Assessment

In the act of auditing classes I see a clear need to improve where things stand. I am also applying for a small SAIIER grant for the various interventions and the electronics classes. All these aspects got me thinking regarding assessments.

ASSET tests
I had heard of the ASSET tests being aimed at focussing on children's understanding of concepts and I thought that this would be as good a place to get ideas. I enrolled myself on their website and took the examinations from 3rd to 9th grade. I went down to 3rd grade as I was not sure if the level of papers would be something that the children of the villages can handle and wanted to know which of the papers we could give them.

There are a few good ideas (reminders of things that already exist) with problems that require some abstraction of a real life problem (Mathematization).

Its a little annoying that these people allow you to cut and paste the model paper, but do not 'allow' you to cut and paste the actual examination (yeah, that will stop me). I mean the emphasis is in the evaluation, so why the cheapness in the exam when I have paid for it.

The teachers at Isai Ambalam school took the 4 grade test (best way to go through a paper). As they went through the paper they also marked questions they liked/could use in their class and which they thought assessed the understanding of the children.

The first response I got from the teachers to describe the paper was twisted :). The teacher further clarified that they tend to over simplify things and the exercise gave them some idea of what else could be done.

A volunteer in the US who works with poor neighborhood schools talked about her experience with standardized tests and how they are extensively used in the US. She also mentioned how it is possible to significantly improve the scores by simply training the children how to take these examinations. Techniques like elimination instead of solving problem, looking at the answers and finding out the short cuts needed, etc.

This exercise made me realize that my purpose is not to assess how children take standardized tests, but their understanding of concepts. For a large scale operation like a standardized test where you lack manpower to go through how children are thinking of a problem, the multiple choice and how quickly children eliminate possibilities may be important, but in a school setting where the student to teacher ratio is under 20, this is unnecessary.

I decided not to use the assessments as such and simply use it as one more source of ideas from which the teachers can frame an examination that can test the understanding of the children.

PISA tests
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading.

The problems clearly display more thought has gone into the organization of the examination. It requires data analysis, modeling and interpretation of real life problems. It also requires that children show how they went about doing something. The problems are also sometimes not oversimplified so they can have many different answers and each child is assessed based on what she or he did.

Of course the limit is the lack of graded examinations if the need is to assess the children at different stages. However, the teachers can use this as a starting point.

Limitation of standardized tests
This is an addendum. As I have started working with children on 'math' I realize that the biggest limitation of standardized tests is that its about quick solutions. If what we want children to actually learn patient problem solving, of making complex simple, something they can internalize and take with them through their life, these tests don't touch this space.

Electronics with Xth grade

I have been taking a session (1-1/2 hrs) of electronics for the Xth grade kids. This is their only non-academic class in the week. We have so far been working on the basics without looking into any 'theory'.

First Class
We got familiar with the multi-meter as a continuity meter and went around school looking for things that will 'beep'. It was a chaotic class, the best kind to begin with and some of the girls even removed their gold ornaments to measure them.

We found that most things that we consider metallic are actually coated and need to be scraped to get to the metal and rust is not conductive.

The children also tried out measuring plants, hands, metal, wood, etc.

We put the fear of getting a shock by getting a mild shock from a 9 V battery. True, there were only two volunteers who were willing to put the leads in our mouth. It was agreed that we would not eat the circuits that we build and only work with 9 V circuits for now.

We then switched over to measuring resistance of various objects that have a high resistance, but not insulators like wood. We used water, moist skin, etc.

We also took some 1/4 W resistors and measured them as groups and got a handle of a range of resistors from a few ohms, to k ohms to M ohms. We did a few conversions between kilo and Mega and the children looked through their measurements and found that water had the highest resistance that was still measurable.
We understood how to do the above with a multimeter that required the range to be fixed manually.

Second Class
By now I had got a little more organized and bought a few prototyping boards (bread boards) and we used the knowledge of using the meter as a continuity meter and finding out how the board was hooked up. This took a little longer than expected, but it was perhaps better than explaining it each class. They also built their first circuit of LEDs in series with a resistor and the battery.

I also got notebooks for all students so I can track what they understood (no, they couldn't copy from the board yet as I didn't have a board).

They learnt that putting an LED across a battery causes it to burn out and it does look different once it has burnt out.

I didn't have enough batteries and had to dig out my stock from a long time back and got all kids of different voltages with the 9V battery. One child tried to put a switch in series with his circuit, but was unable to figure out how a two throw two pole switch works.

