The first CASW session was held on 22, August’09.Apart from me it consisted of 5 other participants who were Mrs. Sumi Waran, Mrs. Raji Nair, Mr. Shibnath Chakraborty, Ms. Archana Joseph, and Ms. Bhagyalakshmi. We started the session at 8:45am.

We took a few minutes less than one hour to complete my session. It was definitely an enriching experience to be a part of the sessions and receive feedback on my work. Ms. Sumi Waran was the facilitator for my session. Before I started the presentation she pointed out in detail the manner in which the session would proceed and the purpose of the session. I had chosen a standard eleven student’s piece of work. The topic of the student’s assignment was an essay on the” Nature Verses Nurture Study”. It was the first assignment of the student in standard eleven. The objective of the assignment was to assess the students comprehending and writing skills to enable me to understand the ability of each student. I was also concerned to know what method I should adopt thereafter to help the students learn better. The assignment was given to the students’ right after completing the introductory unit in psychology. The aim was to see whether they are able to follow the discussions in the class and write an essay using the books available to them. Clear guidelines to write the answer had been provided to the students and the books they could refer to. All the participants were provided with a copy of the student’s work. The piece of work I had used reflected the hard work the student had put in. She not only understood my expectations well but had also extended herself through further reading and reference work. The work was randomly chosen.

My key questions for the session were as follows:

1. Was it too early for me to assess the students comprehending and writing skills to decide eventually how to work with the students and what teaching method would suit their need?
2. How far did the guidelines or the framework for the essay provided to the students help them?

I was looking for both warm and cool feedback from the participants to identify what strategies to hold on to and what to discard in future that would enhance the teaching and learning process. I took 12 minutes to present the student’s work during which time I explained to the group the topic and nature of the assignment, my objectives of setting the assignment, the outline I had provided to write the essay and the books they could use to work on the assignment. I also informed the participants that I had not requested the students to do any extra reference work as it was their first assignment and I didn’t want it to become too demanding for them.

Right after my presentation a few clarifying questions were asked like how much time did the students get to complete the assignment and why had I not graded the student’s work but gave a qualitative feedback to the child. I answered their queries by saying that the students got 3 days to finish their work. My intention was to gauge the ability of the child first before starting with any testing. At the end of the clarifying session I heard them discuss the issues raised during the presentation. I used this time to note down their comments and reflected up on them.

My reflection included the following thoughts:

The participants thought it was certainly the ideal time to assess the student’s comprehending and writing skills. They thought it’s an effective method to know the potential of the child right at the beginning rather than delaying it as it could impede the teaching and learning process. I too shared the same feeling. Besides they also pointed out that the answer key was a great idea since the students were just introduced to the subject and were oblivious to the writing style required to perform well. One participant brought to my notice that it was fair enough to just give a qualitative feedback since a grade or quantitative analysis could be discouraging in the beginning of the year. I too realized from the comment that in case of a bad piece of work a poor grade would de-motivate the child from putting in any effort in future. The fact that no boundaries were set on the students in terms of extra reading seemed to be a good idea for the first assignment. Though the participants felt that the guidelines were extremely useful to the student, I personally felt that more samples of students work would have helped the participants to tell me if the outline of the assignment worked well for the class in general. The participants felt that the specific piece of work indicated well that my guidelines to the students were clear and helpful and that prior reading of the students work was not required as the guidelines gave enough idea about the nature of the assignment.

As far as constructing a strategy collaboratively was concerned it was unanimously agreed upon that there seemed to be no significant problem as such requiring a solution. However what I gathered from the discussion also was that students should be gradually taught to work independently and they should not become dependent on guidelines always which I too agree as it could be detrimental to their higher order thinking skills.

The session enabled me to objectively assess my teaching style. It made me mindful of the strategies that are helping me and what modifications I have to bring from time to time to crater to the student’s needs and to enable them to improve their performance. I think the CASW session is a useful platform for a teacher to discuss his or her concerns. The feedbacks are reinforcing and insightful. What’s most benefiting is that one gets to enhance his/her skills as a teacher and work towards professional growth. Also the sharing of the kind of work one is doing with students creates a feeling of responsibility which for me is an essential factor to put in more effort. The participants enjoyed getting educated on the topic of my student’s assignment. They found it intriguing and wanted to know more about it. The discussions brought to light many ideas that we all felt would be useful to us as teachers.