…in Early Numeracy. Hello all. Welcome to the 183rd edition of TEPS Weekly! What comes to your mind when you look at the picture below? Students having fun? A game? Maybe even a break from learning? That is probably what most of us would notice first. But fun, games and play can be an integral part of Early Numeracy. What is “play”? In Early Numeracy, play is when students apply and solidify what they have learnt, in a structured and joyful manner, using useful and concrete

...to instructional leader. Hello all. Welcome to the 182nd edition of TEPS Weekly! Every school has a few teachers whom others naturally turn to. They explain difficult ideas clearly. Their lessons are well planned. They know where students may get confused, and they can change their approach when a lesson is not working. So, when a school needs a Subject Coordinator, Head of Department, mentor or Academic Coordinator, these teachers are often the first choice. That makes se

…for early language development. Hello all. Welcome to the 181st edition of TEPS Weekly! In Class 1A, Rakhi ma’am is teaching the words ‘stand’, ‘jump’, ‘clap’ and ‘sit’. She has a very clear instructional routine: Teacher: Students: 1 writes the words on the board. copy the words into their notebook. 2 reads the words aloud. repeat the words after the teacher. 3 spells each word aloud. repeat the spellings after the teacher. Once done, Rakhi ma’am moves onto the next activit

…for active recall. Hello all. Welcome to the 180th edition of TEPS Weekly! A few months ago, we had written about the features of a good Teaching-Learning Material (TLM). In today’s edition, we write about a specific type of TLM – the flashcard. Is a flashcard just a piece of paper with a picture on it? Is it something more? How can it be created well, and how can it be used to its full potential? We dive into what the research says about this. How are flashcards usually use

...without taking over. Hello all. Welcome to the 179th edition of TEPS Weekly! A student is solving “3/4th of 20”. They write “20 ÷ 4 = 5” and then stop. They look back at a solved example on the board, cross something out, try another step and pause again. It has been about a minute. You are standing nearby. What would you do? Would you wait a little longer? Ask them to explain their thinking? Give a small hint? Or show them the next step? At first, this seems like a simple

…ONE skill. Hello all. Welcome to the 178th edition of TEPS Weekly! Sunitha ma’am is a teacher in a small town in Telangana, teaching English and EVS to Grades 3–6. Today in Grade 6, she has just completed reading a short story about ‘Cory’s Snow Day’ that was provided to her by a local NGO, as part of a reading bundle. Sunitha ma’am calls on Raghav to stand up and read the story aloud. Raghav stands up confidently and begins to read, one word at a time, loud and clear: Cory

…what’s the difference? Hello all. Welcome to the 177th edition of TEPS Weekly! Notebooks are an important part of every school-going student’s life. In many classrooms, they become the main source of revision before an examination. Teachers dictate important points and likely questions, students carefully write them down, and later try to memorise the answers. But a notebook can do more than store dictated points and answers. Students can use it to put an idea into their own

……than just reciting numbers. Hello all. Welcome to the 176th edition of TEPS Weekly! Can a child count without understanding numbers? At first this may seem like a strange question. If a child can count from 1 to 10, it is often assumed that the child understands numbers. But in early numeracy, being able to say number names and recite them in the correct order is different from actually understanding what numbers mean and represent – all of these skills together form “count

…to each of your 45 students? Hello all. Welcome to the 175th edition of TEPS Weekly! Can every student in a classroom receive effective feedback during a 40-minute lesson? Bindhu, a Grade 7 Social Science teacher, recently attended a Teacher Professional Development (TPD) session on formative assessment. One idea particularly stayed with her – students learn better when they receive feedback while they are learning, not only after the lesson is over. Inspired, she decided to

…a structured approach. Hello all. Welcome to the 174th edition of TEPS Weekly! Ms. Nithya is a Social Science teacher. Today, she is continuing the chapter Democracy with Class 9A, and the focus is on the section ‘Principles of Democracy’. Ms. Nithya asks different students to stand up and read aloud four of the principles and their explanations – Popular Sovereignty, Rule of Law, Fundamental Rights, Separation of Powers. After each explanation is read, she asks students a f

