Back Pain and MRIs

Back pain has reached epidemic proportions. The figures are sobering - there is a 70 percent chance that you will suffer from it at some point in your life and a 30 percent chance that you have had a back pain attack in the last 30 days. At any point of time about 1 percent of working age Americans are incapacitated by their lower lumbar regions and treatment is pretty much expensive accounting for $26 billion per year which is about 3 percent of the total health care spending. 

There has been a marked difference in the way we treat back pain with the discovery of MRI in the 1980s. Previous to that doctors had very little information or idea about the lower back region which is an exquisitely complicated body area full of tiny bones, ligaments, spinal discs and minor muscles. In the absence of information the only recourse that a doctor could take was to advice bed rest and surprisingly this proved to be a very effective remedy in that 90 percent of the patients got better within seven weeks. With the discovery of  MRI in the 1980s doctors have a stunningly accurate image of the lower back region but ironically that has made the problem worse. The machine simply gives too much of information and doctors as a result are unable to distinguish the significant from the irrelevant. The stunningly accurate images of the lower lumbar regions seen through an MRI are often misleading. The disc abnormalities which are apparent are seldom the cause of chronic back pain. In a 1994 an interesting study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, obtained images of the spinal regions of 98 people who had no history of back pain whatsoever. The images were then sent to doctors who didn't know that the patients weren't in pain. The result was shocking. The doctors reported that two-thirds of these normal patients exhibited "serious problems" such as bulging, protruding, or herniated discs. In 38 percent of these patients, the MRI revealed multiple damaged discs and nearly 90 percent of the patients exhibited some form of disc degeneration. These structural abnormalities are often used to justify surgery which sounds quixotic for people who have no history of back pain.

Similarly a large study published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) randomly assigned 380 patients with back pain to undergo two different types of diagnostic analysis. One group received x rays while the other group got diagnosed using MRIs which provided the doctors with much more detailed information about the underlying anatomy. Which group fared better? There was no difference in patient outcome. The vast majority of people in both groups got better - thus clearly more information didn't lead to less pain. But stark diff fences emerged when studies looked at how different groups were treated. Nearly 50 percent of the MRI patients were diagnosed with severe disc abnormalities requiring intensive medical interventions. These treatments were obviously more expensive and they had no measurable benefit.

Thus there is a danger of too much information and it can seriously interfere with our understanding. When the prefrontal cortex is overwhelmed, a person can no longer make sense of the situation. Correlation is confused with causation and people end up making theories out of coincidences. MRIs make it easier for doctors to see the lower lumbar region in vivid details highlighting all sorts of disc problems and so they reasonably conclude that these structural abnormalities are the cause behind back pain. They are usually wrong. Medical experts are now encouraging doctors not to order MRIs when evaluating back pain. A recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine, that MRIs should be used to image the back only under specific clinical circumstances - such as patients with a strong clinical suggestion of underlying infection, cancer or persistent neurologic deficit. In the latest clinical guidelines issued by the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society, doctors were strongly recommended ... not to obtain imaging or other diagnostic tests in patients with non-specific low back pain. In too many cases expensive tests proved worse than useless and all the vivid imagery and detailing got in the way of effective diagnosis. Doctors thus performed better with less information.

 This interesting write up with some amount of editing on my part has been taken from the chapter titled "Choking on Thought" from,  How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, New York, 2010.

Techno Pedagogy

My interest in actually understanding effective integration of techno pedagogy in teaching learning made me design a pre test and a post test on "rotation and revolution" a topic taught in grade 6 and which is much used and abused due to lack of clarity on fundamentals on the part of the teachers leading to extremely confused students. In fact in one of my recent field trips an HM who has been teaching the topic for close to a decade admitted in front of everyone that he cannot answer the questions raised by me and my team members on the topic and thereby clarify the hard spots and requested for help. In fact we explained the students and the teachers present through activities and animations and questioned the students after that to check whether they have understood. The results were encouraging.

