LAL: Learn Apply and Lead

My perception is that only learning is not important. We should learn. Learning is the life long process but it not that keep our self only. Try to apply more and more as well as Lead the society after completing study or getting job.  So follow LAL: Learn Apply and Lead.

Life skill education- challenges of teachers

Life skill education- challenges of teachers

Everywhere, Education is seen as the main way of enabling individuals andnations alike to meet the ever increasing economic, technological, social and personalchallenges. We expect education to prepare young people for the world of work and foreconomic independence; to enable them to live constructively in responsiblecommunities; and to enable them to live in a tolerant, culturally diverse and rapidlychanging society. Perhaps above all, we expect education to help young people tobuild lives that have meaning and purpose in a future we can scarcely predict.

Between November 2010 and October 2011 the UNICEF Evaluation Department commissioned Education for Change Ltd to conduct a Global Evaluation of Life Skills Education. UNICEF has had a significant role in Life Skills Education (LSE) development and initiatives at both national and international levels.  over the past two decades  LSE has come to be seen as integral to preparing young people to negotiate and mediate everyday challenges and risks and enable productive participation in society.

Teachers play an extremely important role as facilitators of learning; they are important actors in the environments of young learners, as role models and to encourage and empower students. Teachers of LSE must therefore be equipped with (or able to develop) and demonstrate the same range of life skills as their students are intended to learn, be able to withhold judgement and listen to different opinions, gain the trust of their students so that they feel comfortable expressing themselves and know that what they discuss remains confidential. Teachers should also continue to re-examine their own attitudes and values, developing an awareness and objectivity of life issues in their socio-cultural contexts. Empathy with children, classroom management for collaborative learning, and understanding of children’s psychology and development are all personal and professional attributes which are difficult to develop through existing systems of teacher selection and training.

Concept of Life  Skills Education

Life skills mean those essential skills developed through a higher order thinking, that

enable a person to perform effectively in his or her life, and thus become a socially

acceptable and successful person.

Life skills include psychosocial competencies and interpersonal skills that help people make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, empathize with others, and cope with managing their lives in a healthy and productive manner.

Role of Teachers inculcating Life Skills Education

§Promote a conducive learner empowering environment.

§Recognize individuals as unique and yet social beings.

§Relate strengths and weaknesses to self-awareness.

§Encourage social cohesion by engaging students from different tribes / clans to mix in class.

§Relate life skills to learner’s familiar life experiences.

§Avoid too much knowledge and be more practical.

§Encourage small group discussions – free space for their voices.

§Use learner discussion stimulation – debates, talk shows.

§Encourage story telling, poetry and drama.

Challenges face by the Teachers in Life Skills Education.

1.Huge Syllabus of School Curriculum: Curriculum of school is too lengthy.Different activities are  included in  school curriculum.students are interested to participate in respective activities. Expectation of parents is high. Syllabus of to be complete is vast. Each and every subjects are important to study.Soto full fill the curriculum as well as completing the syllabus with life skills education is challenging for teachers.

2.Classroom Management:Classroommanagement is closely linked to issues of motivation, discipline and respect. Methodologies remain a matter of passionate debate amongst teachers; approaches vary depending on the beliefs a teacher holds regarding educational psychology. A large part of traditional classroom management involves behavior modification, although many teachers see using behavioral approaches alone as overly simplistic. Many teachers establish rules and procedures at the beginning of the school yearClassroom management is a challenging part of teachers job..most of students are  not familiar with life skills education.They do not want to listen more about behaviour, discipline & moral value. So to impart  the life skills education among the students are very difficult for teachers.

3.High Expectation of Society:Level of the students are different in the school .their interest are not similar but expectation of parents are mostly common.Parents can not differenciatesbetween level of children. They did not think about the interest of their children they just want to keep their views only.So co-ordinatingparents & students ideas an oppinnionare challenging as well as a source of pressure for the teacher.

4.Challenging with Differently abled Children: As per rule of governmentdifferently abled children can study with normal children.Different mechanism to provide life skills education to same teacher to handle all types of students will be a tough job.So adjustment of different categories of students  is challenging of teachers.

5.Lack of incentives –As we know that money is important part to run the better life. Proper salary and other facilities are not provided by Government. So social life of teacher is very difficult.Now a days, Teachers have lot of pressure in their life.

6.Poor management of Government schools.-Management is important factor to run a better school.Lack of proper infrastructure inSpecially Government’s school.Proper management and co-ordination is not there.

