1. Nov 2010
Volume 4, Issue 11 Inspiring Teachers
Pic above: Six-day
workshop at Learnium
School, Hyderabad
Articles this month:
Classroom Management
Tips – Editor
……………..….2
School Leadership for the
21st
century – Behera
………………..3
Upcoming Conference –
Sunanda Verma
……………….4
Humour - KV Jayakumar
……………….5
Driving educational change through excellence in teaching
This month we have a new
author – Bhagirathi Behera.
He is a very motivated teacher
who has entered this career by
choice and who wants to be
heading a school in another
few years. He has put together
a list of qualities for the school
leadership of 21st century.
We are almost coming to the
end of 2o10 and it is time to
Editor’s Comments
October and November at Teacher’s Academy
1. Sessions for Effective Teaching
Skills for CfBT’s programs at
Aditya Engg College and
Swarnandhra Engg College
2. Effective Teaching Skills – six
day workshop at Learnium
School, Banjara Hills,
Hyderabad Oct 4th to 9th
3. 4th batch of Teacher Training
Program at Enhance Edu, IIIT-
H from Nov 1st to Dec 5th.
4. Next technique training at
Adam’s High School, Hyderabad
assess our performance and
plan for growth. There are
some ideas that need to be
validated from all of you.
They are in the covering
mail.
Please visit our website
regularly and answer the
poll question. We find
surprising answers!
Coming back to this issue,
this time we have given
announcements of a
number of conferences
related to teaching and
learning.
Our regular humour section
and some pictures from the
Inspiring Teacher Awards
event are other offerings.
What they say after adopting
techniques from the training
Mr Salim, Principal, Adam’s High School
says all his teachers started using graphic
organizers (mind maps) after training by
Teacher’s Academy and their students are also
making them now.
Vasu Krishna, N Srinivasulu and others in
Nalla Malla Reddy Engg College have started
sharing learning objectives with students and find
that it is a very effective way to generate clarity
and focus in the students thereby improving
interest and understanding.
2. Inspiring Teachers Page 2 of 5
Surprise!
One of our poll
questions on who is
your best teacher –
more than 70% voted
for a teacher ‘who
encourages you to go
beyond the syllabus’.
‘explains well’ came
third, after ‘makes you
work so that you learn’
Think about it!
How to handle latecomers
Latecomers disrupt the
learning of the rest of the
class, give negative
attention to the latecomer,
disrupt the teacher's train of
thought, often become
disruptive talkers after they
sit down, and then ask
questions about what you
just explained…so here is a
way to handle themLeave
five or ten empty chairs by
the front or back door for
latecomers. Students who
are late are not to walk in
front of the room or to go to
their regular seats. They
must take one of the "late
seats" by the door. This will
prevent latecomers from
disturbing the class already
in progress. Do not talk to
latecomers. Don't accept an
explanation during class.
Ignore them as they come.
Establish classroom rules
Use the first class in your
academic session to involve
students to form simple
rules of behavior and
academic issues that will be
followed. This activity works
because students also want
Classroom Management Tips Uma Garimella
the same rules (believe it
or not!).Since they are the
ones who made the rules
this works much better
than teacher posting rules
without input from them.
You may ask them to get
into small groups,
brainstorm and come up
with a list, which can be
posted on the blackboard.
Review it, rephrase if
necessary, vote on
contradicting rules and
you should have some
basic standards set for the
class.
Handle backtalking
students – either in your
room or in the class: Here
we are not only talking of
arrogant students but also
those who keep explaining
why your comment about
them is wrong – for
example you tell a student
to concentrate on her
work and not talk, she
answers that she’s not
talking or that her
neighbor is disturbing her
and then you respond and
it goes on. There are two
reactions – in the first few
seconds stay calm. And
then don’t keep up the
conversation - It takes one
fool to backtalk. It takes two
fools to make a conversation
out of it. If you don’t keep
talking, the back talk will
not continue – for obvious
reasons. Just give your
instructions and ask the
back talking student to
follow them.
Noisy or disruptive
behaviour: Usually
teachers ask questions to
students who haven’t been
paying attention. This
doesn’t work for two
reasons:
1. The student can’t
answer the question and
he/she feels humiliated
2. Since anyway the
student has been
caught, there is no
further motivation to
pay attention.
Instead, it may be a good
idea to ask questions to
students who are sitting
close to this group, but who
are paying attention. Since
the focus of the class has
come near them, the
disruptive group is likely to
come back to the class flow.
3. Inspiring TeachersPage 3 of 5
An educational leader is
one who willingly makes all
efforts for achieving
institutional goals by
influencing and making
other strive for the same. It
involves the achievements
of organizational goals and
working with people. But in
21st century educational
organization are socio-
technical systems, unique
organizations whose basic
components are the
individuals and technology.
In order to be successful
three types of skills are
School Leadership for the 21st
Century Bhagirathi Behera
The nature of educational
leadership in 21st century is
totally different from
traditional supervision
leadership. Pragmatic study
and analysis instead of
inspection; total teacher-
learning situation in place of
teacher focused learning;
many diverse functions
instead of visits and meeting;
organized and planned
objectives in place of poorly
understood objectives;
cooperative manager in place
of imposing and
authoritarian; and last but not
Strong leaders are key to turning around poorly performing schools, by
implementing reforms, and motivating teachers and students.
Above: Break time on Teacher’s
Day
Above:
N Chandrasekhar Reddy from
NMREC, Hyderabad, touching
his guru K Srinivasa Rao’s feet
before the award was
presented. Mr Rao, who now
works in Viveka Vardhini
College, was the man to whom
Chandrasekhar’s father handed
over the responsibility of
grooming him. From a child who
was below average in school,
Chandraskehar got counted as
one of the brighter students
after he came under Mr Rao.
essential for a leader or
manager as technical
skills, human skills and
conceptual skills.