 There are a number of hard spots in this topic and the most difficult part is the internalization of rotation, revolution and inclination of earth's axis at one go and it's effects. Tests were conducted for students of grade 7. We did have a control group and an experimental group and compared the scores. 

In one of the schools in Berhampur the tests show a marked difference and students who scored zero in pre test have scored 12 which happens to be the minimum score, in the post test and a number of them have scored very high marks. The reasons for this are mentioned below:

1. We had a resource group meeting for geography teachers the day before, exclusively focused on this topic and I was present in the meeting. The meeting started with a PPT titled insights which mentioned the hard spots in this topic and the reasons for them being so.

2. Some excellent animations were shown and hard spots analysed and explained. The teachers were very interested and said that they had never thought that this topic can be so interestingly dissected to understand each and every hard spot through corresponding animations.

The same test was done in a school in Cuttack and I was again present. The only difference being that although animations were given to the teacher handling the experimental group and she went through the same the marks did not show much of a difference when compared with the control group. The reasons can be stated as follows:

1. The teacher did not get sufficient time to go through the animations and understand the same. She spent about 30-45 minutes in going through the animations before the session.

2. As a consequence there was not proper planning and sequencing of the transaction process.

3. Some of the animations used in the resource group meeting in Berhampur were not shown.

Conclusion:

While it is good to train and provide teachers with all the support the teacher needs to focus on the content and plan out the transaction process. Too much of information unless internalized leads to confusion rather than clarity. It distracts rather than focuses. Our brains are designed to focus on a limited number of things at one time. This proves that technology unless properly handled leads to a situation that is worse off rather than better off. 

In the latter case although the teacher had been teaching the topic for a long time close to 5 years almost, still providing her with information on the hard spots lead to a worse off situation as she was distracted due to the information overload and could not give much time to focus.

Based on our experience this far we are now planning resource group meetings on specific subject areas focused on specific topics with a thorough preparation on the same by the team members

School Visits

I normally visit two districts a month and try to find out what is working and what is not working at the school level - and this is of utmost importance from the programmatic point of view. School visits  almost always provides a fresh perspective and interactions with the teachers and students tests one's assumptions and pre-suppositions thereby preventing the onset of a fossilised thinking process - which is the bane of most of the ICT interventions - a disconnect between plan and reality. Even the best designed ICT interventions have failed because of an absence of reality check followed by mid-point corrections at the policy level. We often start with tall promises as it is the easiest thing to do and break those promises at the earliest opportunity again because it is the easiest thing to do. The need for a shift from a procurement model to an output oriented model is imperative and the success of all ICT interventions is predicated on this somewhat tectonic shift.
My visits to a number of schools spread over the six districts did reveal an interesting mix. My observations are mentioned below:
I seriously feel ownership is the biggest issue at the school level. At a macro level this is a systemic problem and the school only mirrors the larger system. The absence of an ICT4E policy lies at the core.
The direct consequence of the absence of an overarching framework is the absence of a total system planning (factoring in all costs including deployment, training and maintenance etc.) resulting in a "procurement approach" rather than a "output oriented approach." Thus we are involved in a quixotic situation whereby we are "pre-occupied with painting the tower turrets while the castle is crumbling."
The centralised training part is working well but the fine print is missing. To close the gap the trainers need to increase their level of awareness which calls for a wider reading habit. They should be choosing words carefully and ensure that the trainees understand the full implication of the trainer - rather than being under the impression that the trainees have understood the point. In many instances I feel that even the trainer has not understood the point but has gone about the training in a very methodical manner without deep knowledge. For example I have never found a single teacher as of now who has correctly understood my question - as to whether technology integration is a technology or a pedagogic decision. Most of the trainers (might be all of them also - I am not very sure) have missed out on the subliminal part - it is pedagogy which weaves together technology and content knowledge and this requires a very through understanding. People like Dr. puny a Mishra, have been researching for years in this domain space and a number of TPACK based lesson plans are available on the web, like the one which I have forward edge you all. I hope team members read through the mail and try to cultivate a genuine interest in this area as it is pretty complicated and scratching the surface hardly leads to anything.
At the school level infrastructural and other issues like ownership are there but even then I have found glimpses of brilliance in our teachers and students. In a govt. set up we will obviously encounter problems and many of them will be outside our control. But then if each of us feels that we have a responsibility towards the system, towards, the school and most importantly towards the students, than we can start making small inroads, in as far as impacting student learning outcomes in a positive manner is concerned. Well this is an inside out approach and not an outside in approach. We need to internally feel that we are adding value to our lives and doing something purposeful.
A thorough understanding of a teachers portfolio for the ensuing month and a genuine interest in helping them out in delivering their lessons well is the need of the hour. This requires a thorough ground work, meticulous planning and a hunger to excel in our field of endeavour. We are set on the right track and if we have worked this hard so far we can surely make a dent on the system and make the critical stakeholders stop and listen to the serious work that we are doing. If you internally feel confident that you have done a thorough job than it is as good as done.

