Teacher training: Mumbai schools come up with workshops, promote peer-reviews

Aakriti Pandey, a 31-year-old social studies teacher at a suburban ICSE school, has been studying hard after school hours for the past two weeks to ensure she is

Aakriti Pandey, a 31-year-old social studies teacher at a suburban ICSE school, has been studying hard after school hours for the past two weeks to ensure she is well-prepared for an upcoming test. The test will be conducted at a teacher-exchange programme organised by a group of schools to ensure teachers, irrespective of the subjects they teach, are well-read and aware of other subjects too. “How can we expect students to go beyond textbooks and the curriculum if we don’t practise what we preach? We teachers meet once every few months to share lecture notes, teaching modules and new concepts we’ve learnt with each other,” said Pandey.

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Gone are the days when teachers and schools depended on education boards to organise teacher-training workshops. Most city schools are now designing their own teacher-training programmes and workshops; getting child counsellors on board to help teachers understand students; and promoting teacher-learning communities (TLCs) to improve the standard of teaching. It also helps them ensure their teachers are at par with international teaching standards.

NO TEACHING WITHOUT TRAINING

All the three schools run by the Children’s Academy Group of Schools (CAGS) in Mumbai reserve the first Saturday of every month for teacher training.

These workshops are customised to cater to the needs of teachers and are planned by an in-house expert committee of research associates (senior teachers), who identify problems faced by teachers and are aware of new technology that could aid teaching.

“New teachers first go through four days of training, out of which three days are focused on academics only. Be it new updates in subjects as prescribed by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) or new teaching pedagogies used elsewhere, this team of research associates puts together the training programmes every month and all teachers have to compulsorily attend them,” said Rohan Bhat, chairperson, Children’s Academy Group of Schools.

TEACHER-LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Aditya Birla World Academy, Tardeo, has created TLCs whose members share new ideas, take notes from each other’s experiences, and come up with solutions for problems.

“We empower teachers so that they can be the best version of themselves. We do so by ensuring that there is a specified time each month for teachers to meet and share their experiences and reflect on their teaching-learning practices. This helps to form and strengthen a shared space for our teachers, who grow together,” said Neerja Birla, chairperson, Aditya Birla World Academy, Tardeo.

Apart from TLCs, the school encourages peer review and self-reflection among teachers. “We scaffold this process through monthly professional development workshops, which are also aimed at self-improvement. Apart from this, our teachers also attend training programmes conducted by the Cambridge board (CAIE) and the International Baccalaureate (IB),” Birla said.

Similarly, schools under the Jesuit School Board, apart from conducting training programmes for their teachers, also encourage lateral mentorship programmes. Every few months, teachers of a specific subject get together to share new techniques, concepts and experiences with each other.

UNDERSTANDING THE PSYCHE OF STUDENTS

At Mazagaon’s St Mary’s School (ICSE), regular training modules on curriculum and teaching pedagogy is just one part of the routine.

The school also ensures that along with the curriculum, teachers are trained in child psychology on a regular basis.

“In a classroom, it is very important for a teacher to gauge the students’ strengths and weaknesses before applying her teaching methodology. Without understanding the psyche of students, this can become difficult. While our teachers are encouraged to research on child psychology, we also ensure that we conduct talks and workshops by experts for their benefit,” said Fr Francis Swamy, principal of the school.

The school encourages teachers to tackle students’ problems, like bullying, using knowledge gained from these workshops. “We encourage the teachers of our school to bring critical thinking and reasoning to the table while interacting with students. This not only enhances the teaching-learning process, but also helps form a stronger bond between teachers and students,” Fr Francis Swamy said.

TRAINING BY EDUCATION BOARDS HELP MAINTAIN STANDARDS

All education boards — state, national or international — have a fixed training pattern in place for teachers, which helps maintain the overall standard of teaching.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) organises regular programmes for teachers and principals to equip them with skills such as using technology effectively in the classroom and applying appropriate pedagogic techniques to make learning process connected with the real life.

The CISCE board has separate training workshops for teachers from the pre-primary and higher secondary sections. The Cambridge International Education (CIE) board, too, focuses on teaching modules, as well as training teachers in co-curricular activities.

After receiving flak for not focusing on teaching standards in Maharashtra state board schools for years, the state government tied up with British Council and Tata Trusts to conduct a major English language training programme — Tejas — at all government schools across all 36 districts.

The Maharashtra state board also invited a Pune-based non-profit organisation to conduct online training programmes, called Avirata, for all secondary education teachers of government schools.

“The level-three programme of Avirata is very popular among teachers. This is the third year of the Avirata programme, wherein more than 41,600 teachers are being trained. At the end of level four of the programme, all teachers will be awarded a career guidance diploma by the Maharashtra State Council of Education Research and Training. With this feature now, Maharashtra will become the first state in the country to have trained and certified one headmaster and two teachers in every government school in the state,” said Vikas Garad, program head, Maharashtra State Council of Education Research and Training.