PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT WORKSHOP FOR ECONOMICS TEACHERS (27-11-14)

A one day performance enhancement workshop for the teachers of Economics of DAV Public Schools of Punjab was held on the premises of DAV International school Amritsar on 27^th November 2014 under the aegis of DAVCAE and the able guidance of worthy Regional Director Principal Dr. Neelam Kamra. The resource Persons were Mr. Balwinder Singh from Police DAV public School Jalandhar and Mr. Adesh Nanda from DAV International School Amritsar. A total of 38 teachers participated from all over Punjab. The Principal of the school, Ms. Anjana Gupta extended a floral welcome to the esteemed Regional Director and the resource persons. The workshop commenced with Lamp lighting followed by the DAV Anthem. The Regional Director in her address appreciated the laudable work being done by the DAV centre for Academic Excellence. She expressed her satisfaction over the highly fruitful and enriching PEP workshops which offer a wonderful opportunity to teachers to learn from each other and grow. Principal Anjana Gupta stressed upon the need to constantly update and upgrade one's knowledge and skills to be an ideal teacher. She said that such workshops are teaching/learning experiences for every participant and every one is a resource person. The Key speaker for the inaugural session was Mr. Balwinder Singh who discussed the need and importance of workshop and common problems faced by Economics teachers and strategies for effective teaching. He talked about the stress which the children are these days are undergoing and showed a power point presentation regarding various problems faced by them. He laid stress on understanding students' problems, use of modern teaching aids, alternative strategies for teaching and acquiring the ability to deliver the lecture without too much dependence on books. A video was also shown at the end of the session.

The second session was taken by Mr. Adesh Nanda. He discussed the changes in the current syllabus as compared to the last year. The objectives of teaching the subject were discussed and the changes in the design of the paper were conveyed to the participating teachers. The participants were provided with a copy of the current syllabus, marking scheme and design of the paper. A PowerPoint presentation was shown related to OTBA and the queries of the participants were answered. At the end of the session two activities were done. (i) Interpreting the cartoons: In this activity several cartoons were shown to the participants and they were asked to interpret them. Participants were divided into six groups and one person from each group was allowed to speak. (ii) Classification of typology of questions: A question paper was given to the participants and they were asked to determine the typology of questions (knowledge based, understanding based, skill based and Application based)

The third session was interactive. The resource persons discussed the common errors committed by the students and answered the queries of various participants. The participants were also given a self assessment test. The questions were taken from board papers of previous years'. An answer key was also provided alongside. The objective of the activity was to help teachers design such answers which will provide a cent percent result in the examination.

The last session was devoted to the project work related to class XI. Ideas related to the preparation of the projects were discussed. The resource persons also displayed some of the projects prepared by the students of their respective schools.

On the whole, the workshop was very useful, interactive and productive. In the end Principal Anjana Gupta and the resource person thanked everyone and gave participation certificates to the participating teachers. The workshop ended with the filling of the feedback forms.