EMERGENT LITERACY WORKSHOP
Ambience Public School, Gurugram organised a workshop on ‘Emergent Literacy’ for the language teachers of pre primary and primary school of Sarva Sahodaya Schools on 15th March 2023. Thirty five teachers of twelve schools participated in the workshop.
The workshop commenced with a warm welcome and a thoughtful note by Mr Vivek Kumar, Principal, Ambience Public School, Gurugram. He called for the need to push literacy skills in the early schooling beyond the reading text. The resource person Dr. Anuradha Rai, Director Ambience Public School, Gurugram shared insightful details about the importance of reading and writing, the means to identify good and struggling readers and ways to create phonemic awareness in students. Dr. Rai shared multitude of activities which can be conducted with students after completing a story, in order to strengthen their reading and writing skills along with enhancing their thinking and analytical capacity.
In later part of the session teachers were encouraged to share the strategies used in their respective classes in order to enrich the vocabulary of the students and also hone their speaking skills.
It was an engaging sessions were greatly appreciated by all participant teachers for invigorating and creative experience which could be implemented in classroom to make the learning more engaging and enriching.
HINDI WORKSHOP ON THINKER KEYS
Day, Date: Saturday, 6th March, 2021
Resource Persons: Mrs. Sonia Bhatia, HOD, Tagore International School, Vasant Vihar
Participants: Sahodaya member Principals and Hindi teachers of their schools (Total No. 130)
Venue: Google Meet
Objective:
• To enhance the critical reasoning ability of learners.
• To increase their ability to think differently.
• To develop their study skills in order to help them deal with problem solving in present times.
• To develop the creative thinking of learners.
Description:
A Hindi workshop was organized by Sarv Sahodaya on 6th March 2021 wherein around 130 Hindi teachers participated. Mrs. Sonia Bhatia who is an eminent member of the Hindi Department of Tagore International School, commenced the workshop. In the workshop, she talked about the 20 keys of Tony Ryan who is an educationist and a thinker.
• In the process of learning, there is no substitute for thinking and planning.
• The lessons of imaginative thinking skills should be delivered with appropriate references.
• The secret of 20 keys is to give systematic order to thinking and learning.
Tony Ryan has emphasized on the development of modern and creative thinking for the following three reasons –
1. Creative thinking should be interesting and pleasurable.
2. It should enhance excitement and effectiveness.
3. The ability to cope up with the changes should be strong.
Learning outcomes:
• The keys can be used as a wrap up activity which is done towards the end of the work.
• These keys can be used to make balanced question papers.
• These keys can also be used as an activity before the main work.
CVP LINK Intellectual development of learners.
“The secret to a happy life is not just enjoyment, but learning from experiences”.
HINDI WORKSHOP ON THINKER KEYS
WEBINAR ON THE POWER OF STORYTELLING
Date: 18th January 2021
Timing: 4:00-5:30 pm
Organized by: Sarv Sahodaya
Resource Person: Mr. Stephen Marazzi, an Edutainment Specialist, and a renowned name in the field of Performing Arts (Vocal and Theatre).
Sarv Sahodaya organized an informative and enriching webinar on ‘The Power of Storytelling’. The resource person for the day, Mr. Stephen Marazzi, motivated all the participants to promote integrated learning by capturing students’ imagination through interesting stories.
The session, attended by over 75 participants, aimed at enabling the teachers to incorporate Storytelling as a teaching tool to make their teaching interesting and the difficult concepts understandable.
The session commenced with Ms. Madhulika Sen, Senior Education Advisor, Tagore International School, Vasant Vihar, extending a warm welcome to Mr. Stephen Marazzi and the participants.
Highlights
• According to Mr. Marazzi, stories arouse curiosity in a child which in turn drives him to search for the outcome. Thus, the process of ‘Search’ is extremely important in the teaching-learning process.
• The stories should be relatable and relevant so that they can excite the emotions of the child and allow him to feel the story.
• He accentuated the implications of stories in a child’s life. Stories help them to imagine, create, devise, explore, and discover, which is the real role of education.
• Through interesting stories and real-life examples, Mr. Marazzi pointed out that stories are not only the tool of Language teachers but can be very effectively taken up by other subject teachers teaching subjects like Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies.
• It was very important to note that the kind of stories children read, watch, or listen to shape their attitudes, beliefs, and life. Hence, the adults around them should ensure that the children are introduced to the beautiful world of stories that inspire them to become better human beings.
Mr. Rajat Sharma, Principal, General Raj School, proposed the Vote of Thanks.
The session was an enriching one as the resource person gave real-life examples and narrated stories to bring clarity to the scope and implications of Storytelling in the learning process of the children.
