A report on professional development session
Theme:
Literacy and Numeracy
Participants:
Teachers of a public sector school
Date:
April 02, 2015
Introduction
Academic session 2015-16 is kicked
off on 1st April, 2015 in public sector schools in Gilgit-Baltistan
(GB). It is imperative to celebrate literacy and numeracy program in the
beginning of each academic session for at least two weeks so that students’
short comings in literacy and numeracy can be addressed and it will be helpful
for classroom teaching and learning later. In this regard in one of the public
sector schools of GB, a professional development session was conducted on
literacy and numeracy programme. This
report contains the process of session, achievements, challenges, and way
forward/decisions made during the session.
Process
Headmaster and Professional
Development Teachers (PDT) after deliberation planned a professional session
for the teachers on how to capitalize “literacy and numeracy programme” on
April 02, 2015. Sixteen teachers attended the session. Following were the
objectives of the sessions.
1.
To provide
teachers with an opportunity to get an in-depth understanding of literacy and numeracy
2.
To discuss and
plan how to conduct learning activities during the period of literacy and
numeracy
3.
To deliberate on
scheme of work for the academic session 2015-16
The session was started at exact 12:30PM and ended
at 2:30PM. Headmaster of the school briefed about the importance of the
session. Soon after, a brainstorming activity was conducted through asking a
question” What do teachers mean by literacy?” The facilitator briefly wrote
down the ideas of the teachers on whiteboard. Then literacy was defined in the
context of Pakistan and international scenario. After that in the context of
the classrooms, literacy was discussed as reading, writing, speaking and
listening in language books and science process skills and problem solving with
mathematical language were discussed to be developed among the students.
Participants asked questions, provided arguments and tried to justify their
arguments showing the response of agreement and disagreement on the basis of
examples and experiences. The facilitator provided feedback on the responses of
the participants to reinforce their learning and clarify misconceptions.
Phonetics in Urdu and English was discussed to be improved among the teachers
as well as students during the period of literacy and numeracy programme. At the
end of the session teachers decided to have professional sessions on daily
basis for them and resultantly they would be able apply their learning in
classroom.
Achievements:
·
More than 90%
teachers were benefited with the opportunity to attend professional session on
literacy and numeracy
·
Participants realized
the importance of phonetics in English and Urdu revealed by their decision to
have such sessions on daily basis during the period of literacy and numeracy
exercise.
·
Participants
decided to develop scheme of work in their subject areas under the newly
introduced format
Challenges:
·
Unavailability
of multi-media remained a challenge for effective and efficient presentation in
the session
·
Apprehensions of
posting/transfers among the teachers in developing scheme of work and other
planning for the academic session.
·
Slow pace of
admission process to make the literacy and numeracy exercise effective
Way forward:
·
Sessions for
teachers will be conducted on daily basis during the period of literacy and
numeracy exercise followed by application of their learning in their classroom
next day
·
Reading,
writing, listening and speaking skills will be intensively focused during the
period of literacy and numeracy exercise.
·
SDP will be
reviewed soon and modified for next session where literacy and numeracy will be
given focused consideration.
·
Scheme of works
will be developed in due time and it will be implemented in true sense
Conclusion:
Capitalizing literacy and numeracy
in the very beginning of academic session is a productive exercise for
reinforcing reading, writing, speaking and listening skills as well as problems
solving and science process skills among the students. It is also effective
that such session to be conducted for the teachers as well. From the first
session on literacy and numeracy some productive decisions were made such as
developing literacy and numeracy skills among teachers followed by application
of learning in classroom to develop such skills among the students. It is
recommended that such exercise need to be given full-fledged space in SDP.
Broadening Horizons