Mumbai : TEACHERS, especially from rural India, can improve their teaching skills through a certificate course at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, from the next academic year. The programme will be conducted in association with Tata Trusts’ Integrated approach to Technology in Education (ITE) initiative that provides technology-based framework for education for the underprivileged. Amina Charania, adjunct associate professor at the Centre for Education Innovation and Action Research, TISS and Senior Programme Officer of ITE, said the curriculum is being planned and will be proposed to the academic council.
“The course has been approved. We are now working on a curriculum,” said Charania. Teachers taking the course will be awarded with certificates accredited by TISS.
The curriculum will be derived from learnings from ITE which began with a pilot project at Murshidabad in 2012. The initiative by Tata Trusts is a pedagogic framework for integrating technology in teaching and learning process, particularly in rural areas, said Charania. “Currently, more than 17,000 students and 500 teachers have been enrolled,” she said. The ITE framework, adopted by some state governments, aims at capacitating teachers to use technology in their teaching methods and promoting project-based learning.
Among other methods, the teachers will be made to complete student projects themselves. “The aim is to make teachers empathise with students who may be using a computer for the very first time. We noticed in our workshops in ITE that teachers were more comfortable and innovative with technology by the end of the workshop,” said Charania.
According to Charania, who has also presented a paper on Integrating Educational Technology for Underserved Children in India, education-industry partnership model is a smart way of developing infrastructure in education. “Multi-stakeholder partnerships known as smart partnerships (SPs) may help development of educational infrastructure,” she said. The ITE, too, has partnered with non-governmental organizations and Corporate Social Responsibility Wings of companies.
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