Category: Workshop

Date and Time  : 03-07-2020, 10:00 – 11:20 am

Facilitator:  Sandhya Thakur.

• Dr. Shweta Naik (SN) started the session by illustrating the following classroom scene.
• A teacher wants to teach her students the concept of negative exponential function in the classroom. For this purpose, she had given the following exercise where students had to complete the following pattern.

• SN displayed few students’ responses and posed questions to the teachers present in this webinar that ‘what possible logic students might have used to find out the value of 2^-1.
• Then SN discussed what the teacher in this class scene was expecting from students. And also discussed what students have concluded from the pattern given in the exercise.
• Also, discussion took place on the following topics:
  • The definition of Exponential function (x²= 1.x²).
  • The important role of coefficient  ‘1’ in the definition of exponential function.
  • Why 2³ = 8?
• SN said that while defining definitions we consider and decide something. And while framing definition language is important.
• While discussing exponential function, SN also said that in the exponential function an index number is like an order given.  Metaphors are sometimes useful to teach concepts. But,  when concepts become more complicated then interference creates. So, at this point of time teachers should try to clear students’ confusions by doing necessary discussion with students .
• Satyavati ma’am said that it is essential for teachers to know what students are understanding about exponent while teaching this topic.
• Subramaniam sir said that it would be good if instead of giving definition directly to the students, give them examples to solve first. And when students solve examples of exponent then at that time teachers can motivate them to understand the definition. Give students an opportunity to come up with a definition of an exponent based on the problems they have solved.
• Deokar sir said that it is necessary to understand the laws of indices first for better understanding the concept of ‘Exponential function’.

Report prepared by: Ms. Mayuri Pawar.

Date and Time  : 30-06-2020, 11:00 – 12:00 am

Facilitator: Dr. Satyawati Rawool and Dr. Narendra Deshmukh.

Focus of the webinar: Textbook reading strategies for its better understanding

At the beginning of this session, Satyavati Rawool (SR) ma’am talked about how to read textbooks, the importance of reading textbooks and the ways of reading them. She said that teachers should encourage students to read, express their views. Teachers should try to decrease students’ fear and help them to become confident.

Pradnya ma’am shared an experience where she corrected her colleague teacher who was putting too much stress on a word while reading a poem in front of the students. Pradnya ma’am said that if anyone is not reading/saying properly then it is essential to correct him/her at that time.  But while doing so we should also see that the person won’t feel bad. She also emphasized on the role of parents in improving students’ reading skill. She also asked about how content creation is different from writing textbooks.

SR said that we should build confidence in parents that they can help students a lot to improve their reading skill even if they are illiterate or not expert in that subject.

Deshmukh sir said that reading is one kind of skill. He explained the purpose of reading (for exam, lecture, essay, discussion, etc.). He said that reading Mathematics and Science textbooks are also important. Also before teaching any lesson, it is essential to take reading of that particular lesson in the classroom. This will help students to understand different concepts in that lesson in a better way. He mentioned that he is using this strategy in NVM PAR project where instructors make students read the lesson before teaching and tell them to underline the words that they find difficult.

Mayuri said that while reading textbooks, we should always read to interpret and analyze. Nothing should be taken as fact or truth. We should engage in what we read (Critical reading) by asking ourselves questions such as, ‘What is the author trying to say?’ Readers should underline the key words while reading. This physical process of underlining words helps the brain to remember a few things easily. For our overall development, we should not just read to remember the things but we should try to develop our understanding too. While reading textbooks we should rethink positively about the reading matter using our own views and ideas.

Kunda ma’am mentioned that to keep our teaching on track, textbooks are essential.

Sugra ma’am said that because of the textbooks authority sometimes students do not talk. They think whatever given in the textbook is perfect, absolutely correct. At higher levels, there are no textbooks. Students refer to different books at higher and Ph. D level. This is because by reading different books, students get to know diverse views and then they can summarize those contents. Though textbooks are important. We should understand that at school level too, somewhere we should give chance to students to challenge the content given in the textbooks. 

SR suggested the textbook ‘अभ्यास कसा करावा’ written by P. G. Vaidya, which is useful to improve reading skill.

Deepti madam said that it is very essential to read Mathematics textbooks too.

Report prepared by: Mayuri Pawar.

Date and Time  : 27-06-2020, 10:00 – 11:00 am

Facilitator: Satyawati Rawool and Narendra Deshmukh.

