4 THINGS A GREAT TEACHER DOES TO DEVELOP SOCIAL SKILLS AT EARLY AGE

Early childhood is a unique period when the development of a child’s personality and character is happening at a rapid pace. An empathetic and loving teacher along with a progressive school are critical for nurturing happy and socially adept children. Social skills, problem behaviour and academic learning are interrelated and a child’s social skills are indicators for success in the later years.

The role of a teacher is critical in influencing the development the core skills of communication, cooperation, responsibility, empathy, engagement, self-control and assertion.
Let’s see what are the 4 things that a great teacher does to inculcate these social skills.

1) Acknowledging Feelings and Modeling appropriate social behavior

Identifying and acknowledging feelings is essential for building trust with children. The classroom of good teachers has the ‘Emotional Corner’ or a ‘Mood Meter’ where children go and mark their feelings. Starting from ‘happy’ or ‘sad’, the options extend to angry and anxious etc. Teachers play ‘identify the emotion’ game by making faces or holding placards of different emoticons. This helps students differentiate between emotions and express them better. By talking about what you’re doing as you’re doing it, the child will better understand how to manage the situation and replicate it, even when the adult is not there. Read more

 

5 WAYS IN WHICH A GREAT TEACHER DEVELOPS A NATURE OF INQUIRY IN KIDS

Children are such curious creatures. When they want to know about something new, they want to explore it and while exploring they learn.

But, what makes children want to learn? According to research, it’s the joy of exploration — a hidden force that drives learning, critical thinking, and reasoning. This ability is curiosity. A great teacher provides opportunities to children to explore their environment and have access to books and information. The teacher encourages students to ask open ended questions, analyse data, connect with people and nature, and seek new learning experiences.

A teacher can develop curiosity by planning the following strategies

1) Social Collaboration

Students learn from meaningful experiences. They need to be engaged in group discussions, interviewing, finding out, analysing data, relating it with real life situations and reflecting on their learning by taking action.

2) Foster creativity

It is no surprise that creativity drives passion. Educators can foster creativity by allowing self-expression and having students pick their own topics whenever possible. Teachers can have students design their own rubric for a project, and teachers can approve it beforehand.

3) Allow Play time

Playing is said to stimulate the imagination and curiosity in children and helps in building problem solving skills. The components of playing are the same as learning (curiosity, discovery, novelty, risk-taking, trial and error, games and social learning). So, students need to be engaged in play.

4) Emotionally Connect

Teachers need to find out what really drives students. A lesson that taps into something a student cares about will produce more learning opportunities. According to some research studies, a positive learning environment that acknowledges emotion, improves problem-solving and creates better learning outcomes. Learning depends on the mental state of the learner, including how they feel physically, psychologically, and emotionally.

5) Encourage innovation

Teachers must allow students to approach assignments differently. Give opportunities for students to innovate and teach them that failure is a part of success. In the end, it is passion that drives all great things to be achieved. If passion is forgotten in classrooms, we are losing half the meaning of learning. As Einstein once said,“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”

Significant Ways to Improve Student Participation During Group Discussions

Group discussions take place in various diverse formats – from extremely casual ones between friends to very planned and tricky debates incorporated as part of a selection procedure. Group discussions put forward an opening for unmitigated speaking (and listening!) training to all the participants. Group discussion exercise and skill enhancement is therefore helpful for all students.

To participate effectively in a classroom group discussion, students will have to pay more attention and also willingness to indulge in conversation that would take the intensity of the topic too far. One of the most unproductive ways of discussion is usually the one which takes place as a ‘one-on-one’ conversation between the teacher and a student, leaving the rest of the class oblivious. During such discussions, many students end-up not concentrating and divert their mind into something else. On the other hand, an effective classroom discussion keeps each student lively, either by sharing our thinking. So, here are some of those factors that a teacher has to keep in mind while prepping for group discussion in the classroom. 

Do not lose your cool in the classroom if you are receiving silence as an immediate response. Some children are really out-going when it comes to expressing themselves, but some need that silence or a break to start talking. So, if you don’t get an answer in 60 seconds, try to be calm and let the children start sharing their thoughts. As soon as the teacher starts sharing things, children stop going deeper into their thought which may end up in a fruitless discussion. Give them time to come up with their ideas.

Try to be easy with the grammatical mistakes they make while expressing themselves. As a teacher if you start correcting the child even before they make a point, he/she would never gather the courage to speak up their mind; rather they would be scared of the thought of being ridiculed by their peers for the silly mistakes. Try to understand their imagination because you can find time to correct those mistakes later like the way these Hyderabad CBSE Schools do.

Be kind enough to make them realise that they can commit mistakes during their group discussions. Help them perform better  by elaborating more on the concept and focus less on the mistakes they commit. A student will only speak up their mind if they have the confidence that they can commit mistakes. Ensure this freedom to the children like the way the top Hyderabad  schools provide.