March 2012 Volume 6, Issue 3

Inspiring Teachers
Driving educational change through excellence in teaching

This month.
It has been a long pending initiative, but I think the time is right NOW! This is just the first step on the long road to fully on-line content. I guess,
First generation learners..2 Faculty of the month . . 3 Interesting links 4 Picture caption and jokes ..4 Lensoo EcoSystem..5 Teacher Plus double issue on English teaching 5

teachers must be literally Gods on earth (parents!) for children who are first generation learners. I share an experience with all of you in this issue. A number of new links pointing to resources and stories of success are being shared. They are

also available on the blog. Teacher Plus is an excellent magazine for school teachers, coming up with a special issue on English teaching. Get yourself a copy! Enjoy the cartoon caption, the jokes.. and get busy with your exams. Uma Garimella

as always, things will happen in time. Yes, we will be going on-line this month. Acharya Devo Bhava

Going online with LENSOO a new direction for Teachers Academy

Lensoo is a new online learning marketplace that provides the complete ecosystem for elearning incorporating social technologies. It provides opportunity for learners, experts and publishers to create a social technology driven global e-learning marketplace. Teachers Academy has signed up as a publisher on Lensoo and will be shortly offering training programs online. Both offline and online workshops will be followed by interaction on the Lensoo platform, in order to get the benefit of continuous collaboration among the members of Teachers Academy. Read page 5 for benefits of using Lensoo. Other than enrolling for courses published by Teachers Academy, many of you can sign up as experts and publishers. All you have to do now is: 1. Register on Lensoo.com

2. Go to the Facebook page of Lensoo and hit the the Like button. 3. Go to Youtube and go to the Lensooinc channel/page and subscribe to the channel. 4. Start using the features of community 5. Use the groups feature when it becomes functional shortly!

Inspiring Teachers
The challenges of first generation learners For want of an appropriate word, I have made up the word schooler. A scholar is generally used for a very learned person and the word learner need not mean someone learning in school! Since I want to write about will use the word schooler. My daughter and I were having dinner at an Udupi restaurant on a Saturday night, and due to the crowd, the waiter seated a young couple with a three-year old son at our table. The boy started looking at the menu card and spelling out all the items. I-D-L-Y, S-A-M-B-AR etc. He didn't have to be prompted and he wasn't doing this to show off! The moment he saw a book it was his natural instinct to read from it. I contrasted this scene with the one I used to have every Sunday. Two children in 4th and 6th standards, and who double promotions in their school, struggle to identify alphabets or understand words, while they can reel off answers from memory or even write them down. These two are the sincere students who came for my Sunday School which I ran for an year at Sainikpuri, a few years back. The parents of these children are not educated but are very keen on their children's admit their children in reasonably good schools, but teachers cant pay attention to every single child in school and private tutors arent doing any better. Initially when I looked at their school books I was shocked that these children couldnt read individual alphabets quickly and didnt understand the words in the sentences. For example, they said Kashmir is in the north of India but didnt understand the meaning of any word in it. They had division in mathematics but didnt know even subtraction. They were literally at nursery level but studying in higher classes. And they were pattern matching technique combined with teachers giving important questions to pass their exams (with flying colors). They wouldnt know the answers if the questions

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Uma Garimella
were changed in any way. As a college teacher, I know adult students still in that state. Frustrated at the state of affairs, I had gone to a school named Ananda Bharathi. Started in 1989 by Late Mrs. Janaki Iyer, it runs with the support of volunteers and few employees. Ananda Bharathi conducts nonformal classes in Secunderabad for young domestic workers who live in a nearby slum. There are about 30 students between 5 and 16 years of age. The goals differ from one student to another--those who have dropped out of school fairly recently are encouraged to give board exams privately; others acquire basic literacy in English, Telugu and Hindi. The curriculum for all the students includes knowledge about the environment, health and hygiene, and crafts. One of the teachers there told me not to try correcting the education which the children were receiving in school in the four hours I spend on Sundays.Contd

