Blog

The landscape of teachers training is experiencing an exponential growth in India.🇮🇳 As the nation strives to transform into a developed economy, the professional development of educators is more important than ever.

Check out : https://shorturl.at/rMOZ2 , as Mr. Vinod Malhotra, Chairman - Academic Council, Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research (STTAR) and Advisor - Jaipuria Group, shares his insights of the essence and efforts of STTAR with The Interview World.

A seasoned beaurucrat with over 4 decades of experience, Mr. Malhotrta talks about how educators must be equipped to leverage technology effectively in this globalised world.

Published On:- February 10, 2024
Published by:- theinterview.world
Link:- https://theinterview.world/empowering-educators-for-tomorrow-through-active-mentoring/

In a noble initiative to celebrate the remarkable teaching talents of India, the Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research (STTAR), a prominent institution in the field of education, proudly unveils the National Teachers’ Olympiad.

Scheduled for December 9-10, 2023, the event offers a unique platform for teachers and aspiring instructors to showcase their pedagogical skills and gain national recognition.

Educators from across the country can participate in this comprehensive online test that evaluates their knowledge and teaching prowess in both English and Hindi. The test is open to in-service teachers, aspiring educators, school principals, heads of departments, teacher trainers, private tutors, former teachers, ed-tech teachers, and education influencers. 

With this, they can better understand their strengths and weaknesses and hone their instruction abilities. This inclusive approach ensures a level playing field for all educators, irrespective of their teaching domain. Moreover, teachers and instructors can participate in one or both days of the event to improve their chances of accomplishing a higher rank. 

In the rapidly evolving landscape of Industry 4.0, educators will have to play a crucial role in the holistic development and future-proofing of students. According to the Ministry of Education, the Indian education system comprises over 14.89 lakh schools, over 95 lakh teachers, and almost 26.52 crore students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in pre-primary and higher secondary levels.

In such a scenario, educators must evolve consistently by gauging their capabilities and embracing the latest tools and methodologies for uniform growth of students and enhanced learning outcomes.

The National Teachers’ Olympiad will also offer substantial rewards, including cash prizes, an All India Rank, and a plethora of career growth opportunities. The top-ranking participants will be awarded cash prizes, with the highest achiever receiving Rs 4,00,000 while the second and third rank holders will be awarded Rs 2,00,000 and Rs 1,00,000, respectively. 

In addition, the top 20 All India Rank holders will receive a cash award of Rs 25,000 each, while those securing the top 200 and 500 ranks will be presented with cash prizes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000, respectively. As recognition, every participant will receive an All India Rank, a personalised competency report, and a rank improvement plan.

The participants will also receive exclusive benefits such as free access to a self-paced learning course offered by STTAR, a detailed knowledge report on the “21st Century Framework for Teachers,” and the prestigious ‘’STTAR Certificate of Excellence’’ in association with Global Education Futures and The Weaving Lab.

”Proficient educators are the foundation of a strong and prosperous society. In this regard, the National Teachers’ Olympiad is a tribute to the contributions of our teachers, providing them with the opportunity to demonstrate, foster and receive acclaim for their talent. The distinctive initiative comes as a testament to our commitment to promoting teaching excellence and making India the Vishwa Guru, a global leader in education and knowledge dissemination on the world map,” said Sushma Raturi, member secretary, Academic Council, STTAR.

Interested educators can register and find more information about the Olympiad at https://nto.sttar.in/.

Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research (STTAR) is a premier teachers’ training academy that is transforming the educational landscape with active engagement in five verticals: teacher training, curriculum development, research, school enrichment programmes and teacher competence testing.

Published On:- 29th November, 2023
Published by:- Education World
Link:- https://www.educationworld.in/sttar-announces-national-teachers-olympiad-to-promote-teaching-excellence/

Dr. Joseph Emmanuel, Director of Academics of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) delivered an insightful online session on the National Education Policy 2020, its impact, its implementation, and the way forward.

