Inventure Academy, Bangalore organized Educators' Conclave session on 5th March 2021 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. The session was exclusively for Round Square Schools on Transforming Education beyond 2020, aimed at leveraging our collective learning and experiences from the pandemic. Good practices of Educators which proved to be successful with The British School, New Delhi, Sunbeam School, Lahartara and Inventure Academy were shared with all the participants. Mrs Seema Malhotra Baxi, Dean Academic – Seniors, Mrs Neeta Johari, Dean Academic – Juniors, Mrs Sapna Gupta, Dean Exchange Programs and Mrs Indra Shaktawat, Dean – Activities from RKK attended this Professional Program.
The first session was addressed by Ms Sneh Wadhwani and Ms Monisha Singh of The British School. The major take away were:
· To be successful in professional development efforts, we must plan backwards
· Just as surgeons see observation and coaching as vital to improving their craft, so should teachers.
· Teachers are the professionals who use their classrooms as innovative libraries and want to engage in authentic learning.
· Educators must ensure that professional learning networks are more than a forum for promoting personal preferences about instruction.
Followed by a session with Ms Richa Chaubey from Sunbeam Lahartara
She shared the following forms and the best practices followed by their school :
· Teacher’s Portfolio
· Skill Set and Behavior Assessment (self-assessment by the teacher)
· Online/Offline Class Observation Form
· Teacher’s Need Analysis Form
· Teacher’s Professional Log
Next session was conducted by Ms Meenakshi Elangovan and Ms Malathi Anantha from Inventure Academy. Both the speakers focused on Professional Development: Mastery Based Approach. A lot of professional development happens (70%) through the job experiences, 20% by mentorship/coaching/class observation etc and 10% through workshops. The Learning model, according to them should include: Plan – Do – Check – Act.
The last Session was by Dr Betty Chandy, Director for Online Learning at Catalyst @ Penn GSE. She elaborated on immediate need of balancing zoom/live Classes and asynchronous content, ways to meet challenges of devices and resources, creating and finding right resources, dealing with varied teacher technology dispositions.
Also the long term vision of moving from teacher centric to student centric perspective-ways and needs, harnessing and sustaining the learning of today, leveraging of resources in creating learning assets were discussed in the session.
With the changing world, there is a need to develop digital literacy, problem solving skills and self-directed learning skills. She also focused on Professional Development, constructivism in education and blended learning. Teachers have to be familiar with the latest technology available and use it optimally to make their teaching more effective and easy. People learn through strategies of behaviorism, constructism and social constructionism. Focus was laid on the need to equip students with new age skills of critical thinking, creativity, reflection etc. In all, it was an intense, very informative and insightful conclave.
