Introduction
The foremost goal of the Education
Department of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) is to provide access and quality education
in public sector schools of GB. Professional Development (PD) of teachers is one of the major
components of the educational process which plays a vital role in the capacity building
of the teachers to improve teaching and learning. For this purpose, the top
management of the education department of GB took an initiative while conduct an
elementary teacher training in each district of GB.
The elementary teacher training was
conducted to address the needs of the English, Mathematics, and Science teachers
who teach at middle and primary schools.
The needs of the teachers were identified by the supervisory staff such
as Director Education (Academics), Deputy Director Education (DDE), Deputy Inspector
Schools (DIS), and Assistant Education Officers (AEOs) through observation
during their field visits.
This report from the course
facilitators (CFs) of one of the training centers comprises rationale,
objectives, process, achievements as well as challenges followed by
recommendations on the basis of experiences during the training course.
Rationale
The Elementary
Teacher Training was conducted to enhance the content levels of the teachers of
middle and primary schools, which were in the need of content-based support to
relate the subject matter with students’ daily life experiences.
Objectives of the elementary teacher training
1.
To enrich teachers’ existing knowledge, understanding, and skills in
the subject areas of English,
Mathematics, and Science
2.
To provide teachers with an opportunity to share their experiences
of teaching English, Mathematics, and Science in order to improve their
competency in content knowledge
3.
To clarify the misconception prevailing among the teachers by
developing their conceptual understanding and daily life application
4.
To improve English, mathematical
and scientific discourses and concepts among the selected themes for
training by using symbolic, pictorial, and descriptive representations;
Process of the training course
The elementary teacher training course
commenced on 9th January 2017 and ended on 4th
February 2017. The total number of Course Participants was thirty-two including
eight males and twenty-four females.
The training was started with an opening ceremony where the Deputy
Director of Education (DDE) was the chief guest while the Headmaster of the school
where the training was conducted presided over the ceremony, who explained the importance of teacher training and its impacts on teaching and learning in
schools. DDE shared the background of planning and organizing the
elementary teacher training. He
emphasized the teachers ensure their attendance and benefit from the
provided opportunity from the education department.
He also stressed CPs apply
their new learning during the training in classrooms. Then an introductory
session of CPs and CFs took place followed by the development of the norms for the
training. After that pre-tests in English, Mathematics and Science were
administered to find out the levels of CPs regarding the planned content to be
addressed in the training course. Then the outline of themes in the three subject
areas to be covered during the training was shared with the CPs.
The themes covered in English during the training were; phonetics,
soft and hard sounds, syllables and spelling, parts of speech, tenses, active
and passive voice, direct and indirect speech, formative assessment techniques,
methods of teaching English, and punctuation, sentence structure. In Mathematics, themes were covered as; basics of mathematics,
reading and writing numbers, place values, fractions, percentages, information
handling, measurements and measuring systems, geometrical figures, and their
properties, and practical geometry.
The themes in Science which were covered during the training as
life science, cell the basic unit of structure and function, classification of living
organisms, cellular organization of plants and animals, physical science,
matter its states, chemical science,,
changes and processes, atom and its structure, molecule, mixtures elements, and
compounds, energy and its different forms, temperature and its scales, earth
and space science and earth, light, electricity and magnetism, machines,
The strategies used to enhance CPs’ level of understanding during
the training such as CFs’ presentation oral and multimedia, thought-provoking puzzles, group work, pair work, and individual work followed by CPs’ presentations, and then CFs provided
collective feedback. On daily basis,
sharing of CPs’ reflections on sessions was brought into practice. Sometimes,
demonstrations were performed and CPs’ were assigned practical and hands-on activities to apply their learning.
Alternatively, CPs were provided with
ample input by the CFs and they also brought into practice their own
experiences. Conceptual understanding of the mentioned concepts was emphasized
through presentations by facilitators and diverse expertise made it easy for
the CFs and CPs to conceptually understand the concepts clearly. For the
purpose of boosting the confidence of CPs, on a random basis, they were assigned a
task to select a topic and carry out micro-teaching. On which other CPs and CFs
provided feedback and suggestions to further improve their teaching. Gallery
walk presentation was one of the strategies used during the training.
Meanwhile, the training was going on, and the honorable Director of Education
(Academics) Gilgit region visited the training center in Gahkuch and appreciated
the process of the training. One of the CPs who made a creative and engaging
model was praised by the Director of Education (Academics) and announced to be
awarded a certificate which was given in the closing ceremony.
On the last day of the training course, post-tests in
each subject area were administered by the CFs to find out the change
regarding the subject matter of the training course among CPs. After that, the training course was winded up
with a joint formal closing ceremony.
The worthy Director for projects and special education GB was gracious
to be the Chief Guest while DDE presided over the ceremony. During the
ceremony, CPs and CFs reflected on the twenty-eight days training course.
Certificates among the CPs and CFs were distributed. DDE appreciated the
efforts of CFs and CPs to be benefited from the training.
He asked the CPs to
apply their learning when they will be in school. The Chief Guest gave some
inspiring messages to the audience regarding the teaching profession and emphasized
they to spend all their energies performing their due role as teachers. He said
that teaching is the prophetic profession and it is our foremost responsibility
to prove this profession to be prophetic for which we all are answerable to
Allah almighty and then to the parents because their children are deposited to
us. He also reinforced that being
teachers you have to devote yourselves to your duty giving priority to it all your personal matters. He assured that such type of training will be
carried on onwards.
Achievements
On the basis of CFs observation,
CPs’ reflections, and the analysis of pre and post-test, the following
achievements were evident:
1.
A
group of thirty-two CPs was provided with an opportunity to enrich their content knowledge and skills
in teaching middle and primary English,
mathematics, and Science
2.
Most
of the CPs shared that some basic concepts of English, mathematics and Science
are clear to them but they had confusion and misconceptions;
3.
The
result of the post-tests showed an encouraging positive variance in marks
compared to the pre-test.
4.
One
of the CPs was awarded a praised certificated by the Director of Education
(Academics) recognizing her interest and seriousness in the training.
5.
DDE
and his team on the basis of observation during their frequent visits showed
great satisfaction with the way the training was being conducted.
Challenges encountered
Following were some of the
challenges encountered during the training:
- There
was a huge difference in the levels of understanding among the CPs
regarding the content in English, Mathematics, and Science. Addressing the
needs of all the CPs was a bit challenging for CFs
- Some
of the CPs had defensive attitudes because of their traditional strong
beliefs about their prior learning. During debates and discussions, they
wasted time giving irrelevant arguments and justifications
- The harsh weather condition was one of the
challenges for CPs to coming to and going back to their homes from the
training venue made them suspicious;
- The longer duration of the training and shorter daily timing was deemed unsuited for
the effective conduction of the training
- The selection of the CPs for the training was not rationally based which made the CPs confused because some teachers who taught other subjects than focused were also nominated for the training.
Recommendations
- Nominations
need to be done carefully while taking into consideration the needs of the
teachers
- It
is recommended that in planning, CFs need to be involved so that a formal
manual could be developed which would be comprised daily planning,
resources, and handouts
- Such
opportunities need to be provided for teachers regular basis
- Budgets need to be allocated for the teachers’ training for increasing the effectiveness of such programs.
0 Comments
Post a Comment