“Use the infrastructure available before complaining lack of it.”
The “Group for Interactive Learning’ (GIL)” from IIT Roorkee interviewed Mr. Parambir Singh Kathait, a teacher in Navodaya School at Dehradun who won the Innovative Teachers Leadership Award (ITLA’09).

Here are the excerpts of the interview:

Q: We’ll like to know your qualification and designation.
Kathait: I am B Ed, Double MA in History and English. Currently I am associated with Navodaya School as Social Studies Teacher. In my previous school, I was an English teacher.

Q: You are teacher of English and Social Studies. Then what was it which brought you closer to use of technology?
Kathait: A workshop was organized by Microsoft Corporation in association with our State Govt. at DIET Barkot (Uttarkashi) for computer literacy of teachers. Most basic things such as running windows and using MS Office were the topics covered under the training. But, after the workshop I focused on how these tools can be used to enliven classroom teaching, especially in Social Studies. I found it very useful. For example, for teaching solar system, an animation not only saves time but is also easier to understand.

Q: How did the Microsoft classroom program help you?
Kathait: Before the Microsoft classroom program, I knew nothing about running or working on a computer. The program was designed to train the teachers how to use computer and ICT tools to enliven classroom teaching. In that program, we learnt the basics. Also, I was motivated by the trainer assigned to us. He was an engineer from MS. When we, the teachers taking training used to go for lunch, he was seen preparing notes and reports.

Q: There were some twenty three thousand teachers trained in the above program. What special did you have to get the award?
Kathait: A teacher has to remain teacher and for that he needs to update himself within his domain. The training was about using the computer and working on MS Office. But, I thought more on how these things can help a teacher. Also, after the program was over, most of the teachers chose to forget all those things whereas I talked to my Principal and got the school computer lab opened for me and my students after committing to pay for any damage. After some time, I bought a computer and took broadband at home.

Q: Tell us something about the Innovative Teachers Leadership Award.
Kathait: There were four award categories: Collaboration, Content, Community and overall work of teacher. My project won in Content Category.
Q: What was the Content Category about?
Kathait: In the content category, the entries were judged on the basis of innovation in content of the project. There was no restriction on the subject of presentation. Though, theme of my presentation “Let’s Explore the Universe” was related to Social Studies, there was something more than just social studies in it. There was something for everyone from primary to intermediate student in that presentation. For example, if radius of earth was mentioned somewhere in the presentation, there was a link to see the pictorial definition of radius.

Q: What other participants from different corners of world had to show there?
Kathait: There was much stress on collaboration. In USA, 98% schools have broadband connection. In what they call collaborative learning, group of teachers as well as students, not limited by geographical boundaries, come together through internet to share their views, ideas and solve the problems. For example, a group of teachers discuss a particular topic in a group video chat where a student is also free to join the chat for firing doubts and questions.

Q: How did it help you after coming back to India?
Kathait: I worked on my own model of collaboration after coming to India. I gave short projects on universal issues such as Global Warming, Water Conversion, Energy Conversion etc. to the students in groups of five.
The students made presentations with the help of teachers and the best results of all groups were summarized. This final summary was shared with other schools to encourage them. All the schools collaborated in this way to find solutions to global problems.

Q: How higher education institutes can help schools?
Kathait: School students generally get information from websites of institutes of higher education. Also, they can mentor school students. But, generally they are not interested in innovations of junior students.

Q: What was the workshop “Content Development and Sharing through wikis among the teachers” all about and what was your experience?
Kathait: It was a workshop organized by IGNOU in New Delhi to impart to teachers the basic knowledge about sharing their potential with others through wikis sites. All schools should come together to develop contents and upload on a common website so as have an e-library easily accessible to all. I will like to add here that there was no need to call all the teachers to Delhi. We could instead use ICT tools to organize this workshop.

