Monalisa Dash
WHAT MAKES ME A PROGRESSIVE PRINCIPAL
As a principal I believe in creating citizens who can identify issues and find solution for the same. Citizens who are empathetic learners and are curious. I believe in empowering students to ask questions and make choices and learn from the mistakes if they go wrong any time. That is what I feel is the definition of 21 century education. I also believe in empowering our teachers to learn, unlearn and relearn so that they are updated and facilitate learning and just not teach.
MY MISSION AS A PROGRESSIVE PRINCIPAL
My personal mission is to create Scholars who emphasize basic ethical values, social responsibility and are global citizens in true sense. My vision is to create an Education system which will encourage compassion for others, concern for environment, confidence in our cultural heritage and cross cultural awareness.
LEARNING BY DOING
As a international educationist, hands on project is all about making real life connections and the classroom ambiance plays a major role in it. I empower my team to arouse curiosity within the students and make them ask questions so that they can relate to real life situations. Accordingly they need to design engagements with clear learning outcomes.
INTEGRATED CURRICULUM
By regular Training Making them understand few the Kath Murdoch learning cycle and its application in trans-disciplinary and inter -disciplinary curriculum.
INTEGRATION OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTO EDUCATION THROUGH FACULTY
Faculty is the heart of an education system. Empowering the Faculty with the right kind of training and also developing a culture which stresses on learning, unlearning and relearning is important. The SOPs should be well planned and the faculties should be well aware of the roles and responsibilities and other policies of the institution.
PROBLEM SOLVING & CRITICAL THINKING AMIDST THE FACULTY
Problem solving and Critical thinking is the heart of The 21 century curriculum. The summative assessment our planner is mostly the application of knowledge where the student identifies the problem and uses critical thinking skills to solve the same. We use Blooms taxonomy and De Bono’s Hat in order to make students think from different perspective and identify the issue and find solution for the same.
GROUP WORK AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL SKILLS AMIDST THE FACULTY
We have collaborative meetings time scheduled in our time table. Collaboration is the mantra for 21 century education and this helps students and teachers not only in evolving a good teaching and learning environment but also develop social skills. Students also engage in group work where mostly the group is heterogeneous and they learn from each other, use their strength to overcome weaknesses and also engage themselves in peer teaching. This also is the working culture for our faculty.
UNDERSTANDING & ACTION BASED LEARNING
By taking books as a resource and not as the only resource and using people, places and things as resource in the teaching and learning process, we empower students to find information, interpret and present it in their own words. We also implement differentiation where we generate different level of worksheets for students who are in different level in their learning process. At the end they should apply their knowledge and know how is it helpful in making the world a better place.
COLLABORATIVE & COOPERATIVE LEARNING PROJECTS FOR FACULTY DEVELOPMENT
We have collaborative meeting times. We send our team to various national and international Workshops and we are also part of question forums in different networks. We also send our teachers to different Job alike sessions.
EDUCATION ACCENTUATING SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SAFEGUARDING DEMOCRACY
The action component in IB, or the global projects in CIE actually stresses on social responsibility. In IB we revolve around 8 Key concepts and perspective is one of main key concept which empowers students to express their own opinion and at the same time the perspective on open-minded teaches us how to accept each other with our differences. This is the work culture also in my institution
INTEGRATION OF COMMUNITY SERVICE AND SERVICE LEARNING PROJECTS INTO THE DAILY CURRICULUM
That is the heart of the curriculum but we ensure the action is students initiated and not always teacher driven. We use Roger Harts Ladder to assess the community projects and ensure these are authentic and are instrumental in bring positive change in the world.
FUTURISTIC SELECTION OF SUBJECT CONTENT
Students should be able to find information and use them . They should be enabled to make connections which is from local to global.
LIFELONG LEARNING AND SOCIAL SKILLS OF FACULTY MEMBERS
Learning, unlearning and relearning is the work culture of my institution where the faculty should be a lifelong learner and updated. This happens only through collaboration.
FACULTY ASSESSMENT & EVALUATION OF THEIR INNOVATIVE PROJECTS & PRODUCTIONS
We do have an assessment regime and they are not only evaluated out on their innovative projects and production but also how these project are engagements and are they relevant,engaging and challenging to the students.
PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY TO FACULTY EMPOWERMENT
It is very important to empower your faculty. We have a professional development programme well framed. We also send them to Job- Alike sessions where they can collaborate and empower themselves to implement the best teaching learning process. That’s how we create our team and we become trend setters.