Sucheta B Phadke,
Senior Vice President, Core Education & Technologies Ltd
The problem in education today is lack of integrated and holistic approach
While speaking about fostering innovation in education, we should look at the challenges that are being faced by the education system. These challenges are due to limited infrastructure, shortage of teachers and quality of teaching. The dropout rate of students is alarming and at the same time we have millions of youth who want quality education which can help them in getting employment.
On one hand there are new ways of teaching with digital classrooms and on the other hand there is poorly designed content for this technology. The problem here is of a lack of integrated and holistic approach for changing pedagogy to epedagogy.
The human element in learning is always going to be around, but we have to look at blended models of learning in an integrated fashion to be able to inspire minds and transform lives.
Learning can happen in students when we promote curiosity, problem solving, critical thinking, high order thinking and collaborative learning. So the question we need to ask is how can we create collaborative learning platforms for teachers and students? How are we going to blend technology with hands on learning to help the children practice efficiently? How can we enhance the learning delivery through innovative access to devices?
Children are inquisitive by nature, but instead of feeding them formulas and killing their creativity, the learning solution design should be innovative enough to facilitate building of skills for observation, comparison, expression, interest, imagination, reasoning, clarity of thoughts, and freedom of expression.
The teacher has to act as facilitator and friend to help the child in discovering his or her potential for creativity.