Dr. Joseph Emmanuel, Director of Academics of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), on Friday, September 15, delivered an insightful online session on the National Education Policy 2020, its impact, its implementation, and the way forward.

A strong proponent of NEP and competency-focused education, Dr. Emmanuel addressed over a thousand educators from schools across India in a highly informative session facilitated by Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research (STTAR).

Laying out the vision of NEP at the outset, he said, “Basically, the NEP focusses on four major areas: Equity, Excellence, Inclusivity and Access. After the launch of NEP, the Indian education system has seen two NCFs – the National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education. These two curricula are aimed at taking ahead the implementation of NEP in a synchronized manner and it should be the aim of all institutions to provide quality education to all children.”

Dr. Emmanuel highlighted the major areas of focus for NEP and emphasized the need for a shift to competency-focused teaching and learning, transforming assessments, tracking student progress across school years, holistic development of each child, and standard setting and accreditation.

“Competency focused education is a major area in which CBSE has been working. It involves curricular interventions, pedagogical interventions, assessment reforms, student enrichment activities and development of resource material and capacity building of teachers,” Dr. Emmanuel said.

As teachers were the predominant audience of the session, Dr. Emmanuel shared a good number of references to resource material for teachers of all grades and domains to empower their teaching skills. These included samples of pedagogical processes, blueprints and assessment items and rubrics. He strongly advocated the implementation of experiential learning pedagogies like art and sports integrated learning, storytelling, toy-based learning.

“Education has to be child-centric and inclusive to ensure individual development. An enabling environment for competency-focussed education can be created through transformation in content, pedagogy, assessments and capacity building,” he said. He spoke of SAFAL as an upcoming platform to assess key competencies in students. He stressed upon need to strengthen School Quality Assessment and Assurance (SQAA), as envisioned in NEP, through a framework comprising seven key domains.

Dr. Emmanuel has an experience of 30 years in the field of education. He is leading the implementation of NEP in CBSE schools across India.

The session was managed by STTAR which is a premier teachers training academy with expertise in professional development of educators, curriculum development, research, and school enrichment.

Sushma Raturi, member secretary of STTAR, who hosted the session, said the address by Dr. Joseph Emmanuel is an attempt to educate and create widespread awareness about the implementation of NEP 2020. In fact, some of STTAR’s upcoming programmes are deeply aligned with the vision of NEP, including a three-day programme on ‘Early Childhood Education As Envisioned in NEP’ in September and a National Teachers’ Olympiad to provide teachers a country-wide platform to test their competence and have a roadmap for professional development. The Olympiad will be held in December 2023.

In today’s society better known as the “Knowledge Society”, schools cannot remain unaffected by the sea of changes that are taking place in terms of the integration of technology in the education space. The traditional methods of teaching, such as memorizing and theoretical learning, are passé.

This new learning environment requires an aggressive technology-related teacher training perspective. Furthermore, with the advent of revolutionary AI tools like ChatGPT, teacher training becomes way more pressing. While a lot of educational institutions across the globe have aggressively cracked down on the tool, with appropriate teacher training it can prove to be a boon for the education segment.

There is a need to create and incorporate pedagogical innovations and these require training that can be flexible and involve teachers in collaborative digital projects, encouraging creativity so that the same innovation, creativity and interdisciplinary learning can percolate to school communities.

It is important to train teachers in technology to create interactive classrooms so that educators can find new ways and means of making the lessons meaningful and engaging. Learning and teaching are co-dependent. Simply reading from a textbook is not the end of a teacher’s job, just as listening to a teacher’s monologue is not good enough for a student to comprehend the concepts of the subject. The teacher needs to understand from the perspective of the student as to what would make a classroom session significantly more intriguing. Every teacher training course for integrating technology in education offers practical classroom sessions as an integral part of the course, with each candidate being mentored for making the classroom teaching sessions more engaging and interesting for the benefit of the student.