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Heidi Grant Halvorson's latest write up posted on the HBR blog, really makes you think when you hire the next candidate or put yourself up as a candidate, ready for an interview.

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State of Education

check out these interesting videos

How to Be Assertive (Without Losing Yourself)

Conventional wisdom says that assertive people get ahead. They tell people what they think, request the resources they need, ask for raises, and don't take no for an answer. So what are non-assertive people supposed to do if their company's culture rewards these actions? If you're shy or reserved, don't fret. You can ask for what you need and get what you want, while still being yourself.

To read more of this stuff check out the link below....

http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2012/08/how-to-be-assertive-without-lo.html

What makes leaders

Recently a three day workshop was organized in the state office on "what makes a leader." The basic proposition on which the entire discussion hinged was "are leaders born or made." "What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones." In conducting this three day hands on workshop which involved a number of evaluative exercises, focusing on increasing one's level of self-awareness and understanding one's emotions, I focused on the "Covey time management matrix," "the 360 degree evaluation based on the seven emotional intelligence indicators" and the "Jungian personality types." 

It was a very interesting experience for me in trying out the 360 degree evaluation on the EI indicators (emotional intelligence)  and I do sincerely feel that I tried my best to make my team members peel apart the hardened layers of social conditioning in trying to understand their own emotional make-up and thereby how they act and react to different events and circumstances in their day to day life - understanding one's emotions, strengths and weakness, needs and drives and their effect on others. It was a lot easier for the team members than under normal circumstances as they have worked together for a sufficiently long period of time. The workshop also focused on the physiology of the brain - especially mirror neurons, spindle cells and oscillators and how they determine one's actions and reactions. Great leaders are those whose behavior powerfully leverages the system of brain inter-connectedness. The main point I wanted to drive in was that "emotional leadership isn't just putting on a game face every day. It means understanding your impact on others - then adjusting your style accordingly."

The "Jungian dichotomy" was used in evaluating one's personality type while the "Covey Matrix" revealed how effectively we spend our time in the course of a day - especially by realizing in which quadrant we are - true emergencies, personal pro-activity and power, fire fighting and waste.

Resource Group Meeting

Resource group meeting were held in all the three zones recently. Selected teachers who have demonstrated effective use of technology in teaching learning, were invited to attend these workshops. These workshops cater to the special needs of the star performers as far as technology integration in teaching learning is concerned. These workshops were preceded by extensive discussions at the school level in which both the teachers and the monitoring experts participated, leading to the identification of hard spots, which formed the basis for designing innovative teaching aids as part of these workshops. The central zone workshops, held in Kendrapada and Cuttack respectively combined a hardware training as part of these workshops. This training basically focused on identifying minor hardware problems and rectifying them at the school level - thereby preventing delays as far as repair and maintenance is concerned. There was a focus on the preventive part also such as virus scans, defragmenting, registry cleaning etc.

