Date and Time : 23-05-2020, 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Facilitator: Prakash Nawale (PKN)
- Prakash sir started with the famous quote of Margaret Mead that, “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
- By giving different examples [Like, change in the state of the wax, heat, and change in the state of the objects, different things in our surrounding (birds, insects, plants) and things in our houses (ceiling fan, table fan etc,.), puzzle] he discussed how we can encourage students to observe the things around them carefully and think over it.
- Shashikala madam (an Ashram schoolteacher) mentioned that due to network issue she couldn’t able to attend the entire webinar. But whatever part of the webinar she attended, she felt it more useful and informative.
- Purna ma’am (an Ashram schoolteacher) shared an experience. One of the girls studying in her class identified that the shopkeeper in the rationing shop in her area was selling some different lentils under the name of chickpea lentils. The girl mentioned that, she identified this just because of the trick of identifying the adulteration in the lentils, which Purna madam told in the class.
- Purna ma’am also mentioned that when she was in school, her teachers used to ask the students to observe the things around them. And used to ask questions to them, like, why sky is blue in colour?, why birds fly in particular pattern?, etc,.
- Jyotsna madam (a teacher of NVM) added that, children should become habitual of observing the things around them. And, as a teacher we must try to keep continuity in children’s observation skill.
- ST also shared her experience, which indicates that observations of children sometimes help adults also to know different things. She told that one of her students once showed her, how sometimes broken vermicelli noodles added to the basmati rice to increase the quantity.
- VCS said that the questions shown by PKN in his presentation is challenging for teachers too.
- Purna ma’am said that we would try to find out the answers of these questions. She also requested PKN to give them answers of these questions, if they won’t able to get the correct answers. And PKN agreed to this.
- NDD suggested teachers to share their answers on the what’s app group. He said that the thinking process should start with observation. So, now we should think about how we can use the observations of students in science education.
Report prepared by: Ms. Mayuri Pawar.