Doha: The teachers of Birla had four days of skill development session dawned with the thought ‘Learn how to teach so that you can teach how to learn’ by the Academic Director Principal, Harish Sanduja as a kick-start for the new academic session.
Maria Thomas, Vice-Chairperson initiated the Ice Breaking Activity - ‘The person who knows it all takes it all’. On 10th August, Vice-Principal, Edna Fernandez highlighted on ‘the major skills that the students should possess when they graduate from a school’. The whole teaching fraternity was divided into groups to discuss, prepare and present on the final ideas.
The counsellor, Ankitha Hariharan took a very insightful class on Specific Learning Disabilities, Range of Disabilities the students face, Psychological counselling at school.
The theme for day two was Team Buliding, which was led by a series of activities Shruti Chauhan and Lissy Mathew. Lakshmi Devi and Ranchini Binu threw insights on the 3C’s of Classroom Management. Teachers actively participated in open discussion on examples of instances where they effectively managed the class in difficult situations.
An eye-opening session on Child and Adolescent Mental Health was taken by Dr. Jithendra Nagpal and Aprajitha Dixit — the session explained the flags of certain learning spectrum, early identification, etc.
Divya Mary Vincent and Josephine Fernandes, Headmistress’ presented a wonderful session on Differentiated Learning and to equip the teachers with tailor made lesson plans that fits each child in your class.
On August 13, Principal, Harish Sanduja took an activity-based session on Design Thinking. The teachers were able to understand the importance of training the students’ mind to think out of box and to bring about new ideas into practice.
On August 14, Neha Sharma, Principal, G D Goenka, Delhi took an engaging session on Theatre that helped the teachers to have an insight on how to add drama into your classrooms. The book, Joy of Theatre was introduced for further reference.
Vice-Chairperson, Maria took a thought-provoking session on ‘Risks for Children in the Digital Environment’. The session opened light on cyber bullying, communication, generation gap, etc. The session became more interesting when Maria presented the ‘new vocabulary’ of children of the Alpha age! The four days were indeed an eye opener for all the attendees.
The learnings ended with the acknowledgment and inputs from the Board of Directors and by awarding the winners of the various sessions and games.
