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| 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.
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Students didn’t
know the 20 elements serially and their symbol.
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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. |
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
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Decrease in
Teacher-Student ratio. In my case, from 1:21 to 1:4.
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Involvement
of students is maximized due to individual attention.
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It doesn’t
feel like a class, more like your brother/sister is helping you with homework.
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Increasing in
understand of C2SATs on the topic.
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Growth in
leadership of C2SATs.
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Builds up confidence
in C2SATs.
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Builds
compassion among peer teacher and student.
Suggestions
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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.
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Take this
cross class teaching into a period outside school hour. This will stop losing
your periods at school.
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Make sure the
teacher-student ratio is as minimum as possible. For example, one teacher per
bench.
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Don’t leave
the class. Make sure you are observing the class. Watch out for the errors from
the peer teachers.
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Don’t involve
too much by teaching yourself. Get involved only if it is absolutely necessary.
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Make sure you
take assessment.
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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.
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