‘ALM Plus’ for school students

[dwarakesh]

ERODE: Starting June 2009, more than 32,000 students of Standard IX of Government and Government-aided schools will study their subjects like never before.

Science, social science and English learning will be quite a different experience, as the Department of School Education will introduce the 'Active Learning Methodology Plus' method.

"The students will move from memory-based to understanding-based system of education," says a teacher, who underwent training in ALM Plus.

For example, a science teacher will not read out paragraphs in a lesson and then go about explaining them. Nor will he or she identify the important points in a lesson.

His job will be to put the lesson in perspective, give a broad outline and let the students do the rest of the work.

"From the beginning of the next academic year, teachers, as facilitators, will just introduce the lesson, tell the students what they learnt the previous year and will learn the next year and draw a brief outline," the teacher says.

"The students will then read the lesson, underline portions or paragraphs they did not understand, discuss among themselves and if still unclear take the help of the teacher," he adds.

Then they will draw a mind-map, something like flowchart, highlighting the key points of the lesson. And the process goes on as part of the ALM Plus the students will get to experience what he learns.

For example, while learning plant reproduction he will be given flowers and let to pose questions to the teachers, who will replay and explain the functions.

"This way the students' questioning ability is increased," says V.S. Yathunathan, assistant project officer, Sarva Siksha Abiyan.

As far as English is concerned, he says the students' reading ability is increased as they will be asked to read a lesson.

A dictionary will also be given to them so that they are made to search for and understanding the meaning.

Project Officer in-charge Sakthivel says the aim is to take as many new things as possible in to the classrooms.

In implementing the ALM Plus the department has also altered the class hour. Instead of the current 45-minute a class, it will henceforth be 90 minutes.

The change will be effected in the 83 high schools and 111 higher secondary schools in the district.

Source: Hindu