Report on RightStart III  - Teacher Empowerment programme 
held at IIT Computer Sciences Centre may24th to May 29th

 

? Questions ?
Contacts- Lakshmi Suryanarayanan- surlak@vsnl.net
Kamakoti V- kama@cs.iitm.ernet.in
Dated 06/06/06



Asha Chennai an NGO in India for improvement of the quality of education of children from underprivileged backgrounds Our focus has been on improving quality of the learning teaching process by working closely with a few govt. and govt. aided primary and middle schools, govt. balwadis. The are observing the impact of our work and learning what more needs to be done. 
Please visit http://www.ashanet.org/chennai/ for details on how we work with the schools.

RightStart is a project conceived by Asha Chennai. This is an annual empowerment workshop for teachers in Asha Chennai projects and other teachers who get to know of the workshop through our volunteers. The participant teachers teach the children from the socially and economically weaker sections of society.

RightStart aims at building 

  • Some understanding of how children learn at various stages of development 

  • Some understanding of what helps and hinders such learning 

  • Confidence into teachers that they can improve the learning –teaching process by drawing from their built in capacities 

  • Exposure to innovative, low cost ways of enhancing learning teaching processes by working directly with some experts in the field- hands on experiences with making and using these teaching aids

  • Motivation to sustain what they have learnt in the workshop in their classrooms.


The last two RightStart prorammes happened in Sept 2003 and May 2005. They were wholly supported within the Asha family. Please visit http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=626 for some details of the above programmes.

IIT Madras through its K-12 and continuing education programme has supported this year’s programme. We also have found some support from our own sister chapter abroad. (Please get the exact details of the support from Shri Kamakoti if required).
We organized the workshop for Refreshers and Freshers and provided activities of different nature to the people who were here earlier and those who were coming in first time. We also kept in mind that there were participant teachers from balwadis ( for age group 3-5 years) and primary and middle schools (5-12 years). For a few participants who are into teaching high school we planned this as an eye opener on what processes are important to help children learn through experience and understanding and not by rote techniques. 

For the 5 day workshop – 

  • accommodation was provided in two IIT hostels (separately for men and women) for out-station participants. 

  • Food was provided to all participants, both out-station and local, in the IIT messes and canteens. 

  • Travel expenses for all participants were fully reimbursed to all participants.

  • One trip outside into Chennai city was provided for the outstation participants


Who participated, from where- In all there were 66 participants

Type of institution  Place in Tamilnadu  No. participants Refresher No. participants Fresher Asha Chennai teachers Teachers from the institutions
ICDS Balwadis Chennai  10 6 6 10
Corporation School Chennai  1 1 2 0
Trust school Panaiyur  2 1 0 3
Netaji Matriculation School Padarivedu  0 2 0 2
Freelance story teller at an orphanage Gummdipoondi   0  1 0 1
Olcott Memorial High School Chennai  0 2 0 2
Little Flower School Karumbakkam Village Chingelpet 2 1 0 3
Panchayat Schools Poondi dist 8 2 8 2
Panchatat Schools  Mannargudi dist 6 1 5 2
Aided schools Tiruvarur Dist  1 1 0 2
Aided school  Kothamangalam 2 1 0 3
Navjeevan trust – teachers working with child labourers and transit schools Tirunelveli Dist  0 15 0 15
Total 66 32 34 21 45


What was provided on the five days- 
Workshop Activities 

  1. Puppet making and use of puppets in story telling and teaching- Ms Bhanumathi from Pavai and Ms Prema Daniel veteran teacher trainer and assessor for govt. programmes

  2. A day with Ms. Shobana at the Montessori Centre – R.A.Puram, Chennai-28 for understanding the method of experiential learning and exposure to the immense variety of learning teaching materials and regular training courses offered.

  3. Introduction to English teaching- basics of phonetics, sight reading, language games- creating simple, low cost teaching materials- Lakshmi Balasubramaniam Veteran classroom teacher and primary ELT coordinator at Olcott Memorial School 

  4. Activity based oral English- how this can be done with the small vocabulary and structures participants already have- Lakshmi Suryanarayanan- Asha Chennai volunteer, Headmistress Olcott Memorial High School

  5. Hot spots in primary maths- using teaching aids and creating one’s own lost teaching aids. Lalitha R – veteran teacher of primary Maths, olcott memorial high School

  6. Assessment of learning through oral and written activities- as a tool for assessing out teaching techniques- Lakshmi Suryanarayanan

  7. Discussion on the rights of the child.- Ms Girija from ICCW

  8. Opportunities to all participants to present their thoughts, ideas in front of a large audience

The programme was inaugurated by the Dean Academics IIT, Professors in charge of K-12 and Continuing education who outlined why yjey were involved in the programme and what they were planning in the next few years to improve overall quality of education
The programme went off without any changes in the schedule. 
The participants feed back has been very encouraging. Fresher participants who were not sure what to expect were happy with what was offered by the workshop to them.
All participants, without exception, participated in the activities and sharing sessions. 
They also felt really good about being able to meet so many new people who were in the same field as themselves. 
They felt great at being taken care of an institution such IIT.
They have requested they be invited to participate in further programmes

The programme concluded with the distribution of participation certificates from IIT by the Head of the dept of Computer Engg.