Reciprocal learning in the Indian sunshine Helen Martin Primary Geography Summer 2015.

Helen Martin Primary Geography Summer 2015.

During a study  tour of India, teachers from different cultural backgrounds spent time  together on shared geographical enquiry. Here Helen  describes how, as well helping to deepen relationships, genuinely wanting to learn from each other  is a vital part of global learning.During a study  tour of India, teachers from different cultural backgrounds spent time  together on shared geographical enquiry. Here Helen  describes how, as well helping to deepen relationships, genuinely wanting to learn from each other  is a vital part of global learning.

Starting  out

On the outskirts of Bangalore a group of teachers  from the UK waited  in the cool morning  sunshine  for their Indian contemporaries to arrive. The teachers from England had travelled to Sangam (Now Stepwell) Study Centre  in rural Silvepura, to work with teachers  from the other  side of Bangalore. As the taxis pulled up, disgorging six teachers  from Tumkur and Hosur, everyone’s nervousness  quickly gave way to enthusiastic  and excited greetings of ‘Namaste’.

Learning from each  other

The teachers  from the innovative ‘TVS Academies’ and my study tour group  met with one objective: to share and have fun learning about  enquiry-based geography. TVS prides itself on running  schools that focus on hands-on experiential learning for 3 to 17-year-olds  who will grow up with an understanding of sustainability, recycling and independent learning. Together  with Imogen Sahi (who co-manages the  Study Centre) we ran a geographical enquiry for the teachers. The enquiry provided opportunities for the teachers  to get to know each other  by sharing cultures and talking to each other. It was fantastic  to watch  as the group, having agreed  on a series of questions, walked off together to ask villagers about  water  in the village and the local environment. Our day was full of learning from each other:  sharing skills of enquiry learning, knowledge about  agriculture and development and their increasing impacts on water;  and of water  ‘sharing’ across the states  of Karnataka  and Tamil Nadu.

The group  visited the dry reservoir at Hessarghatta where  we created  images on the ground  to show the issues in the local area and their wider effects. Sounds of laughter  drifted across the sandy lake bed as this group  of geographers bonded and enjoyed each other’s company.

Sharing  experiences

A week later, the study group  visited the TVS Academy at Hosur. .... (please see Primary Geographer Summer 2015 edition for the full article.)

Equal learning

The power  of these  shared  moments came to the fore in the form of professional friendship and collaboration.  The time to listen fully to each other,  time to give the concept  of global learning a new shift in emphasis  (i.e. one that  enables  teachers to learn from each other,  as equals) and time to expand  our knowledge of each other.  These two groups  of teachers had breached 6000km  and very diverse settings  to support  each other  and create fun geographical memories  together. If only all in-service training days could be this good…

Developing scientific temperaments in students. National Summit on Quality Education. March 2014

National Summit on Quality Education: “Attaining Institutional excellence through teacher empowerment”

Effective Student Engagement: Innovative strategies and Approaches. Developing scientific temperaments in students. Imogen Sahi. March 2015.

In 2014 Imogen was delighted to be invited to the national summit for quality education held that year in Bangalore to share her ideas on constructivist approaches to the teaching of science to teachers from all over south India.

Her presentation shared pedagogical theory alongside practical methodologies and activities which she has developed as part of her ‘Sustainable scrap science’ project that she had run in schools local to Bangalore.

Please do be in touch if you would like to hear more about the sustainable scrap science project.

Making use of learning from Bangalore- Primary Geographer Article Spring 2015.

A group of PGCE students took part in an educational visit to Sangam (now Stepwell), near Bangalore in India, in order to experience learning in a distant place. Here Rohan and Katherine  reflect on how they applied the  learning to their geography teaching; but first their tutor,  Tessa, outlines her involvement in the  visit.

Introduction (Tessa Willy, Tutor)

In 2013 the DfE increased the number  of days that student teachers are required to spend in school during their teacher training. The DfE states that providers can use ten of these days as an ‘alternative placement’.  The idea behind this is for students to gain additional  experience  in, for example, PRUs, secondary  schools, special schools or children’s centres. Student  teachers  were able to choose where  to spend  this time as long as the National Curriculum was being taught in some form or other.

Having spent  a fascinating ten days at ‘The Land’,  which is an educational centre just on the outskirts of India’s fastest- growing  city, Bangalore, I looked into running  a two-week school experience  for our Primary PGCE students. (The Land is also the centre used by Helen Martin and Ruth Potts (2014) as the stimulus for their Primary Geography article ‘Enquiring minds and unique  places’). The response to our invitation to join the trip was staggering: six times the number of students applied than we had places for, and all of their applications were excellent, therefore the 12 participants were identified by lottery. We then  spent three months preparing for the visit, keeping uppermost in our minds the importance of the trip’s benefit for everyone involved in the process – both in the UK and India. I was familiar with Scoffham and Barnes’ work in this area; they describe such trips as being: ‘a powerful  learning experience  which transformed students’  thinking by creating dissonance  on a cognitive, emotional and existential level... by a model of transformational learning which highlights personal  growth  and development’ (Scoffham and Barnes, 2009).

Some of the PGCE students had received primary geography input during the course, and three  were geography specialists who understood the importance of considering both  differences  and similarities when  immersing their pupils in a distant  place study. The other  students soon came to the same conclusion, demonstrating an appreciation  of this facet when  sharing challenges  with the teachers in Indian schools, for example, teaching pupils with English as an additional language. We were impressed  by the high levels of aspiration demonstrated by the pupils in India, which tended to be not for material possessions or celebrity but for working in professions that  would contribute positively to their environment and society. Below, Leanne, Rohan and Katherine outline the outcomes from their work with pupils in the UK and India. This fedinto a piece of action research,  which was one of their PGCE assignments. These are informative and transferable, and will form the building blocks for work that  these students carry out with pupils for years to come.

(Please be in touch with us to access the full article.)

Wide World article- Bangalore's Changing rural-urban fringe Case study. GCSE Geography Magazine.

We are really pleased to be able to offer this case study of the development of Bangalore, written by Kiran Sahi with Jane Ferretti, published in Wide World Magazine's February edition.

Please do be in touch with us with how to access the full article.

On Teaching Geography

On Teaching Geography: This is an enquiry based observation activity which suggests a way that visiting teachers can gather information about our village in order to inform a comparative study. Silvepura is a changing village and therefore is in microcosm representative of what is happening to India as a whole.

Srirangapattanam area. South Karnataka.

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Enquiring Minds and Unique places. Primary Geographer Article Spring 2014

Enquiry and geographical questioning are the methodologies that we most use and encourage here during our CPD activities and study visits. The methodology is wonderful for understanding change and development in rural and urban settlement studies, for development of thinking skills, for enabling knowledge and understanding of another place, and for developing contrasting locality studies.

We encourage the use of enquiry not only during experiences and field work activities during our activities, but also as teaching resources for use with photographs, film clips, artefacts, and sound files.

Please find the link below to an excellent article on the use of enquiry which was featured in the spring 2014 edition of the Primary Geographer, co-Authored by Ruth Potts and Helen Martin.

Ruth Potts visited us during a study visit in 2012 which was co-ordinated by the Geographical Society. Helen Martin. Helen is chair of the early years and primary committee of the Geographical Society, and is one of our leaders.