Master Teacher? Anything to do with Mr. Miyagi? Well, I teach kids the art of Social Studies, not really martial arts as such…
My name is Chaitra and I am a Master Teacher with Meghshala. I work on Social Studies curriculum for Grades 4 up to Grade 8. I take the corresponding text book and tear it apart and piece it together in the way I see fit. I joined Meghshala in May of this year and have been working on Grade 8 Karnataka SSC content since.
How do I go about “working on content”? I am asked this question so terribly often that I have created a standard answer for everyone: I go through the content, find the themes, trends and most important information, and find an activity or process in which I can re-pack this for a student and a teacher, such that everyone’s life is easier and the classroom environment more powerful, energizing and informative!
But really, this is a long and (sometimes) arduous process. On a daily basis, I sit with multiple books – famous Indian historians’ thickly cut club sandwiches of books, Karnataka mixed fruit juice textbooks, national thali type textbooks (ICSE, CBSE) and a stack of bright coloured post-its. It’s a pretty fun process! It is as if I am researching for my upper-level History classes from college all over again.
What are the sources? Can I trust this historian? Is this argument biased? Why does a student need to know this? Should we be including this information or is it moot? Do I have space to speak of this woman in the lesson? What about music and art? How about a debate? Or should there be a grammar activity mixed into the reading part of the lesson?
The questions that run through my head are absolutely endless. There is no way to make the perfect lesson. After teaching for 2 years with Teach for India Pune, I realized just this. No matter what a teacher does, there is nearly always something better. And that is what is beautiful about education. When I make my History lessons to help out Mr. XYZ History teacher in ABC city, I hope I am doing the best for that class, but there will always be ways to improve and change my lesson. And that is why we do what we do. Using technology and the vast array of resources presented to us, Meghshala and its Master Teachers can easily improve, edit, and add lessons faster than new textbooks are created around the world.
After sorting through the abundance of information, I settle down to creating the Teach Kits. I pick a set of questions which are intended to push students’ thinking, and push a teacher’s understanding of different methodologies in the classroom. I ask simple questions which a student can factually answer from the content presented, or theories taught. Then I ask a slightly more complicated, or complex question which requires more thinking and some reflecting. Finally – not always last and definitely not least – at some point in the lesson, I ask a powerful question. At Meghshala, we have found our place with powerful questions.
Powerful questions push a student to articulate something he or she may have thought of at some other point of time. Children’s minds are fast-paced, quick thinking, and sharp. Powerful questions simply give them the chance to express often suppressed ideas. Our system rarely gives students a chance to think outside the box, to engage with content beyond the textbook, prescribed projects, and the exercises at the end of the lessons.
Powerful questions allow a child to quickly engage with the standardized content to help remember, to understand, and to think deeply about what is being taught. It helps students draw connections between different areas of knowledge.
Finally, I bring these components together as I make slides which are compiled and uploaded to our cloud-based platform. I bring in images, videos, graphics, drawings, designs, and other components of excellent visual design to improve learning – to make the final product! A Meghshala Teach Kit!
Here are 2 slides from my Grade 8 History: Hoysalas of Dwarasamudra lesson. (Note: Don’t judge my drawings, I am far from the artist. I just really enjoy doodling.)
I am trying to introduce the concept of folklore and its relation with history here. Later on in the lesson, I question the students to think of the validity of folklore in creating the history we work with today.
Is that thought provoking enough?
I think so.
- By Chaitra Nerurkar, Social Studies Master Teacher
Meghshala
This article was first posted on meghshala.wordpress.com on Aug 21, 2015