WEBINAR ON COMPETENCY BASED EDUCATION
Date: Dec 23, 2020
Timings: 04:30 PM to 5.45 PM
Conducted by Sarv Sahodaya
Resource Person: 1. Ms. Lipi Goswami, PGT Physics, Tagore International School, East of Kailash
2. Ms. Ragini Goswami, Department of English, Lotus Valley International, Noida
Attendees: Sahodya member Principals and teachers from middle and senior school from departments of Science and English (Total No. 201)
Summary of Presentation
The webinar aimed at building the knowledge and expertise of the facilitators in bringing about a paradigm shift in their teaching strategies from Traditional Learning to Competency-Based Learning.
The program commenced with Ms. Anju Uppal, Joint Secretary, Sarv Sahodaya, extending a warm welcome to all and introducing the two resource persons for the day. Ms. Neera Chopra, an Education Analyst and Master Trainer, CBSE was the moderator for the webinar.
Highlights of Ms. Lipi Goswami’s session
• Ms. Lipi explained the meaning of ‘Competencies’ as the skills, attitudes, and knowledge which the children develop for successful learning, viz creativity, innovation, critical thinking, managing information, problem-solving, and so on.
• She highlighted the need for a Competency-Based Education (CBE) System that has an Interdisciplinary Approach.
• The CBE System aims at creating effective learning environment providing guidance to the students according to their learning styles.
• She advocated a shift from the traditional focus on merely understanding, remembering, and recalling to higher-order skills like applying, analyzing, designing, and creating.
• The mode of teaching should be student-centric wherein the students are active learners, problem-solvers, collaborators, and creative thinkers.
• Ms. Goswami clarified the basic difference concerning the advancements in CBE assessments which are learning-based rather than time-based and aim at achieving the desired learning outcomes.
• The assessments are formative as opposed to the purely summative ones in the traditional system.
• She especially stressed the need to take task-based feedback.
• She also pointed out that the pedagogy in CBE involves a differentiated instruction support system instead of the traditional pedagogy with a single curriculum having a need-based support system.
• She gave practical examples from daily life to integrate subjects like Arts, Sports, Mathematics, and Physics seamlessly in an interesting manner while teaching students.
Highlights of Ms. Ragini Bansal’s session
• Ms. Bansal explained CBE with reference to English Language and Literature.
• She highlighted the competencies like developing critical and creative thinking, gaining knowledge of the target culture, defining moral attitudes, and so on, to be built in the students through the teaching of quality English Literature.
• Ms. Bansal listed and explained the activities like listening and reading comprehension, giving a title to the passage, and paraphrasing the passage that may be conducted to develop Literary Competencies.
• She laid stress upon Constructivism that enables the students to acquire knowledge about a core concept through inquiry, research, and investigation rather than memorizing and regurgitating information about it.
• Another important skill highlighted by Ms. Bansal was Linguistic and Communicative Competence to enable the students to use and understand a language pertaining to aspects like what to speak, when to speak, with whom, where, and in what manner.
• In the current scenario, these competencies can be developed by using various online applications like Kahoot, Sentence master, Anchor.fm, Lyrics Training App, YouTube, etc.
• ¬She cited activities like Mock Interviews, Case Studies, Group Discussions, Peer Editing, and Virtual Collaboration with partner schools vital to foster language learning.
• She discussed various types of assessments that are child-centric and gauge the knowledge acquired by the child with Portfolio Assessment as one of them.
• She suggested the teachers create their own rubrics to assess the creative writing skills of their students and always aim at developing their LSRW skills i.e., Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing skills.
Ms. Neera Chopra accentuated the need to ensure that Reading skill is developed along with the comprehension of the text read. She requested the participating teachers to read the NCERT Circular (Acad-34/2020) about Alternative Academic Calendar and Competency-Based Education (CBE) and implement it in their classrooms.
Ms. Santosh Vyas, Principal, Sadhu Vaswani School, Delhi, proposed the Vote of Thanks. She thanked Sarv Sahodaya for providing an opportunity to share the best teaching-learning strategies in today’s changing times and the resource persons for their insightful presentations on CBE.
It was an informative and enriching webinar effectively explaining the meaning of Competency-Based Education and its positive impact on the students.
WEBINAR ON ART-ICULATING THE CURRICULUM
Date: Nov 27, 2020
Timings: 03:30 PM to 4.45 PM
Resource Person: Ms. Aditi Misra, Director Principal DPS, Gurugram
Participants: Sahodaya member Principals and teachers of their schools (Total No. 215)
It was an enriching session aimed at understanding and appreciating the significance of Art Education (AE) and incorporating Art Integrated Learning (AIL) in our curriculum. The chairperson of the Sarv Sahodaya Dr. Ruchi Seth, Principal , Lotus Valley International School Noida welcomed all the participants and Ms. Guneet Ohri, Principal , Suncity School, welcomed and introduced the resource person Ms. Aditi Misra.
