Lt Col A Sekhar,
Principal, Atul Vidyalaya, Gujarat

In the digitised, highly integrated, multimedia enabled classrooms of today, we are perhaps confused about the exact role of the teacher

Each time we talk about education, we talk about the students, the digital technologies, the parents, and many other important  stakeholders. However, the truth is that be it in schools or even in colleges, it is the teacher who is the fulcrum of the entire education  ecosystem. Perhaps we are not giving adequate importance to the teachers. This is a big mistake that we seem to be making.
Today we have a situation where a technology giant like South Korea is introducing over a lakh robotic teachers into their pre-school’s  curriculum. Does this mean that teachers are on way of becoming extinct species? Are they going to lose their jobs? In the digitised,  highly integrated, multimedia enabled classrooms of today, we are perhaps confused about the exact role of the teacher? If she exists,  then how and where? I purposefully use the term ‘she’ because 80 percent of the teachers in India are women. They are mothers, they  are daughters, they are daughters-in-law, and at the same time, they are teachers. Amidst all these responsibilities and highly fast- paced life, where do they have time to innovate, to look at teaching in terms of gizmos and big time thought processes that we are  talking about?
The need of the hour is to enhance the role of teachers in the teaching process. We have to provide them better education and better tools to enable them to bring further improvement in the teaching-learning process.

Rupesh Kumar Shah,
CEO, InOpen Technologies

Educators are not focussing on the child’s innate capability of learning on his own

Computer Science is considered to be a skill based subject in schools. In 2006, a team of professors from IIT Bombay started a  research on the subject of, “How to Teach Computer Science in Schools.” Following the interesting facts that emerged out of the  research, we thought of creating a model curriculum around our research.
We talk about tablets and digital education, but what about the actual use of technology? If we look at the current scenario, children at  a very young age are exposed to technology. But educators are not using the innate capacity of a child to learn on his own. Instead we tell them to do it and we miss out on telling them how to do it. With the popularity of Internet, there is a lot of content available.  Computer Masti started by IIT Bombay has a very sound and constructivist curriculum.
Besides applications, the content focuses on thinking skills, stepwise thinking, and logical reasoning. It helps the child to develop the capacity of clear thinking. It also helps in the execution of day-to-day tasks by using technology in a step wise manner.  The content is  being used by almost 3 lakh students across 125 schools. The bottom line is that if we focus on building concepts in Computer Science,  learning and skills will automatically follow.

Dr Vandana Lulla,
Director, Podar International School

Blended learning leads to a much more efficient system of education

Blended learning is a concept where there is a complete reversal of the learning process. The concept of the classrooms gets flipped.  The child is no more a passive listener in the class, rather he is an active participant. The style of teaching in class first and then  following it up at home is the general norm, but with blended learning the teacher has to record her lesson without audience.
Imagine teaching in an empty room, recording the lesson and posting it to the students. The student learns and understands at home and comes back to you and challenges you. So, blended learning is two forms of teaching and learning. The first form comprises of face  to face learning and second comprises of technology like mobile, satellite TV, video conferencing, etc.
The aim of the bended learning is to create a generation of students who are in tune with today’s realities. This form of education seeks  to create independent learners; it challenges the teachers because you already have very brilliant audience in the classroom. Blended  learning creates a lot of learning engagement to make sure that the concept gets understood by the child at the end.
In the current education system, Children are not allowed to think out of the box and teachers just share information and dump it on  the children. The process should be reversed so that blended learning provides practical opportunities for learner and teachers to make learning independent, useful, sustainable and evergreen.
It is planned; purposeful management of student learning and making sure that you enhance the experiences of learning in classrooms.  When you use animation, video and sound with this flipped classroom, the child can be anywhere. He does not need the teachers  presence at all times. He has to rely on his own mind. This automatically leads to an improvement in the quality of the learning environment. This style of teaching facilitates the creation of active learns and gets rid of passive learning.