Q: But for that we need infrastructure which we do not have…
Kathait: Yes, we do need some basic infrastructure for that and most of our schools have. To organize workshop using video conferencing, we only need a computer and a broadband connection in the school staff room.
Before complaining lack of infrastructure, we must look into how much we are utilizing the available infrastructure. If a school is not using lone computer in the staff room, there is no point wasting money in setting up a computer centre there.
Also, more than training the teachers, motivating the teachers is required to enhance the classroom teaching.
Q: How the teachers can be motivated?
Kathait: Govt. needs to plan a strategy to reach teachers with ability, identify the best of them and reward them. Other teachers will automatically motivated by the colleague. Govt. can organize similar competitions at national level. This can motivate the teachers to do their real job.

Q: …and what, according to you, is their real job?
Kathait: A teacher must be able to collect the information, summarize the information and impart the information to the students. A teacher needs to learn from students and present things in the way the students want to have. Making things available to students is the real job of a teacher.
Q: How effective is the chalk and blackboard teaching and why is it gradually being replaced by computers and projector assisted teaching?
Kathait: Teaching with these computers and projectors is more effective than the traditional chalk-blackboard teaching. It not only saves time, but also helps students understand better. For example, an animation of solar system will facilitate better understanding than a static schematic representation (and that too poor most of the time). I am very much sure that in years to come, we will switch completely to computers and projectors and chalk-blackboard teaching will come to an end. Not only this, the books will completely be replaced by eBooks and all the learning material will be made available online.
Q: How do you see the proposed policy of single board throughout the country?
Kathait: There are two different aspects of this step. First is that it will help in removing/reducing partiality by having a single evaluation system all over the country.
Second point is, Competition and knowledge are two different aspects of education. Education is basically for development of child’s potentials. But, it has gradually become the means to livelihood. Even then, the syllabus must contain something that is available around the child. For example, Uttarakhand schools can have more about hills and rivers than the metro railway and reverse is true for Delhi schools.

Q: What can be done to facilitate quality education in rural areas and other remote locations like Andaman and Nicobar?
Kathait: In rural and remote areas, there is scarcity of teachers as well as quality teachers. Students, often willing to pursue higher or better education, are disappointed and discouraged by the lack of facilities. ICT tools can be used to make the life easier for them. Some quality lectures, such as English lecture if English teacher is not available or not good at a rural school; can be availed through video conferencing.

Q: How can these techniques applied to the education of persons with disabilities, especially Deaf and Dumb?
Kathait: It will be very easy, as compared to manual teaching, to teach them with the help of animations and videos specially designed for them. They need to see the instructor saying same word a number of times to learn a single word. ICT tools may help here where a recorded video can be replayed for any number of times.

Finally we thanked Mr. Parambir Singh Kathait for giving time from his busy schedule and for having meaningful discussion with us.
About us
‘Group for Interactive Learning’ (GIL) is founded by some enthusiastic students of IIT Roorkee who primarily aim to experiment with ways to facilitate interactive learning for the purpose of dissemination of knowledge and sharing of skills to the benefit of the stakeholders of IIT Roorkee, and to find out ways of enhancing industry, academia and government collaboration and implement them in the framework of IIT Roorkee. Our activities involve organizing workshops (5 workshops have been held in softwares like Matlab and Photoshop.) , facilitating alumni-student interaction, interviewing eminent educationists ,distinct alumni of our institute ,industry and government personnel views on various issuespertaining to education in the modern era ,prospects of Indian students abroad, Industry-Academia-Government collaborationetc. and develop definitions of words pertaining to the field of education, management, science and technologyand those in official usage commonly, similar in meaning but different in terms.

Contact us:

• Cashmira Pramanik – B Arch III yr

cashmira2007@gmail.com
+91-9410350888

• Ambarish Ambuj –B.Tech. Mechanical III yr

ambuj.ambarish@gmail.com
+91-9897599811

• ******* Kesarwani– Int. MSc in App. Math IIIyr

kesar01@gmail.com
+91-9557020903

• Vivek Kumar- B.Tech. Mechanical IIyr

Vivekmek08@gmail.com
+91-9760508709

• Aman Gupta-B.tech Metallurgy 2nd Year

Amangupta.iitr@gmail.com
+91-9760197968