Personal Effectiveness/Effective Leadership Workshop

A two day workshop on "Personal Effectiveness" and "Effective Leadership" was recently held in Gopalpur-on-Sea. The workshop focused on personal effectiveness leading to effective leadership through self-awareness. The Jungian theory of personality types was extensively discussed and used for mapping and self-assessment.  The wind, surf and sea provided an extremely relaxing atmosphere for the team members and facilitated self-introspection and deep diving within. A quick interaction with selected team members showed that the workshop was extremely helpful, timely and more such workshops are needed in future. A detailed feedback form will be administered to all the participants and based on their feedback the next workshop, will be planned. I do sincerely hope that the team members will consciously try to implement the learning's at least in a piece meal manner to start with - because by bringing about small changes, one can ultimately bring about the overall change that one wishes to see in oneself.

Core Group Meeting - Bangalore

A sub-group of the core group met recently in Bangalore last month. The meeting was chaired by the Director DE. A number of areas and issues were discussed. The most interesting discussion focused on the o3 project - fully funded by the US Govt and currently being implemented in selected schools of India and Pakistan. The project basically focuses on understanding each others culture with an exchange visit, built in. The most interesting part of the presentation by Roopak, my colleague, who heads this project, was on the methodology to be followed in going about the collaborative projects basically using the Internet and allied technologies. Apart from this the meeting basically focused on quantified targets and process level checks at all levels. Going ahead a detail school visit plan / template, will be worked out for the coordinators across all the states to arrest leakages at the school level, which is the result of a lack of proper planning, non-availability of a contingency plan and absence of crisis management skills as far as the coordinators are concerned. 

DE Demonstration Workshop

A "Demonstration Workshop," was held on the 2nd of March, 2012, in the conference hall of the School and Mass Education Dept. The meeting was chaired by the Hon'ble Minister School and Mass Education. All the other senior departmental officials were present including the Principal Secretary. A lot of background work had gone into the preparation of this workshop and it did pay off. Nine teachers were selected from the 6 districts, were we are currently operational. These teachers were selected on the basis of their performance on the output indicators at the school level. All the selected teachers are members of the resource group and as such are leaders in effectively and appropriately integrating technology in teaching learning at the school level. I was delighted to watch an excellent presentation on the "Human Eye" prepared by one of the teachers. This was an example of an excellent teaching aid which was well designed and completely covering the topic from all angles. The most gratifying part was that the teacher was able to confidently and satisfactorily answer all the questions posed by the Minster and the Principal Secretary, related to the program and how the teachers and students were actually benefitting at the school level.

My entire presentation revolved around the core understanding - technology as a pedagogic tool and therefore integrating technology is a pedagogic decision. I hope I have driven home the point and only this can clarify the misconceptions surrounding "DE Program" whereby people label it as a computer aided learning program (CAL) and as such predicated on a grosser misunderstanding that it focuses only on teaching computer fundamentals covering MS Office suite. This is how partial truths begets total errors. On the contrary "DE" is an education program focusing on effective technology integration in teaching learning.

I tried my best to make the program stand right side up. The necessity was evident from the fact that people posed the wrong questions and at worst were at a loss when they saw the videos of classroom transactions - on whether to appreciate or critique as the videos mostly started with a normal classroom transaction, which was interspersed with technology use. People mostly expected to see the use of technology from the very outset.

Review-cum-Refresher / Satpada

A four day review-cum-refresher meeting was held for the DE team members in Satpada. The meeting focused on the following:

Thematic plans

Designing effective teaching aids

Understanding what effective integration of technology in teaching learning means/through demonstration

NCF 2005

Methodology followed in doing projects in DCC schools

Swati Jha, Program Manager, DCC attended the meeting and shared some very interesting projects and assessment rubrics followed in DCC schools. Team members did learn a lot from the interactions and have planned to graft the learnings from DCC into the centralized model currently prevalent here.Especially the discussion on competency mapping for teachers and the rigour with which the processes are adhered to in making student projects proved to be very helpful.

The session on NCF 2005 proved to be a very interesting one and Sangita did a good job in planning out this session. The topics for group discussions and presentations led to some very animated and sometimes heated arguments among participants.Especially the discussion on the curriculum framework proved to be a very interesting one.

