Prior to 2010 in Gujarat a person with 12th standard and PTC (D.Ed.) could join a primary school as a primary teacher. Recently the government of Gujarat appointed 20000 B.Ed teachers for primary classes. Keeping in mind the perquisites specified by the government and the scope of promotions in their career, a lot of in-service primary teachers join Baba Saheb Ambedkar Open University (BAOU) for the 2 years B.Ed. Special Education- Distance Education Programme (B.Ed- SEDE). Every Sunday these teachers join the Contact Programme for face-to-face sessions (The sessions should cover a total approximately 400 hours approx) at various centers across Gujarat to gain deeper insights into education and also to gain a B.Ed (Special Education) degree from BAOU.
The Intel Teach Pre-Service program, initiated to pilot a model that imparts training to in-Service teachers at a pre-service institution is a convergence model. The model can be looked at as a MTPT Model wherein the in-service teachers will be trained during the BAOU face-to-face contact sessions on the Intel Elements courses. They will then further train their colleagues at their schools to ensure they spread the awareness and use of the program. This Model will be beneficial for in-service teachers as it involves innovative educational practices which they have missed during their pre-service learning. The BAOU Petlad Center coordinator, Dr. Yogeshbhai R. Parmar, invited Intel Pre-service to conduct PBA and Web 2.0 session for In-service teachers at Smt. S. I. Patel Ipcowala College of Education, Petlad, Anand, Gujarat. The session was conducted on 24 July 2011 for 84 in-service teachers/BAOU B.Ed students.
The session began with Dr. Parmar’s initial speech and his vision to support ICT initiatives. He appreciated Intel’s effort to bring a much needed change in society. The session was than handed over to the Intel Pre-service Gujarat Representative, Mr. Dharmesh Acharya. The Intel Teach Gujarat Pre-service representative shared various Web 2.0 online tools that help the teachers and student to research online, communicate, collaborate and share. He also gave a short demo of the Elements Course- Project Based Approaches (Module 1) and shared the importance of all the five modules along with use of Intel Teach Help Guide (English Version). . The session ended with questions and answers. The Intel Teach Gujarat Pre-service team also submitted 5 CDs to the BAOU Petlad Center’s library for use by participants in the future. At the end of the session, the participants found themselves interested in innovative methods of teaching and learning in classroom and also showed interest in further implementation of the same in actual classroom practices.
“I was searching for something on how I can improve my students’ learning by making my classroom more collaborative and innovative. Intel’s session gave me the answer to it.”
Dr. Yogeshbhai R. Parmar (B. Ed. Program coordinator, BAOU Petlad center)
Encl: Appreciation letter by the Petlad Center.
