Halasuru Traverses: Alternative Local Histories

From the journal Digital Culture & Societyhttps://doi.org/10.14361/dcs-2020-0113

Vatara Shaales: Evidence for an Arts-integrated Investment for Continued Learning in Community Schools during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Karnataka, India

This paper outlines the experiences of Yuva Chintana Foundation (YCF) in rolling out a STEM education programme supported by IBM and Quest Alliance in the state of Karnataka during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The government of Karnataka announced a community schooling initiative titled Vidyagama to prevent a sustained break in the education of students from vulnerable communities who are at risk of dropping out of school. This paper outlines many of the methods used in these community schools or Vatara Shaales, drawing attention to the use of the arts in 1) connecting various members of the community by helping them make sense of what is happening around them through the process of sharing and reflecting on their collective experiences, 2) making lessons interesting, 3) learning new digital skills, 4) providing context and relevance to local art forms and traditions and 5) building a pool of resources who can teach an arts-integrated STEM curriculum in these economically “backward” and vulnerable districts.

fab educators pilot programme at workbench projects: Government School Theatre teachers leverage digital fabrication for fab 2.0

https://archive.org/details/Fab12GowdaKumar/page/n6/mode/2up

Educators have long-standing experience using FabLabs in many parts of the globe. In India FabLabs are at a nascent stage and available for a small community of informed users, mostly in urban settings. Workbench Projects (WP), a young FabLab/Makerspace in Bangalore, made its first headway working with a select group of government school ‘theatre teachers’ under its pilot initiative of the Fab Educators Programme. Teachers became the ground zero of this project because they represent a small but committed group of individuals in the system. This paper attempts to share some key processes that were set in place in selection of teacher participants, designing, preparation, conducting and reviewing the workshop. Continuation of this orientation towards a more immersive, and self-directed engagement has been charted by the teacher participants themselves as the next plan of action towards building Fab2.0 in their own small workspaces with the support of Workbench Projects along with both the central and state government

ARTS EDUCATION POSITION PAPERS FOR PRE-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINERS

One major success for the work I did at india foundation for the Arts was securing a long-term engagement with Department of State Education and Research Training (DSERT) that began with creating an Arts Education syllabus for the Diploma in Education (D.Ed.) teacher training programme. We were appointed for implementing the new Arts Education syllabus for teacher educators at District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) colleges, and for articulating two position papers for the D.Ed. curriculum review.

1. Aims of Education
2. Communication Skills in Pre-Service Teacher Training Programme

The outcome has been not just the two position papers, but also, a detailed D.Ed. course syllabus teacher educators’ manual and a source book.It is abundantly clear that the DSERT viewed our work through the Kali-Kalisu project as the preeminent arts education resource for the state.