Kalpesh Bordawekar,
General Manager, Mexus Education Pvt Ltd

Pythagoras theorem can be taught with various real life examples

Today’s generation of children in the age group of 4 to 6 years are quite close to technology. They don’t need any formal classes or  training for learning the basic tricks of operating high-tech devices.
The important thing is that it is not school education that has made children conversant with latest technology; they have mastered the art due to their own curiosity. So if we really want our children to  learn something, we should try to trigger their sense of curiosity.
Let’s take the example of History. During our school days, History used to be a license to go off to sleep when the period started. But,  the same history can be made interesting. A teacher can take the students out of the classroom to teach them excavations of Mohen-jodaro. The teacher can make it more  interesting by grounding various items in the sandpit at the school playground.
The children would keep finding new items as they dug the sandpit. By using this strategy, the teacher can easily explain what  excavation is all about. Difficult topics like Pythagoras theorem can be taught with various real life examples.
Students, these days, are enamoured by devices like tablet, iPhone, etc. But teachers are phobic of such devices, because they are not used to technology. But, if they want to be effective in the modern classrooms, the teachers have to develop empathy for technology.
There is a thin line between an ordinary teacher and a good teacher. After gaining an understanding the challenges that are being faced by today’s teachers, students, and parents , Mexus has developed digital content solutions that make use of concepts like robotics, hydraulics, etc. The aim of these solutions is to address various challenges that teachers face in their classrooms.

Revathi Srinivasan,
Director – Education and Principal, Smt Sulochanadevi Singhania School

A readymade curriculum cannot fulfil the requirements of all

Children are capable of learning through a process that involves curiosity and enjoyment. Teachers are not expected to behave like  potters, whose work involves the following of certain set norms, rules and regulations. The role of a teacher is more like that of a  gardener who imparts integrated experience to the children.
There has to be an organic shift in the way we conduct the education of a  child. The teaching and learning process has to be diverse, so that children get to enjoy a broader spectrum of experiences. Teaching  has gone through a paradigm shift from knowledge and discipline to competence building and values.
During the journey of life,  children require certain traits like skills, intellect and social awareness. The times are changing and children have to evolve into individuals who can compete with themselves to continuously improve their performance. Education has to move from being competitive and individualistic to being moralistic so that education moves from pressure to pleasure.
Children have different learning capabilities and a readymade curriculum cannot fulfil the requirements of all. Schools must work with  teachers to create content which is digital and blended. Online assessment solutions must be utilised by schools to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of students.

Pawan Arora,
Sr Vice President, ICT Sales, Pearson Education Services

With the use of multimedia, we ensure that the conceptual understanding is much better

Learning today is more studentcentred and from that perspective our first challenge is to ensure that the student understands the  concepts and thereafter to develop the broad content for CBSE, ICSE or any other board. Each student has a different IQ level and each teacher also has a unique style of teaching.
Teachers these days are involved in the assessment of students, both formative and summative. With the use of different tools created  by Pearson, accomplishing these assessments has become handier for teachers and the teaching time in classrooms have gone up.  Pearson ensures that the real time teaching in classroom is lot more as compared to the time one spends in these assessment tasks. We  also have various levels of Teachers Training Certification Programmes.
Pearson engages teachers with more than 20 years of experience for content development. We customise the entire ebook according  to the choice of a particular school and then provide what is suitable to them. While creating content, we make sure that it is made by  Indian teachers, and is geared to be useful to the Indian teachers. The language is not British accent or US accent, it is Indian English.
With the help of active 3D, students understand a subject much better. So if we are talking about human heart, human ear and cuboids  that one can see literally on the screen, then one has to change the values and rotate to see how it will look like. Earlier, students would  just mug up everything, write the exam and forget it. Use of multimedia ensures enhanced conceptual understanding about the subject.
Pearson aims to reduce the weight from a student’s back by ensuring that whatever is taught on the whiteboard is there on the tabs.  Pearson is also planning to launch cloud-based contents, wherein a student can access the work which is done by other students and teachers across the globe.