A number of organizations who believe that mere content updating of teachers will enhance teacher effectiveness, are not helping their teachers. We cannot overlook training in the area of skill development, pedagogy, curriculum implementation, classroom management and assessment. Some of the reasons why teachers must be trained in technology are that teacher training programs equip teachers with new methods to keep their classroom and curriculum fresh, and exciting and provide access to new styles of teaching. Gamification and use of various apps make learning more interesting or enjoyable. It means that we take activities that already exist and add elements or features to make them more interactive and challenging, and therefore more engaging.

Technology also levels the field of opportunity for students but it can only happen when staff training is an ongoing process because technology is an ever-changing and dynamic field.  These techniques form an important part of a teacher’s remit, and training programmes empower them and teach them how to apply them effectively in the classroom. There has also been a paradigm shift in the manner in which students are dealt with. The most powerful reason for advocating that teachers be trained in technology is the emergence of new codes & languages that have completely transformed the way we access knowledge, process and transmit it.

The National Education Policy(NEP) 2020 extensively focuses on experiential learning, involving active participation and hands-on learning experience of students. This again requires teachers to be trained in innovative teaching strategies that encourage student engagement and participation.

A comprehensive, consistent teacher training is the need of the hour-: 

Enhances student engagement: Technology integration can improve student engagement and motivation by developing a more personalised learning experience. Regular teacher training in this regard can allow teachers to acquire the skills to formulate engaging multimedia content that caters to the different requirements of students.

Improved teacher competence: Uniform teacher training allows teachers to design the required skills and knowledge to incorporate technology tools effectively into their teaching practices. It empowers teachers to create a more engaging learning environment to enhance learning outcomes.

Regular teacher training sessions can also empower teachers with the necessary skills to leverage technology tools that enable collaborative learning like online discussion forums and group projects.

ChatGPT can be a beneficial tool for teachers to improve their teaching approaches. The tool can help educators to design interactive quizzes, games, and other engaging content for students.

Additionally, it can also support teachers to create a better understanding of its probable uses in the classroom. However, prior to utilising ChatGPT in the classroom, teachers should ensure they have a good understanding of its basics and this is where teacher training comes into play.

It is also important to consider that while ChatGPT can offer answers to a host of questions, only a human teacher can offer a personalised learning experience. Moreover, educators are comprehensively trained to deliver feedback and evaluate student learning, which is essential for student success, something which tools like ChatGPT are not capable of.

Lastly, without proper teacher training, it can prove detrimental to experiment with practical teaching methods in a real classroom environment, as the students may fail to properly grasp the concepts and fail to perform as expected.

Conclusion

In nutshell, the new learning environment requires an aggressive technology-related teacher training perspective. This calls for continuous training sessions, not merely for teachers’ autonomous learning but also for a strong implementation strategy that is reflected in the work carried out by teams.

By Dr. Neeta Bali,
Member, Academic Council
Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research (STTAR)

Source: Curriculum Magazine
Link: https://curriculum-magazine.com/acquiring-digital-competencies-for-teachers-is-a-must/
Published on: 12th March 2022

Education is progressive, as is life. Neither stand still. What you learned today gets added to your knowledge base and this gets bigger. You are continually learning - from the day you are born until the day you die. Your experiences never stop and your learning from these helps to shape your personality and character. It makes you who you are.

Some individuals have a greater knowledge and experience of some topics or themes and should share this with others. It is important that everyone, from parents to teachers to managers to professors is given the time to "catch up" with developments in the domains in which they aspire to develop competencies.

None of us have the time to pursue all the avenues we are interested in. We rely on others to share that with us during our lifetime.

Ways of delivering education are constantly changing and expanding. Many educators are not fully aware of these. Consider how one area of Maths changed over the centuries, from the abacus to the slide rule and log tables, to the calculator.

In the written word, we have gone from a quill and parchment, to a biro and paper, to word processing on a computer. We have seen drawing on walls of caves, to books and magazines to the internet and cameras on mobile phones.

If someone began a career as, say, a teacher 50 years ago, how could they have kept up with the new developments around them if they were not given an opportunity to experience these new techniques and ideas and bring them into their teaching schemes? Life today is not the same as life 50 years ago. You cannot compare education in 1972 with 2022.

