January 24 - Birthday of Dan Shectman

Rachana 2 - Teachers Training Program at CTE, Mysuru

On 21st January 2016, Vijnana Vahini was invited to conduct a 4 hour session for over 110 science teachers of the Government High Schools of Mysuru district. The 5 day workshop was focused on the curriculum of 9th standard.

Team 1A - enlisting the activities possible with the materials they had

The 4 hour session was divided in to 3 parts. All the teachers were divided into 10 teams. In the first part, the teachers were asked to participate in a quiz which has 21 questions commonly asked by teachers and students and the answers for which are not available in our textbooks. The teachers were encouraged to refer to books and use the internet on their mobile phones to search for answers. This was a new experience for all!

Lots of discussions and arguments in this group

One of the teachers later shared that she now felt empowered to know that the answers to most of the questions were accessible through her mobile. During the second part, the answers to all these questions were discussed with the teachers.

During the third part in the evening, the teams were provided with lab equipment and materials. The materials available was carefully planned so as to seem to less but yet be sufficient to do over a 100 experiments /activities. 

Within the stipulated time, the teams were challenged to conduct and later demonstrate the activities to the other teams. The entire CTE campus was abuzz with activities (a rare sight!).

Each team later presented their set of activities. The day ended with a lot of excitement among the teachers and a belief that most of these activities were possible in their schools, within the resource limited settings.

Team presenting their ideas at the end

Praveen addressing the teachers after the session

Mr. Kollegala Sharma, a popular science writer, senior scientist at CFTRI and an active member of the Vijnana Vedike Kote (ViVeK) also addressed the teachers on 20th January. The topic he chose was properties of blood.

It was also heartening to know that many of the teachers, though not from HD Kote taluk, were aware of the discussions of ViVeK on WhatsApp. The word is spreading!

The following are the details of the next training session by Vijnana Vahini -

Date & Time - 28th January 2016, 2pm to 5:30pm

Topic - Mathematics

Venue - CTE, Mysuru