March 2012

Volume 6, Issue 3 Inspiring Teachers

First generation

learners.….2

Faculty of the month

…. . 3

Interesting links …4

Picture caption and

jokes ……..4

Lensoo

EcoSystem…..5

Teacher Plus double

issue on English

teaching …5

Driving educational change through excellence in teaching

It has been a long pending

initiative, but I think the time

is right NOW! This is just the

first step on the long road to

fully on-line content. I guess,

as always, things will happen

in time. Yes, we will be going

on-line this month.

Acharya Devo Bhava –

This month…. teachers must be literally

Gods on earth (parents!)

for children who are first

generation learners. I

share an experience with

all of you in this issue. A

number of new links

pointing to resources and

stories of success are

being shared. They are

also available on the blog.

Teacher Plus is an excellent

magazine for school

teachers, coming up with a

special issue on English

teaching. Get yourself a

copy! Enjoy the cartoon

caption, the jokes.. and get

busy with your exams….

Uma Garimella

Going online with LENSOO – a new direction for Teacher’s Academy

Lensoo is a new online learning marketplace that provides the complete ecosystem for e-

learning incorporating social technologies. It provides opportunity for learners, experts

and publishers to create a social technology driven global e-learning marketplace.

Teacher’s Academy has signed up as a publisher on Lensoo and will be shortly offering

training programs online. Both offline and online workshops will be followed by

interaction on the Lensoo platform, in order to get the benefit of continuous collaboration

among the members of Teachers Academy. Read page 5 for benefits of using

Lensoo.

Other than enrolling for courses published by Teacher’s Academy, many of you can

sign up as experts and publishers. All you have to do now is:

1. Register on Lensoo.com

2. Go to the Facebook page of Lensoo and hit the the Like button.

3. Go to Youtube and go to the Lensooinc channel/page and subscribe to the channel.

4. Start using the features of “community”

5. Use the groups feature when it becomes functional shortly!

Inspiring Teachers Page 2 of 6

The challenges of first generation learners - Uma Garimella

For want of an appropriate

word, I have made up the

word schooler. A scholar is

generally used for a very

learned person and the word

learner need not mean

someone learning in school!

Since I want to write about

children who go to school – I

will use the word schooler.

My daughter and I were

having dinner at an Udupi

restaurant on a Saturday

night, and due to the crowd,

the waiter seated a young

couple with a three-year old

son at our table. The boy

started looking at the menu

card and spelling out all the

items. I-D-L-Y, S-A-M-B-A-

R etc. He didn't have to be

prompted and he wasn't

doing this to show off! The

moment he saw a book it

was his natural instinct to

read from it.

I contrasted this scene with

the one I used to have every

Sunday. Two children in 4th

and 6th standards, and who

have scored good grades and

double promotions in their

school, struggle to identify

alphabets or understand

words, while they can reel

off answers from memory or

even write them down.

These two are the sincere

students who came for my

Sunday School which I ran for

an year at Sainikpuri, a few

years back.

The parents of these children

are not educated but are very

keen on their children's

education. They pay fees and

admit their children in

reasonably good schools, but

teachers can’t pay attention to

every single child in school and

private tutors aren’t doing any

better.

Initially when I looked at their

school books I was shocked

that these children couldn’t

read individual alphabets

quickly and didn’t understand

the words in the sentences. For

example, they said “Kashmir is

in the north of India” but

didn’t understand the meaning

of any word in it. They had

division in mathematics but

didn’t know even subtraction.

They were literally at nursery

level but studying in higher

classes. And they were

completely relying on some

pattern matching technique

combined with teachers giving

“important” questions to pass

their exams (with flying

colors). They wouldn’t know

the answers if the questions

were changed in any way. As

a college teacher, I know

adult students still in that

state.

Frustrated at the state of

affairs, I had gone to a

school named “Ananda

Bharathi”. Started in 1989

by Late Mrs. Janaki Iyer, it

runs with the support of

volunteers and few

employees. Ananda

Bharathi conducts

nonformal classes in

Secunderabad for young

domestic workers who live

in a nearby slum. There are

about 30 students between 5

and 16 years of age.

The goals differ from one

student to another--those

who have dropped out of

school fairly recently are

encouraged to give board

exams privately; others

acquire basic literacy in

English, Telugu and Hindi.

The curriculum for all the

students includes

knowledge about the

environment, health and

hygiene, and crafts.

One of the teachers there

told me not to try correcting

the education which the

children were receiving in

school in the four hours I

spend on Sundays.Cont’d

Inspiring TeachersPage 3 of 6

Prof. Bholanath Dutta is a

Management Teacher,

consultant, trainer and

academic leader having 20+

years of experience as varied

as industry, academic,

teaching, administration,

research and consultancy. He

is presently working with

CMR Institute of Technology,

Bangalore. He is the Founder,

President & Convener of

Management Teachers

Consortium, Global

(www.mtcglobal.org). IBC,

Cambridge, England has

included his profile amongst

"2000 Outstanding

Intellectuals of the 21st

Century" in the year 2011.

1. Tell us briefly about

yourself and your choice of

career

I started my professional

career in Indian Air Force as a

Prof Bholanath Dutta – Faculty of the Month

Soldier at the tender age of 16.5

years. After putting up of 15

years of dedicated service in

IAF, I left the Job and joined as

a lecturer in MBA Department.

Request please go through my

autobiography “Making of a

Teacher- The journey

Continues” for details.

2. How much of your time

do you spend in classroom

teaching?

I have 13.5 hrs of teaching

work load per week. I feel as a

teacher we need to work harder

than student to prepare for the

class whether it is online

information search or desk

research or preparing creative

activities for the class.

3. What kind of methods

do you use to make

students participate in

class?