Third Class
By now I'm a pro and start things exactly where one of the kids gave up and gave them the nasty two pole two throw switch to put in series with two LEDs and a 1k ohm resistor.

We spend 15-20 mins figuring out how the switch works and then the groups put it together. It takes time one group manages to hook up a circuit where both LEDs light up with the switch is off and one lights up when the switch is on (they put the switch across one LED). Fantastic, now they have a circuit to debug and once they do I let everyone know what the group was able to do. What they got one LED to glow in one position and two in the other, everyone is trying to figure out how to do that now. The wheels are turning and some people come up with an alternative way of doing the same, cool.

I ask everyone to draw one of the circuits. I get feedback that they are not artists, but the LEDs looking like light bulbs starts to light up the notebooks. Some draw the exact dimensions of the bread board. I break their art class and introduce symbols for various components. There is still confusion as to how to represent the bread board, I decide to deal with this later.

Some of the folks are finished. I ask them to use the switch to light up one light at a time. They are catching on and starting to use both the poles of the switch though this is confusing their sense of direction of the LEDs. Great.

Lets work on abstractions and circuit diagrams next. Perhaps, its time to bring ohms law to the party...lets see.

Auditing Math...

I audited the Math classes in both Udavi and Isai Ambalam for the week of 24-29 Jun 2013. One obvious thing in almost all classes is the spread between the children following the class and those struggling to keep up. The teachers don't feel equipped to keep the 'smart' ones engaged while giving the time the 'slow' learners require. This disparity keeps the class in a bit of flux with the ones that finish not knowing what to do. There is also a strong drive to 'finish' a problem and in doing so have nothing to do with it anymore. There is no dwelling over the problem and once it is finished boredom begins.

The teachers at Udavi were kind enough to give me some 10 mins towards the end of the class. I was showing ways for the children to cross check their answers, areas that the children had difficulty with, puzzles based on what they were working on or just put it in context. A few children seem to see something that can be done with a problem once they are finished it.

At Isai Ambalam three sets of grades were doing work on shapes 3, 4 and 5th grade. The same four shapes triangle, circle, rectangle and square (differentiated from a rectangle) were covered. In the higher standards we gave names to the vertices, but the rules supplied to the children to identify a rectangle were quite limited in all the grades - 4 corners, 4 sides and opposite sides are the same. The rules are not sufficient to differentiate a rectangle from a parallelogram.
Surprisingly it was the younger children were able to come up with a rule that a general parallelogram was not 'L' shaped and they are yet to encounter our definition of an angle.
What was surprising was that most of the time a triangle was represented as a delta (Δ) and most children find it difficult to identify a right angled triangle as a triangle. This time of course I applied their rules and it fit :).
I gave a puzzle of a rectangle with diagonals and asked them to identify all triangles beyond the obvious 4. It took half the class time to identify them. I turned the rectangle around and the children again set off to identify it for the new shape...perhaps, a little more work is required in pattern recognition. We also did the same for a running star (5-line star that you make without lifting your pencil).
In higher grades was that they were also labeling the corners of the triangle and other shapes. I wonder if we are asking enough of children...

Fractions are a heavy source of confusion in both schools. These problems start at and early age and keep getting bigger and bigger as more and more things that can be done with fractions (dividing negative fractions! comes along).

Another common problem are negative numbers and operations based off these. Even if you can get children to associate negative numbers with having money vs having a loan they are soon tied up in knots.
I give stories of many operations, but the multiplication of two negative numbers was tough. I put in a sense of direction with the number line and my frog that jumped two negative steps at a time, where would it land if it started at origin and jumped three time in the opposite direction...I know, the children didn't get it either. Please feel free to post a story for the product of two negative numbers.

I found it very difficult to work with the reallly young kids. I wanted to hit my head against a wall with a kid who would not remember what she said 2 seconds ago and had no association with what she wrote and what she did. It seems she was just pulling out numbers at random. Finally with teaching aids I settled down and asked her to count and realized that she doesn't know what comes after 39 and fills this in with anything she wants 60, 70, 44 (nope no 42). Even though the teacher was there she still doesn't believe that the child doesn't know...

I also notice a lot of what 'us teachers' do when the children are unable to get to the 'right' answer. The children are just fabulous at reading our facial expressions and body language.

Its amazing that even at the Xth class level most of the examples and exercises in the textbook have whole number answers. Apparently, its these questions that will come in verbatim in the examination!