The various vehicles for passing on knowledge have increased and educators need to be aware of all of these. Satellite communication allows instant access to all knowledge. However, the skills to seek out this knowledge have to be taught. These skills and the delivery of these skills change as education develops further. Educators and teachers must be given opportunities to experience these skills themselves and then introduce them into their teaching.

We are understanding more about how we learn. Our present teachers and educators need to identify these methods so that they can help the learners further develop their skills.

Everyone relies on somebody, somewhere to have the specialist skill and knowledge to complete a task or solve a problem. For example, a plumber, electrician or carpenter. We should not expect an electrician to be able to sort out a plumbing problem.

Should we expect a teacher to have the knowledge and skill to deliver a balanced education to our students at 25 years of age, or 40 or 55? Should we expect a doctor to know everything in medicine from broken bones to brain tumours or cancer? The knowledge base is really great and experience on the job needs time.

Everyone, no matter what job, needs time during their career to "rub shoulders" with experts, whether they are teachers, or doctors, or plumbers. Parents should not be left out of this equation either.

As educators in their own right, they need to be kept abreast of developments in the content and delivery of the education to their children. They can help reinforce ideas, even if they do not fully understand them.

Why teachers and educators need to be trained in the current education scenario could be a question asked 80 years ago and ever since. Now is no different to then. However, enlightened individuals and organisations, and head-teachers have taken up the cause and done something about it. It is a big positive and one that is paying dividends for all our students, teachers and educators.

By - Ken Joshua
Senior Advisor, Academic Council
Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research (STTAR)

Source: India Today
Link: https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/explained-why-teachers-and-educators-need-to-be-trained-in-the-current-education-scenario-2311768-2022-12-21
Published on: 21st December 2022

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is gaining prominence among education fraternity across India, especially in light of the emphasis on foundational learning in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Over and above the NTT diplomas, aspiring and in-service pre-primary teachers are now yearning for specific knowledge and skills that can make them more proficient and help them gain a professional edge as ECCE educators.

Saamarthya Teachers Training Academy of Research (STTAR), a premier academy for developing new-age pedagogical competencies in teachers, has identified a few key topics and areas that need special attention and has curated them in a one-of-its-kind certificate programme on Early Childhood Care and Education as envisioned in NEP 2020. Being conducted in collaboration with Early Childhood Association (India), the online programme will be held from November 10 to November 13, 2022, and will feature some of the best ECCE trainers, including Dr Swati Popat Vats, Ms Saswati Nanda Satpathy, Ms Carole Paul and Ms Poonam Kochitty.

THE PROGRAMME SESSIONS

Leveraging academic research and expert advice, STTAR has chosen most pertinent topics for sessions and workshops to cover all essential and important elements of ECCE. These sessions are:

Importance of Foundational Learning: To be helmed by Swati Popat Vats, this session will be a comprehensive overview of Early Childhood Care and Education. It will touch upon ECCE components such as foundational literacy, numeracy, cognitive development, gross and fine motor skills, and socio-emotional development of children.

Child Psychology and Parenting: This session will help you know and understand the triggers that influence a child’s behavior and shape personality in the formative years. It will enable participants to understand a child’s psychological, emotional and social needs and also learn the strategies that may be leveraged to bring harmony in the child’s growth into adolescence.

Phonics (Level 1 and Level 2): The session presents structured and systematic methodology of mastering the alphabetic code for raising early readers. This is an intensive workshop with optimum coverage to theory and practical teaching of International Synthetic Phonics techniques.

Storytelling (Level 1 and Level 2): The participants will learn how to incorporate storytelling in classrooms to explain complex concepts to young learners in an engaging manner. They will understand the key elements of narration – voice, tone, language, modulation and pace – and know different styles of storytelling by using props, puppets, music and movement.

