…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

...and not just noisy. Hello all. Welcome to the 163rd edition of TEPS Weekly! Have you ever walked past a classroom and wondered if the noise you are hearing is "good" noise or "bad" noise? We’ve all been there. As teachers, we often rely on what we can see and hear. If students are sitting together and the room is quiet, it often feels like things are working. But both silence and physical grouping can be misleading. Take a look at this picture. At first glance, everything

…and why it matters. Hello all. Welcome to the 162nd edition of TEPS Weekly ! There is an NEP 2020. Then there is the NCF-TE, the NCF-FS, the NCF-SE... So many policy documents related to education have been released over the last 5-6 years! One of them is the National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST), which articulates the professional standards expected from any teacher within the school education system. It further breaks down the role of teaching into certain c

…in daily practice. Hello all. Welcome to the 161st edition of TEPS Weekly ! What is your school culture? How do you recognise what it is? To help you think about these questions, here are a few more questions: What does your school stand for? What do your school rules focus on? What are your students encouraged or discouraged from doing? What are the things they are praised or scolded for – discipline? exploration? test scores? Your answers to these questions will give you

…from a young age. Hello all. Welcome to the 160th edition of TEPS Weekly ! Aadya and Aarav are in Grade 2. They are best friends because they live in the same colony, play together every evening, come to school by the same bus and even get similar marks in every class test and exam. Every day, their class has 20 minutes of independent reading time, right after their snack break. When the teacher says, “You may choose a book,” Aadya walks straight to the class library shelf,

...impact student achievement. Hello all. Welcome to the 159th edition of TEPS Weekly ! Research tells us that teachers should have high expectations of their students. When teachers believe in their students’ abilities, it positively influences academic and non-academic growth. But what do “high expectations” mean in a real classroom? Students are different in their abilities, pace of learning and confidence levels. So, is it logical for a teacher to have the same high expec