Edu Research & Insights

The reason young children matter is because international research demonstrates conclusively that 90% of brain growth occurs by age 5. This means that children’s environment and the inputs and support they receive in their early years will have an enormous impact on their future – both in school and beyond. Children are enrolled in school but failing to learn even the basics. This crisis may begin long before children ever enter grade 1. Credence Learning Foundation blog has consolidated the findings of IECEI study. The IECEI Study is a longitudinal study that followed a cohort of 14,000 four-year-olds from age 4 to age 8 in rural areas of three states of India: Assam, Rajasthan and Telangana. The first of its kind in India for its scale and its longitudinal, mixed-methods design. 4 Major findings: 1.     Seven out of every ten sampled 4-year-olds already attend a preschool programme. With access no longer the main issue, India is well placed to invest in the quali

Bill Gates, a prominent technologist and Co-founder of Microsoft, is sharing his experience on school education. Bill Gates has visited Summit Public School at US. He shares his experience of this school. And his foundation too is working with this school to adopt few strategies. Below are few thoughts from Bill Gates published in GatesNotes. - Preparing our kids for college, a career, and life is a long journey. And as any parent or teacher will tell you, it’s not always easy. - Parents need to mentor, not direct. They should seek out their child’s opinions, encourage them to be self-directed learners, and expose them to as many new ideas, people, places and things as possible. - Summit schools are rooted in the unshakeable belief that  all  students have the potential for success. This belief fuels the staff’s relentless drive to test new approaches to continuously improve the student experience, so they graduate prepared for college and life. Summit’s unique

- Poor academic performance leads to stress, and again very high stress leads to underperformance. - In few cases, the poor academic performance is not only because of the child's less effort, but also the development of the child too. - There are many developmental disorders in children and adolescents which can cause difficulties for students to perform in school.  imagesource: everydaypower.com - The first step in the learning process is Attention, followed by comprehension, encoding and retrieval of information. Disruption in any of these steps can lead to poor learning and performance in school. - Anxiety disorders are some of the most common psychiatric conditions in children. A child may be preoccupied with their worries leading to an inability to pay attention.  - Some of the common developmental disorders are: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),  Specific learning disabilities,  Intellectual impairment,  Autism Spectrum Disorder. Click to read full

National Digital Library is an initiative by HRD ministry. It is a huge collection of learning resources (68 lakh books) from primary to PG level. Students  can use it free of charge.  To register, go to: https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in Educational materials are available for users ranging from primary to post-graduate levels – items available in more than 70 languages. National Digital Library is a 24x7 ubiquitous knowledge resource that is accessible to anyone with internet access and it is built to enable the rise of Digital India. The Minister said that anybody can access the digital library anytime and anywhere absolutely free of cost. NDLI is a digital library that makes quality learning resources available to all learners and  has 1.7 Crore content from more than 160 sources, in over 200 languages, everywhere and 30 lakh users are registered on NDL Share with your students and frnds also. This is an amazing resource . Make it a point to get yourself register

As we all know, the relationship between business and technology is constantly evolving. The right technology can launch businesses to a higher level of performance and achievement. In the upcoming years, we expect exponential changes in every area of technology. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will alter most industries, making way for virtual helpers and myriad cases for automatisation. We see huge potential for smart homes and smart cities, through the implementation of *Internet of Things (IoT)* . Thus, certain upcoming fields are growing very fast and can prove to be great career fields.  *Let’s take a look at the top 10 careers in IT.*   🔶 *Artificial Intelligence -* Artificial Intelligence is all about creating software and machines that exhibit intelligent behavior. To be an AI expert you need to have basics in Probability, Statistics, Linear Algebra and excellent reasoning and problem-solving skills. 🔶 *DevOps* - It is a software development strategy which bridg

This is about Sea world illustration made by Neal Agarwal. Highlights: - It discovers sea area depth stage by stage. - It gets you into deep sea, as deep as 11 kms. - Sea creatures are introduced. - It points out the resting place of Titanic wreckage, and also the deepest point in the occean human ever have been. - You can see various species of sharks. - Very good to understand geography (sea area), and also good science subject as well. - If you are using this resource at school, it creates a good view on projector. Click or Copy the below link to discover: https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ Additional resource: Read and watch video- *Mariana Trench - The Sea Level, 2550 kilometers long and 69 kilometers wide, is located in the Pacific Ocean, with more than 11,000 Meters of depth  space which is located around the Philippines and Japan. The highest peak in the world is Mount Everest at a height of 8,800 meters. Thus whole Mount Everest can be easily sunk at thi