children who go to school I education. They pay fees and

have scored good grades and completely relying on some

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Inspiring Teachers

Prof Bholanath Dutta Faculty of the Month

Soldier at the tender age of 16.5 years. After putting up of 15 years of dedicated service in IAF, I left the Job and joined as a lecturer in MBA Department. Request please go through my autobiography Making of a Teacher- The journey Continues for details. 2. How much of your time do you spend in classroom Prof. Bholanath Dutta is a Management Teacher, consultant, trainer and academic leader having 20+ years of experience as varied as industry, academic, teaching, administration, research and consultancy. He is presently working with CMR Institute of Technology, Bangalore. He is the Founder, President & Convener of Management Teachers Consortium, Global (www.mtcglobal.org). IBC, Cambridge, England has included his profile amongst "2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century" in the year 2011. 1. Tell us briefly about yourself and your choice of career teaching? I have 13.5 hrs of teaching work load per week. I feel as a teacher we need to work harder than student to prepare for the class whether it is online information search or desk research or preparing creative activities for the class. 3. What kind of methods do you use to make students participate in class? I strongly feel the collaborative OR participative method is the best way of teaching at MBA level. I rely on Activity Based Learning case study, student seminar, role play, management games, simulation exercise, critical discussion question, internet based activity, journal/book review , panel discussion , debate, GD et al. I ensure that students ask lot of questions to me in every class. For more details please read the book written by me: Teaching Learning Process in Management Education published by ICFAI Book. 4. How can we get competent post graduates/ PhDs to choose teaching as a career? Financial benefits are definitely important and presently salary is equally good. We must tell them the wide prospects and opportunities for a teacher: Teaching, Consultancy, Project, Writing Books, Paper, Chair professor, Advisors et al. At the end, the prospect must LOVE the profession which is very important. 5. Tell us something about MTC Global. MTC Global started in a very small way on 29.06.2010 with one member and today is the strongest team of 5000+ management educators and executives from corporate across the world. Read more at http://www.theprofessor.in/b holanath-dutta.shtml This is a platform for all management education related discussion. The platform has helped MTCians in numerous ways through assignment like guest lecture, consultancy, MDP, recruitment, placement, strong networking and the most important is development of knowledge capital and social capital through knowledge sharing. Our mission is Educate, Empower, Elevate. The platform has helped MTCians in numerous ways through assignment like guest lecture, consultancy, MDP, recruitment, placement, strong networking and the most important is knowledge sharing and knowledge development.

I started my professional
career in Indian Air Force as a

Inspiring Teachers
Interesting Links
1. A professor from Stanford puts courses free online http://www.udacity.com/

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2. Students connect with community http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Harsh_Mander/article2840073.ece 3. Running a venture on campus http://www.livemint.com/2012/01/29225749/Brewing-a-success-story-on-cam.html 4. Invest in reading http://www.livemint.com/2012/02/16215437/INVESTING-INREADING.html?atype=tp
Picture Caption Contest

"No child, he wasn't

imitating Black Eyed Pees. Its Black Eyed Peas" Chrys Cattirisetti Humour Teacher: tell me something about the people of 18th century Student: They are all dead! Teacher: Rahul, A for? Rahul(softly): Apple Teacher: Jor se bolo Rahul: Jai Mata Di Teacher: What happened in 1869? Student:Gandhi ji was born. Teacher: Very good! Now, tell me what happened in 1873? Student:Gandhiji was four years old.

5. Nice initiative in helping teachers http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_teachers-of-poor-kids-get-free-lessonson-innovative-teaching_1653249 6. Parenting tips http://innerspacetherapy.in/parenting/understanding-aggressive-children-thevictim-behind-the-aggressor/ 7. One man makes it his business to educate girls http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/indiaawakened/The-Sir-Syed-AhmedKhan-of-Sikar/Article1-813913.aspx 8. If you want to change the civic life in India, only you can do it http://theuglyindian.com/ 9. World Read Aloud day - volunteers needed http://blog.prathambooks.org/2012/02/looking-for-pratham-books-championsfor.html 10. World over attarcting and retaining students in engineering is a challenge, not in India though! http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/re-engineering-engineering-education-toretain-students/28745 11. Even Harvard talks of pedagogy! http://chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Seeks-to-Jolt/130683/ 12. Teachers wanting to use newspapers in classroom, here are two excellent resources World leading newspaper front pages http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/default.asp Lesson plans with newspapers http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ 13. Another magazine for teachers http://www.nais.org/publications/itmagazine.cfm My sessions in Grace Hopper Women in Computing Conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27OYeylWpjI&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5Dq75gEn9Q&feature=youtu.be 14. Some causes to current values in education http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article2880065.ece

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Lensoo EcoSystem

Inspiring Teachers

Collaborative Learning
Providing next generation learning experience Personalized user experience Enhanced learning effectiveness

Teacher Plus Magazine announces!

Multiple learning modes

Real Time audio/video communication between a learner and teacher Real time collaboration with integrated study group Knowledge Repositories Scheduled virtual coaching and mentoring interaction with learning communities

Challenges of first generation learners Teachers Academy

Instead, involve them in educational games that would motivate them to
Hyderabad PHONE: 97011 41118 E-MAIL: info@inspiring-teachers.com

backgrounds, many of them first generation 'schoolers'

equipping socially and economically under-

in the family. These children privileged children to join have no support during their the mainstream as equal homework or anyone to check their school work. So their foundation is not properly laid. With the and active members. Sevalaya is another such school, located in a village near Chennai which has

study. This was an important lesson I learnt and used I then started encouraging them to draw, solve Sudoku puzzles, play word building games, identify words in letter grids, find differences in pictures etc. They enjoyed the learning and their concentration and behaviour changed over a period of time. As education becomes more accessible (which is very good) we have students coming from diverse

examination and assessment transformed 15 villages system as it is, they move on around it. Offering free to higher classes. And they struggle more and more. Centre for Learning, near is another effort to help children acquire academic self-confidence. education upto XII, many of its students have moved on to good careers. Acharya devo bhava meant to look up to your teacher children, we teachers have

Army dairy at Secunderabad (http://sevalaya.org/ )

skills, a zest for learning and as God. But for these (http://www.centreforlearni to become the parents who ng.org) CFL is recognized in would have sincerely cared for their education with no strings attached.

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Do read the blog and leave your comments on-line http://www.theprofessor.in/blog/ Click on like http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Professor/203174356365130 Uma Garimella