During the session with Ravi Alungati, we made a lot of math materials.
By using the cardboard boxes Gurumoorthy started doing Algebraic kit. Initially, I supported him. Then after that, I worked with Tamizharasan. We made x power 2, x and ones using the cardboard in inches.
To visually see a quadratic equation we can use this kit. The yellow-colored part is positive and the black colored part is negative. The squares are x power 2. The rectangle pieces are x and the small squares are the ones.
The example of a quadratic equation is as follows.
x^2 + 4x + 4 which can be factorized and we have (x+2) and (x+2)
The above equation can be represented as follows.
Quadratic equation with negative terms.
x^2 +0x -4 which can be factorized and we have (x-2) and (x+2)
Delhi Government Mentor teachers wished to visit Auroville to learn about the initiatives and steps that Auroville has taken in the field of education.
Mentor teachers is a core group of teachers looking for the academic quality and improvement of Delhi Government schools. As a part of capacity building tour, mentors visited Pondicherry and surrounding areas to learn about alternate pedagogies in teaching and learning.
Due to government mandate of not having large gatherings the group couldn’t visit STEM land schools but they were enthusiastic enough to learn more about STEM land, leadership capacity and stewardship qualities. We met them in Pondicherry where the group learnt about the activities we do in STEM land. They asked about preparing project material and learnt how students create projects in STEM land. We showed them different projects created by students on software like Scratch, Alice etc. They were also keen to know how to motivate teachers to adapt these pedagogies and how to balance both theoretical and practical learning.
Children in Deepanum have been learning simple electronics once in a week . They have been learning it for almost 1 and half month. There are about 15 to 20 children. In this one child doesn’t show interest and he would do some thing else but he wont disturb the class. All the other children work together and does something interesting. Last class we were building a circuit with switch, battery, LED and resistor. I drew the circuit diagram in the black board and asked the children to connect . All the children were able to complete the circuit on their own phase. This boy got inspired and he also started to engage in the class . He built his own circuit and without bread board. As a teacher when I asked him to use bread board he didn’t listen to me. At that time i still my self and noticed that if in ask him to use bread board he would not do it and the learning will stop at that moment itself so I let him on his way and he was able to complete his circuit . The session was so good that I realized that children are able to build the circuit on their own. I also realized that my contribution to this children growth is valuable.
Archana Shekar who conducts ten days residential Vipassana retreats, children’s meditation courses and is in charge of it for Karnataka state. After completing her Masters at IITKGB and MBA at XLRI she worked with Price Waterhouse, Synovate and also wrote for Hong Kong based “Asian Business”. She prefers to work on inner development, Yoga and therapies, Spirituality and Integral yoga.
She volunteered with STEM land and supported children in Isai Ambalam school on their English. Here is a short video of her experience in STEM land with Sanjeev Ranganathan.
With the visit of Arulvazhi school students me and sharat have also joined them in learning SSD (seven segment display). Initially we just learnt about SSD and its primary uses. Arun and Murali explained elaborately about SSD and they showed a demo. With that reference children tried to work with it. me and Sharat just tried my name getting displayed with the use of SSD and finally got it perfectly.
We had interns coming to STEMland to learn to program. A few of them were learning Scratch and making projects. We conducted a course on the basics of Python. It was a five-day course for one and a half hours each day. There were about 15 of them attending the course. Everyday based on what the interns learned assessments were given accordingly.
People shared their assessments with others at the beginning of the class for about 10 minutes.
In the five days of the course, everyone learned the following.
Data structures/data types (tuples, list, dictionaries, etc.)
Data type conversions
Scope of functions
This is the first time that I took a technical course. It was a new experience of teaching/ sharing what I learned to adults. I planned for the course and I decided the assignments before the day which made me clear on what I wanted to do. Instead of going to more advanced it is always good to review the basics not only in programming. It was a nice opportunity for me to review my basics in python
Where to improve:
I felt that I need to follow the time properly. I missed a few important things which I added later which I should have told initially itself.
We had a session with Mrinalini on movement based activity.
1.Activity (Instruction based ):
First she asked us to walk around in the room without touching others. Next she asked us to smile when you see a person without stopping your walk. Then she asked us to turn a face when you see people in front of you (basically avoid them). Then she said welcome everyone by one word and that word can’t be repeated. Everyone should say new word it can be anything(language was optional) (for example: object name, welcome words,hai, hello etc….)
From that I was able to notice that how much I contribute I will received more than what I contribute.
2. Supporting activity:
She made us into few groups ans asked one person to sit in the center of their circle that person will be covered by scarf. We(person sitting in the center) need to think the scarf covered person as a snail/butterfly egg and it is suffering we(remaining people) need to help that snail/butterfly egg to get out of from suffering. Remaining people need to think of animal and they need to act like that animal without talking (need to use only sounds). Then she said everyone to start…..then she stopped us asked one question which was do you asked that snail/butterfly egg that what kind of help that need from us?….everyone said No.
In that room everyone were willing to help but without asking that question to themselves what kind of help that others need?.
3. Paper sharing:
We get into pairs and kept sheet on the floor then we(partners) kept one leg on that paper then she asked us to bring that sheet one side of the room to other side and check whether the paper is tared or not.
During this activity we were able to listen her instruction carefully and follow it also we were able to build coordination between us etc…
These activities helps me to reflect on what I was doing. In STEMland that what’s we actually do. If children were struggling we let them struggle on their own if they can’t at that time only we step in. Then we track children progress and we knew at what levels they (each children) were there.