Best Teaching Practices Award – A Report
Monica d’Souza
Debashree Chakrabarty

This event saw the enthusiastic participation of school teachers across private and government schools alike. These teachers presented various teaching techniques and practices used by them in the class.

Subject: English

School: Kendriya Vidyalaya

Presentation Title: Action Words – use of verb+ing

Name of Presenter: Poonam Girdhar

This presentation deals with teaching a lesson on ‘present continuous tense’ to students of classes III and IV. The idea highlighted in this presentation is that visual teaching aids have a powerful effect on the child’s interest level in the class, grasping pace, and retention power. Multimedia has been used to describe a variety of actions taking place in the present continuous. There were ‘match the following’ exercises wherein the students had to relate the animations to the appropriate verb. There was a memory test wherein the students were shown a Christmas scene for 20 seconds. After this they were asked to make a list of all the actions that they could recall from the scene they had just been shown. They were thus speaking sentences in the present continuous tense listing a variety of activities. The teacher had also designed a crossword pertaining to pictures describing diverse actions. Her students could solve the crossword successfully.


Subject: English

School: Delhi Public School, East of Kailash

Presentation Title: Opposites

Name of Presenter: Geeta Gujral

This presentation deals with teaching a lesson on ‘Opposites’ to students of the age group 5 – 6 years. The teaching tools are aimed at the visual learners and the auditory learners. The teacher used a large variety of teaching tools including puppets and storytelling besides multimedia. The pictures she used in her slides were of the kind, which the kids could very easily relate to. She, for example, used a picture of a house drawn by placing a triangle on a square. This was exactly how the children would also typically draw a house. Other teaching tools she used in class were discussions, activities, flash cards, and posters.

Subject: General Science

School: The Scindia School, Gwalior

Presentation Title: My Experiments with Technology

Name of Presenter: Sangeeta Jain

This presentation deals with teaching the topic of ‘Ray optics’. She showed how she uses the computer as an aid at every stage of teaching a given topic – teaching tool by the teacher, learning tool by the student and assessment tool by the teacher. She uses interactive computer aided teaching contents to support conceptual understanding of the technical topics involved. She also uses computer-aided learning content by providing education portals where the students can go back to the content that was taught in class. This enables the student to reinforce the concepts at his own pace. The students are assessed through online automated tests.


Subject: General Science

School Mallya Aditi International School, Yelahanka New Town, Bangalore

Presentation Title: Life Around our rivers

Name of Presenter: Ms. Beena Babu

This presentation deals with teaching the topic of ‘River’. The treatment of topic has the unique feature of offering the scope of cross curricular integration which not only ensures effective student learning, it also allows for a very effective use of all resources. The lesson has been so designed that it caters to several subjects – General Science, Geography, English, Music, etc. The river system and its stages have been described using real pictures and an appropriate music to add to the necessary effects. The name of the river can be clicked to trace its path. The lesson also uses poetry to describe the life story of a river. This way it also blends in literature and language into the module. The planning and assessment software used are Word, Excel and Gradequick. This concept however does not find use in higher classes. Therefore this implementation is conducted up till class VII. So far, the concept has been implemented for 5-6 topics.

Subject: General Science

School KV AAI Rangpuri

Presentation Title: Water Cycle

Name of Presenter: Silvy Zachariah

This presentation deals with teaching the topic of ‘Water Cycles’. The lesson is aimed at classes II, III and IV. The lesson employs audio-visual, and multimedia elements. In addition to these, there is a discussion on the list of things that we need to carry during the rainy season. The lesson also includes a number of class activities, e.g., the children created rain with kettle and saucepan. They observed evaporation by dropping water on the floor and then let it dry.

