Teachers’ Workshop was organized in the premise of Ace Higher Secondary School, Gairigaun, Kathmandu on October 26, 2016 to enhance and support the teachers. It was conducted by Mr. Umes Shrestha who focused on teaching skills and was facilitated by Mr. Abhishek Maskey who put his view as a student. It began with the statement “Students are (not) the problem: Teachers are (not) helpless.” The workshop well informed the teachers as well as workshop attendees with U-R-I survey, 7 ways of learning anything, 3-2-1 Take Away strategy, and many more.
In addition, the workshop explored the experience of reading habits of participants. The experiences differ from participants to participants which was a really fabulous experience. Besides, the expert shared U-R-I survey. U-R-I refers to ‘Understanding,’ ‘Retention,’ and ‘Involvement.’ According to the expert, adults can listen with understanding for 90 minutes; they can listen with retention (the ability to remember things) for 20 minutes; and we need to involve them in every 10 minutes. Unless we follow this procedure, didactic act turns out to be less effective. Therefore, the idea concluded with the statement and feel that give the learners how easily and effectively they learn.
Similarly, the idea of 7 ways to learning anything overwhelmed the attendees in the workshop. Those 7 ways were primacy, recency, chunking, write to remember, linking, unexpected, and revisit. We remember best what is done first and last, it is primacy and recency. So teachers should mention the important issues and points in the beginning and at the end. Further, chunking refers to making it small pieces i.e. divide the subject matter into small parts and present to the learners due to which they can learn easily. In addition, write to remember is another way to give effective consequence in teaching-learning process. If we write, we can remember easily and for long time. Linking is another way, in which tutor can link the subject matter with other familiar issue. Likewise, during teaching, the unexpected activities of the teacher attract the attention of the learners; hence the learners remain tuned with the teacher. Furthermore, revisit is one of the ways in the effectiveness of classroom activities. If we revise, we can remind easily. Thus, 7 ways of learning anything was a great idea for us.
Another idea obtained in the workshop was 3-2-1 Take Away strategy from the session. First, 3 important points or issues learnt from the session, secondly, 2 important issues – make sure that it should not be repeated in the previous 3 important issues, and thirdly, 1 most important point from the session – here the issue can be taken anyone from afore mentioned 3 and 2 important points. This idea can be used once a week to recap the subject matters discussed in the week. Hence, 3-2-1 Take Away strategy is good idea to revisit the course we have gone through.
More to say, the workshop continued with the statement ‘Teachers are not helpless’ because above mentioned ideas can support them as well as they can create different lesson plans. To be successful in teaching, a teacher should take the control of the ‘feel’ of the classroom; should know happy students learn better; and take your profession seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. Eventually, the philosophy delivered to teachers in the workshop was one of the best ways to understand the learners of 21st century.
Conclusively, the philosophy for teachers, 3-2-1 Take Away strategy, 7 ways of learning anything, and U-R-I survey absolutely enlightened the workshop attendees. It really added an enthusiasm to the attendees for the days to come. We wish to attend such workshops in the future. We expect enhancement workshops will well equip teachers with the changed scenario of education and meet the expected challenge of time. Consequently, the workshop ended with the statements “Students are not the problem” and “Teachers are not helpless.”
Kul Bahadur Rana
English Faculty