• Deshmukh sir started the webinar by saying that aim of this webinar is to discuss the role of classroom environment in teaching learning process. We will discuss why & how the classroom environment is important in TLP.
• Deshmukh sir explained following points:
  • What is the classroom environment?
  • Main factors of classroom environment (Classroom strength, class management, etc.)
  • Aspects of classroom climate (Intellectual, social, emotional, physical)
  • NCF 2005 guiding principles
  • School and classroom environment, space for Parents and community
  • Learning resources
  • Positive classroom environment, things to foster positive classroom environment

1. Poorna ma’am said that to keep the Ashram school children in the flow of education, teachers in her school are going to different villages and visiting their students. During this visit, they are distributing textbooks to them, giving them information about Covid 19, asking them about their health and hygiene, etc. She herself has visited more than 21 villages (wadis) for this work. They are also planning to distribute worksheets to their students to solve at home.
2. Sandhya Thakur ma’am shared her experience. She said that when she visited one of the Ashram schools she noticed that the classroom was very long and has only a door for ventilation. There was not even a proper mat for children to sit on. Though the physical environment of that classroom was not so good, she found that the children in that classroom were very lively, excited to talk with her. These children presented songs with action in front of ma’am and were looking very happy. Sandhya ma’am said that these very young children were far away from their family but were looking happy. And the credit of their happiness goes to their kind teachers. She also shared another experience that is contradictory to earlier mentioned experience. She said that she visited another Ashramschool having good infrastructure, proper classrooms but children in that school were sitting very quietly. Sharing this experience, she said that sometimes to maintain discipline in the school we make students taciturn. This should not happen. The classroom environment should be such that students should be able to ask questions coming in their mind easily and fearlessly to their teacher in the class.
3. Chhaya madam said that in the current pandemic situation she is conducting online classes for students of grade 8 in her school. But due to network and internet issues and other problems all students aren’t able to attend these online classes. She mentioned that she is feeling bad as 100% students are not getting the benefit of online teaching. She asked the facilitator what can we do to solve this problem in the current situation?
4. Sandhya ma’am replied to Chhaya ma’am question that in the current pandemic situation teachers are facing many problems everyday while teaching. But teachers should look at these problems as their homework. And should work on it everyday and should try their best to minimize these problems.
5. Yogini madam said that she is teaching in a school where students from slum areas come to learn. These students often face many psychological problems and suffer from family issues. And school is the only place of relaxation for them. So, for such students a good classroom environment is very essential for their overall development and peaceful mind.
6. Harshada madam mentioned that the rapport between teachers and students plays an important role in the classroom environment. She said that, the role of teachers in the school is just like a role of mother in the home (जशी घरी आई, तशा शाळेत बाई). When the classroom environment is such that students feel free to talk or share their feelings with their teachers, then the teaching learning process becomes effective in such an environment.

Report prepared by: Ms. Mayuri Pawar.

Date and Time  : 21-06-2020, 10:00 am

Facilitator: Sandhya Thakur (ST).

• In this session, ST gave information about different types of diseases like congenital & acquired. She had given information of diseases like typhoid, pneumonia, common cold, malaria, amoebiasis, ascariasis, ring worm. She also explained concept of prevention and levels of preventions, our responsibility for good health at individual, community, state & international level. She shared concept map covering almost all determinants of health like social support, education, health and social services, personal health practices and coping skills, physical environment, gender and culture.
• ST suggested that we should ask students what happen when someone fall sick in their house. Then what are the different steps family members take after that. Like, till what time we prefer home remedies?, What questions doctor asked to the patient when they visit doctor? She also emphasized on creating awareness in students about necessity of vitamins.
• NDD said that, it is important to make students write what they feel when they fall sick.
• ST mentioned the following activity for students.

Students will keep day wise record of the health issues they face, if any. And will also write down the diet they take accordingly their health issues.

• Shashikala madam mentioned that the information given by ST about diseases is very useful for students in tribal schools.
• SP shared an activity where along with her students she tried to create awareness about health amongst parents. She mentioned that parents listen to their students. Sometimes situations, financial conditions are also responsible for sickness or leads to various diseases. She also shared some steps that they have taken for students’ hygiene in their school. Like, students have to bring their own water bottle and they will not share it with others. She mentioned that utmost importance thing for good health is to stay happy.
• SR mentioned that teachers can do much to keep class environment happy.
• NDD also mentioned that different science institutes like Vidnyan Mandal, Marathi vidnyan parishad could conduct programs to create health awareness. Over this SP said that when outside persons visit schools and interact with students they listen to them nicely.
• MP mentioned that many times a lot of information is given in the newspaper and social media about seasonal diseases, diseases spreading at faster rates at times, precautions need to prevent these diseases, etc,. So, we should keep ourselves updated with this knowledge in order to fight against these diseases.