7.Lack of proper training -  All over  development of students are required to organize the proper workshop, seminar etc. All these are lack part in government’s school, college and other educational institute.

8. Develop the Major Skills and sub skills- The students develop different majorskills likeCommunication skills, information gathering skills, critical thinking, creativity and empathy. Sub skills are effective speaking, active listening, observation, understanding body language, giving and receiving feedback, assertion skills, emotional control, self awareness, analysis, synthesis, challenging facts, assessing information and consequences of actions, awareness about one’s strengths and weaknesses, developing cause and effect relationship, anti-stereotyping, imagination, positive thinking skills, conflict management skills, managing peer pressure, tolerance, identification of, and acting on rights, justice and responsibilities, generating alternatives, asking questions, reading, memory.All major skills and sub skills are to be develop  in children is already lengthy.So to develop all these skills major skills and sub skills with life skills education are challenging for teachers.

Conclusions

Life skills education has become an amorphous concept that suffers not having a clear, shared understanding of what it entails and how it should be delivered or assessed. Part of this is to do with the difficulties inherent in the behavioural change and psycho-social skills that lie at the core of the LSE concept. However, much more work is required to develop understandings of what LSE involves, ensuring that wider psycho-social skills are not lost within content-specific approaches, and including clearer articulation of learning outcomes and intended impacts for LSE.

Many of the challenges facing LSE replicate those in the education sector as a whole, particularly around resource constraints in the delivery of participatory and child-centred learning methodologies which have become intricately linked to the development of psycho-social skills. Planning for LSE needs to assess and acknowledge these constraints, and set realistic, sustainable objectives; LSE cannot be an island of practice within the school and as such needs to be considered integral to a whole school approach to children’s development. Maximising linkages with other education initiatives (CFS, whole school approaches and quality reforms) will help to meet this challenge.

More focus is required on teachers as a central element of the process: teachers have the power to significantly strengthen or undermine LSE content, delivery and the environment that can constrain or support students’ attempts to convert knowledge and skills into attitudes and  behaviours. where there are systemic shortcomings in teacher management, qualification and professionalism, LSE is making huge demands. The selection, preparation and deployment of suitable teachers is a challenge for all systems, but the impact on LSE, which seeks to establish new teaching paradigms around new (often sensitive) content, is particularly acute and risks the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of LSE interventions if left unaddressed.

Being a teacher we face lot of challenges  when teach to children about developing the skills in .We know that when challenge comes pressure increases a lot on teachers.So as a teacherwe have to face all types of challenges with pressure and finally reach to the goal.

ICT IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS

ICT IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS

Mathematics teachers were used in the study because the mathematics curriculum in particular emphasizes the use of ICT in the teaching and learning process.

It is quite clear that if technological development is to be achieved, proficiency in mathematics must be achieved. And for this to be achieved, all problems confronting mathematics teaching and learning in secondary schools that cause poor performance of students should be addressed. One way of doing this is through the use of information and communication technology. Mathematics is a useful tool in the society, more so in the present technology age. It plays important roles in the following areas; mathematics as core skill for life, mathematics as key to economic prosperity, and mathematics full of beauty and mathematics education.

In recent years, it seems there have been a sudden increase in the demand of  ICT for teaching and learning of mathematics in our secondary schools such as computers, internet, overhead projectors, slide projectors, A-V materials, hand held calculator, printed materials, films motion pictures, sound and video recorders, improvised materials etc.The more effective these tools were used in teaching and learning of mathematics, the greater the understanding of the students for the subject.The resources include the use of spreadsheets, programs, dynamic geometry software, graph plotting software, video and internet research. All activities are complete with teachers' notes further ideas and the relevant software or files.

 Objectives  ICT in teaching Mathematics:

•  The use of ICT in teaching and learning of mathematics improves students’ performance and achievements.

•  The use of ICT  enhances teaching and learning of mathematics and improves students’ problemsolving skills.

•  The use of ICT tools motivates and makes students interested in learning mathematics.

NCF 2005: TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS

NCF 2005: TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS

Developing children's abilities for mathematisation is the main goal of mathematics education. The narrow aim of school mathematics is to develop 'useful' capabilities, particularly those relating to numeracy–numbers, number operations, measurements, decimals and percentages. The higher aim is to develop the child's resources to think and reason mathematically, to pursue assumptions to their logical conclusion and to handle abstraction. It includes a way of doing things, and the ability and the attitude to formulate and solve problems. This calls for a curriculum that is ambitious, coherent and teaches important principles of mathematics. It should be ambitious in the sense that it seeks to achieve the higher aim mentioned above, rather than only the narrower aim. It should be coherent in

the sense that the variety of methods and skills available piecemeal (in arithmetic, algebra, geometry) cohere into an ability to address problems that come from other

domains such as science and social studies in high school. It should be important in the sense that students feel the need to solve such problems, that teachers and

students find it worth their time and energy to address these problems.

