Gajapati

As part of my field visit I recently visited two DE schools of  the tribal dominated Gajapati district, which borders Andhra Pradesh (AP). In fact I had to enter and exit some of the AP villages, on my way to these schools. I started from Berhampur at 9 in the morning and made a grueling twelve hour trip reaching Berhampur, late in the evening. The two schools I visited were encouraging in the sense that the headmasters and the teachers were very enthusiastic about the program and more than that their simplicity did come across as part of their interactions. The journey back was through the mountains. Although the route was through maoist infested pockets and the roads were demanding, the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. I crossed Chandragiri - the Tibetan settlement on the way. A neat little habitat - a miniature Tibet in itself, with its own culture, architecture etc. nestled deep in the mountains. Just before taking the highway we crossed Taptapani - the famous hot water springs (sulphur springs) of Orissa - a delightful place to visit. Check out the photographs below:

Making Mistakes - but how costly is context specific

A Tip 'o the Hat...

...goes to Joe Stirt,for passing along this interview of mountaineering legend Ed Viesturs by author Kathryn Schulz. It's well worth the read, especially the part where he describes his biggest mistake. I won't spoil it for you, but Schulz tells him the mistake doesn't sound so bad. "You made it down safely, after all." Check out the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2-ougLSWnk&feature=player_embedded

AYV-Lite Workshop

A hands on workshop for the entire DE Team on stop motion animation, PSA (public service announcement) and Documentaries, was held last month in Unit IV Girls High School, Bhubaneshwar. The workshop was conducted by Akib, AYV Coordinator from Delhi and was held over a period of three days. Two interesting stop motion animations were made as part of the workshop - "better late than never" sensitizing people on being careful while driving at unmanned level crossings and the other on "population explosion."

Review-cum-Refresher - Gopalpur on Sea

The entire DE Orissa Team spent four days in the quaint little fishing hamlet - Gopalpur on Sea as part of a two day workshop conducted by trainers from Ezvidya who had flown in from Chennai which was followed by a two day internal review-cum-refresher. While the workshop focussed on "Multiple Intelligence and Creative Thinking" fine tuning and honing the skills of the "Trainers" through presentations, working sessions, Q&A and feedback the two day "Internal Review-cum-Refresher" focussed  on freezing the annual plan for each of the schools incorporating a detailed plan for each of the teacher trainees with set targets on each of the DE Output Indicators to be approved quarterly. A performance appraisal of each of the monitoring expert will be carried out on a quarterly basis, based on these annual plans.

Apart from the workshop the team spent some time relaxing and unwinding in this sleepy little hamlet, located at a distance of 20 kms from Berhampur and 180 kms from Bhubaneshwar, the capital city of Bhubaneshwar. The two day internal review was held in "Carey Retreat" perched on a hill top, giving a panoramic view of Gopalpur.

Check out the photographs below:

THE OECD PROGRAMME FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ASSESSMENT (PISA) - 2009 Results/Executive Summary

Highlights

• Korea and Finland are the highest performing OECD countries, with mean scores of 539 and 536 points, respectively. However, the partner economy Shanghai-China outperforms them by a significant margin, with a mean score of 556.
• In 18 participating countries, including Mexico, Chile and Turkey, the highest reading proficiency level achieved by most students was the baseline Level 2.
• At the other end of the proficiency spectrum, an average of 7.6% of students attain Level 5, and in Singapore, New Zealand and Shanghai-China the percentage is more than twice the OECD average.
• At the other end of the proficiency spectrum, an average of 7.6% of students attain Level 5, and in Singapore, New Zealand and Shanghai-China the percentage is more than twice the OECD average.
• Korea, with a country mean of 546 score points, performed highest among OECD countries in the PISA 2009 mathematics assessment. The partner countries and economies Shanghai-China, Singapore and Hong Kong-China rank first, second and third, respectively.
• Shanghai-China, Finland, Hong Kong-China and Singapore are the four highest performers in the PISA 2009 science assessment.
• Some 14.6% of students in Shanghai-China and 12.3% of students in Singapore attain the highest levels of proficiency in all three assessment subjects.
• Girls outperform boys in reading skills in every participating country.
• Countries of similar prosperity can produce very different educational results.
• The best performing school systems manage to provide high-quality education to all students.
• Disadvantaged students may have access to more teachers, but not necessarily to the best teachers.
• Home background influences educational success, and schooling often appears to reinforce its effects. Although poor performance in school does not automatically follow from a disadvantaged socio-economic background, the socioeconomic background of students and schools does appear to have a powerful influence on performance.
• Regardless of their own socio-economic background, students attending schools with a socio-economically advantaged intake tend to perform better than those attending schools with more disadvantaged peers.
• Across OECD countries, first-generation students – those who were born outside the country of assessment and who also have foreign-born parents – score, on average, 52 score points below students without an immigrant background.
• Students in urban schools perform better than students in other schools, even after accounting for differences in socioeconomic background.
• In all countries, students who enjoy reading the most perform significantly better than students who enjoy reading the least.
• On average across OECD countries, 37% of students – and 45% or more in Austria, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg – report that they do not read for enjoyment at all.
• High-performing countries are also those whose students generally know how to summarize information.
• While factors such as predisposition, temperament, peer pressure and socialization may contribute to boys having less interest in reading than girls, boys could be encouraged to enjoy reading more and to read more for enjoyment.
• In recent years, the gender gap in reading engagement has widened, as has the gender gap in reading performance.
• Successful school systems – those that perform above average and show below-average socio-economic inequalities – provide all students, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, with similar opportunities to learn.
• Most successful school systems grant greater autonomy to individual schools to design curricula and establish assessment policies, but these school systems do not necessarily allow schools to compete for enrolment.
• After accounting for the socio-economic and demographic profiles of students and schools, students in OECD countries who attend private schools show performance that is similar to that of students enrolled in public schools.
• School systems considered successful tend to prioritise teachers’ pay over smaller classes.
• In more than half of all OECD countries, over 94% of 15-year-old students reported that they had attended pre-primary school for at least some time.
• Schools with better disciplinary climates, more positive behaviour among teachers and better teacher-student relations tend to achieve higher scores in reading.
• Between 2000 and 2009, the percentage of low performers in Chile dropped by more than 17 percentage points, while the share of top performers in Korea grew by more than 7 percentage points. 
• The gender gap in reading performance did not narrow in any country between 2000 and 2009.
• Across OECD countries, overall performance in mathematics remained unchanged between 2003 and 2009, as did performance in science between 2006 and 2009.
• On average across OECD countries, the percentage of students who report reading for enjoyment daily dropped by five percentage points.

What do the best classrooms in the world look like? - By Amanda Ripley - Slate Magazine

What do he best classrooms in the world look like? Surprisingly they are conservative and not high tech like the American schools loaded with interactive white boards, Mac Laptops, Projectors and other gizmos, bathed in a wi-fi environment. Long school hours and grueling hard work coupled with demanding parents at home have led to better results as seen in the case of Korean classrooms while Finnish schools in particular are just the opposite - nothing like the pressure cooker atmosphere/environment of the South Korean schools. The Finnish kids in fact start a year later than their American counterparts, do less homework on an average and further standardized tests are rare.

Check out the link below for an in interesting article by Amanda Ripley.

What do the best classrooms in the world look like? - By Amanda Ripley - Slate Magazine