25th National Conference of Sahodaya School Complexes
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
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
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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
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.