7 Innovations to Enhance the Education System

Audio-visual (AV) supplements

Many educational institutions in India have AV-equipped classrooms or venues to boost students’ learning and understanding. Teachers explain difficult subject like Physics/Maths/Chemistry through graphical representation of complex equations with the help of smart-boards. For language learning, the audio-visual equipment is an indispensable tool. Teachers can play snippets of award-winning films, plays, and speeches of great orators, both in vernacular, English, or the target language to Subject teachers are leveraging AV facilities in interesting ways to trigger the class’s curiosity through graphics, images, and puzzles, thereby driving them to think out of the box.

Flip methodology or classroom

B-schools like SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) and Indian School of Business (ISB) are some of the pioneers of flip classroom in India. Here, teachers relegate to the role of resource ormaterial providers via email or intranet, whereas students take the centre stage of gathering concepts, constructing knowledge, and drawing inferences. However, the other significant aspect is that teachers follow it up with a discussion session on the given topic on a stipulated day to ensure students’ participation, seriousness, and overall learning. Besides discussions, there are group presentations, debates, and essay writing competitions.

Surprisingly, when given responsibility, students take more interest, immerse themselves in the project, and deliver much better. Flip methodology promotes greater student involvement in the learning process and lays down the foundation of independent learning.

Roleplay

Role play brings in the element of entertainment into the classroom. As much as it is loved by students, this technique facilitates their understanding and appreciation of the characters that they read about. From pre-schools to Senior Secondary level, schools are implementing this method as it’s a great source to instill in children values and ideals as they play the roles of historical .

Students are encouraged to have their own version of the characters they are portraying, and enact them with the context of the present times. Through role play, students also get to learn about various aspects of stage performance – from acting to voice projection – and discover their acting talent. Role play is an impactful method to enhance learning that also lends learners opportunity to live the experience through empathy and internalising values.

Peer teaching

It is one of the most effective strategies to even up the learning curve of a class. Usually, teachers pair students who are high performers with those students who might be struggling in a subject area. Students are also encouraged to volunteer, or are randomly chosen to take over as the subject teacher. It offers a platform of knowledge sharing among students, besides harbouring healthy competition.

The interesting aspect of peer teaching is that students tend to respond more actively when one of them dons the mantle of the teacher. With regular peer teaching sessions, students start to develop better grasp of the concepts, display maturity, tend to be more disciplined, and also develop bettercommunication skills.

Games

The play-way lessons are quite popular among students of all grades, and a successful strategy to keep them engaged. If the sessions are carefully designed and smoothly executed by teachers, this method reinforces cognitive knowledge, especially of mathematical and scientific concepts, and vocabulary. Teachers are experimenting with various kinds and levels of word and mind games like quiz, puzzle-solving, Scrabble, Sudoku, etc.

Collaboration

Collaboration is an essential life skill in a globalised environment, the driving force of all enterprises. In an educational institution, this skill can best be fostered in the classroom by allowing students to work in groups. Educators are planting the seed of a collaborative mind as early as primary school, where young children are motivated to create, plan, and organise group presentations of stories, skits, or poems. Throughout, teachers help students chalk out their plans, provide them key points, supervise their work, and build team spirit.

Many schools have made collaborative project work a prominent part of the curriculum. Teachers are designing their lessons to allow time and resources for group activities, be it research or class presentation.

Going beyond the classroom

Education should make children aware of the world and themselves, widen their perspective, and make them seek the truth. Schools are embracing the trend of taking children outside the classroom. Whether on a nature trail, or visiting cottage industry, students now directly interact with what they read about in books. Children gain more knowledge when they see and experience history in museums than being taught the same in the class.

The various innovations and the creative endeavors of the teachers are making classrooms zones of great activity and intellectual rigor.