In an effort to improve classroom learning, the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has begun a year-long training programme for postgraduate (PG) teachers.
Started in May, the pilot study focused on one subject for a week, which was conducted in six rounds. In the main programme, the teacher will have 30 days of training in their respective subjects. Teachers of nine subjects – maths, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, accountancy, commerce, economics, and history – are being trained. The current round is training physics and commerce teachers.
According to an official from the department, the first batch of 50 teachers are currently undergoing the training with a new methodology. In the first half of the day, the teachers have theory classes held by experts from their fields while in the second half, they are split into groups and activities, such as experiments, problem solving, and virtual lab training, are given. “Usually the teachers are called for a maximum of three days of training, this is the first time we are conducting in-service training of this length,” the official said.
The plan was formulated by officials of the SCERT who found relevant activities and experiments to show the teachers. “These activities are simple and can be taken to the students for better understanding of a concept,” an official said.
Speaking about the training, a teacher from Tiruvannamalai said: ”This has been helpful as it also excites us to learn these concepts and teach them in the classroom. The students also look forward to it as they enjoy the experiments and are able to grasp the concepts much faster.”
However, some teachers feel it is difficult to implement the activities due to the lack of resources. “The virtual lab settings are in English. In a 45-minute class, when we are rushing to complete the syllabus, it will be difficult to manually change everything to Tamil and get materials for 60 students to conduct an activity,” said a teacher from Tiruvarur.
Stating that they have not been able to cover the entire syllabus this year, the official said, “We hope to cover the other half of it next year depending on the feedback we receive.”