By Maaz Mohammad A.Q Children have great imagination and thinking. And when it comes to imagination, it is very important for child's thinking skills. As enstein too emphasized, 'Imagination is more important than knowledge'. We should create situations for children to imagine. Most adults feel that children know only the things which we teach them. But it is not true. Children self-learn many things by observing things around them. Children reflect and question themselves when they see things around them. They are the powerful observers. They are the little scientists. They don't have pre-assumptions as much as we adults have. This in one way makes their understanding clear.  image source: pinterest.com How could we teachers and parents guide children to develop strong knowledge and understanding of the world.  - It could be simply by listening to them patiently. - Being humble and polite during the conversation. - Responding to their questions and answers

A parent is a child's first teacher and should remain their best teacher throughout life. However best a preschool teacher may be, the parents play a very primary and important role in a child's care, character building, and learning. A good parent-teacher partnership is the need of the hour in the child's upbringing especially in Preschool years. According to a research finding children with highly involved parents had enhanced social functioning and fewer behaviour problems. The teacher and the parent should figure out how to better engage together in a child's learning. To engage with the child, first of all, it is important to have a strong rapport. The first step in the rapport building is listening to the child. Parents could start this by discussing the daily happenings of the school. This involvement indirectly strengthens the bonding between the child and the parent, which is very important for later years. Some of the researches also highlight that better life

*Collapse of Parenting* 1) Statistically the biggest indicator of success at 32 years is having self-control when a kid is 12 years old. Success is determined by a lot of factors namely no drug , no criminal violation, having a stable job, good citizenship etc 2)  Make your kids speak their native language at home and with you. Reduce generation gap by involving their grandparents in their lives. If possible try to convince their grand-parents  to move in with you. 3) Make them feel proud of their heritage. Kids nowadays are ashamed to talk their language or wear their cultural attire. In a quest to fit in and assimilate they want to no longer associate with their roots. 4) Have a friend circle with folks whose kids also are able to communicate in the same mother tongue. This way the kids can talk the language among themselves. 5) Do not give them smart phones until you know they are responsible. Buy them a dumb phone if required. This phone will fulfill the needs. 6) He went onto comp

Most of us have experienced our life's 'sweet 16'. In this age usually we face our 10th standard board exam. After the board results are announced the new heroes and heroines appear on TV and newspaper. Is the knowledge so glamorous. Let's analyse some practical issues. Have you ever thought why do we give so much importance to performance of 10th standard alone? Is not the learning of the previous years important? One major cause among the many causes which is creating more importance for 10th standard is, the 'Marks card' of board exam. The reason is, this marks card is considered for higher education, job and few legal/government office procedures. Because of this we focus on 1 year result/marks, ignoring a decade of education happened till 10th. The other reason is the answer sheet is not evalvated by the teachers who taught them. I e. A third person does board exam paper correction. Article is continued after the below picture. Image source: aut

English is the leading world language. imagesource: http://www.flanderstoday.eu The number of non-native or second language speakers of English now outnumber those of primary or native speakers of English. In many cases, non native speakers use English as a "practical tool” and also as a “working language”. Non native speakers are those people whose mother tongue is non English.  Important role of English is of a  lingua franca  or common second language. The ‘power’ of English was initially based on political and military factors, most notably the expansion of the British Empire. As they expanded the British empire, the English language got developed in those countries. Facts: English vocabulary borrows heavily from other languages — particularly Latin, Greek and French. The Oxford English Dictionary runs to 23 volumes and 615,000 words. The equivalent German dictionary contains 180,000. English is always a bottom up approach. Implicitly that there’s a quality to the

image source: https://counsellingservicevancouver.com When a birthday celebration is taken as a social status, there is need for introspection because your child can be the next victim. I am a psychiatrist and few days back I had this six year old child as my patient. His parents indicated no obvious cause for his depression. To assess the problem I started a conversation with him, asking all kinds of general questions. Intermittently I asked if somebody said anything to him, which he refused everytime. In the same flow I asked when is your birthday and suddenly he started crying. I knew I hit the right chord. He had his birthday one and half month back and a birthday for a child is a big occasion. It’s the day when he/she gets all the limelight, specially nowadays when birthdays are celebrated like big occasions in school where you have to give all kinds of gifts to the whole class, cake cutting, sweets and many times even a party. Seeing and expecting what his classmates

