Strengthening the Pillars of Education – Pragya Teacher Training in Karnataka

“I have been teaching since 18 years to children with visual impairment and we were limited to using the Taylor frame for teaching maths. However, with the activities VE provides through the Pragya Training and Teacher Instruction Kits, we are able to teach children STEM concepts effectively. The children learn in a fun way”

– Ms Rekha Kulkarni, a special educator from Shri Manik Prabhu School for the Blind, Raichur.

This was part of the two training Vision Empower conducted on 7th and 8th December at the National Association for the Blind, Bangalore. 40 teachers, both sighted and with visual impairment attended the two-day training focused on empowering them with teaching STEM concepts through various activities and effectively using VE’s assistive technologies for learning and teaching.

Day 1 started with an introduction of VE and its interventions by VE co-founder Supriya Dey, who shared the ideas and objectives behind all the VE interventions which was followed by a feedback session from the teachers. They shared about the various activities, resources and technologies that have been beneficial in teaching STEM concepts to students with visual impairment effectively. The teachers also highlighted their further needs and challenges with the reliance on the Pragya Training to address those.

The teachers were then divided into two groups. Group 1 participated in a science activity focused on understanding ‘Water and Its Properties’ while the other group learnt to use tactile geometry kits to create lines and angles.

Post these sessions the teachers were further divided into Hexis session and VICT games session as Group 1 learnt to navigate the Hexis Braille Reader effectively to download and read stories while Group 2 engaged in playing the new VICT games- Sudoku and Bingo. The teachers showcased their competitive yet playful spirit during the games session as they exchanged VICT-ories and laughter.

Day 1 ended with a cultural night where teachers displayed their mimicry, singing and dancing talents.

Day 2 kicked off with the groups getting divided interchangeably to attend the session on water and geometry kits, followed by parallel sessions on Hexis and VICT.

Post lunch, the teachers gathered in the same hall for a special session on using the Taylor Frame to solve complex arithmetic equations. The last session of the day was an intensive session on Subodha, VE’s Accessible Learning Management System (LMS).

The teachers not only learned to navigate Subodha to access Teaching Learning Materials (TLMs), they were further divided into groups of 5 teachers each to access the activity given to them from a specific chapter of a specific grade.The teachers segregated into their respective groups and with teamwork understood the activity and executed it practically using various materials like balloons, plastic fruits, paper sheets, wiki sticks, etc.

Each group was asked to present their activity as a mock teaching to the other teachers. The teachers were able to explain the concepts effectively through the Subodha TLMs.

The two-day training came to an end with a round of feedback sessions from the teachers followed by the certificates distribution ceremony.