As mathematics is a compulsory subject at the secondary stage, access to quality mathematics education is the right of every child.  Most of the skills taught in primary school mathematics are useful. However, a reorientation of the curriculum towards addressing the 'higher aims' mentioned above will make better use of the time that children spend in school in terms of the problem-solving and analytical skills that it builds, and in preparing children to better meet a wide variety of problems in life.

 Vision for School Mathematics

• Children learn to enjoy mathematics rather than fear it.

• Children learn important mathematics: Mathematics is more than formulas and

mechanical procedures.

• Children see mathematics as something to talk about, to communicate through, to discuss among themselves, to work together on. Children pose and solve meaningful problems.

• Children use abstractions to perceive relation-ships, to see structures, to reason out things, to argue the truth or falsity of statements.

• Children understand the basic structure of Mathematics: Arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry, the basic content areas of school Mathematics, all offer a methodology for abstraction, structuration and generalisation.

• Teachers engage every child in class with the conviction that everyone can learn mathematics.

The Curriculum:

At the pre-primary stage, all learning occurs through play rather than through didactic communication. Rather than the rote learning of the number sequence, children need to learn and understand, in the context of small sets, the connection between word games and counting, and between counting and quantity. Making simple comparisons and classifications along one dimension at a time, and identifying shapes and symmetries, are appropriate skills to acquire at this stage. Encouraging children to use language to freely express one's thoughts

and emotions, rather than in predetermined ways, is

extremely important at this and at later stages.

At the primary stage : Having children develop a positive attitude towards, and a liking for, Mathematics at the primary stage is as important, if not more than the cognitive skills and concepts that they acquire. Mathematical games, puzzles and stories help in developing a positive attitude and in making connections between

mathematics and everyday thinking. It is important to note that mathematics is not just arithmetic. Besides numbers and number operations, due importance must be given to shapes, spatial understanding, patterns, measurement and data handling. The curriculum must explicitly incorporate the progression that learners make

from the concrete to the abstract while acquiring concepts. Apart from computational skills, stress must be laid on identifying, expressing and explaining

patterns, on estimation and approximation in solving problems, on making connections, and on the development of skills of language in communication and reasoning.

At the upper primary stage, students get the first taste of the power of Mathematics through the application of powerful abstract concepts that compress previous learning and experience. This enables them to revisit and consolidate basic concepts and skills learnt at the primary stage, which is essential from the point of view of achieving universal mathematical literacy. Students are introduced to algebraic notation and its use in solving problems and in generalisation, to the systematic study of space and shapes, and for consolidating their knowledge of measurement. Data handling, representation and interpretation form a significant part of the ability of dealing with information in general, which is an essential 'life skill'. The learning at this stage also offers an opportunity to enrich students' spatial reasoning and visualisation skills.

At the secondary stage, students begin to perceive the structure of Mathematics as a discipline. They become familiar with the characteristics of mathematical communication: carefully defined terms and concepts, the use of symbols to represent them, precisely stated propositions, and proofs justifying propositions. These aspects are developed particularly in the area of geometry. Students develop their facility with algebra, which is important not only in the application of mathematics, but also within mathematics in providing justifications and proofs. At this stage, students integrate the many concepts and skills that they have learnt into

a problem-solving ability. Mathematical modelling, data analysis and interpretation taught at this stage can consolidate a high level of mathematical literacy. Individual and group exploration of connections and patterns, visualisation and generalisation, and making and proving conjectures are important at this stage, and can be encouraged through the use of appropriate tools that include concrete models as in Mathematics laboratories and computers.

At the higher secondary stage : The aim of the Mathematics curriculum at the

higher secondary stage is to provide students with an appreciation of the wide variety of the application of Mathematics, and equip them with the basic tools that

enable such application. A careful choice between the often conflicting demands of depth versus breadth needs to be made at this stage. The rapid explosion of Mathematics as a discipline, and of its range of application, favours an increase in the breadth of coverage. Such increase must be dictated by mathematical considerations of the importance of topics to be included. Topics that are more naturally the province of other disciplines may be left out of the Mathematics curriculum. The treatment of topics must have an objective, that is, the communication of mathematical insights and concepts, which naturally

arouse the interest and curiosity of students.