News
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Science teachers should not treat students’ ideas as merely ‘right’ or ‘wrong’
K K Mashood and Punya Mishra in i wonder magazine explain children’s ‘commonsense’ understanding of the world based on intuition and imagination. This, they write, should not be seen as an impediment to learning but as an asset essential for the development of true understanding of scientific concepts.
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Agragamee’s innovative attempt to strengthen literacy in state-run schools for girls
Through Creative Language Development Effort (CLDE) developed by the organisation, the learning is more organic, quicker, and much less stressful for the child and the teacher, writes Indira Vijaysimha in Learning Curve magazine.
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Teachers, not academics or policymakers, should lead education research
Anurag Behar, CEO, Azim Premji Foundation, in conversation with Govindraj Ethiraj, Founder, IndiaSpend, reiterates that the practitioners — the teachers, principals, block education officers, and textbook writers — should ask the questions that seem most important to them and discover what works for them.
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Teacher Education: How to create exciting hands-on learning experiences using simple experiments
G S Rautela, in i wonder magazine, explores some concepts in science textbooks that can be brought to life in classrooms using a variety of locally available low-cost materials.
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Nature as a classroom: A space where teachers and students observe, learn, and wonder together
Going on a nature walk and creating a nature map that reflects the experience of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and memories is a great way to begin, shares the team at Nature Classrooms at Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), in i wonder magazine.
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How art can be an effective tool to re-connect students with education
Working with waste and natural materials inspire the value of recycling and respect for nature in young minds, writes Ruchi Kotpala, based on her art class experiences, in Learning Curve magazine.
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Food Security: Covid and non-Covid long-standing challenges
Reetika Khera, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), elaborates upon why the conceptualisation of food and nutrition security should begin from the mother’s womb at a colloquium held at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.
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How to retain the sense of belonging in an organisation as it grows from a small, intimate outfit to a large, efficient one
S Giridhar, in The Hindu Business Line, writes that we must lubricate every pipeline of the organisation with empathy and connectedness, so that the core spirit of belonging that defined the organisation when it was established, is nurtured and preserved.
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Why philanthropy need not come with a manual
Sudheesh Venkatesh, in Deccan Herald, highlights how ‘giving’ can take various forms like Azim Premji University’s book collections from the celebrated scientist P M Bhargava and eminent educationist David Horsburgh among others, curated with love and care.
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Micro-schooling to make learning more efficient and inclusive during the COVID-19 pandemic
Yash Kumar Singhal, a high school student, shares his project experience during the COVID-19 pandemic in Learning Curve magazine, which started with the idea: ‘If we can’t go to school, why can’t the school come to us?’
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How language and art interventions by the Nizamuddin Urban Renewal Initiative project in Delhi help children learn
Jyotsna Lall and Hyder Mehdi Rizvi, in Learning Curve magazine, explain how these interventions have helped the children expand their worldview, gain platforms for expression, gain confidence and positively impact attendance and thereby, regularity in attending school.
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UN report ‘Our World at Risk’ is frightening, action must be taken now
To change things, a movement is required, like never before – and each of us has a part to play, writes Harini Nagendra, who leads the University’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability, in Deccan Herald.
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Teaching Maths: Develop number sense in students before teaching standard algorithm, using Ganitmala
Ganitmala models the number line and allows exploration with numbers, including comparing numbers and all four operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, explains Swati Sircar in At Right Angles (AtRiA) magazine.
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Why include an interdisciplinary approach to science education at the school and college level
Dhanashree Paranjpe, in i wonder magazine, explains how science can be taught from this approach, thus enabling students to improve critical thinking, gain tolerance to ambiguity, be able to recognise bias, and appreciate ethical concerns.
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How Sikkim revamped its Mathematics textbooks by embedding Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) goals
Sikkim SCERT took help from MGIEP, UNESCO, and Azim Premji University for this embedding which was being attempted for primary level textbooks for the first time in the world. Anupama SM and Swati Sircar, in At Right Angles (AtRiA) magazine, share their experience.
