For the next few weeks, nearly 120 Standard XI and XII teachers of Chennai Schools will turn students. They would not be taught the same lessons they teach their students, but the basics, concepts and fundamentals in mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
An eight-day workshop ‘Concept Enhancement Programme' for the teachers, being organised by the IIT-M and Chennai Corporation, got under way on Saturday. The classes aim to enhance their conceptual understanding of core subjects as well as explore and connect to topics in the textbook.
Mayor M. Subramaniam, who inaugurated the workshop, said that this is the second such training programme for the higher secondary school teachers and the civic body is spending Rs.9.68 lakh on it.
The first such workshop was conducted last year at Anna University. He also announced that to get a first-hand experience of research centres, the teachers would be taken to prestigious institutions such as ISRO, DRDO, BHEL and IGCAR.
IIT-M Director M.S. Ananth highlighted the need to enhance logical learning and intuition in the classroom.
Talking about the principles of education, he asked the teachers to lay greater emphasis while teaching the first few chapters in a book as it was bound to kindle the interest of the students and make them look forward to the rest. “Give examples from the immediate environment while teaching, repeat and encourage students to ask questions,” he said.
On the teaching methodologies to be adopted for a class of teachers, S. Sundar, mathematics professor at IIT-M, said the IIT way of teaching students would be applied.
Chennai Corporation Commissioner D. Karthikeyan and Deputy Commissioner (Education) M. Balaji spoke.