Satpada proved to be a very refreshing experience for the team members and it's idyllic setting gave an opportunity for recreation and fun.

Field Trip

I was visiting Sambalpur and Bargarh district sometime back and made it a point to visit some of the schools located in the rural pockets of both the districts. Although as part of the trip we had to negotiate some very difficult terrain but the enthusiasm and motivation to effectively use technology in day to day teaching learning by both the teachers and students made me forget all the hardships. Personally it has been a very satisfying experience for me in that all my hard work and that of my team members in working out a new model is finally showing results at ground zero - the schools. Teachers are upbeat and enthusiastic about the training and kudos to my trainers for that. The monitoring experts are doing an excellent job in hand holding and mentoring especially after an intense training, when teachers require this the most to sustain their motivation levels and prevent them from backsliding given the difficulties at the school level, in terms of workload, infrastructure etc. Studies world over have shown that however good the training unless backed up by effective mentoring, leads to a total washout,in due course of time. Centralized training has really proved to be effective as evidenced by the output at the school level. Teachers are designing excellent teaching aids using technology and this combined with lesson plan and micro-plan is proving to be very effective when combined with collaborative projects, as part of which teachers and students come together to learn through various activities which are planned. Teachers play the role of a facilitator and the students interact amongst themselves and with the teachers in constructing their knowledge related to different hard spots. Groups of students even make a presentation with PowerPoint or otherwise at the end and it was interesting to see the students of some of the rural schools in Bargarh and Sambalpur, breaking their cultural conditioning and finally coming out of their shells to interact and have fun while they learn. I noticed this time and again in most of the schools that I have been visiting spread over all the six districts where we are currently operational at the moment. Collaboration as a teaching strategy is finally working. My interactions with the teachers have shown that teachers still need to understand the fine print that technology integration in teaching learning is a pedagogic decision and get this firmly embedded in their DNA.

Resource Group Meeting - Sambalpur

A resource group meeting was held in PMIASE on the 21st of January, 2012. 12 selected teachers attended the meeting and a total of 4 teaching aids were prepared as part of th workshop.

Resource Group Meeting - Ganjam and Gajapati

A resource group meeting for selected teachers of Ganjam and Gajapati districts was held in DPIASE, Berhampur, on the 24th of January 2012. 19 teachers attended this meeting and worked in groups to prepare teaching aids on chosen topics. AAO Ganjam and Gajapati also attended this meeting and spent a long time watching the presentations by the various groups as well as interacting with the teachers. 9 teaching aids were prepared as part of this meeting.

SKCG High School, Gurandi, January 20th, 2012

Purpose of visit: observe a collaborative project on "Archimedes Principle" and "global warming."

Name of the teacher: Karuna Sriram

Lesson plan based on the Samartha format

·       Micro lesson planning not available

·       TLM used: black board, charts and computer

·       Topic introduced indirectly

·       Questions posed to the class and students individuals

·       Pressure in inversely proportional to area - this was explained very effectively through a simple experiment using pegs

·       Another simple experiment using a spring balance, stone, beaker and a measuring tube was used to prove that the loss of weight of the stone,inside water is equivalent to the water displaced

·       I posed some questions to the students to check their understanding and they could answer them confidently

·       Edukit was used

·       Student groups themselves repeated the experiment

·       Observation Notes were taken by students

·       Some very intelligent and probing questions were posed by both the students as well as the teachers   like the one posed by a student - as why does iron sink while a gigantic ship made of the same material, floats in water. The teacher explained this very clearly, which the students could understand.

·       The teacher asked as to why the amount of weight loss inside water is equivalent to the water displaced by connecting it with the "law of conservation of mass and energy" which the students were not able to comprehend

Project Name: Global Warming

Name of the teacher: Y Shiv Kumar

·       Topic introduced indirectly

·       TLM used: map, charts, pictures, black board, computer, model etc.

