Educators Bring New Methods Home to India and Ukraine

By Eliza Hamner

The first cohort of participants in the Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA) have returned to their home countries throughout Eurasia and South Asia, replete with ideas, insights, and enthusiasm from the student-centered methodologies they encountered in the United States. Back in their classrooms and busy with the fall start-up, the educators are not only using new strategies with their students—they are also imparting new methodologies to their colleagues. Their fellow teachers are understandably curious about the six-week program, which includes both intensive university-based methodological study and hands-on experience in US schools. Do their facilities outshine ours? Is there a computer in each classroom? How do teachers discipline students? How do they spark interest in learning foreign languages?” TEA alumni Rashmi Diwan and Olga Oliynyk, English teachers in Mumbai, India and Kharkiv, Ukraine, responded to their colleagues’ interest by organizing trainings on education practices in the United States.

Rashmi conducted a one-day workshop attended by all 50 staff members at her school, Nand Vidya Niketan Hizara Surat. Using interactive methods (such as small group discussion and pair work), Rashmi provided an overview of the US education system, including a direct comparison of traditional teacher-centered vs. student-centered teaching. To illustrate the cooperative learning techniques favored by US teachers, Rashmi introduced her colleagues to the jigsaw classroom, a peer-to-peer learning technique that replaces the competitive atmosphere found in teacher-centered classrooms with a collaborative environment. Rashmi’s colleagues expressed particular interest in the freedoms enjoyed by American students—to choose their classes and move at their own pace. Videos of Rashmi’s US classroom sparked active conversation on classroom management techniques, as students worked actively in small groups, spoke out in class, and moved actively around the classroom. As her colleagues adopt student-centered teaching strategies, Rashmi will serve as a crucial resource on making these techniques work.

Olga’s colleagues also were interested in student freedoms and discipline in the apparent chaos of a democratic classroom. During Olga’s presentations to her lyceum’s pedagogical council and foreign language department, teachers actively discussed new approaches to assessment in a student-centered environment, from establishing appropriate learning outcomes to designing tests that measure critical thinking development, not memorization of facts. Olga introduced a number of engaging techniques for teaching foreign language, using students’ interest in popular culture to encourage active expressive communication. In Olga’s hands, even “[Hit Me Baby] One More Time” has educational merit—students learn key vocabulary and analyze the lyrics in small-group discussion. During the group’s analysis of the song-based lesson, Olga’s colleagues discussed the theoretical and practical merits of using music to teach language and how such lessons can conform to Ukrainian National Standards for teaching and learning outcomes.

The TEA program, a program of the US Department of State and administered by IREX since 2006, brings together teachers from Eurasia, South Asia, and the United States for an intensive period of training, partnership, and peer-to-peer learning. Methodological seminars are complemented by hands-on experience in US classrooms, with guidance from US mentor teachers. As one mentor said of her guest teacher from Georgia, “I felt like she should be mentoring me! I really enjoyed meeting her and experiencing through her eyes” how US classrooms operate. The program encourages further collaboration and dialogue as US teachers travel overseas to conduct joint projects with their Eurasian and South Asian colleagues.