A student studying in Russia says: The highest score for most of the exams in Russia is 5. If a student does not answer any question and returns back his exam paper blank, with no question answered, he gets 2 out of 5. In my first days at the University of Moscow, I did not know about this system and I was surprised and asked Dr. Theodor Medraev: "Is this fair that a student did not answer any question and you give him 2 out of 5? Why not give him a zero ? Isn't that the right way ?" He answered: "How can we give a Human Being a zero ?  How can we give him a zero to someone who was getting up at 7 am to attend all the lectures ? How can we give him a zero since he got up in this cold weather, and used public transport and reached to do the exam in time, and tried to solve the questions ? How can we give him a zero for the nights he used to study and spent his money on pens and notebooks and bought a computer for studying ? How can we give him a zero when he left all

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*Rhyming Words* Might be useful to some of you. ᵇᵃᵗ, ʰᵃᵗ, ʳᵃᵗ, ᶜᵃᵗ, ˢᵃᵗ, ᶠᵃᵗ, ᵐᵃᵗ, ᵖᵃᵗ, ᶜᵃᵇ, ᵈᵃᵇ, ᵗᵃᵇ, ᶠᵃᵇ, ⁿᵃᵇ, ᵍᵃᵇ, ˡᵃᵇ, ʲᵃᵇ, ᵍʳᵃᵇ, ᶜʳᵃᵇ,  ᵇᵃᵍ, ᵗᵃᵍ, ʳᵃᵍ, ʷᵃᵍ,  ᶜᵃⁿ, ᵖᵃⁿ, ᵇᵃⁿ, ᶠᵃⁿ, ᵐᵃⁿ, ᵛᵃⁿ, ᵗᵃⁿ, ʳᵃⁿ,  ᵇᵃᵈ, ᵖᵃᵈ, ᵈᵃᵈ, ᵐᵃᵈ, ˡᵃᵈ, ᶜᵃᵈ, ˢᵃᵈ, ʰᵃᵈ, ᵃᵈᵈ, ᶠᵃᵈ, ᵍˡᵃᵈ,  ᶜᵃᵖ, ᵐᵃᵖ, ᵍᵃᵖ, ʳᵃᵖ, ˡᵃᵖ, ˢᵃᵖ, ⁿᵃᵖ, ᵗᵃᵖ, ᶜʰᵃᵖ, ᶜˡᵃᵖ,  ᵇᵃʸ, ˡᵃʸ, ᵈᵃʸ, ᵐᵃʸ, ʰᵃʸ, ⁿᵃʸ, ᵖᵃʸ, ʲᵃʸ, ʷᵃʸ, ˢᵃʸ, ʳᵃʸ,  ᵍᵃˢ, ʰᵃˢ,  ᵈᵃᵐ, ʲᵃᵐ, ʳᵃᵐ, ʸᵃᵐ, ᵖʳᵃᵐ, ᵗʳᵃᵐ, ᵐᵃ’ᵃᵐ,  ʷᵃˣ, ᶠᵃˣ, ᵗᵃˣ, ᵃˣᵉ, ᶜʳᵃˣ,  ᶻᵉⁿ, ᵐᵉⁿ, ᵈᵉⁿ, ᵖᵉⁿ, ʰᵉⁿ, ᵗᵉⁿ, ʸᵉⁿ, ᵏᵉⁿ,  ᵇᵉᵗ, ᵖᵉᵗ, ᵍᵉᵗ, ˢᵉᵗ, ᵐᵉᵗ, ᵛᵉᵗ, ⁿᵉᵗ, ʷᵉᵗ, ˡᵉᵗ,  ᵇᵉᵈ, ʷᵉᵈ, ᶠᵉᵈ, ʳᵉᵈ, ˡᵉᵈ, ᵇᵉᵍ, ᵖᵉᵍ, ˡᵉᵍ, ᵏᵉᵍ,  ˢᵉᵃ, ᵗᵉᵃ, ᵖᵉᵃ, ᵇᵉᵉ, ʷᵉᵉ, ᶠᵉᵉ, ᵗᵉᵉ, ᵍᵉᵉ, ˢᵉᵉ,  ᶠiᵇ, ʳiᵇ, nib, ᵇiᵇ, ᵇiᵍ, ᵖiᵍ, ᵈiᵍ, ᵐiᵍ, ᶠiᵍ, ʷiᵍ, ʲiᵍ, ʳiᵍ,  ᵇiᵗ, ᶠiᵗ, ʰiᵗ, ᵏiᵗ, ᵖiᵗ, ˢiᵗ,  ᵈiᵈ, ʰiᵈ, ᵇiᵈ, ˡiᵈ, ᵏiᵈ, ʳiᵈ,  ᵇiⁿ, ᵗiⁿ, ᶠiⁿ, ˢiⁿ, ᵖiⁿ, ʷiⁿ,  ᵈiᵖ, ˢiᵖ, ⁿiᵖ, ᵗip, ʰiᵖ, ˡip, ᵖiᵖ, ᶻiᵖ, ʳiᵖ,  ᶠiˣ, ᵐiˣ, ˢiˣ, ᵇᵒˣ, ᶠᵒˣ, ᵒˣ, ᵇᵒᵈ, ᵖᵒᵈ, ᶜᵒᵈ, ʳᵒᵈ, ᵍᵒᵈ, ˢᵒᵈ, ⁿᵒᵈ, ᵗᵒᵈ,  ᵇᵒⁿ, ᵈᵒⁿ, ˢᵒⁿ,  ᵇᵒʸ, ᶜᵒʸ, ᵗᵒʸ, ʲᵒʸ,  ʰᵒᵗ, ˡᵒᵗ, ᶜᵒᵗ, ⁿᵒᵗ, ᵈᵒᵗ, ᵖᵒᵗ, ʲᵒᵗ, ʳᵒᵗ, ᵍᵒᵗ,  ᵐᵒᵇ, ᶠᵒᵇ, ʳᵒᵇ, ʰᵒᵇ, ˢ