Kartikay Saini,
Chairman, Scottish High International School

Teaching modes, learning practices and components used to communicate learning are pillars of blended learning

Blended learning, multimedia content, supportive teaching tools, are the tools for promoting student engagement in classrooms. There is a need to further strengthen these systems of learning. We need to get the students fully engaged with the learning process.
Different learners have different requirements and therefore, they have different learning styles. There are kinaesthetic learners, visual  learners, auditory learners and read and write learners. To engage students of different learning capabilities, there is the need to  facilitate student engagement through active learning, multimedia, online learning, problem based learning and so on.
Any exercise of developing the learning environment must entail a combination of learning strategies like face to face learning and digital multi media. The key points in blended learning are teaching modes, learning practices and environment created by the instructor and the components he uses to communicate things.
Online, mobile and face to face learning are part and parcel of blended learning, which can lead to active learners, accountability of learners as well as teachers, team playing and transforming a student to a learner. The principle point of blended learning is the real  time assessment of students.

Monica Mehan,
Principal, DAV, Khera Khurd

Determination and innovation can lead to vast improvements in education

We have the story of a DAV school in the rural outskirts of Khera Khurd that was on the verge of being shut down, but it revived itself by facing challenges head on. It brings to light the fact that limited resources and finances cannot deter a school from making progress. The major challenge is to see the students who are way below the poverty line as an excellent human resource with least TV and computer distractions.
The school’s tag line was changed to: connecting pathways from rural to global. Children were made to sing prayers in English to encourage them to develop global awareness and also improve their pronunciation. The school also took the step of joining hands with the Faith to Face programme so that video conferencing could be done in school.
The school also took to ICT for improving its quality of education. Finances were a major concern and various ways were found to innovatively use the resources to its full capacity without any financial burden. Teachers created blogs and uploaded syllabus for the students to access. On the mandate of CBSE, they launched a website which too was free of cost.
Many innovative ideas were also implemented – like using open software for creating worksheets, Skype for interacting with other DAV schools and usage of YouTube for finding information on chapters and projects. The bottom line is that with determination all kinds of obstacles can be overcome.

Mukul Kanitkar,
Secretary, Vivekananda International Foundation

Value based education is a system that will not only lead us to discovering good profession, it will also instil in us a sense of purpose

Education is the vehicle of knowledge, self-preservation and success. Education not only gives us a platform to succeed, it also  provides us with qualities like strength, character and self respect. The greatest gift education gives us is the knowledge of  unconditional love and a set of values.
These values include the simple difference between right and wrong, a belief in God, the importance of hard work and self respect.  Education is a continuous learning experience; we learn from people, we learn from success and failures, we learn from leaders and followers, and we manage to grow up to be the person we are meant to be.
The Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) is a New Delhi-based think tank set up with the collaborative efforts of India’s leading security experts, diplomats, industrialists and philanthropists under the aegis of the Vivekananda Kendra.
VIF strives to bring together the best minds in India to ideate on key national and international issues; promote initiatives that further the cause of peace and global harmony; monitor social, economic and political trends that have a bearing on India’s unity and integrity; analyse the causes for social and ethnic conflicts leading to extremism and offer policy alternatives; interact with civil  society and offer institutional support for exchange of ideas and interaction among conflicting groups; critique public policy and the working of democratic institutions and constitutional bodies; and evolve benchmarks for good governance and efficiency in public institutions.
These are objectives that fall under a broad head called `nation-building’ and often come within the purview of universities and  institutions of higher learning. Unfortunately, for reasons best known to those who manage them, these academic bodies have not  been able to attend to these tasks. This neglect, it seems, is in some way responsible for the perceived failure of representative bodies and the prevailing inefficiency in the government sector.