STF background

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan, Karnataka (RMSA), Department of State Educational Research and Training, Karnataka (DSERT), have worked to create a 'Teachers Communities of Learning' through the Subject Teacher Forums, Karnataka in Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences, Kannada, Hindi and English across 34 districts of Karnataka. with support from UNICEF.

The program was based on the extensive and intensive use of public digital resources to build and support teachers networks as well as to to create a resource rich learning environment these subjects. IT for Change, an NGO, is working as the resource institution for this programme, in partnership with RMSA and DSERT.

The STF and the Karnataka Open Educational Resources (KOER) programmes aim to pioneer a new model of teacher education, one that is aligned to the vision of the National Curricular Framework for Teacher Education (NCF TE), 2009, and is based on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework in teacher education.

Click here for a report on the STF programme

Note from the SPD RMSA, Karnataka

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA), Karnataka is happy to pilot the innovate Subject Teacher Forums programme for high school teachers. Teachers need a community of peer practitioners for continuous learning and professional development. Providing such an experience only through physical interactions and meetings has its challenges because of the geographical spread and the classroom responsibilities of the teachers. Therefore a digitally enabled community of learners allows for continuous collaboration and networking that makes self and peer learning a reality. This will be a very effective complement to the physical forums. more

Note from the Director, RMSA, Karnataka, Sri M.N.Baig

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA), Karnataka in order to improve the quality of teaching-learning in high school classrooms is piloting a new programme that will enable teachers to become digitally knowledgeable. This is to promote the effective use of ICTs provided by the ICT Phase 1 and 2 programmes in the government high schools. Through this programme teachers will start creating open resources that are free to share, and modify thus enabling them to integrate ICTs into the regular curriculum teaching and learning.

A web portal has been created for all teachers to access the created resources and have links to external resources. The vision of this portal is to enable teachers to blog , discuss and share their ideas, resources they create and their concerns to promote deeper understanding of their subject, as well as enable teachers to participate at a systemic level thus enabling decentralisation. The teachers have also attempted to look at their subject teaching in different ways by engaging extensively with the recommendations of the National Curriculum Framework,2005 and familiarising themselves with new methodologies that include new skills needed in the information society. The teachers have put together digital resource material in various themes from the above learnings.

Presentation on STF-KOER as a new TE model

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The program attempts to develop Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework in teachers. The components of this framework are

Technology Knowledge (TK)
Content Knowledge (CK)
Pedagogical Knowledge (PK)
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)
Technological Content Knowledge (TCK)
Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK)
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK)

The program's larger focus is on TK, TCK, TPK and TPCK, as a part of this PCK gets covered. The program processes include the following, for this purpose:

acquainting teachers with the abilities to use different software applications (TK)
providing teachers access to different sources of content for their subject, creating possibilities of enriching subject knowledge, helping teachers to learn different approaches to teaching (TCK)
helping teachers learn new teaching methods involving digital technologies, such as showing a video and asking questions, explaining a concept with a simulation etc (TPK)
Integrating digital educational resources for the subject with digital methods of teaching, such as a social science teacher showing a film on garbage disposal in cities to teach them about environmental issues arising from urbanisation. Another example could be a Mathematics teacher showing a simulation using Geogebra to verify a theorem.

Comments on the Subject Teacher Forum programme

"As part of RSMA, in Karnataka, IT for Change has created the Karnataka OER and developed various supportive mechanisms such as subject teacher forums (STF) based on email groups and a web portal" - Guidelines for Teacher Continuous Professional Development for RMSA, December 2015.

"... The JRM team also observed an impressive in-service training program in Karnataka which incorporates ICT in the training (in some government schools teacher support is provided through an open operating system called Subject Teacher Forum under which 5000 teachers across 34 districts have learnt to use digital tools and resources for their subject teaching)... "

3rd RMSA JRM, MHRD. January 2014.

STF groups and presentations

Access the STF Mailing groups here
How to become a member of STF mailing lists
Reports and presentations on STF are available here

Video on STF

A Video on the 'Subject Teachers Forum', discusses the approach to integrating ICTs into teacher education, focusing on building 'Teachers Communities of Learning' to create digital learning resources and network with one another for sharing and learning. It is based on interviews with two directors of education in Karnataka government - Sri MN Baig and Sri Rama Rao, Prof Padma Sarangapani, Gurumurthy Kasinathan (Director of IT for Change, the NGO partnering with RMSA and DSERT as a resource institution for the programme) and two government high school teachers who are state resource persons for the Subject Teacher Forum program.

6 minute film- 20 minute film-