INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY TO CREATE ENGAGING AND ENJOYABLE CLASSROOM ECOLOGY
Dr. Rupal Thakkar
Asst. Professor, K J Somaiya College of Education Ms. Usha Sharma
Asst. Professor, K J Somaiya College of Education
Abstract- NEP-2020 envisages that education should be giving opportunities to nurture innovation in our classrooms. Learning has become a globally connected process and for this, preparation needs to be very different. Therefore we need to transform pedagogies such that the teaching learning process becomes inclusive, integrated, holistic and enjoyable for the students. We need to come out from the fragmentation of Education and try to provide opportunities where knowledge will empower one to draw linkages between the disciplines.
Art-integration and Sports integration are such cross-curricular pedagogical approaches that provide opportunities to make connections of different forms of art, culture and sports with the concepts across subjects. We must have teachers who can use such innovative pedagogical approaches that can break boundaries between the disciplines and present knowledge as a whole. The present paper will throw open the opportunities where we could use innovative pedagogies by drawing linkages across the arts, humanities, sciences, commerce ,management and other disciplines. This will empower a learner with the skills of critical thinking, creativity, scientific temper, problem solving and help to survive in today's world.
Keywords: Innovative pedagogies, Fragmentation, Holistic, cross curricular pedagogical approaches.
1 INTRODUCTION
"Education should not be the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
William Butler Yeats NEP 2020 focuses that the purpose of learning should be holistic, multidisciplinary, inclusive, enjoyable, and engaging. There is need to shift from rote learning to experiential learning with hands-on learning, arts-integrated and sports integrated education, technology-mediated teaching learning processes, with explorations of relations among different subjects. For this, the teachers need to gear up for facing the upcoming challenges in the traditional classroom settings. Innovation in education gives a platform to students and expects teachers to be proactive to research, explore, and try out multiple strategies to discover something new. It also facilitates improving overall quality of education as it catalyses students to think out of the box in solving complex problems. The educator sector environment should provide space and encouragement for teachers to innovate. The Kothari Commission (1966) said, “Of all the different factors which influence the quality of education and its contribution to national development, the quality, competence and character of teachers are undoubtedly the most significant”. According to NEP (2020)
„Teachers truly shape the future of our children – and, therefore, the future of our nation‟
thereby implying that teachers play the most important role in nation-building by creating high quality of human resource in their classrooms.
While this idea of an empowered teacher has the potential to create a paradigm shift, the ground realities are quite different. Justice JS Verma Committee Report (2012) said, “a broken teacher education sector is putting over 370 million children at risk. But NEP 2020 has proposed several reforms to empower teachers like International pedagogical approaches will be studied by NCERT, identified, and recommended for assimilation in pedagogical practices in India though CPD. NEP 2020 gives Teachers autonomy for choosing appropriate pedagogy and which will be recognised, documented, and shared widely as recommended practice.
1.1 Rationale of the Study
Innovative methods can help to improve education as well as it can empower the people and direct all the efforts to achieve the goal of human development. We need the teachers to be ready to use innovative methods in the classroom. CBSE schools have taken steps to adopt innovative pedagogy like implementation of art-based project work, experiential learning, sports integrated approaches, storytelling and gaming, courses on design thinking, coding and data science, etc. So there is a need for school leaders to be trained in creating a pedagogical plan for making learning innovative and joyful. Global Innovation Index Report 2020 (World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)) has ranked India as the 48th most innovative nation in the world amongst 131 countries.
NEP 2020 aspires institutions to deliberate on curriculum management instead of syllabi dissemination. Until now the institutions were involved in development-transaction- evaluation with more focus on syllabi whereas curriculum has now to be engaged with on the campus and off the campus activities and participation of students in an integrated approach.
Current education system should be such which encourages students to creatively apply their knowledge and skills to various diverse scenarios and for this teachers need to deploy innovative methods of pedagogy. The need for new paradigms in pedagogy can be realised by bridging the gaps in the current learning/teaching process and the efficacy of the practiced pedagogies. This has to eventually lead to the urgency of creating more effective learning environments, enriched student experiences and widespread adoption in the educational ecosystem. Through this study, the researchers want to reiterate that pedagogy is the heart of teaching and learning; the more innovative the teachers are, more effective the transaction will be in the classroom.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Innovations in Teaching Learning Process
In a study based on Innovative Approaches in Teaching Learning Process, it was mentioned that the use of new innovative approaches was mandatory to survive in the competitive world of higher education. In order to fill the gap between actual learning outcomes and the desirable learning outcome a paradigm shift was required in the teaching learning process.
