Category: Research in Action

When students become autonomous learners

Neeraja Raghavan
If you are a teacher who wants to understand student-centered learning, or a teacher who wants to motivate her students to take ownership of their learning and enjoy and understand what they are learning and why, this is a research paper you must read.

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Paying attention without knowing it!

Neeraja Raghavan
As teachers aren’t we always on the lookout for ways to enhance our students’ attention? What if there was a simple way of doing it? Á la advertisers? There may be a lot of debate on the priming phenomenon, but if it helps us ready our students to seek knowledge, then why not try it? Lead your children into your next lesson by subtly exposing them to various aspects of the topic first.

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Handling those unexpected questions

Neeraja Raghavan
There are many studies conducted on the kind of questions teachers ask students but hardly any on the kind of questions students ask teachers. Students can sometimes bowl us over with the kind of questions they ask, and how we respond to them is a reflection of who we are and what our skills as teachers are.

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Online learning: the students’ view

Neeraja Raghavan
When one thinks of online learning, the issues that come to mind are those of accessibility and connectivity. We also think about how quickly teachers have had to adapt to these new methods of teaching. But have we stopped to ask how students feel about using online platforms to learn? Simply because they were born in the digital era, are we assuming that they know their way around anything digital? What can we do to make online learning comfortable for both the teacher and the student?

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How does practice change?

Neeraja Raghavan
How can a teacher turn reflective and transform her teaching practice? What are her underlying beliefs and can she change them? Or perhaps revisit them? While there is no prescription for a teacher to turn reflective, it is clear that this is a journey. And in this journey, the teacher can adopt a few practices that may help her reflect.

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How can a teacher’s stress be reduced?

Neeraja Raghavan

Teachers are a stressed lot. Whether in India or outside, the reasons for a teacher’s stress and eventual burn out are not very different, which is why even a research paper on individual stress management in a Canadian teacher preparation program will be very helpful for teachers in India to peruse.

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Teachers as learners

Neeraja Raghavan
If you like reading stories, then you are going to enjoy reading the monograph that Neeraja Raghavan discusses in her column. Find out how a group of adults, by playing with a random set of objects, ends up “inventing” the definitions of volume and weight. Does this research with a group of adults tell us teachers something?

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Parents: A forgotten treasure?

Neeraja Raghavan
How can parents get involved in their child’s education in more deeper and committed ways? While there is no single formula that may work universally, a workable model can be developed for each one’s context. This month’s research paper offers a rich reading experience especially for school teachers where parents either play a minimal role or none at all.

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