Bardol TOUP School
Bargarh
23rd February 2012
Collaborative Project: Light
Observations
There are 3 teachers in this school, set in a very interior rural location. All of them are undergoing training in techno-pedagogy as part of the DE Program in DIET Sambalpur. Each of them have undergone 9 days of training as of now. There are 63 students in this school comprising of classes 6 and 7 only. Parvati Sahu is the HM of this School and is the one who carried out the collaborative project today. The other teachers Ranjita Sahu and Radhika Sahu are excellent examples of teachers who have effectively integrated technology in teaching learning.
The day started with a warm up activity with the students, where the students sang a beautiful song composed by the HM. This was followed by some questions posed by the teachers through which she indirectly introduced the topic. She had a lesson plan as well as a micro-plan ready, which she followed all through. Simple questions like what makes us see and why is it difficult to see in darkness. She also asked a very interesting question - when we switch on a torch light and aim it upwards, the lower part remains in darkness / why is this so? Students were made to think and they did give a lot of correct answers.
This was followed by a very interesting activity whereby the teacher made a table in the black board in the following format as shown below:
| Item | Transparent | Translucent | Opaque |
| | | | |
Names of Things like black board, chalk, duster, glass etc. were mentioned by the teacher in the first column and students were invited by names to come forward and fill in the right category under which they need to be classified - transparent, translucent, opaque etc. This was followed by a second activity in which a candle was lighted and the teacher made students view the lighted candle through a plain spectacle, a piece of paper etc. A question was even asked as to how can a piece of paper which is opaque be made translucent so that the lighted candle can be viewed through it. One of the students said that by soaking the same in oil and this was immediately done by the student by rubbing the paper on his hair. A second student gave a very creative solution in that he made a hole in the paper by tearing a part of it.
A final activity/experiment was done to prove that light travels in a straight line. This was the card board experiment. A lighted candle was placed at the end of three card boards with holes in them aligned in the first instance as a result of which the students could see the light and not aligned/not in a straight line in the second instance as a result of which they could not see the light. They were also made to see the light through a straight tube and a bent tube to see the difference for themselves.
Critical Remarks
• The project was done in a very systematic manner. A lesson plan and a micro-plan had been prepared and the teacher started with a warm up activity.
• The teacher was very expressive and called each of the student by their name which made it all the more interesting.
• Edu-Kit was used in a very effective manner to reinforce the learnings as a result of the different activities and experiments carried out.
• A lot of questions were posed by the teacher as part of the project which the students answered very enthusiastically.
• I did not find very many questions being posed by the students.
• Groups formation was evident - but groups did not work in the way they should work. I mean the various aspects of group dynamics were not evident. May be this was because a minimum time lapse of a couple of days are necessary in this type of a project and we do not follow this as we try to complete the same within one or two periods. I can term this as engaged learning.