We need to identify, design and use different innovative strategies so as to achieve qualitative improvement in education (Sharma, M, 2017).
As per a study on Innovative Teaching Learning Practices in Colleges of Tamilnadu, it was found that 88% of teachers felt use of Innovative Teaching Learning Practices was easy to use whereas 11.2% of teachers felt it was difficult. (Ruban, A., 2014).
As per a study on Innovative As per an online article The Hindu.Com, it was mentioned that the policy-makers needed to support the higher education institutions to empower their students with the knowledge of the most recent trends in Education. The quality of Teaching was as important as that of the quality of research. Pedagogical innovations are of significant importance for achieving better learning outcomes. In order to build a better future and a better world to live in, Innovation is a must. (Mathews, E., 2012).
2.2 Impact of Innovations in Transacting curriculum
Aithal P.S.(2016) conducted a study on innovations in student centric learning – a study of top business schools in India and found out that Innovation in student centric learning can be one of the most important factor in attracting admissions .Further it was suggested that higher education institutions in India needs to aim towards building world-class educational institutions. The study focussed on how the top business schools worked on innovating in both co-curricular and extra-curricular innovations. Among the different areas where these business schools innovated, one of them was Course pedagogy
2.3 Context of the Study
The NEP 2020 was introduced with an aim to achieve equitable access to the learners coming from wide varieties of Social and economic backgrounds and thus provide them highest-quality education. This would help to create a manpower who would be
knowledgeable, skilled and competent to develop the country. With the advances in all the disciplines such like in big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, we would have all jobs being replaced with the help of IT systems. Further we would like to hire those employees who are skilled and could make linkages between disciplines like sciences, social sciences, humanities, medicine, business. To execute the curriculum effectively in higher education institutions, colleges need to conduct induction programs and should cater to the pedagogical needs to make a smooth transition to the new education system.
One of the major recommendations of NEP 2020 was to eliminate the “rigid”
separation of streams Arts, Sciences and Commerce this was suggested for those choosing stream in class 11 would go through severe stress in selecting a right stream for their child.
Through this recommendation NEP 2020 aimed that we would get an efficient manpower who could substitute themselves or replace from one discipline to other in the times of crisis. NEP 2020 also recommended that Education must focus on development of skills than rote memorisation of content. Skills of critically thinking, problem solving, creative thinking, innovating in all the fields. Thus the main idea here was to end fragmentation of higher education and focus more on multidisciplinary. For this we need to focus on integrating all knowledge with in multidisciplinary universities and developing linkages between disciplines so as to get skill based youths. NEP 2020 suggests of phasing out Single-stream HEIs and moving move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of universities so that there can be opportunities of coming out with high-quality multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary teaching as well as research across different fields. Keeping these policy recommendations in mind the researcher plans to identify opportunities of designing pedagogical innovations by drawing linkages between different disciplines.
2.4 Aim of the Study
The main focus of the study is to analyse different innovative pedagogies which can be practiced by teachers for implementing NEP recommendations.
2.5 Objectives of the Study
1) To provide a better understanding of how teachers can use different innovative pedagogies for implementing NEP recommendations.
2) To create awareness of different innovative pedagogies among teachers in the context of NEP.
2.6 Research Question
What are the innovative pedagogies which can create teachers being future ready to implement NEP recommendations?
Answering of Research question:
Innovative pedagogies which can create teachers being future ready to implement NEP recommendations: In today’s context we need to focus on “education-society”
relationship. Under this the major stress would be on internationalization of education, the introduction of digital technologies, decentralization and diversification. That would be the macro level vision however thinking about the micro level vision when we focus on the
“teacher-learner” relationship the major stress would be on giving an environment of Constructivism as well as connectivism. The researcher aims to focus on a blend of creating an education society where teacher learner relationship would be of significant importance.