·       Questions posed to class

·       Students were involved and the atmosphere was interactive

·       Edukit used but the teacher initially read out in English from the animation available which later rectified and instead of reading he explained the gist of the same

·       Tasks and assignments were given as part of the project. A number of critical questions had been prepared in advance by the teacher which wee used by the various groups to pose questions to the other groups

·       Lesson plan was not available

Critical Remarks

·       There was a preparatory plan but it was not thorough as a lesson plan was not available in case of the latter while it was available in case of the former

·       Observation check list was not available and documentation was sketchy in both the cases

·       Relevant hard spots were addressed in both the cases

·       Pedagogic technique: Activity Based Learning in both the cases although the former displayed a lot of creativity and made the student delve deeper by triggering critical thinking

·       Group formation, demonstration evident In both the cases while hands on activity and experimentation was done as part of the former

·       Although group formation was evident there was no clear role allocation in both the cases

·       Project execution: Most of the steps were followed

·       What I observed was more of a lab transaction based on engaged learning rather than a collaborative project

Block Colony UP School, Kashinagar

HM - Trinath Nayak

Total number of teachers: 8

Teachers undergoing training: 4

Although the school has 4 computers, hardware problem is a constant irritation. They are under regular maintenance but even then problems are frequent.

I had a discussion with the HM and the English teacher. The latter makes good use of technology even though she teaches English.

• The visit to this school was an unscheduled one as I had some time after completing my planned visit to the nearby school. My sole purpose was to gauge the level of internalization of the program objectives.
• The HM and the teacher I interacted with are very positive about the program but I still feel somewhere the finer point - as regards the criticality of pedagogy as a driver of technology integration is missing.
• That integrating technology in teaching learning is a pedagogic decision and not a technology one is missing.

Varanasi Govt. High School, Kashinagar

Date: 19th January, 2012

Name of the teacher: Routhe Dilip Kumar

Topic: DNA

Materials used: black board, charts, computer

·  Micro lesson plan available but I was not able to have a look because of power cut
·  Questions were posed to students which they answered confidently
·  Students did not pose questions, which should ideally have been the case
·  Students were divided into groups
[X]  Teacher had good knowledge of content but body language was wanting. Displayed a somewhat stiff attitude which I feel erected a barrier between the teacher and a student

Some of the problems from which the school suffers and which are acting as an impediment to the program are as follows:

·  Non-functional computers - 2 of them which needs to be formatted
·  Frequent power cuts
[X]  Non-cooperative HM who does not understand the objectives of the program and seems to discourage teachers from attending training sessions and implement their respective work plans

[ ]  Critical Remarks

[X]  Preparatory plan was missing as I gave the teachers a days notice

[X]  Hard spots were addressed but the teacher could not come down to the level of the students while doing the same. Although he had a very good knowledge of the content, he could not come down to the level of the students, while delivering the same

[X]  Pedagogic technique - ABL. Teacher was not able to make the students think and did not give time for the same. He went a little fast

[X]  Although the students were posed questions, the transaction was more of a preaching rather than that of facilitating

[X]  Group formation, demonstration was done, but there was no clear role allocation amongst the group members

[X]  Project execution: Most of the steps were followed

MRB High School Parlakhemundi, January 18, 2012

16 teachers from this school are undergoing training.

HM: Subhash Chandra Chowdhury

The HM is new to this school and was earlier the DI of Koraput district and as such had attended training in SCERT of two days duration as a administrator. He is desirous of attending the entire 18 days training meant for the educators and this will currently be a problem as 3rd phase of training is underway in DPIASE and he can attend from the 4th phase. He needs to be updated by the monitoring expert at the school itself. As such his understanding of technology integration in teaching learning is sketchy as he is only trained in the usage of office suite and it is of critical importance that he understands what appropriate and effective integration of technology in teaching learning is all about - as he is the most important link in the chain.

Had a word with the students/in fact interacted with the entire class and found that all the students get a chance to visit the computer lab twice a week but are actually able to use the computers once a week. The school has six computers but one is with the HM, one is being used for Edusat and one of them is again being kept in the HMs personal quarters, within the school. I have requested the HM to move the computer from his personal quarters to the school lab to which he has agreed.