I also had a few funny experiences where I wanted children to use what they knew from other compartmentalized sections of mathematics in their geometry and some of the kids just found the answer by drawing it out. Serves me right for being a smart Alec.

I also kicked off my puzzles sessions - Tue and Thu every week at Udavi. I received a few solutions for them, but by and large the Xth grade seems to have picked it up and at least discuss it. This is thanks to Ramji who was their class teacher in VIII grade and gave them much practice. They keep me on my toes and I need to come up with something they have not encountered. I am yet to get the younger children interested in the same.
I did have my fun by asking them to draw what they did in class, a triangle with zero area called a 'co-linear' triangle. Apparently, they don't look too deep in the names co-linear points. It was like a huge ah, ha moment in class that all points on a line are co-linear!

There are alternative teaching techniques (beyond the text book) in both schools for lower grades. But, these aids completely dry up as the children get to 7th grade as it is assumed that they can now magically abstract all that they see and do.

'Teaching' at Auroville

I have been asked, what I do in Auroville. I work at a couple of schools Udavi and Isai Ambalam. In the mornings I work in Udavi with kids in grades 7th through 10th. In the afternoons I work in Isai Ambalam with younger children preschool-7th in Isai Ambalam school.

The closest description of what I do at the schools is that I make children and teachers think. In the little time that is permitted we look at things differently.

At Udavi, in the first week the French teacher was not back from vacation and I took a bagful of puzzles and games every day and worked with 7th to 10th graders. In the time I did not have classes I audited math classes and took a few minutes in the end to 'connect the dots' or give puzzles.

Along the journey of solving puzzles I talked to the children about Math and found consistently across classes two areas algebra and practical geometry that they were uncomfortable with. Algebra, because it is abstract. Practical geometry, due the the nature of writing what needs to be in certain terminology.

One of the interesting experiments was to talk about an algebra equation as a 'mystery' story. We started small, most children were comfortable with short stories 
I have 11 books, I bought some more and now I have 19, how many books did I buy?
11+x=19.

I mixed it up a bit and we built up to: A man has three sons, to his eldest he gave half his cows. Of the rest he donated two and split the remaining between his other two sons. If the youngest got 4 cows, how many cows did he originally have:
(x/2-2)/2 =4

The focus was on getting stories and not getting lost in trying to solve them. It got interesting with equation with a second power :) and then higher powers.

One interesting thing that happened in class was when one kid while solving linear equations looked back and asked me if there was a story for that too.

Here is the story I told them...
Two brothers (Ram - elder and Shyam) were carrying sticks. Shyam says, brother if you gave me one of your sticks we would both be carrying the same number of sticks. Ram smiles and says if you give me one of yours I will be carrying twice the number of sticks that you carry.

I was connecting the dots in class with what they do in algebra of solving linear equations is equivalent of solving for the intersection of two straight lines on a plane.

Its been fun and I have received some interesting feedback - some kids think its great that they are starting to understand that what they study has some use in the world. At the same time a small minority were happy just substituting values in formula and are getting all confused when asked to look at it graphically ;). Ah well...

At Isai Ambalam I have been meeting the teachers in the evening to provide an opportunity to share about their day and speak in English. Starting this week, I'm auditing the classes here too.

I also have an electronics class with the 10th grade kids for an entire year and I'm quite excited about what we can do with consistent work over the year.

I also learnt that I'm trying too hard and try to cram too many concepts in a short time...so time to slow down and be careful about what I want to convey.

At Auroville

We moved to Isai Ambalam School in Auroville in Jun (2013) just before the school reopened (from summer holidays). 

I first visited the Isai Ambalam School in 2002 while I was volunteering for Asha NYCNJ. We were exploring partnering with the school to help promote the many techniques being experimented at the school. We did this through supporting a couple of guest rooms where men and women teachers could stay for a week or so and observe the learn the methods directly.


Since the rooms were built over 300 sets of teachers were trained in Pondicherry and TN in Glenn Domain, Rishi Valley (which has now become the default due to ABL in TN and Pondy) and introduced to methods like Phonics, Audio tape. Over the last couple of yrs these  have been limited to day visits and the school is also focussing on introspection and focusing on current learning difficulties and overcoming them through formative assessment and the more recently available media like computers and internet.

They have made the rooms available for us to live and explore Auroville and work at the school. With some work on the rooms we have made it a home complete with a kitchen, a  fenced area for Shifu, a sand pit for Arham and Shifu and a covered roof.

Here are some pics: