A Webinar on Ideas and strategies for the low-resource classroom

I am in full zest for sharing the take away points of the most resourceful webinar Ideas and strategies for the low-resource classroom was undertaken by Richard Smith, Amol Padwad and Deborah Bullock .

*About the webinar*
✍️In this webinar the presenters introduced some worldwide success stories of the teachers.

✍️In those stories they discussed an 'enhancement approach' to teaching in low-resource classrooms .

✍️The stories had been chosen from the Book “Teaching in low resource classrooms: voices of experiences” Here is the link of that book- https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/PUB_30325_BC%20Teach%20in%20Low%20Resource%20Report_A4_v4_ONLINE.pdf

✍️They had given concreate and practically successfull examples of the teachers who are facing the problems of low resources.

✍️We found through these thorough presentations how teachers from a range of contexts have successfully collaborated to come up with appropriate strategies to deal with local difficulties.

✍️You could find it more lively in the above book.

✍️By sharing innovative ideas and exploratory action research, Teachers got the gist of the low-resource classes which can help them to overcome the challenges.

✍️Throughout the presentation and discussion among participants my take away points are-

1. Low resource classroom means classroom with only basic facilities. It means no handouts, paper, books and manuals, internet nothing.

2. In these classrooms, students can be a great resource themselves. we need to make use of them.

3. To engage students without resources, we should focus on the style of learning of the learners.

4. The monotony of the teachers should stop and let the learners ask what they want to discuss , this gets them talking . It makes the learners to open up and come out with their ideas.

5. Teachers should touch learners hearts and relate to their own lives. That made them think and talk.

6. In low- resources classrooms peer teaching and assessment is the significant idea. Sometimes learners can explain the topics better than the teacher.

7. Non conventional learning tools which can provide a common platform(music, sports and movies) can be used to create an interactive environment in a low resource classroom.

8. Sometimes we should get the pupils to be "little" teachers.

9. Peer checking is a useful exercise whatever the size of the group. However, it often requires the teacher to wander around and monitor as sometimes students will mark as wrong something that is right.

10. Collaborative enquiry with colleagues resulted in much wider range of startegies and ideas than one would have come up with on one's own.

11. students can interview each other in a low resource classroom.

12. All the simple formative assessment techniques we can use in a low resource classroom.

13. Mabelle introduced an idea of preparing different tasks for different levels but relating them to the same text. Presumably, if you then put students into mixed groups so that they can share the answers to the different tasks, this would make it a really interesting collobarative exercise.

14. Personally I liked Jiresh sir’s quote " all roads lead to Rome" . He put we end up covering syllabus for tests and exams thus we are only covering up the syllabus, but it is better to uncover the syllabus for which a change in testing and assessement practices is necessary.

15. Three Indians and one nepolian generated an idea for “Managing multiple classes in one room without partitions.” These ideas generated through consultation with peers. The ideas are –

In these classrooms

a) We should use a mix of teacher-led and self directed activities.

b) We should use multi-class or whole school activities

c) We should use classroom layout.

d) We should use monitors and mentors in the classroom.

e) We should manage the behavior by engaging them in various activities.



Friends , On the whole , it was the most engaging, enriching and enhancing webinar.The essence of a webinar was Two heads are always better than one. So, do sharing and caring of dear ones. Remember “Teaching is indeed a universal phenomenon.”

Kalpana Bansod
SARP, DIECPD
Chandrapur.