Innovative teachers on women day

She makes learning seem like child's play. Jagruti Pandya, a class VIII teacher at Prathmic Kanya Shala in Shikod Talav of Anand city has made maths easy for her students through a variety of innovative games.

Using her 17 years of experience in teaching school students, Pandya has created 16 different maths games which are a unique synergy between traditional games and mathematics. The innovator-teacher has come up with games like Winning Necklace - garland of numbers - Calendar, Playing Cards, Numbers Chart, Flash Card and Puzzle Box which help students of standard VI and VII learn mathematics problem solving while still in play mode. "In these classes, a foundation is laid for high school mathematics. These games have helped my students love the subject and score better in it," said Pandya.

Teaching is in her blood and the knack for innovations seems to be a natural progression for this school teacher from Anand. Pandya's grandfather was a freedom fighter while her father was a teacher, mother was a district primary education officer and brother is a teacher too. Pandya's spouse is a teacher too and she says: "I have a daughter and she completes our family."

Pandya said: "Injecting playfulness and games helps simplify the learning process. Traditionally mathematics problem solving has been a mental process. Through games I have made maths learning fun for children."

Every day during recess time, girls studying in this school make a beeline for the terrace or the lobby. They play on a huge replica of snakes and ladders on the school's terrace and hone their mathematics problem-solving expertise. "If you're stuck at the mouth of a snake, you're supposed to solve a mathematics problem and the answer determines how many places you slip down. Minus answers take you back and plus answers take you forward. In the lobby we have linked hopscotch to graphs. The game helps girls understand the basics of mathematics graphs. The Winning Necklace game of numbers I have devised also helps them improve their maths prowess. Through these games each student solves more than 1,000 problems in class VI and VII," said Pandya.

The results are for all to see. Earlier only 5% of girls in the school were proficient in maths. Today the proficiency level is 85% for students of class VII.

Felicitated

In June 2013, efforts of innovative teachers in Gujarat were documented by Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in a project called 'Educational Innovations Bank'. More than 6,000 teachers from across Gujarat sent applications showcasing their innovations of which 1,000 were selected. Then, the final shortlist of 100 was prepared from this. Jagruti was ranked 17th. On February 5 and 6, at a function organized by the state education department, Jagruti along with the other academic innovators were awarded a Teaching Learning Material certificate.