Visiting schools in Telangana- an experience (04.12.2018-05.12.2018)
As a researcher and a curriculum developer, I have always found it very useful to visit schools and talk to teachers and students. This is also true for understanding the enablers for and challenges in the implementation of the curriculum. CLIx team members visited a few schools in Telangana to understand implementation of CLIx modules. This blog narrates the experiences and observations from two such school visits in the Vikarabad and Rangareddy districts of Telangana state.
We covered a distance of around 100 kilometres from the city of Hyderabad to reach a school in Naskal town of Vikarabad district. Entering the computer lab, we noticed some students engaged in activities from the CLIx mathematics module. A very well informed and enthusiastic teacher was having conversations with the students about the module they were exploring. An important aspect of this teacher’s pedagogy was that she was not giving the answers to students but allowing them to explore and make mistakes, and so helping them find the answers themselves. The teacher mentioned that when students explore the activities from the module, they easily understand the concepts discussed in their textbooks. The English teacher, who is also a headteacher, joined us in the discussion. As he was newly transferred to this school, a few activities from the English module were discussed with him. A few Geogebra explorations were conducted with the mathematics teacher, and she found them useful and interesting.
The second visit was to a school in Ibrahimpatanam in Rangareddy district. Many teachers were newly transferred to this school and they had not received CLIx training. A lab session with a group of class 9 students and their mathematics teacher was conducted to explore the content and pedagogy of the CLIx mathematics module. Students were excited to engage with module activities. A discussion was conducted with the headteacher to further explain the CLIx initiative and the various activities that come under it.
The visits were followed by a colloquium organised by TISS Mumbai and Hyderabad on the theme Learning and Learning Without Burden. The intellectual discourse from this colloquium helped me to connect many of my observations and experiences with the theoretical frameworks around the concepts like ethical education, curiosity and children’s voice, critical mathematics education, and music and education.
– Arati Bapat
Research Associate
CLIx Math Team
Centre for Education, Innovation and Action Research
