Payam Shoghi,
Principal, Riverdale International Residential School, Pune
Teacher participation is must for students to benefit from innovative learning methods
Now we are having lot of innovations in teacher education. Such innovations are happening not only because of the social and economical changes, but also due to changes in social interrelationship, change in children’s aspirations and social mobility. Important developments are happening in the field of pedagogy and we now have lot of new learning tools at our disposal.
The major shift that has happened in content based learning is that the concept of maintaining silence in the classrooms has gone. Educational research has shown that some amount of discussion and noise in the class is important for learning to be effective. Innovation has to begin from the way classes are conducted. The way teachers are helping to improve the relationship among the students lays the foundation of cooperative learning.
Cooperative learning has two aspects. One is getting children to get together and work on a particular task together which they enjoy thoroughly so that the output is good. The second requirement is that their relationship should remain intact. The children have to learn to cooperate with other children and they have to improve their relationships.