Report prepared by: Ms. Mayuri Pawar.

Date and Time  : 17-06-2020, 10:00 am

Facilitator: Dr. Geeta Thakur.

• Geeta Thakur ma’am started the meeting by saying that lock down has changed people’s attitude towards ICT. We have the chance to do something innovative. To learn these new things we need positive attitude & strong will power. Though ICT is useful, technology cannot replace teachers. However, technology in hands of good teachers can bring transformation.
• She had make use of poll to check the following information.
  • How many teachers who are attending webinars are teaching in online mode?
  • How many teachers think that online learning can replace classroom teaching?

She discussed the following points to make online learning interactive.

1. In online teaching, role of teacher is 10% teaching and 90% designing. So, this teaching process is quite time consuming.
2. The different applications that can be use for online teaching are what’s app, Zoom, Google meet.
3. If homework, worksheets, activity sheets are sharing through what’s app then teachers can use audio option to give feedback to the students.
4. During offline learning, students raise their hands to ask questions, doubts or answer the questions. In online learning, we can make use of ‘raise hand’ option for this.
5. While sharing documents, share in pdf format instead of doc or ppt format. Highlight the important points in the document. While giving printed notes give sticky notes with some message. This gives human touch to this work.
6. To make online teaching more interesting, create videos using power point presentation using your voice. Make use of paper slide show, table top video, concept mapping.
7. Since students think while they learn, it is essential to give them step-by-step instructions.
8. Using mind map software students & teachers can prepare concept map together.
9. Teachers can use white board available on the site app.ziteboard.com for teaching and can make use of different options provided in it.
10. One of the greatest advantages of online mode is; easy maintenance of reports, images, worksheets submitted by students. Online mode is the best for that. It reduces teachers’ stress or frustration of maintaining students’ records and reports. Teachers can use Google forms to conduct tests.

Points shared by others:

• Seema Vichare madam said that we should practice and become habitual of online teaching. She also mentioned that different mediums of learning are available in front of new generation. She also suggested that giving education through Doordarshan channel in this pandemic situation is possible to some extent.
• PKN and KK agreed that Doordarshan is good option.
• Trupti mentioned that, to explain some imaginary/abstract concepts animation can be use. To visualise abstract concepts, sometimes videos are useful.
• Prakash sir mentioned that online teaching has some technical issues like network issue, internet problems etc., We should think of availability of internet facility for people from lower economy backgrounds. Also, because of this online teaching a big difference will create in the society among the students who have online facility and those who don’t have. 
• Aaloka agreed with PKN and mentioned that the point of increasing gap between students with and without technology access is very important.
• While sharing her experience Sangita Pandilwar ma’am of NVM said that, students are using what’s app to great extent. Thus it is possible to communicate with them in this lock down condition through what’s app. Students are sending videos of poems. She shared the activities did with her students. She informed her students to perform dance on any poem, write essay on different topics. Students completed these activities and shared with her on what’s app. Then she made collage of all these activities shared by students and kept it as her what’s app status. Looking at this collage, students who didn’t perform activities also started performing activities with interest.
• Sugra ma’am thanked Geeta ma’am for making session informative, interactive and generating a lot of discussion. She mentioned that, the issue of online versus offline has a numerous dimensions, from educational to social and technological. She said that Geeta madam has covered many of these dimensions in this session. She also emphasized on the fact that, technology is updating fast and we must update ourselves.
• Shashikala madam mentioned that to make online teaching effective technical training is very much essential. She said that she is trying her best but couldn’t able to understand all the things. Over this point, Geeta madam replied that it takes time to learn new tools. But once we learn one of these online tools, it will be easy for us to use other tools.
• Deepti Ghate madam mentioned that many times we shared different educational information, videos with students. But, first time through this session I came to know that, we can give audio feedback along with the shared information.
• NDD said that the objective of this session was to discuss about how to make TLP better using different online tools. We should share our experience of online teaching on what’s app group. At least through such sessions, we should learn new technologies.

Report prepared by: Ms. Mayuri Pawar.

