[Reader-list] Wipro Education Fellowship Assignments 2009-2011

[Chintan]

http://www.wiproeducation.com/Fellowship_projects.pdf

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Wipro Education Fellowship

Assignments 2009-2011
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Below is a list of assignments available under the Wipro Education
Fellowship (from May

2009)
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Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment – ATREE, Bangalore
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(www.atree.org )

ATREE seeks to address pressing environmental challenges through
multidisciplinary

research and active engagement with civil society and policy makers.

Wipro and ATREE have started a collaborative project to evaluate the carbon
footprint

and biodiversity in a typical IT company campus. This initiative would
involve research

and document measures for reducing carbon footprint and increasing
biodiversity both

within and outside the Wipro campus.

This kind of comprehensive exercise in carbon footprint and biodiversity
evaluation would

unravel a wealth of knowledge that would have implications for schools and
school

curriculum.

As a Fellow, you will be responsible for documenting the experiences from
this project

and design methods and approaches in which this could be integrated into
school

curriculum. You would be required to design the methods and approaches in
which

information could be generated and disseminated among schools.

This fellowship is primarily intended to provide in-service teachers or
those pursuing a

degree in Education at the k-12 level an opportunity to conduct relevant
actionresearch

and develop learning tools and approaches in the field of Conservation,

Environment and Development.

S/he will have the opportunity to interact with natural and social
scientists at ATREE, have

access to its diverse field-based academies, and work with ongoing
conservation

education projects.
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Digantar, Jaipur (*www.digantar.org *)
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Digantar and Wipro are working in a project with the government school
system in the

Phagi block of Jaipur Dist. As part of this program Digantar has been
working with 75

schools over the past 3 years. Next year this project is being extended to
25 more schools

in the same block combined with a more intense engagement with the cluster
resource

persons in the block. This program is called the Shiksha Samarthan
Pariyojana.

The vision of this project is firstly, to demonstrate that, quality
education is indeed possible

to be achieved in government schools and the work of government schools can
be

improved by working with the stakeholders on a continuous basis, offering
required

technical and facilitation support. Such improvement is necessary for the
government

public education system to provide equitable universal quality education.

The objective of the program is to try and demonstrate how a group of
government

schools and an academic support system could potentially work towards
providing good

educational experience for the children. This project has been going on for
3 years now.

And the project team works with all stakeholders (children, teachers, the
parents and

local community) to influence the school to become a more active space for
learning.

The Fellowship assignment would be to take up a research assignment in a
specific area

within the Phagi project or in some other area in Digantar with the help of
TARU (The

Academic and Research Unit). The output of the assignment with be multiple

monographs or a research paper or articles.
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National Center of Biological Sciences - NCBS, Bangalore (*www.ncbs.res.in *
)
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NCBS is a research body based in Bangalore and part of the Tata Institute of

Fundamental Research.

The core objective of this project is to connect biological research at NCBS
to learning of

biology in schools to create a spirit of scientific learning in general or
the way biology

teaching-learning happens in specific in schools.

Wipro will fund a Fellow to work out of NCBS and at least one school to
understand both

the school context and also the research output of NCBS. NCBS will provide
access to

research, people and other facilities required to achieve the same.

The Fellow will be academically capable of understanding the research work,
not at a

superficial level, but at a level which is deep enough to do justice to the
research work.

The Fellow will also be capable of appreciating the complexity involved in
converting

biological research to something that can help the way teaching-learning of
biology

happens.

The output of the Fellowship could be any of the following:

• Content similar to the iBio seminars ( www.ibioseminars.org ) that can be
used within a

school context in various ways

• Have scientists or research students at NCBS take biology classes for
students and

identify differences in approach used with the current teaching-learning
process.

• Create classroom content and/or lesson plans for teachers either based on
latest

research topics that connect it to what is already taught in class. These
may also use the

approach identified in the above point.

