Teaching & Learning

Though technology has pervaded many aspects of our lives, including schooling, the practice of teaching hasn’t changed radically over the past half-century. Education is still largely adult-directed, with key decisions made using a top-down approach

In The Demon-haunted World, famed astronomer Carl Sagan observes that kindergartners and first-graders are eager and enthused about learning. “Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them,” he notes. But much to his dismay, 12th graders don’t display the same curiosity or…

While climate change is in the news and children are being introduced to climate science in schools, another aspect of climate is very relevant to students. Just as our planet’s climate affects our everyday lives, the classroom climate also impacts

To be calm, composed, and centered is not a learning goal that is spelled out in most curricula. While a minority of schools in the country have socioemotional learning (SEL) programs and explicitly teach these skills, the emotional lives of…

First published in The Hindu, 1 September 2024 That a number of excellent liberal arts colleges have mushroomed in different parts of the country signifies that the need for a rounded education is finally being recognized and met within India….

First published in The Hindu, 4 Aug 2024 When ChatGPT debuted in November 2022, it created a brouhaha. How were educators to make out if a student wrote a term paper or whether ChaptGPT spewed it out? Banning its use…

First published in The Hindu, 29 June 2024 Most educators would agree that a rounded education should nurture the physical, emotional, social and linguistic domains. While most theories of child development embrace these four realms, the spiritual dimension is rarely…

Like many high school teachers, Parul Mathur was confronted by a group of passive and inattentive learners in her Psychology class. Keen to get them to be more active and enthused, Mathur first tried using mind maps to help students…

First published in The Hindu, 27 May 2024 When I was a doctoral student in the United States, I had a friend, who, like me, was from India. Though I struggled initially, I started calling my professors by their first…