I strongly feel the collaborative

OR participative method is the

best way of teaching at MBA

level. I rely on Activity Based

Learning – case study, student

seminar, role play,

management games,

simulation exercise, critical

discussion question, internet

based activity, journal/book

review , panel discussion ,

debate, GD et al. I ensure that

students ask lot of questions to

me in every class. For more

details please read the book

written by me: “Teaching

Learning Process in

Management Education”

published by ICFAI Book.

4. How can we get

competent post

graduates/ PhDs to

choose teaching as a

career?

Financial benefits are

definitely important and

presently salary is equally

good. We must tell them the

wide prospects and

opportunities for a teacher:

Teaching, Consultancy,

Project, Writing Books,

Paper, Chair professor,

Advisors et al. At the end,

the prospect must LOVE the

profession which is very

important.

5. Tell us something about

MTC Global.

MTC Global started in a very

small way on 29.06.2010

with one member and today

is the strongest team of

5000+ management

educators and executives

from corporate across the

world.

Read more at

http://www.theprofessor.in/b

holanath-dutta.shtml

This is a platform for

all management

education related

discussion. The

platform has helped

MTCians in numerous

ways through

assignment like guest

lecture, consultancy,

MDP, recruitment,

placement, strong

networking and the

most important is

development of

knowledge capital and

social capital through

knowledge sharing.

Our mission is

‘Educate, Empower,

Elevate’. The platform

has helped MTCians in

numerous ways

through assignment

like guest lecture,

consultancy, MDP,

recruitment,

placement, strong

networking and the

most important is

knowledge sharing and

knowledge

development.

Inspiring Teachers Page 4 of 6

Picture Caption Contest

1. A professor from Stanford puts courses free online http://www.udacity.com/ 2. Students connect with community http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/article2840073.ece 3. Running a venture on campus http://www.livemint.com/2012/01/29225749/Brewing-a-success-story-on-cam.html 4. Invest in reading http://www.livemint.com/2012/02/16215437/INVESTING-IN-READING.html?atype=tp 5. Nice initiative in helping teachers http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_teachers-of-poor-kids-get-free-lessons-on-innovative-teaching_1653249 6. Parenting tips http://innerspacetherapy.in/parenting/understanding-aggressive-children-the-victim-behind-the-aggressor/ 7. One man makes it his business to educate girls http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/indiaawakened/The-Sir-Syed-Ahmed-Khan-of-Sikar/Article1-813913.aspx 8. If you want to change the civic life in India, only you can do it http://theuglyindian.com/ 9. World Read Aloud day - volunteers needed http://blog.prathambooks.org/2012/02/looking-for-pratham-books-champions-for.html 10. World over attarcting and retaining students in engineering is a challenge, not in

India though! http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/re-engineering-engineering-education-to-retain-students/28745 11. Even Harvard talks of pedagogy! http://chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Seeks-to-Jolt/130683/ 12. Teachers wanting to use newspapers in classroom, here are two excellent

resources World leading newspaper front pages http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/default.asp Lesson plans with newspapers http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

13. Another magazine for teachers http://www.nais.org/publications/itmagazine.cfm My sessions in Grace Hopper Women in Computing Conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27OYeylWpjI&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5Dq75gEn9Q&feature=youtu.be 14. Some causes to current values in education http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2880065.ece

Interesting Links

"No child, he wasn't imitating Black Eyed Pees. Its Black Eyed Peas" Chrys Cattirisetti Humour Teacher: tell me something about the people of 18

th century

Student: They are all dead! Teacher: Rahul, A for? Rahul(softly): Apple Teacher: Jor se bolo Rahul: Jai Mata Di

Teacher: What happened in 1869? Student:Gandhi ji was born. Teacher: Very good! Now, tell me what happened in 1873? Student:Gandhiji was four years old.

Inspiring TeachersPage 5 of 6

Collaborative Learning

• Providing next generation learning

experience

• Personalized user experience

• Enhanced learning effectiveness

Multiple learning modes

• Real Time audio/video

communication between a learner

and teacher

• Real time collaboration with

integrated “study group”

• Knowledge Repositories

• Scheduled virtual coaching and

mentoring

• interaction with learning

communities

Lensoo EcoSystem

Teacher Plus Magazine announces!

Instead, involve them in

educational games that

would motivate them to

study. This was an

important lesson I learnt

and used – I then started

encouraging them to draw,

solve Sudoku puzzles, play

word building games,

identify words in letter

grids, find differences in

pictures etc. They enjoyed

the learning and their

concentration and

behaviour changed over a

period of time.

As education becomes more

accessible (which is very

good) we have students

coming from diverse

Challenges of first generation learners

Do read the blog and leave your comments on-line http://www.theprofessor.in/blog/

Click on like http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Professor/203174356365130

Uma Garimella

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Hyderabad

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www.teachersacademy.co

equipping socially and

economically under-

privileged children to join

the mainstream as equal

and active members.

Sevalaya is another such

school, located in a village

near Chennai which has

transformed 15 villages

around it. Offering free

education upto XII, many of

its students have moved on

to good careers.

(http://sevalaya.org/ )

Acharya devo bhava meant

to look up to your teacher

as God. But for these

children, we teachers have

to become the parents who

would have sincerely cared

for their education with no

strings attached.

backgrounds, many of them

first generation 'schoolers'

in the family. These children

have no support during their

homework or anyone to

check their school work.

So their foundation is not

properly laid. With the

examination and assessment

system as it is, they move on

to higher classes. And they

struggle more and more.

Centre for Learning, near

Army dairy at Secunderabad

is another effort to help

children acquire academic

skills, a zest for learning and

self-confidence.

(http://www.centreforlearni

ng.org) CFL is recognized in