• Interface with the Nobel Prize winning biologists invited by NCBS to give
talks to school

children

The possibilities could be much beyond what is outlined and is likely to
emerge based on

the interaction between NCBS, Wipro, the Fellow and the school.
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Tulika Publications, Chennai *(www.tulikabooks.com)

Wipro is keen on engaging with leading publishing organizations in creating
children’s

literature with ecological sensitivity as a primary theme and to create a
platform for

popularizing good children’s literature. Goodbooks Trust was set up under
the aegis of

Tulika publications to make available good children’s literature to children
and parents.

The Goodbooks Trust and Wipro have agreed to partner in this project to make
available

information about good children’s books published in 2007-08. Goodbooks with
its

experience in sourcing and selecting good children’s books from across the
country will

take up the project. Reviews and descriptions of good children’s books in
English and in

the different languages will be made available in a print as well as online.

The first Fellowship assignment is to put together a publication (The Book
Review,

November issue focused on Children’s literature) that will provide
information on good

children’s literature in India. This will also contain commentaries and
reviews on children’s

literature. The information will also be made available online.

In the later part of the assignment the Fellow will take up the task of
putting together

comprehensive information on good children’s literature and creating a
database

(taking off from the work done in publishing The Book Review November
issue). This

database will be enriched with reviews and inputs from educationists and
litterateurs

across the country.

The Wipro Fellow get the opportunity to work closely with foremost
publishers and

children litterateurs and educationists in the country in course of
coordinating this entire

project for 2 years.
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Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur *(www.vidyabhawan.org)

Wipro and Vidya Bhawan (Udaipur) took up the Holistic School Engagement
project with

the four Vidya Bhawan schools in April 2004. The goals of this intervention
run by the

school led by school management (principals) and a core group of teachers
are

- To set up a quality education oriented educational system and school that

emphasizes the spirit of collaboration and cooperation rather than
no-holds-barred

competition.

- Create a stress free, child-friendly, activity-based and experiential
learning

atmosphere at school rather than one-sided and at times oppressively
monotonous

classroom teaching aimed at rewarding rote learning, memorization and
thoughtless

reproduction of texts and ideas alien to the learners' reach and scope of

comprehension.

- To encourage independent thinking, concept formation, power of expression,

empathy, self actualization, leadership and creativity rather than
superimposed

regimentation and standardization through marks, grades, divisions, degrees
and

acquisition of medals and trophies.

Significant amount of work has been done in the past 4 years to revamp
pedagogical

practices and classroom culture in the school. Over the next 2 years,
interventions in the

below mentioned areas will be facilitated and supported by the academic
advisor

a. Teaching and Learning Processes

b. Teacher’s capacity building,

c. Leadership and Management Processes

The Wipro Fellow will work under the mentorship of the academic advisor of
Vidya

Bhawan (Dr. Hridaykant Dewan). The assignment would be to work with the core
group

of this intervention and identify specific areas of work in the project
(pedagogical

methods, classroom library and others) that are of research interest and
create good,

shareable documentation about the project. This document would have an

academic/researcher’s perspective but be in a form that would be engaging
for a

larger audience interested in education (a monograph, films, research paper
or a book).
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Vikramshila, Kolkata (*www.vikramshila.org *)
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Wipro in partnership with Vikramshila is doing a project with the West
Bengal Board of

Madrasah Education. The objective of this program is to bring about
improvement in the

functioning of the madrasahs, in teaching and learning in the schools, in
student

performances and over time work with the Board to bring about systemic
change in the

506 school strong madrassah system.

This program is meant to demonstrate the creation of Centres of Excellence
and share

the learning across the country with other madrasahs.

The project is structured

· To work intensively with 10 Madrasahs, in partnership with the Department
of

Minorities Welfare and Development and Madrasah Education, and the WBBME to

establish proof of concept. These Madrasahs will function as laboratory
schools

where best practices, processes and systems will be tested and established.

· The intervention in the 10 Madrasahs will seek to establish best practice
in the areas

of:

i) Educational quality

ii) Educational management

iii) Academic support structures to ensure ongoing professional development

The Fellowship assignment is to work with the project coordinator to evolve
a research

and documentation strategy for the intervention. This will mean taking up
specific

aspects of the program and do action research in this area and put together

documentation meant to be shared with a larger audience. This document could
be in

the form of a monograph, a research paper, publishable articles or a book.