National Training Day Three

Today was day 3 of the national resource person training.  Our focus for today was on instructional strategies.  We spent the day studying multi-graded classrooms, concept attainment, synectics, cooperative learning and visual organizers.

Dr. Singh, Murray, Tish and I each lead the study of one of the strategies above.  Dr. Singh presented on concept attainment and then we showed a video of a Saskatchewan teacher presenting a concept attainment lesson.  The participants were very interested in the video.  Afterwards many remarked on how incredibly well resourced the classroom was and how few students were in the class.  By incredibly resourced, they meant that the class had desks, books and other resources for the children. (Never mind a computer, the internet, a data projector, a whiteboard, a SMART board and the like that we have!) Many of the participants here in Delhi have almost no resources.  Some teach outside because they don’t have a school building.  Some have class sizes of 50 to 70 students, and some manage three different classrooms of students simultaneously.  This just deepens my admiration for the commitment of these people to their own professional development.

We had great fun in our sessions discussing the instructional strategies.  Many of the participants have questions about how to differentiate instruction and how to apply the strategies for different topics or grade levels.  A big aha for my group on cooperative learning was that each group could be doing the same thing.  Some were under the impression that cooperative learning required expert and home groups as used in a jigsaw.  Murray’s group put him through the paces discussing different application for graphic organizers and Tish had great fun engaging the participants in synectics activities.  Here are some photos of us in action:

At the end of the day we had some spare time and took the opportunity to go for a quick walk in the neighborhood around the AIPTF office.  We soon ran into some young boys on the street and I asked if I could take their picture.  They were delighted to see themselves on the LCD after I took the picture.  As you can imagine, more boys showed up in a hurry and we soon had 5 shadows!  We’ve noticed that you don’t see many women or girls out and about.  The ratio is about 95% men and 5% women on the street at any given time.  Here are some photos of our new friends.  I have a feeling they’ll be hanging around tomorrow looking for us.

Here is the AIPTF building.  If you can make out the orange box out front, you can probably tell that it is a transformer box that houses major electrical connections for the street.  The box is unlocked and one door was open!  Yikes.

Here’s a fascinating school sign:

Today was Sunday and some different things were going on.  As we drove to work there were folding tables in piles along the road.  Our driver told us that the day is a market day.  As well, throughout the day I could hear music of many different faiths being played.  At some point a parade went by with drums and other instruments, which was most likely a wedding or other religious celebration.

Tomorrow, the participants will be doing the presenting.  We are looking forward to what they will do!