Developing Critical Thinking Curriculum: The session focuses on the prerequisites for optimal growth in the early years. Participants will learn the importance of a conducive preschool environment, loving interactions, and exposure to language, numbers, shapes and colours. They will also get to know the strategies to trigger critical thinking through integration of subjects in the curriculum.

WHO WILL BENEFIT MOST FROM THIS PROGRAMME

The programme has been designed to make ECCE competencies highly accessible to in-service teachers and aspirants alike. It is highly recommended to aspiring pre-primary teachers with minimum of 10+2 qualifications and those who are already teaching foundational learning and want to upskill. Each participant will get a STTAR Certificate, in collaboration with Early Childhood Association, and STTAR’s global partners Global Education Futures and The Weaving Lab.

Source: Education World
Link: https://www.educationworld.in/sttar-certificate-programme-on-ecce-career-boost-for-pre-primary-teachers/
Published on: 10th November 2022

The modern education environment has become extremely competitive, and has considerably added to the burden of children with potential hazards to their physical and mental health. The bags they carry to their schools are heavier, the time they are required to spend in school has become longer, the number of activities they are now engaged in – over and above the studies – have increased, inevitably leading to pressure that creates stress and physical strain.

Surprisingly, parents seem more aspirational than the children and push them to engage, and indeed excel in multiple activities at the same time, as if there is no tomorrow. Previous generation of students, who are now parents, perhaps did not have so many opportunities, and such a wide range of scholastic and co-scholastic activities for engagement. They do not want their children to miss out, regardless of whether the child has the aptitude or willingness to perform. This phenomenon also creates avoidable stress, leading to certain serious health issues, in both physical and mental context. Children want to excel, their parents want them to achieve the highest, society and the peer pressure recognizes only high achievers. Such expectations from multiple quarters create a situation where a perfectly normal child would succumb to the pressure and start showing symptoms of mental stress, leading to mental health issues.

We recently suffered serious afflictions caused by Covid-19 that played havoc with the lives of many, destroyed many families, orphaned many children and led to job losses and consequent financial stress. This clearly added to the stress level of children and many drop-outs occurred across different parts of the country.

The pandemic also sent children scurrying indoors for many months at a stretch, depriving them of a school connect, time to play and be with their friends and peers.

All these factors whose recurrence can’t be wished away, will continue to impact children and mental health issues will become an important area of concern. Teachers will have to be equipped to observe, discern, and indeed handle these matters with alacrity and profound sense of responsibility. Some pointers towards identification of these symptoms and early detection may be helpful.

1. Continued absence of a child from school for many days is the first sign and teachers must immediately report this to the parents. Maybe parents are not fully aware. The child leaves home but does not attend school.
2. The child’s attendance is erratic, meaning that the student is in the school but skips the class and spends time in library, canteen or playfield to be alone.
3. Tendency to stay away from a group activity is the first sign of stress.
4. The child is absent-minded in class. There is a visible diminution in the attention span of children these days. The pandemic has only made it worse.
5. The child shows signs of irritability and picks up fights at the slightest provocation.
6. The child shows little interest in studies, sports or even in such activities that he or she enjoyed earlier.
7. There is a perceptible decline in academic performance.
8. The child’s energy levels are also visibly low.

There could be similar other signs of disinterest in anything which children ordinarily enjoy. Teachers, first of all, have to be empathetic and observant, exhibiting deep sensitivity to all children, and particularly to those who show any signs of abnormal behaviour. Teachers should then, without any delay, touch base with the parents and share the contours of unusual conduct seen in the child. Sometimes parents miss out on this. Interestingly, a child is not necessarily the same person at home and school.

Teachers must talk to such children, preferably alone or sometimes, if required along with the child’s close friends. Some children don’t open up with their parents, but may do so with teachers who they respect and love.

Above all, love and understanding is the biggest antidote of any stress or mental health issues.

Children, especially those with such tendencies, should be handled with kid gloves and care must be taken to detect them early, and do nothing to antagonize them.

Source: Times of India
Link: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/training-teachers-to-identify-mental-health-issues-among-children/
Published on: 12th October 2022