Since mid March, all schools across the State remained closed owing to the COVID-19 lockdown. While many private institutions dove headfirst into initiating online classes, especially for their senior students, most of these schools are now looking to dedicate the next two weeks towards training and orienting their teachers better.
“In March, teachers handling classes 10 and 12 were given a basic overview of how to conduct classes online and reach out to the students. With little clarity on when schools will reopen, we are now training teachers who handle primary and middle school on effective online teaching,” B. Purushothaman, senior principal, Everwin Group of Schools.
The focus, he said, was to equip teachers in incorporating teaching aids which they can create on a computer to make the classes more appealing. “An important exercise we carried out was to also earmark parts of the syllabus from each subject for the coming academic year which can be taught online,” Mr. Purushothaman added.
At Sir Sivaswami Kalalaya Senior Secondary School, teachers handling younger classes will be trained in making short videos of lessons which can then be shared with the students. “Since younger children might find it tough to sit through an hour of live online lessons, our teachers will be trained by the computer science department to record video lessons from their homes,” said M.S. Jayasri, school principal. To ensure that the recorded lessons aren’t monotonous or long, the teachers will be encouraged to use virtual tools as teaching aids as well as intersperse their lessons with interesting audio-visual content as well.
In a survey by the Centre for Teacher Accreditation(CENTA), teachers had indicated that they would like to focus and orient themselves better on the ability to engage students, gauge their understanding and delve into parental support.
“Many private schools in the State have appealed to the government to allow us to open just our school offices so that we can plan and collaborate such training and orientation sessions for the teachers better, over this month,” said R. Visalakshi, president of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association.
For teachers from CBSE schools, the board has recently launched a structured online teacher training programme to enable them to refresh their knowledge, teach better and lead improved learning outcomes.
Published - May 11, 2020 06:53 pm IST
