the emotion as if they were a part of the march.

Ms. Shilpreet Kaur presented more components through one application called 3 D Bear app that is used in their school. She demonstrated how an elephant could be inserted and brought inside the room and beautiful scenes created through which multiple stories may be woven too. She ended her presentation with a beautiful video, story of a little piglet looking for her mommy.

The session was very enlightening, the interest level of the audience high, and their response very encouraging, seeing which it was decided to have more of such webinars, also for the Activity and Sports teachers.