The presentation was divided into two categories:
A. Why and How to go ahead with Art Education (AE) and Art Integrated learning (AIL)
B. Activities conducted to incorporate AIL at all levels
Ms.Aditi Misra began the session by differentiating between Art Integration and Art Education. She explained that Art Education is teaching about Art and Art Integration is how to integrate this knowledge of art into non art subjects like Science, Maths, Social Science etc. that would lead to not only joyful learning but also a deeper understanding of concepts and long-lasting remembrances. She updated the audience about the new NEP 2020 guidelines where the NEP2020 has recommended that every school should compulsorily reserve a minimum of two periods per week, per class for Art Education. The school curriculum should cover music, dance, visual arts, theatre and include written, graphical, digital and cinematic forms.
Ms. Aditi Mishra also highlighted that the art-integrated project must follow the following aspects of learning: reflective, experiential, trans-disciplinary, problem solving and collaborative learning.
She shared a few sources of AIL like Ethos of a region, folk dance of the region, local art or folk art, local music/folk music, folk theatre, folk traditions. She also suggested that the schools can contact local artists, dancers,
musicians, theatre people, Spic Macy, Ventriloquist and involve them in this activity.
Ms. Anuradha Rai, Principal Ambience School, Gurugram proposed the vote of thanks. The session was a great insight to making education more purposeful and meaningful.
WEBINAR ON EARLY CHILDHOOD ESSENTIALS
Date: October 17, 2020
Timings: 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Resource Person: Ms. Neera Chopra, Education Analyst, Master Trainer, CBSE
Participants: Sahodaya member Principals and teachers of their schools (Total No. 349)
A webinar on Early Childhood Essentials was organized with the aim to build knowledge and expertise in a number of areas of early childhood curriculum, with the main focus being on children’s Language Development. The resource person for the day was Ms. Neera Chopra, who has been in the field of education for more than 45 years. The programme commenced with Ms. Aditi Misra, Principal , DPS Sector 45 Gurugram delivering the welcome address to this very first public webinar by the Sarv Sahodaya.
Ms. Neera Chopra focused on the development of the English Language as the main area of curriculum in Early Education. She emphasized on teaching a language using the four basic basic language skills – Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing respectively.
The resource person also appraised the teachers about sight words, dolch words, diagraphs, diphthongs and blends, long and short vowel sounds and suggested that writing should start once the child has learnt phonetics and is able to read. She highlighted the wrong practices in preprimary teaching like usage of terms like sleeping or standing line and the emphasis on cursive writing. Instead of using terms such as sleeping lines or standing lines, teachers must say ‘ from top to bottom, from left to right’.
She concluded her workshop by advising the teachers to make parents partners in the teaching learning plan, explaining the logic and seeking their support in the process.
WEBINAR ON AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY
DATE: 25 July, 2020
TOPIC: lec-dem on AR and VR: BRINGING THE ELEPHANT INTO THE CLASSROOM
PRESENTERS: Dr. Rajesh Hasija with Ms. Suman Tyagi and Ms. Shilpreet Kaur
ATTENDEES: Sahodaya member Principals and teachers of their schools
Dr. Rajesh Hasija conducted a webinar on Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) in a pursuit to make classroom transaction effective. Dr Hasija explained the terms AR, VR and MR and the ways to use them thereby making teaching-learning not only interesting but also very engaging.
His session was followed by a very interesting demonstration by two teachers fromTagore International School East of Kailash, Ms. Suman Tyagi and Ms. Shilpreet Kaur teaching Hindi and Computer Science respectively.
Ms. Suman, using VR technology gave the example of Dandi March in a chapter on Mahatma Gandhi wherein the students of her class were taken on a virtual trip starting right from Sabarmati Ashram, across the Tapi river and reaching Dandi via Surat where Gandhiji made salt and broke the rule.
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 created and brought inside a room and how teachers can also create beautiful scenes and weave stories around these scenes. She ended her presentation with a beautiful video, story of a little piglet looking for her mommy.
The session was very enlightening. The response from the audience was very encouraging , seeing which it was decided to have more of such webinars, especially for the Activity and Sports teachers.
WEBINAR ON BLENDED LEARNING
DATE: 09 July, 2020
TOPIC: Webinar on “Blended Learning, a new normal!”
PRESENTERS: Dr. Rajesh Hasija
ATTENDEES: Sahodaya member Principals and teachers of their schools
A webinar was conducted by Dr Rajesh Hasija on 9th July on the need to integrate technology more effectively in the classrooms and the tools that could be used for the same.
The webinar began by Dr Ruchi Seth, Chairperson, inviting 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 was very appreciative of the teaching community who had taken on the online teaching so effectively. He referred to the teachers as empowered Gurus who played the role of a facilitator with compassion, an expert communicator and listener. Technology is a tool, a medium, to enable personalized 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 were 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 and shared his presentation with all the participants.
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.