[ ]  Objective of visit: to watch two collaborative projects on sound and reflection and make an assessment as to what extent the DE program in embedded in the school ecosystem. There was time for only one project - sound.

Participating teachers: Subhashree Padhi/G. Govindaraju

Collaborative project on sound / observations

[ ]  Lesson plan and micro lesson planning available. Had forgot to add an introductory question as part of the same. Anyway she started with one although she had not mentioned the same as part of the plan.

[ ]  Topic was introduced indirectly

[ ]  Questions were posed to the class and this made the class interactive

[ ]  Some questions were also posed to the individual students

[ ]  Teacher played a facilitating role instead of preaching

[ ]  Students took down notes

[ ]  Made effective use of black board by drawing some diagrams to better explain how sound waves travel. These images are available in Edukit but as the project was being done in a classroom, black board had to be used, as the lap top (monitoring experts) could not meet the needs of the entire class

[X]  Critical Remarks

[X]  Students worked in groups\ activity. Role allocation was absent

[X]  An interesting part was that the HM and one of the science teachers were observing the class with me and they pointed out that the teacher doing the project had missed out on an important part - how auditory nerves carry the vibrations from the ear to the brain

[X]  I wrapped up the day with a discussion with all the teachers who have attended the training, trying to gauge what they have imbibed from the same, especially the brain based learning part because that will determine how they teach and how much of an effort are they making in changing their pedagogy in which effective and appropriate use of computers is but a part.

[X]  I had to take up this discussion because I found that most of the teachers raise questions like - there is a shortage of time, so much of syllabus to cover etc. which points to the fact that they haven't understood our basic objective, which is to make classroom teaching a deeper and richer experience for both the teachers and students,make learning a joyful experience, getting the students to delve deeper and thereby reducing absentism and improving the overall academic atmosphere in the long run.

Apna Paricha UP School, Parlakhemundi/17th January 2012

Visited the school in the afternoon after reaching from Bhubaneshwar and could spend about 1.5 hours only. Had a discussion with the HM and found that he had attended the first phase of training and had missed out on the second phase because of an accident. I am not very sure how well he understands the DE program as I didn't have much time to delve deeper into this aspect due to insufficient time at my disposal.

I could observe a lab transaction and the details are mentioned below.

Teacher name:Swarna Prabhakar

HM: Bidyadhara Panda

• Topic/ Lab Transaction: Soil
• Tools used: charts, computers, black board, Edu-kit
• Topic introduced indirectly
• Students used Edukit to explain
• Activity/Demonstration/box constructed of card board with one side covered with a transparent paper used to demonstrate the different the different layers of soil
• Students given an opportunity to demonstrate
• Questions posed to students as well as the class - question wheel used, which was an innovative   arrangement
• Group formation and activity
•  Evaluation sheet was used
• Lesson plan available
• Micro-lesson planning not available
•  Home task was assigned to all the students/groups
• Quick assessment showed that students have understood the fundamentals and were forthcoming with answers to all the questions posed
• Teacher aware of Edukit but not very thorough
•  Had a look at the registers - training (teacher and students), lab transaction and pedagogy and found them to be up to date.
• 3 resource group meetings have been held so far instead of 5 (@ of 1 per month)
• There are 6 teachers who are undergoing training but three of them seem to use computers regularly whereas the other three are aged people and are not very enthusiastic about computers and I found them doing lesson plans in paper.

I feel the school can improve in many ways and there are ample opportunities available for the same.

Critical remarks

• Group formation was resorted to by the teacher but there was no clear role allocation.
• Using a question wheel to select questions for groups was a very innovative step.
• As far as an ideal lab transaction is concerned it met most of the criteria as detailed by the team in our earlier review-cum-refresher meeting.

