In 2015, India adopted the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which means “to provide inclusive education, equitable and lifelong learning opportunities for everyone” by 2030. India’s New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 was made and launched a few years later but plans to ensure the goal is achieved.
The NEP advises providing a structured, secure, and refreshing learning space that offers a vivid range of experiences that astonishingly engage students and push them to become a critical and creative thinker.
Can a whole system that primarily depends on monitoring, corporal punishment, and spreads the goals of NEP? What does it take for the education stakeholders to adopt the new circumstantial changes in the education system followed by NEP proposes?
Change in behavioural education
The new initiatives were taken in the NEP 2020-whether it is in foundational literacy and numeracy or any professional development, potentially focusing on the key stakeholders and persuading one another’s specific role, this often initiates a behaviour change.
The study of behavioral change in education is still in its infancy. It entails modifying the conduct of educators and school officials using a sequence of gradual yet effective methods, sometimes known as behavioral nudges, that are based on action planning, reflection, and the three main components of behavioral change design. This strategy aims to implement systemic change to drastically improve education over the long run.
At the Centre for Intrinsic Motivation (CIM), we collaborate with the educational system to modify the behaviors of educators and administrators through behavioral nudges and approaches.
To enable implementation at scale, we collaborate closely with the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), which oversees teacher development and training in all states. At the SCERT, CIM establishes a core design and implementation team, works with them to co-create the program's content, and educates them to administer it there.
Selecting a district advocate, who may be a District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) facilitator or principal, is one of our initial actions. We take them through an entire learning cycle and provide them with mentorship along the way. Block and cluster officers, who collaborate closely with district officials, engage with teachers to conduct skill development workshops, classroom observations, and monthly teacher network meetings using the information we provide.
Our experiences in Delhi, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu provide insightful information about how these methods can influence district officials, educators, and students' attitudes positively, improving learning environments and bringing about long-lasting change in the educational system.
Encourage teachers to evaluate themselves
Teachers' views influence their behavior as teachers, according to research. Teachers use their notion that all pupils can learn, regardless of their social or economic background, in their instruction. However, how can one evaluate teachers' beliefs?
We start with a self-reflection module that includes multiple open-ended talks aimed at eliciting teacher perspectives.
The instructors’ answers to these prompts reveal a lot about their attitude, including whether they believe pupils are capable of learning new things and whether they are capable of learning from their mistakes.
We pose several questions to them and provide them with a variety of situations. We frequently get into beliefs like “there’s no point in wasting time on ‘dull’ students” or “this student cannot learn because they come from a poor economic background.”
We create more modules once we determine the relationship between the attitudes of teachers and the practices they engage in, as well as the gaps that exist between practice and the intended results. Teachers test their action plans in the classroom using the findings from these sessions.
The way that students react to these novel approaches involves teachers addressing them differently and creating new activities specifically for either validating or contradicting the techniques that have been used.
The development of follow-up sessions on helping teachers foster a growth attitude is aided by this evidence from the classroom.
A change in views has been facilitated by providing mentorship to educators, encouraging them to participate in in-depth discussions, and prodding them to consider their prejudices and methods of instruction. Teachers must adopt new pedagogies and technologies into their classroom practices, and this requires a change in mindset.
Ongoing project
Gaining trust requires years and is a critical first step in overcoming these obstacles. However, it is feasible. Prolonged structural change can be catalysed by strong political and administrative will and by central and state leadership in education. It can accomplish this by incorporating essential components of behavior modification into district empowerment plans, guidelines, and training courses.
Share This Post On
0 comments
Leave a comment
You need to login to leave a comment. Log-in