Educational leader are to
improve the learning
situations by working with
teachers, to help teachers
grow as professional, to
develop materials for
instructions and learning,
to improve curriculum and
to arrange for in-service
education for teachers and
other persons. Other tasks
are looking at instructional
services in schools of
other towns and districts,
upgrading evaluation,
studying problems and
setting new schemes with
successful
implementation,
managing reward systems
for teachers, providing a
vision for the staff and
faculty. This means
helping the teachers and
other persons concerned
to see teaching as a
larger picture with a
number of interrelated
activities.
the least, many persons to
lead the education field in
place of one person.
The job of a school leader is
multidimensional and the
skills they must have are for
(1) instructional leadership;
(2) management; (3)
communication,
collaboration, and
community building; and
(4) vision development, risk
taking, and change
management.
Thus, principals must have
a deep understanding of the
processes of teaching
and learning including
knowledge of new
teaching methods,
student construction of
knowledge, and skills in
problem solving. In
addition, they must
devote a large portion of
their time and energy to
improving teaching and
learning. They should
be able to provide
informed feedback,
guidance and support to
professional
development activities.
Caption describing
picture or graphic.
4. Inspiring Teachers Page 4 of 5
Conference Name
Paper
Submissi
on
Deadline
Venue
Dates of
Conference
Topics
IC4E 2011 http://www.iacsit.org/ic4e
Oct 25,
2010
Mumbai,
India
Jan 2011 e-Learning, e-Education
ETT 2010 http://www.ieee-ett.cn/ett2010/
Oct 25,
2010
Wuhan,
China
Nov 27 - 28
2010
Education Training and
Technology
CSEDU 2011 http://www.csedu.org/
Oct 25,
2010
Noordwijkerh
out, The
Netherlands
May 6 - 9,
2011
Learning/Teaching
Methodologies And
Assessment
ITNG 2011 http://www.itng.info/
Oct 30,
2010
Las Vegas,
USA
April 11 - 13,
2011
Software Engineering
Education Track
EDUCON 2011
http://www.educon-conference.org/IEEE
Oct 31, 2011
Amman,
Jordan
April 4 - 6,
2011
Learning Environments and
Ecosystems in Engineering
Education
ICIET 2011 http://www.iciet.org/
Nov 10,
2010
Guiyang,
China
Jan 26 - 28,
2011
Education Technology
CSEET 2011
http://conferences.computer.org/cseet/2011/CSEET_2011/
Nov 29,
2010
Hawaii, USA
May 22 - 24,
2011
Software engineering
Education
ICALT 2011
http://www.ask4research.info/icalt/2011/
Jan 17, 2011 Athens ,USA
Jul 6 - July 8,
2011
Adv Learning Technologies
and Technology-enhanced
Learning
T4E 2011http://tfore.iitm.ac.in/
February
27, 2011
Chennai
,India
July 14 - July
16, 2011
Education Technology
ICETC 2011 http://www.icetc.org/
March 25,
2011
Changchun,
China
July 15 - 16,
2011
Innovative Pedagogies,
Learning Models
Good leaders must have a
vision for their school, a
plan for reaching it, and
an ability to communicate
that vision effectively. But
on the way, they must
also know about finance
and be able to drive
successfully through
difficult political
situations filled with
competing interests and
demands for resources. In
School leadership……(cont’d)
Upcoming Conferences Sunanda Verma, EnhanceEdu, IIIT-H
Siddhartha Ghosh of
GNITS, Hyderabad,
speaking in Telugu
during a JAM session
on 2
nd
Oct. His mother
tongue is Bengali!
addition, good leaders
must be good at managing
people (teachers and other
staff, and stakeholders),
time, and facilities.
Rather than telling people
what to do, effective
leaders share their vision
and let people set goals
aligned to that goal. And
they motivate them to
achieve those goals.
Most important in all this
is the ability of the school
leader to see what strategy
suits his/her school and
keep reviewing its
effectiveness. If something
is not useful, it is necessary
to change it, rather than
take it as a failure or taking
it as a prestige issue.
Mr Bhagirathi
Science Teacher
Shantiniketan Vidyalaya
Shamirpet
5. Inspiring TeachersPage 5 of 5
Thinking in Indian and speaking in English e-mail fwd KV Jayakumar
#Inside the Class:
* Open the doors of the window. Let the Air Force come in.
* Cut an apple into two halves - take the bigger half.
* Shhh...Quiet, boys...the principal just passed away in the corridor.
* You, meet me behind the class. (Meaning AFTER the class)
* Both of you three gets out of the class.
* Close the doors of the windows please... I have winter in my nose today.
* shhh... quite, the principal is rotating in the school.
* (Facing the Board), Dont talk in front of my back.
# About his family:
* I have two daughters. Both of them are girls....(?)
# At the ground:
* All of you, stand in a straight circle.
* There is no wind in the ball.
# Giving a punishment:
* You, rotate the ground four times...
* You, go and under-stand the tree...
* You three of you, stand together separately.
Started three years ago,
already 1600 teacher
members on-line, 28
colleges and 15 schools
touched by the training.
Long term projects are
being taken up for schools
and colleges. Continuous
support and multiple
initiatives will be included
for holistic and
sustainable change.
About Teacher’s Academy…
Teacher’s Academy
Hyderabad
PHONE:
97011 41118
E-MAIL:
info@inspiring-teachers.com
See us at:
www.teachersacademy.co
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--Thanks
Uma Garimella
Founder