Subject: Biology

School: Sanskriti School

Presentation Title:

Name of Presenter: Mrs. Nita Ganguli

This presentation demonstrated the teaching of the topic ‘heart’. The lesson is aimed at students of class X. The complicated and confusing diagram of the heart was simplified using different colors and block diagram representation. The advantage that this holds over implementing the same on the blackboard is that the student has the opportunity to later independently go through the presentations for the purpose of recapitulating. It thus also saves the teacher precious time in ways more than one. A significant advantage here is also the fact that the software has the feature wherein the teacher can use it to describe how to stepwise draw the otherwise complicated diagrams. This can be of immense help to the students to drive away the phobia they carry for complex biology diagrams.

Subject: Biology

School: Tagore International, Vasant Vihar

Presentation Title: Digestive System

Name of Presenter: Shreya Chabri

The presentation discusses a lesson aimed at teaching the digestive system to students of class VI. The teacher shows the students a scene at a birthday party .On clicking on any of the food items in the picture; the students can watch the food travel through the food pipe and digestive tract. The teacher uses the Internet in her teaching. She encourages active mental participation of the students in the class. She also encourages learning through online games.

Subject: Biology

School: Kendriya Vidyalaya No.2 Faridabad, Haryana

Presentation Title: Cognitive System-Best teaching practices showcase

Name of Presenter: Mrs. B Taqvi

This presentation demonstrated the teaching of the topic ‘Heredity and Variation’ to students of classes XI and XII.The lesson is prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint. The teacher suggests sites (like www.schoolworld.asn.au) where her students can find suitable tele-collaborative projects related to their coursework. During these short term (3 - 4 months) projects, they have performed experiments, done research, and collected data. A team of 18 students from this class has been internationally appreciated for its work on a project concerning human genetics. The website www.schoolworld.asn.au is where this project was offered at.

Subject: Social Science

School: Tagore International School,Vasant Vihar

Presentation Title: Teaching /Learning Strategy Using Computer Technology

Name of Presenter: Aparna Sharma

This presentation demonstrates the idea of catering to every child’s need by teaching the normal as well as the visually impaired students. The lesson is aimed at students of class VII. The lesson in addition to animations and colors in the presentation also uses JAWS software for the benefit of the visually impaired. The JAWS software essentially reads out the pictures to the students and allows them to surf the Internet .The lesson also uses appropriate background music to add to the effectiveness of the lesson.

Subject: Chess

School: Ryan International School (Conducts Chess teaching workshops)

Presentation Title: Application of Computer Based Pedagogy

Name of Presenter: Vikrant Varma

This presentation demonstrated the teaching of the subject ‘Chess’. The student is encouraged to play the game ‘Power Chess’ which is played between the student and the computer. This is an adaptive software that assesses your abilities at the game and plays marginally better than you each time. The game is then analyzed by expert software ‘Deep Fritz’ which shares with you the drawbacks and mistakes in your game and also gives you the necessary tips to help you improve. This helps the students to improve effectively in their chess abilities. The teacher however is also necessary to be present for the students since the students feel more confident with his presence apart from the effective interaction the student has with the computer itself.

Subject: Maths

School: American Embassy School, New Delhi

Presentation Title: Funtology with Math

Name of Presenter: Saguna Mehra

This presentation demonstrated the teaching of mathematics to 8-10 year olds. The teacher involves her students not only to solve but also to create math problems. She also refers Internet and Math sites for problems.

Subject: Maths

School: Dhirubhai Ambani International School

Presentation Title: Mathematics with a Difference

Name of Presenter: Ms. Yogesh Dhingra

The lesson uses the ‘Equation Editor’ teach mathematical equations. The lesson also employs the software called ‘Geometer’s sketchpad’ which the students use to understand and solve problems related to geometry. The teacher in her presentation demonstrated the topic of ‘Locus’ using this software .The teacher also uses interactive graph plotting exercises where the students feed in values of their choice to study the corresponding graph. The teacher also exploits calculators and graphic display computers to allow children to practice problem solving.