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How to teach children to apply science to explore natural phenomena
Kavita Krishna, in i wonder magazine, explains how diverse activities in the local environment give children the chance to engage in practical action by exploring the theme of water in a school located in a drought-prone district of Andhra Pradesh.
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How play-way method in teaching helps children acquire Mathematics and language skills efficiently
Shehnaz DK, in Learning Curve magazine, highlights how even outside the school, with activities like swimming, students overcome their fear and enjoy the activity which also teaches them about speed, body movements, and lung strength.
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Teacher education: Why definitions in textbooks have changed with time
Swati Sircar, in At Right Angles (AtRiA) magazine, explains the reason behind changing definitions in textbooks with a closer look at isosceles trapeziums. She also highlights how most textbooks are not uniformly adopting this change in definition.
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Ways to teach food chains and food webs to students at the elementary level
While many teachers report that students find these easy to understand, research shows that the models leave students with misconceptions about food relationships. Saurav Shome in i wonder magazine explores ways to address those.
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Why make inclusive education integral to pre-service teacher education and in-service professional development
Rajashree Srinivasan, in Learning Curve magazine, shares her ideas to develop an inclusive teacher preparation programme aimed at improving the learning and development of all children.
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Did the age of the dinosaurs really come to an end?
On a day 65.5 million years ago, a piece of extra-terrestrial rock crashed into Chicxulub Puerto with an explosive power. Did the dinosaurs survive it? Do they still walk the earth? Shreya Ghosh in i wonder magazine explores the possibility.
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Why teachers need to be more sensitive about steering students towards a preferred path in Mathematics
Jayasree, in At Right Angles (AtRiA) magazine, shares an instance where she tried to get a quantification for the idea of steepness from a group of students. She explains the need to articulate to them the reason for nudging them to a specific path.
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How decoding and challenging children’s prior mental models of learning can help them
Vishnuteerth Agnihotri and Anagh Purandare in i wonder magazine delve into these models and explain how a learner can be guided to recognise and replace inaccurate models of learning with scientifically accurate ones.
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Teachers should enable students to relentlessly pursue truth using Mathematics as an ally
The mark of an educated mind is to put data to test and search for the truth. A sound knowledge of Mathematics helps. Our schools can prepare children to learn to question, become positive sceptics and not rest till they arrive at the truth, says Sudheesh Venkatesh in At Right Angles (AtRiA) magazine.
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Paying attention to what children do enables teachers to teach science in a more creative manner
Exploring how different children engage with phenomena, like sound, may help us to think of many possible ways to engage children in scientific thinking at the middle school level, shares Anish Mokashi in i wonder magazine.
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School as a space to instil democratic values and promote diverse opinions and interactions
Pooja Vishnoi in Learning Curve magazine highlights how teachers put into practice values and morals in the school environment rather than conducting a separate class for value education at Azim Premji School, Barmer.
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How finding the correct answer is not always important in Mathematics
Mohammad Umar in At Right Angles (AtRiA) magazine highlights how as a mathematics teacher, his interest is in finding different ways to get the answer while making sure that the students enjoy the activities.
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Practitioners, researchers and funders need to take the lead in areas like education and health, where practice matters more than theory
Anurag Behar in Mint writes that questions and issues in action fields must be determined by the real world. While the National Research Foundation proposed by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 may boost research in India, we cannot wait till then.
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The Bangalore Detectives Club: A murder mystery with a female protagonist who breaks gender and caste stereotypes
In her debut novel set in 1920s Bengaluru, Harini Nagendra has tried to bring out not only gendered roles and status of women but also intersectionalities of caste, class, religion, occupations, and more. Priya Varadarajan reviews the book on moneycontrol.com.
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How raising and sustaining an urban terrace farm allows experiments with different forms of teaching
Deborah Dutta in i wonder magazine explains how treating urban areas as human problems and ‘nature’ as some faraway pristine place is problematic. She stresses upon how urban farms offer us the opportunity to restore a relationship of care, reciprocity, and respect for nature.