Innovative approach to classroom teaching

Teachers have to be  trained to understand the new class room approach of teaching students. Now National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has rewritten its text books on the lines of constructivism.

The five Regional Institutes of Education coming under NCERT namely Ajmer, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Mysore and Shillong  have already adopted this and trained teachers from Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidayalayas and independent schools.

Ethical and moral values, awareness of the significance of our heritage of thought and culture, our spirit of pluralism and oneness, the inculcation of scientific temper, patriotism and a sense of mission in the task of taking our great country forward – all these need to be nurtured in young minds, by our teachers.

Routine teaching in a routine way is what is being done these days. It may be due to the conditions under which a teacher is made to work.

Education should play its functional role. Improvement in education, whether quantitative or qualitative, can only be secured through the efforts of teachers who are the direct agents in the process of education. 

We want dynamic teachers, dynamic officers and a dynamic system to stimulate the static and obsolete system.

Readiness and willingness to learn are the two critical requirements for a student. Readiness refers to prerequisites that enable the student to learn whatever is being taught. Prerequisites can be physical, emotional, or intellectual, or any combination of these.
Willingness to  learn  is called motivation. Bruner identifies four conditions that foster motivation: the student sees a purpose for learning, accepts the purpose as worthwhile, believes that he can succeed, and knows that someone cares. This knowledge is important for teachers, because they can build student’s confidence to learn well.

In teaching, two essential requirements for teachers are competence and commitment. Competence manifests in performance. Commitment manifests in priorities, values, and attitudes.

Teachers need to discover the exciting and developmental aspects of the subject matter. The relevance of the content needs to be felt by both teacher and student.

Effective teaching is no different from an Orchestration. Continuous attention to each of the instruments in an orchestra is important. Even if a single instrument goes out of tune it destroys the orchestra. So is the case with teaching.

Technological gadgets like Over Head  Projector (OHP), slide projector, Power Point Presentation (PPP),  use of computers, video clipping need to be used to make teaching–learning process better.

Assessments are essential to the learning process. Students need to be assessed continuously and accurately to gauge their learning. For this, teachers have to design valid and well-framed tests.

What are the uses and misuses of tests?   Do higher test scores mean better schools? How does the intense pressure to raise test scores affect the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom? These are some of the questions often asked.

Continuous Comprehensive evaluation (CCE) is the need of the hour. NCERT and other states, in particular, Tamil Nadu gives lot of importance to CCE in their schools.

The existing behaviourist approach needs to be replaced by constructivist approach.
Students should be given an ample of opportunities to think independently. Teachers should develop in students a questioning mind.

Group thinking, group work, group discussion and project work should be encouraged in all schools and colleges. Grading system should replace marking system.

All students are like jewels and therefore each and every student needs to be encouraged. Remedial teaching, opportunity classes and compensatory  education classes should be conducted. No student should be labeled as dull, intelligent and useless. Each student has his or her own pace of learning.

The entire world is progressing at a terrific speed in the field of education. Information Communication Technology (ICT) dominates the contemporary classroom.
The  contemporary teacher is a learning facilitator and a diagnostician, apart from being a friend, philosopher, and guide.