Subject: Maths

School: Tagore International School

Presentation Title: Computer Technology in teaching/learning

Name of Presenter: Anuradha Rao

The presenter makes use of MS PowerPoint, Internet, Video clippings, and Smart Board as teaching aids. In addition to these, she uses the computer to make her semester / lesson plans. In her presentation, she explained how she teaches the Pythagoras theorem. She also employs Excel sheets and worksheets to assess her children’s performance. She however maintains that it is important for the children to practice hands on problem solving or geometrical constructions on traditional pen and paper medium.


Subject: General

School: Podar International School,Mumbai

Presentation Title: Inquiry based Learning

Name of Presenter: Vandana Lulla

The presentation discusses how inquiry based education and cooperative learning has been adopted on a full scale by the school. Teachers promote organized group discussions. The teaching methodology is driven by inquiry. For example, students are given time to read the newspaper in class followed by discussion. Most teaching/learning is technology-driven, e.g., laptops with wireless connectivity are provided to students to browse for information on the internet. A variety of graphic organizers, e.g. ‘spider map’ are used as teaching aids. Children select student leaders using E-Voting.


Subject: General

School: Red Roses Public School,Saket

Presentation Title: Technology enhances training

Name of Presenter: Shalini Bhatnagar

The presentation demonstrates how technology can be exploited to create better learning environment. The teacher has made use of Microsoft PowerPoint to also teach topics in Hindi grammar and also Sanskrit grammar.

Subject: General

School: Springdales, Pusa road

Presentation Title: Best Integration of Technology

Name of Presenter: Simmi Kher

The presenter coordinates IT training programmes for the schoolteachers at Springdales. The school has set up a Computer Resource Center where apart from conducting in-house training, they also organize IT workshops for teachers from other schools. They also motivate the students of higher classes to assist the junior schoolteachers to prepare power point presentations to use in the junior school classes. These teachers thus explain the design and content to the students who in turn make the power point slides accordingly to the teachers’ needs. The school has used IT to computer their annual day. The students have used lasers to bring in special effects on stage during shows. The children have also built a video on their school.

Subject: General

School: Balvantray Mehta Vidya Bhawan, Greater Kailash, Part II

Presentation Title: Welcome to C++ using OHP

Name of Presenter: Seema Nigam

The teacher emphasizes the effectiveness of visual teaching aids. She presents a lesson on the topic ‘C++ concepts’. She finds better retention in the students if she utilizes slides to explain a topic.

Subject: Biology

School: Vasant Valley School

Presentation Title: Pedagogical Techniques

Name of Presenter: Malvika Vohra

The presentation primarily aimed at explaining the usefulness of IT in administration and curriculum design. The teachers form their lesson plans and post them on the school portal for all the other teachers to also share. This provides the teachers across the different subjects to also search for cross-curricular scope.

Subject: General

School: K.V. Tughlakabad

Presentation Title:

Name of Presenter: Sangeeta Raghuvanshi


The teacher emphasizes on creating writing and thinking. According to her, computers should be treated as an aid only to the learning process. She therefore encourages her students to type letters/essays/reports on MS Word and stick the printout in their assignment notebooks. The presenter also spoke in detail about the constraints faced by the KV teachers that bring severe limitations to using technology based teaching aids.

Subject: General

School: Kendriya Vidyalaya, KV AAI Rangpuri

Presentation Title:

Name of Presenter: Sushma

The presentation aimed at demonstrating how Microsoft PowerPoint could be used to teach English language and the subject EVS. The teacher has used a lot of interactive exercises on the slides, like fill in the blanks, to initiate class participation.

Subject: Biology

School: Kendriya Vidyalaya

Presentation Title: Computer Aided Teaching of Biological Concepts

Name of Presenter: Mamta Singh

The teacher employed Microsoft PowerPoint to explain complex biological diagrams. She demonstrated the function of organs like the heart and the brain by sequentially adding an additional component in each successive slide.

Subject:

School:

Presentation Title:

Name of Presenter: Janaki Kumar

This presentation discussed various lesson plans. The use of technology as a teaching aid was absent.