The NEP 2020 policy envisions improving the quality of education by creating space for creativity and innovation and transforming the Indian education system into a vibrant knowledge society. Although there are several new pedagogical approaches innovations being developed and continuously refined by educators. Through this paper, the researchers have made an attempt to suggest little innovative pedagogy which can result in improved learning outcomes based on NEP recommendations.
Figure 1 Amalgamation of Pedagogical innovations 3 TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
Artificial intelligence system makes a computer think as a computer-controlled robot who has the capability to think intelligently as a human being would think. AI was conceived as a subject related to Engineering. Now AI would be expected to be linked to all the disciplines be it computer science and engineering, or other sciences, both natural and social, also in the humanities such as the study of politics, literature, history, and performing as well as creative arts. Artificial intelligence would be aiming towards the future of all complex decision making.AI system needs deep knowledge that focuses on good programming skills which would focus on Java, Python, Scala, R, Spark as well as the Big Data technologies. Big Data is leading to the platform where saving and querying huge data sets would be at the click of a button.
Robotics: We may think that both robotics and artificial intelligence can be used interchangeably however the two have different meanings.AI system enables systems to perform the tasks like a human mind using the same problem solving and decision making as a human does however Robotics as a field enables the robots to perform the specific duties. Robots can be effectively trained to save time spent by teachers on mundane and mechanical tasks. Robots can model how human teachers interact with students. They can be programmed to work as a teacher. Drones are also being explored as research tools to gather data during fieldwork. Robotics is also needed in medicine. Robotics when related to the medical field aims to transform the way the surgeries are done. It also enables the service providers of elder care to provide care and support for elder or disabled patients. In the field of commerce robotics are now treated as an important tool to help companies to meet as well as take care of the customer needs. In the field of management robotics has enabled to place robots in management-like positions so as to enable the employees to remember deadlines, progress as well as procedures. Robotics in management in future would help to replace robot as a manager who would give feedback and would be seriously worked by employees as there would be no ill feelings.
Augmented realities: Enriched realities can enable students to imagine abstract concepts and develop better insights into challenging topics in STEM, medicine, and social sciences, vocational education and skill enhancement. This immersive learning approach puts the student in an interactive learning environment with possibility of recreation of real-life scenarios. As per earlier researches Virtual reality has the power to be used as a display environment which helps to represent 3D industrial design concept models to the students. VR could also be used in Advertising without actually visiting and it gives an immersive experience to try out specks using face analysis and scanning options.
Micro-learning environments: Micro-learning is a learning strategy which makes use of a series of small segments of micro learning content and related activities catering
to the pace of the learner. Micro learning can be made possible through various platforms like social media.
3.1 Social
Place-based and experiential learning as a social innovation has the potential of providing the learners with a subject of inquiry. In a particular study, Aston University took the challenge of connecting the multidisciplinary student teams to the industry. It enabled the mixed multidisciplinary teams working to use their understanding to design and develop a product for the patients. Practice based learning approach empowered learners to address complex problems of patients in real life settings. In a study, Engineering as well as Design students collaborated together with a Health Care Provider to come out with a mobile health monitor made using the ARDUINO microcontroller electronics system (Mclening C. & Buck L., 2012)
Service learning can be a unique approach where different disciplines can be blended and the learners can come out with solutions for the community. Eg: a course based on linkages between marketing, management, and engineering was designed to create a multidisciplinary environment so as to provide opportunities where learners could develop critical thinking and real life problem solving capabilities for the global market(Anitsal, M. M., Anitsal, I., Barger, B., & Fidan, I. 2014)
Sports integration: Sports integration can be organised in such that you link different subjects .Sports integration can be achieved in such a way that connects health and Education.
Dialogic: In today's classroom we expect teachers to use Dialogic teaching as an approach of education which is centred upon developing the interactive nature of the learners. Dialogic teaching has the power of transforming the socio-cultural context as well as changing the mind-sets of people towards others. It has the power of making learners capable of solving some of the most important issues of real life.
3.2 Psychological
Inquiry: This is a pedagogical approach which involves identification of an issue, creating a researchable question further trying to investigate the issue by conducting a relevant research. It needs further critical thinking about the issue, answering the questions raised, drawing conclusions and reflecting on the inquiry process. This could be tried as a pedagogical approach across disciplines in which higher levels of inquiry is expected eg social work, political science, and sciences.
