Service Learning plays an important role at Ekya, as it helps students identify themselves as part of the community, develop empathy and respect for others, and gain a deeper understanding of themselves.
As part of the Service Learning programme, our students conduct several fundraising activities at school – newspapers drives, selling handmade scented candles and body scrubs to name a few, with the funds directed to charity.
This month Grade 9 and 10 students of Ekya School ITPL successfully raised an impressive amount of Rs. 29,500/- with the aim of bringing a difference to the lives of those who eagerly hope a change.
The children decided to use the funds to sponsor 20 eye surgeries, approaching Sankara Nethralaya in Kundalahalli, Bengaluru to help facilitate them. When contacted, Mr. Vikram Chaudhary, Unit Head at Sankara Nethralaya was more than willing to oblige.
Impressed with the efforts of our students, Mr Vikram visited the ITPL campus to address them, taking them through an informative and interactive session on Sankara Nethralaya, its vision and the services it provides.
He invited our Grade 9 students to visit Sankara Eye Hospital, located at Kundalahalli. Buzzing from their efforts put in for this noble cause, the children were excited to pay a visit to the hospital. A cheque of Rs 30,000/- was handed over to Mr. Vikram on behalf of the hospital.
In addition to this, our students interacted with doctors on duty, understanding the various procedures undertaken at an eye hospital. They also got to witness a live eye surgery conducted at the operation theatre; a thrilling experience that sparked curious questions in their heads, each of which was answered by the staff who accompanied them.
This was a wonderful learning curve for our young mind. In the words of Leo Tolstoy, “the sole meaning of life is to serve humanity”, we at Ekya Schools, look forward to being part of so many such activities in the coming years.
The sequence of topics in Singapore Math has been carefully constructed based upon child development theory. The beauty of this approach is that the majority of students are well prepared to tackle increasingly difficult topics, such as fractions and ratio, when they are introduced in the third through fifth grades. Those students are also then typically ready for algebra and geometry in middle school.Visualize the Problem Singapore Math relies heavily on visualization, which is often neglected in the conventional teaching of the subject. “If I’m going to teach about multiplication I will bring out physical objects and demonstrate how to multiply, and then move to the abstraction of lining up numbers in a multiplication equation. Singapore Math, on the other hand, introduces a middle step between the concrete and abstract called the pictorial approach. It asks students and teachers to draw a diagram of the concepts involved.” Students also learn to use model drawing to solve worded problems - instead of trying to picture the problem in their heads, then writing out the equation to solve it, students in Singapore Math diagram the elements of the word problem. Solid Foundation Building In the traditional approach of teaching, one where a topic is revisited in the course of months or years, or later grades and is taxing for both students and teachers. Singapore Math aims to eliminate this task by building a strong foundation for the learning of the said topic. Students in the same classroom may learn the concepts at different paces, but ultimately they all learn them and help develop their own solid foundation for further math learning. This prevents the need for reteaching as students move to the next grade. How Singapore Math fits the Ekya curriculum At Ekya, we deploy the Singapore Math methodology from K1 to Grade V. We've listed out a few examples below: As part of their group activity, students of Grade I use ice-cream sticks or raw pasta to put equal amounts in each of the circle. This enables them to understand the concept of multiplication. In a hands-on activity, students of Grade II learn that a balance is a useful tool in comparing the masses of objects Our Grade III students learn to measure the capacity of containers of various sizes through personal experimentation. Students of Grade IV explore the concepts of fractions through visual representations Bar model is explicitly taught beginning in Grade II and extending all the way to secondary algebra. It is a method of representing word problems and number relationships. Students are taught to use rectangular bars to represent the relationship between known and unknown numerical quantities and to solve problems related to these quantities. Students of Grade IV use the four mathematical operations and solve the problems in the Decimals chapter using the bar model. Opening up to the idea of Singapore Math While parents would love to sit their kids through learning tables, they might naturally resist the route taken by Singapore Math, especially after they remember how they tackled a concept like fractions or geometry.
Looking back at how we learnt our Math, importance and marks were both rewarded only for getting the correct answer. With Singapore Math, we’re looking to understand each step in the process of getting the answer- our students should be able to explain how they have arrived at their final step. That’s a big thing that parents need to understand. We may want our children to get the right answer, but we also want them to know why it is the right answer.For our readers who are interested in finer details of the techniques used in this methodology, click here for a quick guide.
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