Q.

Briefly describe the culture of your school community and your involvement within it, what impact
has the school culture had on you? How would you enhance or change it?

Ans. Being a part of school community for almost 13 years has moulded me into its culture. It’s a culture
that’s focus is beyond academics; emphasizing upon extra-curricular activities including Sports events,
Literature, Arts etc. These activities inevitability lead to the school environment being socially
connected. When mentioning about broad social circle, I would include all the teachers and school staff
in it. The teachers are really passionate and quite concerned for every student. I found the school staff
really co- operative, even in the time of pandemic when our studies came to a standstill.

From the first day of my admission, I tried to give my 100% in academics as well as extra-curricular
activities. In fact I remained the high-achiever of my class during my primary classes. Every time I was
called at Award-giving ceremony, the applauses I received became the motivation to do better again and
the praise I received helped me to improve my self-esteem. With regard to extra-curricular activities, I
took part in sports events especially tape ball cricket. Furthermore, recently I participated in Hackathon
2.0 where my team ranked 6th out of 22 teams from all over Karachi who competed in this activity.

The culture of school had a huge impact on my personality. As mentioned previously, the sociable school
environment turned me from a person overshadowed by shyness and hesitation into a confident,
extrovert being. This led me to catch up on extra-curricular as well as academics. Undoubtedly, the
school organization provide its best to us with its pure intention but personally I would like to make
some amendments in current school system. Firstly, I would increase the duration of physical activity at
school and make physical activity compulsory at the start of school every day which will lead to a
healthier and fresher school environment. Secondly, I would want to add a break for Zuhr prayers to
make the students follow their religious duties and inculcate a sense of responsibility towards their
religion. The changes would lead to a well-organized and smooth school environment.
What is Learning
I perceived learning as knowledge about the world around us as we come across
experiences in life, shaping and transforming us in due course.
However, an understanding of Skinner’s theory of behaviorism helped me to promote
‘desirable behaviour’ among my students through positive reinforcement like
appreciation and negative reinforcement such as free homework pass for turning in all
assignments. Moreover, adopting Dewey’s cognitive approach led me into making my
class more student-centered whereas Bloom’s Taxonomy aided in designing higher
order thinking questions in progression. Furthermore, Piaget’s theory of constructivism
prompted me into giving more opportunities to my students to learn with each other
through peer teaching or discussions so that they can ‘express their knowledge of the
topic being studied and develop new understandings. Using Socratic questioning and
mind maps are some of the ways I now assist my students in making meaning out of
given material for learning to happen. The humanist approach led me to take on the role
of a facilitator who ensures a positive climate in the classroom and assists students in
moving towards self-actualisation.
With regard to learning, the notion of teachers transmitting knowledge and students
acquiring it like vessels is termed the ‘acquisition model’. Kolb’s learning cycle
effectively illustrates the participation model emphasizing that “the learners must do
something’ think about the experience, make connections with past experiences and
use their new learning in different situations. Hence, I now provide my students with
more opportunities to learn with and from each other by working on tasks as active
partners and thinking about their experience through peer and self-assessment to
develop a sense of ownership and personal involvement which is key to successful
learning. When students actively connect their past experience with the present one, the
neurons in the brain construct their own meaning of this new learning which is why
active learning and constructivism are closely interlinked. Hence, the emphasis on pair
work, questioning, project work, presentations, SQ3R etc. In order to ensure deep
learning of my students, I now set clear objectives, demonstrate think aloud, use
mnemonics, and encourage the use of reflective journals to foster their metacognitive
practices.

I consider ‘motivation’ as an inherent curiosity to discover and know about the world
around us. No learning can take place in the absence of motivation. If ‘students attribute
their success to something they can change or to something they can’t is immensely
influential, and this attribution can be changed’. Our work on ‘attribution’ can change
students’ performance by between two or three grades. However, only focusing on self-
esteem can lead to ‘uncritical self-satisfaction.’ We need to link self-esteem to self-
awareness and mastery orientation, hence honing our persuasion skills and focusing on
making students resourceful, resilient, reflective and reciprocal can ensure increase in
their motivation. Students’ motivation can also be increased by sharing clear
expectations, giving opportunities for early success and by giving lots of praise for any
success. There are students in my class who are unmotivated. My learning prompted
me to assist them with differentiated tasks and instructions. I implemented Vygotsky’s
zone of proximal development by starting peer mentorship; better grades resulting in
mentee’s extrinsic motivation whereas significantly increasing mentors’ intrinsic
motivation by focus on their self-worth. I try to provide my students with tasks which are challenging “but
nonetheless achievable with reasonable effort Moreover, I give feedback on their work as immediately as possible.
Thirdly, I involve them in collaborative tasks which are mutually supportive rather than competitive.I think that when
the students are convinced that the task has relevance to their life, they are more motivated to do better. Sometimes,
sharing anecdote about how a certain concept changed my own life also motivates them.