Buzzing Classrooms

The Teacher Foundation organized a one-day workshop ‘Buzzing Classrooms’ in Mysore on Thursday, October 30th. Monisha Diwan, head of TTF- Mumbai conducted the workshop. 41 teachers from 9 different schools in Mysore attended this activity-oriented workshop. The participating schools were Geetha Shishu Shikshana, Oxfo kids, Maharshi Public School, Vijaya Vittala Vidyashala, Rotary Mid town academy, Pragathi Vidya Kendra, ABC academy, St. Joseph’s and The Learning Curve Int. School.

Monisha started with an energizer and kept the energy levels high till the end. A teacher from Geetha Shishu Shikshana Sangha said, “It was the best since Monisha did not let us rest in peace and filled our day with activities”.

Each activity was followed by a minute of ‘Thinking Cap’ work where in teachers had to connect the activity to the classroom. They would then share their ideas about using the activity in other subjects with the whole group.

Teachers found their partners with the sticky note compound word game and in the process started interacting with teachers from different schools. They thoroughly enjoyed the ‘Dig it’ activity and acted as detectives. As they shared the profile of the person whose bag was missing we got to witness the creativity in teachers.

The teachers were unanimous in their opinion that ‘Diffy Definitions’ could be easily used in any subject. Some of them exhibited their talent in dramatics (and creative writing) with the role-play opportunity in ‘Living Photographs’. Monisha elaborated on using this particular activity to inculcate empathy in our students for the people who suffer in bomb blasts, floods and other disasters. Sharon from The Learning Curve noted that “The printouts / pictures etc. that were given, could be shown on the ppt instead of passing around for all to see (saves time) and color on screen is better than the B/W printouts.”

The activity on questioning was thought provoking for all the teachers. They discussed at length on Bloom’s revised taxonomy, HO/LO questions and OL/CL questions. Math Train was quite challenging but when it was time to break for coffee the teachers didn’t want to let go of the challenge.

Story ball was a fun way to begin the ‘ends’. Again, we witnessed the teachers’ creativity when they started giving interesting twists to the story. Most of them said that the students are much more creative than themselves. The teachers were very attentive when it was time to ‘correct the teacher’. Monisha told them that their students would love to do the same. ‘Order! Order’ was another great activity that emphasized the group work and understanding of the processes. The teachers were new to ‘Pictionary’. They thought that it was an interesting game for vocabulary in any subject.

At the end of the day the teachers wanted more such workshops. Soumya from Vijaya Vittala said, “It was a useful training as it can be used in the daily classroom situations in our lesson where we can keep the child buzzing”. The real success of the workshop would be teachers using these (and more) activities in the classrooms to keep the beginnings, middles and the ends interesting for the students. We at TTF are hoping for the same from Poornima’s (The Learning Curve) comment - “I have already planned for next 2 lessons – the passing the ball activity and the treasure hunt”.

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