Media Release
Mangaluru, Jun 5: The Teacher Orientation Programme at the beginning of the new academic year is an exciting event, but this time it was different. Usually, Manipal School would have all the teachers trooping in excitedly, exchanging notes of their summer break but this time as the COVID-19 pandemic runs its course, the government had put restrictions on the number of people who could gather at a place so it was just a few of the teachers and other staff who came to school on May 18 while others logged in to the online teacher orientation programme.
The programme began with the symbolic lighting of the lamp to eliminate the darkness and uncertainty of the situation around us. The principal, Anuradha Shivaram and the academic coordinators, Sapna Shetty, Deepa Vinod and Srilatha Alva lit the lamp, accompanied by a prayer song sung by the auxiliary staff.
The principal began with a formal note of welcome and then presented the year gone by. She also gave an overview of the new session.
The next session was by the School Health & Safety Child Protection coordinator, Santhosh Kumar Devadas on post-COVID school reopening – Safety measures. He briefed the staff members on COVID protocols such as self-declaration forms, daily temperature monitoring, hand washing, physical/social distancing, mask-wearing and maintaining good mental health and physical health.
On May 19, orientation for all school programmes was conducted by the high school coordinator, Srilatha Alva. She reiterated on some of the best practices in school that will be continued in AY 2020-21. Also, she listed some netiquettes as it is imperative for all teachers to know them before conducting online classes. She also emphasized that empathy towards the student is the key emotion that a teacher needs to focus on in the online classes.
The teaching-learning process is incomplete without proper planning. The next session for the day was a refresher on Blooms Taxonomy by Junior school coordinator, Deepa Vinod. She stressed on the essentials of a good lesson plan. Additionally, Blooms Taxonomy helps educators in writing their lesson objectives and helps them to develop critical thinking skills in their students. Moreover, it is easier for teachers to frame questions on different levels of Bloom's to cater to different levels of students.
A well-planned lesson will help the teachers to be more confident in the classroom and that in turn results in effective learning.
A session on the implication of multiple intelligence in the classroom was conducted by Sapna Shetty, the pre-primary school coordinator.
Empowering teachers is the key to enhancing education. She spoke about the multiple intelligence theories which can draw students back into learning. Using different kinds of intelligence to teach a concept allows each of the diverse learners a chance to succeed at learning. Teaching to a student's strength helps increase the learning success.
On May 20, all the teachers attended an online session on Active Learning by Aarti C Rajarathnam, an Intuitive Psychologist, best selling author, innovative curriculum and education design consultant. Active learning attempts to engage students. Here, students participate in the lesson beyond simply listening and taking notes. Active learning calls on students to interact directly and personally with the content through reading, writing, having conversations and reflecting.
The next session was the Zoom app training for all teachers by the computer teacher, Bhavya Naveen.
It focused on how to conduct online classes using the platform.
In the second week, the teachers engaged in micro-teaching sessions and prepared for their classes.