Review-cum-Refresher for DE Orissa Team - Dhenkanal, December 27th-30th, 2012

A four day residential review-cum-refresher, was held in Dhenkanal, for the DE Orissa team members. The following sessions were covered as part of the workshop:

Day 1 Session 1 2.30 pm - 6.30 pm

Session led by Akib Nihal Khan

Script preparation

Video shoot using a handy cam and a tripod

Video editing using Adobe Premiere Elements

Learning to use different options in Adobe Premiere Elements

Learnings: team members learnt the use of a video camera, it's various functions, transferring the footages to a computer and editing the same using a editing software - Adobe Premiere Elements

Session 2 7pm - 8.30 pm

SPM

What is effective integration of technology in teaching

What are the value additions that we have made as we have scaled up since our pilot intervention in 2004

How do we go from here in framing a road map for covering all the DIETs

Actionable point: road map for Director SCERT

Reports:

Western Zone

Sambalpur / PMIASE and DIET / Jharsuguda, Kuchinda, Bargarh and Padampur DIs / all monitoring reports as of date / training reports DIET Sambalpur

Central Zone

Cuttack and Kendrapada / November report of RNIASE and DIET and monitoring reports of Cuttack schools / CI and DI Cuttack district

Southern Zone

All reports are up to date

Actionable point: all reports to be submitted by the 5th of January 2012 including the December one.

The day ended with a overview of the M&E issued which had been covered as part of the earlier trainings by Marina Yakhnis.

Day 2 Session 1 9.30 am - 2 pm

Marina Yakhnis

Review of end user problem and participatory evaluation

Ethics

How to collect unbiased information

Direction of change review

Learnings: using a logic model, importance of ethics in monitoring and evaluation, how change happens and the importance of doing a process evaluation

Session 2 3pm - 9 pm

Revision of tools/ revising observation tools crafted in the last session

Tools covered: classroom observation, lab transaction and collaborative project

Methodology: team members worked in 5 groups of 3 each to come out with the components of an ideal school visit in terms of time allocated to various tasks. Based on this common elements from each of the group presentation were gleaned out and the components of an ideal school visit were listed.

Learnings: Ideal school visit plan

Follow up 2 days before the school visit. Telephonic discussion with the teachers and the HMs on what is the progress on the tasks assigned/work plan assignments since the last visit. Plan for the up coming visit with a focus on collaborative project to be done and preparations for the same in terms of teacher consent, topic selection, time to be allotted, period, materials, skeletal document etc.

Scenario 1

Discussion with the HM on the days activities - 10 minutes

Collaborative project - 80/120 minutes which includes a discussion with the concerned teacher on last minute preparations

Execution using activities, technology tools like computers, charts, black board and chalk - making the process as participatory as possible

Presentation by students and their feed back / video shoot of the same if possible

A PowerPoint presentation on the collaborative project by the participating students within a week

Student projects

Documentation to be completed immediately after the project

Checking up the registers and providing on site support if time is available

Follow up on the days activities with the HM

Scenario 2 in case a collaborative project is not getting done

Discussion with the HM

Classroom observation - 45 minutes

Lesson plan using pen and paper - 30 minutes

Lab transaction - 60 minutes

Student projects - planning for the same in association with the teacher facilitators

On site support - 80 minutes

Checking registers

Updating the HM on the days activities

Day 3 Session 1 10am - 2 pm

Marina Yakhnis

Carry forward from the previous day - designing tools: class room observation, lab transaction, collaborative project and feed back forms

Methodology: groups / 2 groups

Practice and application

Output: Following tools designed by team members working in groups

Collaborative project check list

Classroom observation check list

Feedback form

Session 2 2.30 pm - 4.30 pm

Designing and presenting the lab transaction check list

Day 4 Session 1 10am- 12.30 pm

Finalisation of all observation tools as mentioned below:

Collaborative project

Lab transaction

Classroom observation

Feed back forms for training centres

Session 2 12.30pm - 2 pm

District wise presentations by team members

Session 3 2.45 pm- 5 pm

District update southern zone - Jyoti, Bhushan

FOSS - Geogebra - Santanu and Mohan

Session 4 5pm-5.30 pm

Plan for Q4 and discussion of Q3 activities


A two day review-cum-refresher was held in the same venue on the 26th and 27th of November. It basically focussed on a status review and Monitoring and Evaluation issues.