When I went for my internship at school as a teacher practitioner recently, I came across students getting hurt on a daily basis. In spite, the teachers and school management very clearly instructed the students to walk quietly and slowly on stair case and play safely on playground still students were getting minor hurts.

I learned simple accidents such as trip, slips, scrapes and wounds were very common among children’s in day to day activities at school. However these little accident cause serious wound or injuries or even can lead to worsen the condition.

Assuring children’s safety is one of the top most priorities for school managements, teachers and parents.  Many accidents occur in school ranging from wound, bleeding, fracture, allergy, insect bite and even some health issue and all these needs a medical assistance swiftly.  Example a child can slip on some food that has been dropped in the canteen and it can lead to fracture. Another example, a child chokes whilst on eating food and the food stuck inside making difficult to breath.In this kind of scenario where medical assistance is required immediately and first aid should be administered before ambulances reaches the designation.

What is First Aid?

First aid is the support or assistance given to a person when sudden injury or illness takes place during emergency situation in order to preserve their life, ensures condition does not worsen and Immediate care for their soon recovery and pain relieve . It involves of initial intervention in a serious condition prior to professional medical help being available, while waiting for ambulance, as partial treatment of minor conditions, such as applying a plaster to a cut.

Importance of first aid training in school

First aid plays a very important role and its one of the life skill that student needs to be taught in school. First aid skills not only give students the ability to save a life – knowing how to respond in an emergency can also boost confidence, self-esteem, and teamwork and communication skills.

Hence every school should consider adding first aid training into their curriculum. The curriculum can focus on basic first aid details such as:

• What is first aid and their importance
• How to contact emergency line
• Basic infection control
• Precaution Methods and Hand washing
• How to address bleeding and blood loss immediately
• Burns and scalds
• General treatment of burns
• Pro and Cons for Burns
• Common causes for allergens
• Signs and symptoms
• Define Bites and Stings
• Types of Insects causes bites and stings
• Pro and cons for insect bites

The training can include, where student can be given real life examples to figure out what do in emergency situations. A well taught first aid strategy will not only make school safer, but also nearby community.

Benjamin Franklin once said: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

Making student to get interested in classroom lecturer can be a real challenge. There can be many factors which affect their engagement. Some of the causes for lack of interest among students can be family problems, addiction to technology, not focused, concentration, learning disabilities, emotional and physical difficulties.

On the other hand, as a teacher we have to try our best to influence their interest. In order to grab student’s attention, we need to think numerous creative ways. One of the key points to grab student concentration is to retain interest and make their learning better

Innovative lesson plan – The lesson plan should be made in such a way, that it should cater to all kinds of learning. The Teacher should not follow same kind of lesson plan for all the content and this will make teaching monotonous and student will lose their interest in some point of time. Instead, teacher can focus on blooms taxonomy, 5E module and multiple intelligent etc.,

Encouraging discussion – Teacher can give importance to learner centric way of teaching. The teacher should encourage interactive session among students and encourage discussion in classroom. Teacher should give equal opportunity to students to actively participate in classroom discussion.

Rewards and recognition – Reward and recognition plays an important role in class room. Rewards can act as a trigger for students and they will be encouraged to do good work beyond their expectation.

Building colorful Environment– Color is a powerful tool teaching aid and student can grasp new content easily if we teach through it. We can also encourage student to use colors while taking notes. Example: we can use different color chalks to teach two different methods.

Inspirational posters – we can use motivational quotes and posters around the classroom which can encourage student to focus on their studies.

Games/puzzle – Student can learn better when they actively involve into activities. Teacher can organize team building activities where students can work together and share their inputs. Through this student can collaboratively build on critical thinking, communicating and problem solving skill.

Based on these techniques, even a complex content can be taught much easier and it will grab everyone’s attention in the classroom. We should always look out for more creative way to engage our students in the classroom.As teacher, we need understand what student’s expectations are and upgrade our self accordingly.

Many students think mathematics is one of the toughest subjects and start to develop same attitude. But instead math is one of the very interesting subject. If mathematics can be turned into a game, it can become children’s favorite play.

I would like to share my experience on a recreational activity that I conducted for 8^th standard on statistics. The activity name called “Mathingo” and it was really fun and interesting for students.

LAYOUT OF THE GAME

As per bingo rules, I have prepare 5*5 grid leaving the center space as free. I have prepared 24 questions on mean, median, mode and range.  My class consisted of 56 students, so divide 7 groups with 8 members in each group. I have input all the answers in bingo grid.

INSTRUCTIONS OF THE GAME

• The students were divided into 7 groups.
• Bingo game is mostly played by individuals, however I have grouped the students together to learn collaboratively and they can enjoy, being in a group rather than playing individual.
• Each group will be given one ticket to play.
• I will show them the flash cards for each question and students  the problem collaboratively and derives the answer
• Based on the answer student will search for the right square on the card and marks it accordingly.
• There are three rewards/prizes for the game.
• The group which gets all the numbers to be marked off on a horizontal  line on score card says “BINGO FIRST LINE” and gets first line prize.

