Addressing diversity in Indian science classrooms

Abstract

Given the diverse socio-cultural nature of the student population of Indian classrooms, it is imperative that science teachers be prepared to critically examine, reflect on and respond to practices for learners with diverse needs and from diverse backgrounds. Language development, students' contextual understanding, worldviews, quantitative and visual-spatial reasoning skills and social skills, all contribute to preparing students to become scientific literate citizens? Professional development of science teachers is a crucial step in addressing these issues. This paper reports the findings of two research projects, where three-day professional development workshops were conducted for Indian science teachers in two different cities namely Mumbai and Gwalior, to enrich their teaching practices in diverse classrooms. Indian science teachers were introduced to and then engaged in inquiry-based teaching methods based on the Australian Academy of Science, Science by Doing materials. The professional development workshops provided opportunities for teachers to ask questions and work collaboratively with their peers to generate novel solutions to the questions raised using their science content knowledge. Most teachers enjoyed the workshops and found the content and pedagogies used for delivering workshop useful. However, they expressed a need for activities aligned with commonly used textbooks and for teaching large classes with few resources.