Well, it is strongly agreed fact that traits like perseverance and collaboration are seen as key to success in college and the workplace. And employers are also reporting that fresh graduates lack these skills. In many countries educators now pride themselves in preparing students academically for the next step of career, luckily with that the effort is also on to make people emotionally ready as well — with the social skills, like strength of character, resilience and integrity, needed to succeed. Many researches are now showcasing the  strong connection  between the social and emotional skills of students and their cognitive development, more schools are emphasizing “soft skills” such as communication, collaboration, self-awareness and problem-solving as part of a trend known as social and emotional learning, or SEL. Yes there are also many challenges in implementing SEL program. Like, big challenge is  determining  how to measure social and emotional development. Unlike math or hist

Currently our syllabus is very theoretical and it is left for students to create imagination themselves to think on the concept deeply. Imagine if primary grade physics is taught through this kind of practical examples, which we are gonna describe now. Imagine if concepts of Force, motion, speed, weight, balance etc. is taught this way: Case study: Do you Know why Railway does not allow you to choose seats?  *Would you believe that the technical reason behind this is PHYSICS.* Booking a seat in a train is far more different than booking a seat in a theatre. Theatre is a hall, whereas train is a moving object. So safety concern is very high in trains. Indian railways ticket booking software is designed in such a way that it will book tickets in a manner that will distribute the load evenly in a train. Let me take an example to make things more clear : Imagine there are sleeper class coaches in a train numbered S1, S2 S3... S10, and in every coach there are 72 seats. So when some one fir

During my discussion with a fresh out of college engineer to proceed with a Masters in engineering, he asked me how does the masters degree currently benefit in terms of Job and salary. Is the time spent in school and extra college year, only to buy Food, House, car, luxury, diseases and inevitable death.? If this is the case, then we teachers are just traders and businessmen. Currently we are compromising with higher education on the pretext of short term job oriented courses. This might seem a non problematic shift, but the Professor George D Kuh of Indiana University, predicts that it is dangerous shift for coming generations. Below are some reflections from Professor George's article written in Harvard Business Review. One of the dominant narratives in the media is that 'we need to produce more workers  now  who can do whatever is needed  now'. If this is the case, then who will build the future. To clarify my thoughts, I gonna quote the below words: "M

The ASER stands for Annual Status of Education Report. This ASER 2018 report is published on January 15th 2019. ASER 2018 is the thirteenth ASER report. The report was first published in the year 2005. The Annual Status of Education, ASER report is prepared by the NGO Pratham which measures the school learning outcomes in India . Some facts of survey: The report was based on an annual household survey which covered whopping 5.46 lakh children in 596 rural districts across the country. ASER 2018 is a nation-wide household survey that provides a snapshot of children’s schooling and learning for a representative sample of children across rural India. Children in the age group 3 to 16 are surveyed to find out their enrollment status inschool or pre-school. Children in the age group 5 to 16 are assessed one-on-one to understand their basic reading and arithmetic abilities. ASER continues to be the only national source of information about children’s foundational skills across Indi

- Many parents visit preschools and share their strong academic performance expectations for their lil lil little children. - They feel that in technology driven world their child should start academic reading, writing very much sooner. And few teachers also share the same thought. "How many letters can Riyan recognise?" "Can Sam identify all the numbers in the table." "Can Ramesh write the paragraph in cursive writing book." - 'Our fast-paced society may give you the impression that your child needs to learn more academic skills—and sooner than ever before. However, the reality is that the "soft" social skills they gain in early childhood—through the slow, simple processes of playing and interacting, engaging with their families, and paying attention to the world around them—will serve them much better and for much longer'. - The softy softy people skills are crucial, as we will not let go of people however technological advance we

A couple who leaned towards alternative education started a Journey with ‘Sarang’ alternative school initiative. As government school teachers, they were themselves disillusioned with the limitations of formal education. And what next, They quit the job to fulfill Sarang dream. They dreamt of a school environment that is close to reality- open, democratic and with fluid boundaries. What if I say, this is your classroom... The kids at Sarang introduced to each other not as classmates, but as brothers and sisters. What do they learn with?- A barren land. How big is the classroom/learning Lab?- Its onnnnlllyyy, 12 Acres. Where it is located?- Attappady, near Palakkad, Kerala, India. At this alternative learning area, ‘There were very few trees, and the only water source had dried out completely. But this would be a perfect place for the children to learn about life and survival’. Where is my food?- All vegetables, fruits, and grains that were needed fo

Today when I look back at what I learned during my formidable days of schooling, I see the so called punishments from my be loved teachers as great learning in life, for example : 1. Stand up on the bench - Take a holistic view, look at the big picture 2. Stand with hands up - Aim high, reach higher 3. Stand facing the wall - Introspection 4. Stand outside the class - Learn through observation, take a world view 5. Kneel down - Humility 6. Murga Bano - Physical endurance 7. Clean the blackboard - Forget and forgive, start with a fresh slate 8. Finger on your lips - boast less 9. Hold your ears - listen more 10. Touch your toes - Be flexible 11. Write down a line 25 times - work towards perfection 12. Detained after school - Dont join the rat race...be exclusive. Perspective matters.. Source: received through WhatsApp Message

*The Madras High Court recently cautioned that teachers cannot be blamed for student suicides merely on account of disciplinary acts carried out by them in good faith*. To this end, Justice RMT Teekhaa Raman has observed, "... it is seen that, when teachers, in the interest of the institution, school/college, to correct any mistake done by the students in order to cultivate good habits and get rid of bad habits, such as stealing money, the accused being teachers on their school have scolded for stealing money and such act of the accused/teachers cannot be said to amount to abetment of suicide..." The Court noted went on to note that there has been a rise in similar cases where teachers are being blamed for student suicides. "In another case, it seems that the student has taken extreme decision to put an end to his life by committing suicide by hanging, as he has obtained less marks in Mathematics which resulted in, the concerned Lecturer was arrayed as an accused.