SATs and C2SATs - The Sindhupalchowk Diary

Arjun Tamang (front), Sushila Khadka (middle) and Kumar Tamang(last) from grade 9 teaching  peer students of grade 7.

June 7, 2016

I call them SATs, Students as Teachers.

SATs came into being as a way to cover my classes during my absence. I had to take leave for my training. I couldn’t afford to lose any more classes as almost 2 months were lost due to the earthquake. So, I had to find a way to keep the course going on. Also, my absence could mean students talking, misbehaving and other classes getting disturbed. That was when, I thought of asking some students to teach some part of an easy chapter. That way, classes wouldn’t be vacant and the course would move along.

This concept has helped me a lot of times I have been absent. We miss classes during our trainings.

I had been thinking to improve this concept and using it cross-class, that is, students of one class would act as teacher for some other class. I fancily call it C2SATs (Cross Class Students as Teachers). For some reason, this hadn’t happened yet.

Today, my objective for class 7 was to teach them Atomic Structure of Elements and how to draw them + Valency.

I remembered my last year. I had a hard time teaching this concept to grade 8. It took me almost a week to teach the concept again and again. I revised it like 4 times. Still, they wouldn’t get it. I had to give up as I had to finish the course as well. My assessments showed that about 60% students got the concept, the growth in understand was massive, but every student couldn’t get it. I started analyzing the problem.

-          Students didn’t know the 20 elements serially and their symbol.

-          Students didn’t have the concept of atomic number, electrons which should be taught in grade 7.

After this analysis, last year I made it my big goal to give the students of grade 7 the concept of atomic structure, electronic configuration and valency. I took as much time as needed to make every student get the point. I succeeded. I took about a week. The success rate was 60% in grade 8, while 100% in grade 7 (I took the assessment on the topic the next day). Yes, the smaller class size played a vital role in the success.

This year, my big goal was the same for grade 7. I would take as much time as needed to accomplish the goal. I thought of using C2SATs this time. I thought of using exceptional students (exceptional in terms of their logical and critical thinking) from grade 9 to teach my students in grade 7.

One C2SAT per bench. That’s how I planned. Both the students and C2SATs were excited. I gave C2SATs the objective of the class; to make them understand and draw atomic structure of elements and calculate valency.

Jitu Shrestha from grade 9 teaching peer students of grade 7.

They started. Hesitant at first, but both C2SATs and students participated with keen interest. Within 10 minutes, I could see my students from grade 7 drawing atomic structure, CORRECT structure. One of the C2SATs, Kumar Tamang was teaching his peer student in Tamang (a local language in Nepal). It was interesting. Some of the students get the point faster if taught in their mother tongue. How thoughtful of Kumar!

What was interesting was that every C2SAT was teaching in his/her own style, own technique. Gokul was using a technique that he learnt from an engineer relative. Jitu was teaching technique that he learnt from a different teacher and found it easy. Sushila and Sudipa were teaching my technique.

Every student and C2SAT was involved. I couldn’t believe this would be so impactful. At the end of 35 minutes, each student (except Sunil Tamang) was perfectly drawing atomic structure and calculating valency. Sunil Tamang is a very low achieving student who I find very hard to teach since he doesn’t have basic understandings. Even Sunil Tamang was drawing perfect atomic structure. Another interesting part was his peer teacher Arjun Tamang. Arjun isn’t a very high achieving student. But I chose him as C2SAT. Even he was a little confused with atomic structure and valency. After teaching Sunil, Arjun himself became more clear with atomic structure and valency.

This was the amazing class that I took (well, not even me) till today. 100% success rate, group work involvement, leadership of C2SATs, fun involved. It had everything. It was amazing. This wasn’t in my yearly plan for this year, but it happened.

Pros of involving C2SATs

-          Decrease in Teacher-Student ratio. In my case, from 1:21 to 1:4.

-          Involvement of students is maximized due to individual attention.

-          It doesn’t feel like a class, more like your brother/sister is helping you with homework.

-          Increasing in understand of C2SATs on the topic.

-          Growth in leadership of C2SATs.

-          Builds up confidence in C2SATs.

-          Builds compassion among peer teacher and student.

Suggestions

-          Choose those students who are confident on the topic, as the C2SAT. However, you might want to choose those students who need to build up confidence.

-          Take this cross class teaching into a period outside school hour. This will stop losing your periods at school.

-          Make sure the teacher-student ratio is as minimum as possible. For example, one teacher per bench.

-          Don’t leave the class. Make sure you are observing the class. Watch out for the errors from the peer teachers.

-          Don’t involve too much by teaching yourself. Get involved only if it is absolutely necessary.

-          Make sure you take assessment.

-          Don’t forget to take reflections about ‘how was it, how did you feel’ from the students.

      Don’t forget to THANK your C2SATs. Maybe gift them something as gratitude.

I am sure most of the teachers and trainers have already implemented this on their. I just wanted to share how it went in my class.

From my experience as a Teach for Nepal (teachfornepal.org) Fellow at Terse HSS, Sindhupalchowk.