Personalised learning: Research shows that when students are engaged in learning activities matched to their skill levels, a deeper connection, a sense of gratification, is developed. Personalization is an initiative towards student empowerment and gives the students charge over their own learning. Personalized learning has potential to improve learning outcomes by including students' progress and assessing teaching effectiveness.
4 CONCLUSIONS
For innovative pedagogies, it is important that teachers reflect upon every lesson which they conduct for their students. There is a need to strike a balance between experience, reflection and application. Walking on a new and uncharted path, teachers have to overcome their fears, take risks and be ready to face failures too. Teacher-Resource Centres should be established in every school to keep a check on the quality of teaching-learning in the classroom. Teachers should be encouraged to present and publish their action-research at educational platforms to generate awareness and discussions on effective pedagogy.
5 RECOMMENDATIONS For the Teachers
1. Faculty forums can be conducted where the innovations can be shared among the colleagues .This can be a source of inspiration for creating new innovations.
2. Teachers need to give autonomy to the students to co-construct the pedagogical innovations and present research on testing the effectiveness of these innovations.
3. Teachers should encourage Interdisciplinary as well as multidisciplinary among students. They should give Practicum for creating innovations in the form of multidisciplinary projects.
For Students:
1. Students need to attend hands-on workshops based on creating Intellectual Property in the form of copyrights and patenting.
2. Students can attempt to take up Interdisciplinary team projects where they get opportunity to create innovations.
3. Students must aim to publish Interdisciplinary research papers based on the innovations that they design.
For Administrators:
1. Institutional support is one of the main pillars of Pedagogical innovation. Financial, human or technical resources that would be needed for implementing the pedagogical innovations have to be provided by the administrators
2. The administrators are responsible in developing a culture of innovation .Thus the teachers need to be acquainted and supported towards developing Intellectual property rights in the form of copyrights and patents.
3. Teacher Education colleges which are responsible for creating pedagogical innovations should be relieved of other tasks and dedicated more hours for Research and pedagogical As higher education will look up to the teacher education colleges the Online Publications should be encouraged so that knowledge can be shared on a larger platform.
4. Specialisation should not be encouraged as specialization leads to greater fragmentation,
5. To have more opportunities to have linkages with other subjects, curriculum should provide options for multidisciplinary.
For Policy makers:
1. Performance Appraisal indicators should give due weightage to the cross disciplinary research projects completed by the Teachers.
2. Intellectual property in the form of cross disciplinary pedagogic innovations by teachers should be given due weightage in Performance Appraisal indicators
3. Online Publications of research papers in multidisciplinary journals should be given more weightage. This could encourage cross disciplinary linkages rather than specialization.
REFERENCES
1. Aithal, P.S. (2016) Innovations in Student Centric Learning – A Study of Top Business schools in India International Journal of Engineering Research and Modern Education (IJERME), Volume I, Issue I, 2016, pp.
298-306. ISSN 2455 – 4200
2. Anitsal, M. M., Anitsal, I., Barger, B., & Fidan, I. (2014). Service learning across disciplines and countries.
Atlantic Marketing Journal, 3(2), 10.
3. Mathews, E.(2012,February 27) 'Pedagogical innovations are a must' The Hindu https://www.thehindu.com/features/education/issues/pedagogical-innovations-are-a-
must/article2932241.ece
4. Mclening C. & Buck L. (2012) Practice Based Learning Approaches In Collaborative Design And Engineering Education: A Case Study Investigation Into The Benefits Of A Cross-disciplinary Practice Based Learning Strategy International Conference On Engineering And Product Design Education.
5. Ruban, A. (2014). A Study on Innovative Teaching Learning Practices in Colleges in Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu. 10.13140/2.1.4024.0322.
6. Sharma, M.(2017) Innovative Approaches in Teaching Learning Process , American International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 17(1), December 2016-February 2017, pp. 75-78
7. https://www.educationtimes.com/article/campus-beat-college-life/93135595/innovative-approaches-and- emerging-pedagogical-paradigms
8. https://www.freepressjournal.in/education/readiness-for-the-nep-emerges-as-key-challenge-today-not-the- pandemic-survey
9. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/edutrends-india/nep-2020-empowering-the-teacher/