Date and Time  : 14-06-2020, 10:00-11:20 am

Facilitator: Dr. Aaloka Kanhere

Participants:

• From HBCSE: Anish Parmar, Sushma Rawool, Mayuri Twade, Harita Raval, Shweta Naik, Sushant Pawar, Narendra Deshmukh, Mayuri Pawar, Pranav Khot, Megha Chougule, Vinod Sonawane.
• Outside HBCSE: Satyawati Rawool, Sandhya Thakur, Kunda Ma’am, Purna Patil, Shashikala Birajdar, Shaila Thakur, Yogini Chavan,

This webinar was conducted by Dr. Aaloka Kanhere from HBCSE- TIFR. She has been working in the field of mathematics education for more than ten years. Purpose of the webinar to solve problems and exploring the pattern of Fibonacci numbers. Also to see how fibonacci numbers occur in nature very frequently. Also Fibonacci numbers are a very nice example of mathematics in nature. Most of the time the question is asked “where is mathematics in the natural world” and these numbers can be one of the answers. Dr. Aaloka shared a worksheet with the teacher participants on the whatsapp group to solve and understand Fibonacci numbers. Following are the key points from the webinar.

• Narendra Deshmukh sir introduced Dr. Aaloka and her work in education. Her work with ashram schools and writing in some magazines like Sandarbha.
• Dr. Aaloka then started the webinar and she explained the purpose of that webinar. While doing so she pointed out how problem-solving is not most of the time taken seriously and how it is an important problem solving is to understand mathematics.
• She also added how she will try to make this session interactive through problem-solving.
• Then Dr. Aaloka Kanhere started discussing the problems in her worksheet. She started with the problem of coins.
• Then she discussed how coins of a particular amount with the help of coins of one and two rupees can be formed. And in how many ways it can be formed.
• Then from that one sequence of numbers arose which was 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, She asked participants whether they are able to see any pattern in these numbers.
• Then she tried to bring a generalized pattern for the amount “n”. She assumed a number of ways in which amount “n” is formed can be called Cn 
• Then by using the principle of mathematical induction she showed how Cn can be obtained from Cn-1 and Cn-2.
• Then the pattern turns out to be Cn  = Cn-1 +  Cn-2.
• Then Dr. Aaloka discussed the problem of Honey Bees. Which involved finding parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and so on of male and female Honey-bees.
• While solving that problem a similar sequence of numbers that arose during the coin problem arose once again.
• Then she told participants that these numbers are called Fibonacci numbers. Who is named after Fibonacci? She also told the participants that one early Indian mathematician named Pingala and then after him, another mathematician named Virahanka wrote about these numbers from the perspective of music.
• While participants were sharing their experience of solving these questions. Pranav Khot mentioned it was very interesting to solve the first question of the worksheet.
• Then Dr. Aaloka showed one video which showed how the Fibonacci spiral is formed. The same video also involved examples from nature like the number of petals in the flowers, how the shape of waves and shell of nautilus also have a Fibonacci spiral in them.
• After that participants and the resource person together explored the pattern in the squares of Fibonacci numbers. An interesting part of such a pattern was how it also leads to a Fibonacci number sequence with one number skipped.
• Then another pattern was discussed which involved the summation of Fibonacci numbers. Where the difference between the consecutive terms in the summation table was also leading to the Fibonacci sequence.
• After this interesting topic of the Golden-ratio was discussed with participants. How the Golden ratio was obtained from the ratio of consecutive Fibonacci numbers was also shown.
• Dr. Aaloka showed a video which showed where we find the Golden ratio in many things like the proportion of the length of body organs like fingers, hands, etc.
• Dr. Aaloka did one activity with participants which was a mind-reader. Where participants were asked to consider one number from 1 to 20 and then some cards were shown on screen and participants were asked about in which card their number appears.
• The interesting fact from this activity arose which was that any natural number can be written as a summation of Fibonacci numbers.
• Teacher participants Purna ma’am and Shashikala ma’am did this activity and verified it. Also, Shaila Thakur ma’am guessed correctly the initial number on the next card.
• After that Dr. Aaloka discussed one pattern about Fibonacci numbers which says if any natural number n divided another natural number m then the Fibonacci number Fn will divide Fm.
• After these questions and queries from the participants were addressed by Dr. Aaloka. Participants expressed how they felt about the session and after that, the session ended.

Report prepared by: Sushant Pawar

Date and Time  : 07-06-2020, 10:00 am

Facilitator: Mrs. Purna J. Patil, Govt. Girls’ Ashram school, Bhaliwadi, Karjat

Purna ma’am shared the following projects and activities, which she had conducted in her school and discussed their possible benefits for students.

1. Balsabha:
   Under this project, students started conducting different programs for themselves. This type of program is named ‘Balsabha’. They performed different tasks like planning, anchoring during the execution of these Balsabhas. And played different roles too like the chairperson of the program, anchor, etc. PP mentioned that this project helped students to overcome their fear of public speaking & reduced their stage fear. It gave scope to their latent qualities. After the conduction of these Balsabhas, many students including the last benchers started participating in elocution competition & learned to deliver speeches with confidence and without hesitation.
   
2. For the topic, ‘Types of houses’ PP told her students to make model of any house, which they have seen in their surroundings. Students participated enthusiastically in this model making activity. They felt proud to display their models. They became happy when other teachers’ visited their models. Moreover, this activity gave them confidence about making & presenting the things.
   
3. School without bag:
   Under this project, PP took her students on the ground and told them to draw circles on the ground with the help of thread and rangoli. Then students were asked to show radius, diameter, and chord in those circles. Through this activity, students realized that every time they don’t require pen, pencil, notebook to learn.
   
4. Dose to the brain:
   PP mentioned that this project is implemented in the last academic year. In this project, PP used to write a puzzles or questions on the board that had kept in the visible area of the school. Every morning she used to do this. Students used to read these puzzles, questions while passing through this area and try to find out their answers. Whenever they know the answers, they used to come to the teacher in excitement to tell their answer. Small girls started noting down these puzzles. This project encouraged students to think. PP suggested that this project should implement in all the schools.
   
5. Visit to the lab:
   Under this project, students of grade 5th to 7th were taken to the lab once in a week. During this lab visit, teachers not only showed but also allowed students to handle different lab equipments. PP mentioned that if students get an opportunity to handle lab equipments when they are in lower grades, they won’t get frightened to use these equipments when they will go in higher grades. It will be easy for them to use these apparatus in the future.
   
6. Making science models & conducting scienceexhibition: Since many students cannot take part in science exhibitions conducted at district levels as these events are often far from their school place and have limited entries. Teachers started conducting science exhibitions in their school itself where maximum students could participate. This gave students idea about science exhibitions and they started exploring more information about their project topics for these exhibitions.
   
7. Activity at morning assembly: In this activity, during each morning assembly one of the students used to tell one definition and discuss five question-answers. Since every student’s turn comes for this, students started preparing different questions to discuss on their turn and tried to find out their proper answers. As few definitions were repeated in this daily activity, it helped students remembered those definitions very well.
   
8. PP used to give her class students  ‘Children magazines’ during vacation for reading so that they will become habitual to reading. PP also started giving books as a birthday gift and as a prize when students win any competition. This generated some curiosity in students about books. They are always eager to see which books they will get.

Activities and experience shared by others:

• Satyawati Rawool ma’am shared her experience where she had given her students an opportunity to build models of different types of houses. She told students to think as a designer and build their model of house using less material. She said that teachers could make use of students’ skills by asking questions to them. It is necessary for both teachers and students to remain active in TLP. She also suggested NDD to share an article ‘Bheem’s nailcutter’ with all. SR also suggested an activity for students where they have to note down the new things they learn each day, their way of learning, it’s usefulness for them and should think about with whom they can share it. She mentioned that we don’t do documentation of activities conducted for students. She suggested that we can write blogs for teachers’ experiences.

• Shaila madam praised Purna ma’am for the different activities she conducted in her school and mentioned that she is very active teacher. She mentioned one of the activities that conducted in her school; where students are allow to read different books throughout the day which they like. She has also compiled the useful informative articles from the newspapers and made her own collection of it. She shares this collection with her students.

• Deepti madam mentioned an activity for geography subject. She said that for this activity we could divide students in groups and tell them to showcase culture of different regions or states of India through their costumes.

• Sandhya Thakur madam mentioned that Purna ma’am has good communication skill and doing great job as a teacher. She shared the things she had observed recently. She said that in Goa market once in a week children of farmers come in the market and sell whatever things grown in their field. They carry out exchange of money on their own. She mentioned that this helps them to understand different things like selling cost of grains, vegetables, money exchange, profit-loss that involves mathematics.

• Sugra ma’am encouraged teachers to write article based on their teaching experiences and the activities they conducted for their students. And gave advice to send the written articles to the magazines like ‘Jeevanshikshan’ for publication.

• NDD agreed with Sugra ma’am and said that if these activities conducted by teachers will get publish then other teachers’ will also get an inspiration. And publishing articles based on teaching experience is one of the best way to reach out  these activities to maximum number of teachers.

Report prepared by: Ms. Mayuri Pawar.

Date and Time  : 04-06-2020, 10:00 am – 11:00 am

• At the beginning of the session, Megha explained the importance of Mathematics in our daily life. She emphasized that students like games and stories much. So if we teach them Mathematics through games and stories then it will be easy for them to understand the Maths and they will also enjoy it. In this webinar, she tried to highlight the advantages of teaching Mathematics through games and stories.
• While sharing her experience of Mathematics teaching she said that children often don’t understand that Multiplication is the process of using repeated addition. She also explained how she removed some students’ confusion about the expansion formula (a+b)².
• She explained the Pythagorean Theorem using a farmer’s story and said that if we teach students Maths by giving examples then it will be easy for them to understand & remember the concepts.
• She also said that students learn the area of the circle in school. But they don’t understand why the area of the circle is ∏r². She explained why the area of the circle is (pi)r²  using the story of Beckmann.

Views shared by other participants:

• Satyavati ma’am said that in Mathematics too we should allow children to do experiments and discussion should happen based on the experiences they gain through their experiments. Only Maths teaching aids/kits are not important but teachers’ interaction with students is crucial for better learning.
• Shaila Thakur ma’am said that Mathematics will be easy for students once they understand how formulae are formed/derived. She also said that in the workshop organized by HBCSE we learned that we should give an opportunity to students to make the formulae. When we give students formulae directly then they forget those formulae after some time. And unable to solve examples. But when they make/form formulas on their own, that experience of self-creation makes students happy. Whatever teaching strategies we learned in the HBCSE workshop, we have implemented in our school and we found those strategies very useful.
• Aaloka praised Megha’s idea of bringing Maths through games and stories. Adding to this she said that even traditional stories also contain Mathematics. Maths in the folk tales are quite interesting. We should try to bring mathematics of the folk tales and games in the classroom while teaching Maths. Teaching Maths through games and stories all such things will work only when teachers and students will create a subject in the class by interacting with each other. So the culture of discussing the subject is important. Teaching through games and stories will enhance this culture of discussion.
• Mayuri said that, while teaching Maths when teachers give different daily life examples to students then it helps students to understand the concepts in a better way.
• Vadodkar sir said that stories shared by Megha in this webinar for teaching different concepts in Maths would be useful for students.
• Namdeo Chavan sir said that students learn Maths easily when we give them the opportunity to do things on their own. 

Report prepared by: Mayuri Pawar & Pranav Khot.

Date and Time  : 31-05-2020, 10:00 am – 11:00 am

Facilitator : Shaila Thakur (Chikhle Ashram School, Chikhle, Panvel)

Title of the talk was उपलब्ध साहित्यातून गणित अध्ययन आणि अध्यापन which translates as ‘teaching and learning mathematics through available (teaching learning) material’. In this talk she described how she uses different TLM to teach different concepts of mathematics.She argued that if we make math teaching joyful with help of TLM then students show interest in learning math.She underlines the fact that most of the times teachers are unaware about use and making of TLM and because of that students do not get a chance to learn math with help of TLM. Then she is describing how one can use available material as a TLM. And how her students started liking the Mathematics subject because of TLM. Below is the list and description of the material she showed in her presentation:

1. Multipurpose frame: This activity was originally Design and technology activity. Which was taught to teachers during a workshop at HBCSE. The teacher extended that activity to math. She is using that activity to teach concepts of square numbers, prime numbers, triangular numbers, formulas of algebra and geometry.
2. Geoboard: Teachers learnt to use geoboard for understanding concept of area. They also made a geoboard for their schools and took it with them. Shaila ma’am explained how she uses that board with her students. She mentioned how this TLM is robust and can be used many times and many students can handle that. And how this TLM can be used for students of multiple gradesShe mentioned the concepts angles and type of angles, types of triangle, finding area and perimeter, and graphs. Here she extended the use of TLM, at HBCSE she learnt about finding areas with help of Geoboard. But then she extended its use for other mathematical concepts too.
3. 3-D Shapes: Here she explained how she uses different different things used in day to day life to teach 3 D objects which is one topic in 6th std. For eg. using matchbox for cuboid, using joker cap for cone etc. She also added how to make shapes which are not much common with the help of Youtube videos. She argued how students learn more by handling those shapes instead of just reading about them in textbooks. She mentioned some activities like counting surfaces, edges and vertices of shape, calculating volume and area of shape etc.
4. Number cards (अंक कार्ड): Here she showed number cards made of cardboard (single digit numbers). She added how any teacher can make these cards and how one does not require any artistic skill to do so. Even students can make them using an old calendar. These cards can be used for the activity of making different numbers, writing those numbers, writing expanded forms of those numbers, identifying position of numbers, etc. Also students can play these types of games within themselves. She added how this TLM is very low cost to make.
5. Different types of boxes: Here she showed different boxes of different sizes (box of colgate, medicine, etc). She uses these boxes for teaching measuring length, breadth of box to 5th grade students. She mentioned how this can also be useful for 7th grade students. She also told how her students collect different boxes for measuring activity.
6. Number cards (संख्या कार्ड): These cards are structure wise similar to number cards mentioned above but the difference here is these cards have multi digit numbers on them. These cards can be used for activities like identifying a number, writing it in words, addition and subtraction of numbers, arranging them according to increasing and decreasing order.
7. Matchsticks: She mentioned activities which she learnt in a workshop at HBCSE with use of match sticks. She added how she uses those match sticks for more activities like making shapes and calculating their area and perimeter. She also used those matchsticks to make puzzles which were shown to teachers during a workshop at HBCSE under the topic ‘Introduction to algebra’.
8. Clock: Here she showed a clock made of cardboard, but in her talk she also mentioned the usual clock. This TLM can be used to learn time and also angles.
9. Currency notes: She mentioned how currency notes are favorite things of many people and how currency notes made in classrooms using cardboard or paper can be used for the concept of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and proportion. She also mentioned even if one student doesn’t understand the concept of addition or other operations does maths with notes. She also says how this can be made easily with sketch pens, paper etc.
10. Tangram: Shaila ma’am mentioned how she learnt tangrams at HBCSE and how they are exploring more activities with the help of tangrams. She mentioned finding area and perimeter. And how that can be a good activity for students.

After presenting the session was open for discussion. Where few teachers from Pen ashram school mentioned how useful these activities will be for them and their students. Some teachers of the SSRD project asked to share the slides with them in the comment section. One of the teachers (who works in govt. Ashram school) mentioned about Ganit Peti (Mathematics box) which contains TLM and which they received from the government then Shaila ma’am told everyone how aided ashram schools do not receive something like this.

Then people from HBCSE added their comments. All people liked how Shaila ma’am presented the topic and how she invented new activities through Teaching learning materials. Aaloka suggested how tangrams can be extended to the activity of ratio and proportion. Sugra ma’am asked Shaila ma’am if possible then to share videos which she has recorded of students doing activities with help of these TLMs.

Report prepared by: Mr. Sushant Pawar.

Date and Time  : 24-05-2020, 10:00 am – 11:00 am

Facilitator: Dr.Satyawati Rawool and Dr. Narendra Deshmukh.

Focus of the webinar: Role of teachers or facilitators in evolving among the students the culture of inquiry.

• Satyavati ma’am explained that enquiry begins when a person starts observing, sensing, feeling discrepancies, wondering about experiences and starts questioning. She explained this by giving a few examples.
• SR also explained the steps of developing answers of enquiry, which included prediction, forming hypothesis, mental experimentation using systems approach, construct understanding, etc. She mentioned that to implement inquiry approach teachers should create a free classroom environment where students can ask questions fearlessly and put their views. Teachers should look after that there would not be any stress on students’ minds.
• Deshmukh sir shared following reference sites related with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry-based_learning

https://www.nextgenscience.org/

• Prakash sir said that Inquiry-based approach is good. Considering the practical problems of teachers, it’s not good to blame teachers if they are unable to use inquiry-based approach. In school, they have many responsibilities other than teaching too. Like, they need to complete the syllabus at a definite time.
• Deshmukh sir requested participant teachers that try to teach to their students using an inquiry-based approach. For this, follow the steps of developing answers of inquiry shared by Satyavati ma’am in today’s webinar.

Report prepared by: Mayuri Pawar & Pranav Khot.