Fun Schooling

Wonderful results posted by Jennifer Carole at I Must be Doing Something Wrong, This is Too Much Fun:

At the pool, I was grading Katie's work (grading is a weird word, I guess reviewing, circling, commenting, questioning), and I got a little thrill. I felt so close to her. For the first time (maybe ever), I was truly understanding how she was thinking and how she made mistakes. I decided not to mark things wrong but rather simply circle them to try to understand why she answered the way she did. When we reviewed her answers later in the day, I found she sometimes goes too fast and doesn't get the whole question.

In one case, we realized her answer was correct even though it differed from the answer key.

The result was Katie felt way better about her work as she understood why she made the mistakes she made and that she could have a "right" answer even though the book said it was wrong. Very empowering. Overall, I have to say the process is truly powerful and by having us work together to review her work has put us on the same team.

Touched! Moved! Inspired!

Museums, Fun and Education

Bharat reminds me how Museums are a powerful tool for education and it is sad that many Museums in India are in a sad state of affairs.

So, let us revisit Museums' role in education:

Prabhas Kumar Singh quotes John Falk & Lynn (1992), who had extensively studied museum education in U.S.A, India, U.K and many other countries:

The information a visitor receives during a museum visit tends to bear a ‘contextual map’. The museum visit represents a collection of experiences rather than a single unitary phenomenon.

Any information obtained during the museum visit is likely to include social related, attitude related, cognitive related and sensory related association.

These associations will become embedded in memory altogether with the result that anyone facet of these experiences can facilitate the recall of the entire experience.

Thus Museums are rather a source of intellectual stimulation and entertainment.

Exhibition halls, properly arranged secondary collections, labels, guided tours, traveling exhibitions, school class visits, loan services to the schools, training courses to the teachers, illustrated lectures, motion pictures, film trips and publications, etc. are the various means which constitute the educational activities in a museum.

There are many organizations, projects and budgets, but no ENTHUSIASTS among those who run these initiatives!

For example, National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), an autonomous society under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India (formed 1978), administers 27 science centres/museums/planetariums spread all over India.

The Delhi unit is National Science Centre , www.nscdelhi.org, (Pragati Maidan, Near Gate No.1).

Its various VARIOUS INDOOR & OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES include:

• Commemorative Events
• Community Programmes
• Creative Ability Camp
• Environmental Awareness Programmes
• Film Shows
• Nature Study Camps
• Popular Science Lectures
• Science Camp/Fair
• Science Demonstration Lectures (SDL)
• Science Quiz
• Science Seminar
• Science Shows
• Sky Observation Camp
• Taramandal Shows
• Teachers' Training Programme
• Vacation Hobby Camp/ Centre

An interesting project : Virtual Museums as Innovative Tool for Adult Education (VMIT)

Which Disney Princess are you?

Bharat (who has an eight year old daughter) had shared a fun link (Disney Princess) for my seven year old daughter, Aditi.

Aditi had been exploring the site for the last few and days and today she stumbled upon the 5-Question Personality Quiz "Which Disney Princess are you?"

It was amusing see my daughter choose among the various options and finally read her result: You're are most like Belle:

You are loving and giving and can always see the good in others. You love to read and spend time with friends.

Very interesting for a 5-Question personality test!