• The group which gets all the numbers to be marked off on two lines either vertically or horizontally  on score card says “BINGO” SECOND LINE “wins the second line prize
• The group which gets all the numbers to be marked off on the entire score card gets  full house  and they need to call “BINGO”,”BINGO”,”BINGO” and wins final prize.

LEARNING OUTCOME

The students thoroughly enjoyed this game. They learned collaboratively and worked together on solving the problems to derive the answers. This method of teaching was more successful than the normal class room method. Based on the “Mathingo Game” these were the learning outcome from students:

• They were able to calculate mean and median
• They knew to state Mean and Median formula
• They will be able to identify mode value from the given series of number.
•  They could compute Range Value

In tradition days, teacher was only the knowledge for student and teacher use to follow the text book and teach them. However, referring only to text book, the teacher was limiting their own knowledge and also the students’ knowledge. The teaching aids which they used only few which includes black board, charts and lab facility and working model occasionally for math & science subject.

This kind of teaching made student bored in their studies and lack of interest. The students were just learning the concept without understanding what they learn and why they need to learn those concepts as part of their academic. The teaching was taught only through book perspective rather than real life situation.

Today’s generation has plenty of reading and learning resources apart from classroom lecture and textbooks. The recent study says “the span of a child attention is 8 to 10 minutes”, how as a teacher can we grab attention throughout our class. What are the various ways can we simplify or make them to understand the concept what we are teaching them?

There are many innovative teaching aids that are available for us to facilitate in classroom using technology:

You Tube – In you tube there are plenty of e-modules and videos that are available which we can use for our teaching. Example: Many students find math difficult and I found recently math can be taught through a video song. When children see and learn, they can remember for a long time.

TED Talks – Ted talks can be used in classroom to teach for moral values, build motivation etc. TED talks will help student to identify various expertise and how they approach they issues.

Hot Potatoes (Cross word puzzle/Game) – English vocabulary and social science subjects can be taught through cross words and puzzles. This will enhance student critical and problem solving skills.

Google Classroom – Teacher can use goggle classroom as a forum and can help student to post their assignment, discussion etc. It will help student to learn collaboratively and they can share each other ideas and views.

PPT – In Google, they are several slide shows and PPT available on various portals. Teachers can use those PPT based on the content that is appropriate to them.

Worksheets – There are many websites like math fun, purple math etc., which has lots of drill work problems and teacher can use them as their teaching aids and help student to work on higher order math problem.

Canva – Through Canva, teacher can prepare more innovative PPT, make posters, videos etc., based on the content.

This kind of innovative teaching aid will enhance student interest and would enrich their knowledge. As teacher, we should make use of technology and help student learn effectively.

“Learning is more effective when it is an active rather than a passive process”

As per the tradition method of teaching, most of the schools and colleges follow where in “teacher teaches on the board and student listen to it by seating on the chair”. Over the time this method of teaching becomes monotonous and thus student gets bored by this form of teaching. There is a huge gap between teacher and student in terms of their generation. Today’s children expect teacher to go with their space of interest, instead of teaching by the same old boring method.

The prime role of education is to mold a child and make them an overall developer. In order for a child to learn swimming, it cannot be taught through a training manual or video, instead the child needs to learn practically by doing and practicing it. Same way the content or concept should not be just taught in classroom by reading or writing. Instead, it should be taught through activities where the children indulge themselves actively in class and they learn by doing it.

The Importance of Activity-Based Learning

The activity-based learning plays a vital role in recent years of education. It will not only help the child to learn things by understanding but will also help them to explore new things and make their learning more fun and better.

Learning through practice – A child can learn better by doing it rather than learning through memorization. By-hearting can make children to forget things very easily and it will stay in memory only for a short span of time. Wherein, in the other hand if a child learns through understanding then they can remember for a longer time.

Develops child Interest – Through activity-based approach student interest can be improvised. By conducting different types of activities, teacher can grab student’s attention. Through this method even complex or difficult concepts can be taught in a much simpler way.

Enhance team work and collaboratively learning – The child gets to learn better through group activity. When children work together, they can put in all their ideas and share each other their knowledge’s. In Through doing this way, it helps the children to learn collaboratively in a given time.

Improves solving and critical thinking – Through this method, the child gets to learn and think independently. This will help them to analyze the issue carefully and think logically, which will enhance their critical and problem solving attitude.

This kind of teaching approach becomes child centric rather than teacher centric. Therefore teachers need to step out from talk to chalk method and actively involve their students to engage into more activities. These kinds of activities will make students to understand the concept better and enrich their learning more effective way.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton