Crossing cultures in Education

What challenges does one face when one crosses cultures in the field of education? How difficult is it to transfer knowledge in a setup which is completely different from what you are used to?

Edchat,. Wider Horizons - Four Go To Kenya. 2013. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.

In response to the video shown above as a part of my ongoing PGCEi course from the University of Nottingham I am responding to the questions stated above.

The video shown here is very relevant in the context of my own experiences which have actually undergone a radical change since the time I became educated till the present scenario. I have been a part of  such didactic classroom setups in India myself as a student. Teacher was the centre of attaraction and copying and rote learning were the only mechanisms to score good marks, which was the method of assessment.

After my higher education, I taught as a teacher for seven years in a state board school with a static curriculum with little scope of application of information, but quite similar to what I had gained my education from. There was no chance of social interaction , let alone learning from them and neither were such theories valued in the school culture . I was asked to refrain from any kind of collaboration and learning from any of the international schools in the city as the school authorities felt that such connections would not benefit my teaching.

You are a good teacher if you can yourself memorize information and pass the same skills to students to help them achieve good marks. As shown in the video the concepts of teaching by the teachers from England were as allien to me as they were to the African teachers in the video. 

Teaching the international curriculum for the last 8 years of my career has seen a radical paradigm shift to my teaching pedagogy. I can relate more to the English teachers in the video who were actually looking for signs of learning in the classrooms. The method used by the Kenyan teachers would leave the children with very limited scope of engagement with the key concepts of the content , as mentioned by the English teacher that the process of investigation was important rather that the result. 

The teachers found it difficult to settle down in an atmosphere where students failed to comprehend the instructions given to them and hence generate suitable responses. In the context of China where I teach now , I am facing similar challenges and even to a larger extent. The students have very low language levels of English and hence fail to comprehend instructions. Thus it is difficult to generate the active and engaged learning atmosphere that one is looking for.The brain of the Chinese students is tuned to recieve knowledge imparted in a repititive manner, which makes them good scorers in Mathematics. However they fail to apply the same skills when it comes to critical analysis of content to a particular context as mentioned in the banking system of education by Friere (p.53).

However there exists a motivation for self achievement which needs to be tapped in for generating active involvement and engagement with classroom teaching and learning. 

Freire, P. (1996). Banking v Problem solving methods of education. Pedagogy of the oppressed, pp.52-57.

Reflecting on a milestone crossed

The journey changes its course...

My journey in this IB World has been a tremendous learning experience for each every day.As the course of life goes on I had to leave OIS and return back to my previous school Choithram International. I am one of those fortunate teachers who has had the opportunity to be mentored by some of the finest people in this world and the IB industry. As I switch over from OIS to CI the thoughts that kept striking me ,are, that I am just shifting from one learning ground to another one, each milestone adding up so much to my existence as a better human being and understanding others. Moreover I never feel the loss in connectivity as the whole ethos and philosophy of IB just gets carried forward as you move from one IB school to another. 

At this juncture I would like to reflect upon all the good values and characterestics that I have learnt and embedded in my character,after my interactions with the OIS environment.I could actually make a list of them....

1. resilience
2. coherence
3. tolerance
4. appreciation
5. respect

These 5 strong chracterestics have actually been strongly existing in all the corners of OIS. It was a system that introduced me to some of the rigorous academic processes that probably exist very aptly in any of the benchmark schools of IB such as the UWCs. 

At OIS another benchmark set everywhere was the sense of critical thinking.TOK concepts and talking about various global  issues had infiltrated very smoothly even in the middle school students.

Probably there would be many more such reflections that would make me realize much later in life, how my tenure at OIS has moulded me.

As I gear up to work with zeal and enthusiasm at CI , again under a strong mentor and guide the only thing that gets emphasized more with time is that every organisation of IB has its own culture and local flavor and it is very important to identify and accept that.I hope to contribute a lot to this institution and gain immensely in the upcoming days.

How facts develop concepts?

What makes a good monday morning?

Well this was the theme of our monday morning assembly at school, worth being pondered about.

Today my monday morning started by sharing good thoughts as usual on my twitter and facebook profiles, some of which are my own and some shared so generously by the the whole community of my social networkers.

One of the tweets which struck my mind went as follows:

Ryan Campbell @ryandal

Use factual questions to guide students to a conceptual generalisation. Don't tell them generalisation instead draw it from them. #IBDunia13

Well it was a tweet from the Indonesian IB teachers group. I never knew that this thought would be later justified so quickly and so well in our school assembly today. The big questions thrown to us in the monday morning assemble by our Head Teacher were in the form of few facts. They went as follows....

1. Total of about 50 percent of the world population lies in the urban region and by 2030 ,UN projects that it would be raised to 70 percent.What does that mean to Kolkata?
2. In the late 20th century , Shanghai , which today projects an image of "modernisation " as quoted by one of our students, was very much similar to what Kolkata is today.

What did these facts mean to us? Was there a corelation? Did it have a purpose?

These facts stated , actually had a far bigger meaning to the audience as our Head Teacher had started a competition for the students, 90 percent of whom were not born or brought up in Kolkata, to contribute to Kolkata and make it a better place to live. It resonated with the theme "Think globally and act locally".

How well we could use this in our classroom practices...Connecting back to the tweet ..developing conceptual generalisation from factual questions. To what extent do we articulate this approach to generate an inquiry based learninhg?

My learning in the journey of being an IB teacher is just endless where the horizon gets pushed away by each passing day.

Mobile phones as data loggers in IB classroom Part 1

How fast is technology changing and is the change useful at all....?

Well this is a question which is nowadays in everybody's mind and between the juggle that goes on sometimes the winner is probably the side which tries to go with the system that has been existent for so many years. But the mind needs to accept that expertise in explaining a concept seems to be slowly moving from the voice of the teacher in the classroom to the gadgets in use with the advanced technology. I have worked with sensors and interfaces in my previous schools , but in my current school I got the chance to get my hands on the new interface on sensors, Labquest 2 and a first rendezvous with it was just a WOW....

In IBDP Physics use of ICT in labs is mandatory and it is split into 5 catagories :

1.  Data logging
2. Spreadsheets
3. Graph Plotting software
4. Database
5. Computer model or simulations

All these requirements have to be fulfilled atleast once and hence teachers have to use sensors as a part of data logging. Sensors are a useful method of collecting data with precision and accuracy and a direct data analysis can be obtained by connecting the sensor to the laptop. We use a logger pro software for handling the data and graphs. What I found new was these Logger Pro installation CDs had a special version for Mac laptops. The Labquest Interface helps to connect the sensor to the laptop. 

The revolutionary change made in this interface is that it is wifi enabled. Hence data collection and analysis is not limited to the one interface but can be obtained in all the laptops and hangon....also on all the ANDROID and APPLE phones in class. The sole requirement is that all of them need to be connected to the same Wi Fi. The interface generates a unique URL with an IP. address, which helps everyone to connect to the page on data collection. So when you press the keep button on the interface everyone can get the data in their device. And being available on the mobile phones makes it so easy for data collection outside labs. So now technology makes data accesible and available to everyone at the same instant.

Thus as technology is changing rapidly, so are the manufacturers, who understand the need for the change. The way this new interface has been developed, data collection happens so instantly in the classroom, whatever be the student strength.

As the students in my present school have a variety of supplementary gadgets starting from tablets to mobile phones, they really get more engaged and enthralled when they see their tiny devices getting converted to data logging instruments. So those who have not tried it, I advice , go ahead and try it and feel the change in the physics classroom.

Reflection of SAIBSA 2012

How big is the gap between knowing and being a 21st Century educator?

As I shared in my previous blogs, my journey as an IB educator is taking me through lot of turns where I am fortunately learning a lot and thanks to all the twitter contributors from whom I have been immensely gained a lot. They might have no idea how they have acted as as mentors for a teacher, far of, in one of the cities in India.

This was my second IB DP SAIBSA Job alike Session that I attended along with a Category 2 IB worshop. 340 DP teachers , from different parts of the country all at one place, beautifully and most elegantly hosted by Podar International School, Mumbai.

An amazing introductory Plenary Session by Gillian Ashworth. It was all about Inquiry Based Learning in IB DP. The presentation actually gave me an insight on what actually everyone meant by specifying a 21st Century educator.

After the presentation I seemed to be comforted with the thought that what I had started doing was a first step towards being a 21st Century educator.

But then should it be just "I" or "We"?

This was followed by a whole day session in subject specific room, where we had discussions pertaining to the subject only where the focus was "I do this " and " I  do that", without any directional move towards what our today's students would want "Us to do". I guess we all sitting in the room were sailing in the same boat not having the slightest idea about the changes in the world and methods of teaching.

A very important question kept on sweeping across my mind was " What impact did globalization have on Education in India?". The terms which seemed very common to me were totally unfamiliar to others. Forget about Twitter,Scoop.It., Paper.Li, Diigo, Edmodo, Blogs and Wikis, and anything else that I was using, my co teachers had no idea of a google doc even. 

So how far are we from the reality of what Gillian said in the morning of being a 21st Century Educator?

With my inputs in the sessions about few "technology " tips that I gathered over the past few months, the group seemed to be interested. They were enthralled by me sharing so many resources through DROP BOX and not flash drive. After the session I received lot of thank mails and this urged me to provide them with a collaborative platform. I immediately started a google doc with some problems posted by teachers to me.

 The need of the hour for us educators is  to connect with the vast world of International School educators, especially at twitter and other Social Networking sites. Learn from each other, implement them in our daily teaching and share our practices on a regular basis.