…meta-metacognition? Hello all. Welcome to the 173rd edition of TEPS Weekly! A student finishes reading a Science chapter, highlights several lines, and says, “I understand this.” The next day, however, the same student struggles to answer a question that looks even slightly different from the examples in the textbook. This is a situation that we are all familiar with. It is tempting to conclude that the student did not study hard enough. But often the issue is not effort alo

…create cognitive conflict. Hello all. Welcome to the 172nd edition of TEPS Weekly! A group of Grade 8 Science teachers are planning a unit on astronomy. The unit includes three closely related topics: the Moon, phases of the Moon, and eclipses. The textbook places them in that order. The yearly plan places them neatly in the same term. On paper, the sequence looks simple: teach the Moon, teach phases, and then teach eclipses. One teacher says, “The textbook has Moon phases b

…in learning science. Hello all. Welcome to the 171st edition of TEPS Weekly! A Grade 2 teacher places different leaves on each table and says, “Observe the leaves carefully and share your observations.” At first, many students look at the leaves quickly and give simple responses: “This one is big,” or “This one is green.” The teacher then pauses and explains, “In science, observing does not mean just looking. It means looking carefully and noticing details. When we observe,

…stop wars? Hello all. Welcome to the 170th edition of TEPS Weekly! A teacher is teaching a lesson on food. The textbook explains different food groups, where food comes from and why we need a balanced diet. And the lesson ends with students identifying cereals, pulses, fruits, vegetables and proteins. But what if we ask one more question: “What all has to happen before this food reaches our plate?” Suddenly, students are not only learning about food groups. They begin to thi

…drive innovations in curriculum. Hello all. Welcome to the 169th edition of TEPS Weekly! When we speak to school leadership and management about the need for curriculum innovation there are phrases that we hear like improvement plans, teacher training sessions, annual goals and preparing students for the future. But what is curriculum innovation in a real sense? What changes are we looking to make to make the curriculum more ‘innovative’? Is it introducing the project-based

…useful in class? Hello all. Welcome to the 168th edition of TEPS Weekly! Scenario 1: A teacher shows a beautiful chart on fractions. It is colourful and well labelled. Students look at it, copy the terms and repeat the words ‘numerator’ and ‘denominator’. Scenario 2: Another teacher gives students paper circles, fraction strips and rangoli grids. Students fold, divide, compare, make halves and quarters and explain why two pieces are equal or unequal. In both scenarios, the t

…than the keyboard. Hello all. Welcome to the 167th edition of TEPS Weekly! Can you recognise these letters? You may not be fully sure about every single one, but you can probably identify many of them. Why? Because your brain has not stored letters only as perfect printed forms. When it sees a long straight line, a curve at the top and a short line cutting through the middle, it recognises these as the general features of a lowercase f. The curve may not be curved enough, th

…just an individual responsibility. Hello all. Welcome to the 166th edition of TEPS Weekly! While attending a workshop for educators, we heard a participant say, “If teaching were like a corporate job, it would be much worse. Professional teachers would finish their work and not think of students after that. They wouldn’t care about students at all.” The comment stayed with us. It made us think of how narrowly people understand professionalism. We imagine a professional as so

…work in India? Hello all. Welcome to the 165th edition of TEPS Weekly! Over the years there have been many debates about flipped learning – whether it works or not. On the one hand, if we ‘outsource’ the most difficult task of introducing a topic or explaining a topic from the classroom and to the home, will students really understand? What motivation levels do students need to truly benefit from flipped learning? On the other hand, there are experts who point out that when

…for focused classrooms. Hello all. Welcome to the 164th edition of TEPS Weekly! Miss Anjali teaches Grade 3. As the bell rings, she feels her chest tighten because she knows the next few minutes will be difficult. The students enter noisily. Some drag their chairs, some call out to friends, and a few run to the back benches. Before they are even seated, Miss Anjali starts speaking quickly: “Rohan, sit down. Meera, stop talking. Arjun, keep your bag properly. Everyone, please