Thinking Aloud

Rohit Dhankar

This is a response to some questions asked in writing by a friend (Not writing the name here because have not asked for permission, s/he can write in the comments if so desires). The person uses the term VGL in the questions. I myself have used the term often in the past, but here have replaced VGL everywhere with Ungraded Teaching Group (UTG, for those who are foind of abbreviations and also to be used in this writeup). The reasons for this change will be explained below.

Some clarifications

Ungraded Teaching Group (UTG): There is a preoccupation in the Indian educational discourse for using child-centric terms without actually bothering about their precise meaning or being serious about really implementing pedagogy so recommended in the classrooms. A kind of tokenism is used to declare certain pedagogical improvements and then claim that they are implemented without proper teacher training and material. In this kind of discourse many terms are used for particular classroom arrangements, for example, Multigrade Teaching/Learning, Multilevel Teaching, Vertical Group Learning, and so on.

In this writeup and everywhere else I am using Ungraded Teaching Group (UTG) in a specific meaning with the following characteristics:

1. The groups are constructed by the teacher(s) to facilitate learning, therefore, the emphasis on the term teaching.
2. The teaching groups are ungraded, not multigrade. The difference being that in multigrade the “grade” is recognised as an organising principle, in ungraded the very idea of grade is completely ignored or deliberately discarded as an unsuitable principle of school and/or classroom organisation.

The Questions and Answers

Set 1: What are the prerequisites for UTG organisation?

Question 1. With respect to the teacher, e.g. can someone who lacks conceptual clarity be effective (in UTG pedagogy)?

Answer to Q1: The short answer is NO.

An educational practice (say teaching) is educational only by virtue of being guided by some theory which necessarily involves answers to questions of why? what? and how? Without such an underlying theory it is impossible to distinguish educational practice from any sundry human act. UTG has its specific reasons for organising the group in ungraded manner, principles and procedures of interaction with children, principles and procedures for material to be used and how it should be used, etc. Without conceptual clarity in all this the teacher is likely to be almost as effective as a motor mechanic without any knowledge of human anatomy trying to remove your painful appendix.

Question 2: (Prerequisites) With respect to School administration since teachers will need more time to plan?

Answer to Q2: The success of UTG pedagogy will depend on the teachers’ understanding of educational principles behind it (mentioned above); in-depth understanding of the children’s minds in terms of their learning styles, habits, conceptual understanding; and meticulous planning based on the earlier two. Understanding children’s minds involves keen observation, ability to interpret their work in epistemic terms, so to speak—ability to look into their minds through their eyes and their work. All this will require time and energy. Therefore, in my view every teacher needs minimum two hours for planning and recording every day and half a day for collective reflection with other colleagues every week.

This will have significant impact on the school organisation and number of teachers required. Those who want to do everything without hard work and want their teachers to teach 8 periods of 40 mins each should refrain from such a system. Pretentions of pedagogical improvements and herd-teaching is more suitable to them. They should happily continue in what they are doing presently.

Question 3: What kind of classroom culture is needed, e.g. will it work if students are not willing to work on their own?

Answer to Q3: (I have changed the order of questions between Q3 and Q4 for logical reasons) The short and direct answer is NO. The most significant purposes of UTG pedagogy are learning with as much clear conceptual understanding as possible, and to become independent in learning and judgment. Since the children gain conceptual clarity at their own pace and with their own cognitive efforts (often struggles), they need time to deal with ideas. That is the fundamental rationale for not organising the herd-teaching classrooms. Therefore, the children will have to be helped in trying to figure out for themselves, be persistent and not give us, and learn/work independently. Without such ‘training’ UTG can not function. Another equally important classroom principle would be complete lack of competition and children enjoying teaching and collaborating with others. One teacher can function effectively with 30 children only if the children can learn independently and with help from other children. 

Question 4: What kind of materials should be there? Should there be multiple sets of some materials?

Answer to Q4: In view of the answers to Q1 to Q3 it should be clear that specially designed material will be required for self-learning for children. Some of the basic principles of developing such material could be:

1. Very clear logical and epistemic arrangement of concepts and capabilities. That means cognitively speaking all perquisite concepts and capabilities should have been reasonably mastered before going to the next level. (That is before attempting X_n all X₁, X₂, … X_n-1 should have been learnt.)
2. The steps from concept/capability that is firmly learnt to the now attempted should be logically derivable by the child herself. That is, the steps from X_n-1 to X_n should be small and logically clear.
3. The material should include appropriate hints to arrive at X_n from X_n-1.
4. The instructions should be simple, direct, appropriate and addressed to the child; but should not be too many or too long.
5. Textbooks should never be the so-called integrated type, that is having language, math, EVS in the same book. The very idea is clumsy and anti-clarity; violates nature of knowledge.
6. The books should never by bulky (like Rajasthan textbooks for primary in the year 2023, where the first three-month book for Grade 1 is about 250 pages, has parts of Hindi, English and Math bound in the same cover. It is said to be based on some phony research which can hardly stand scrutiny). Rather they should be small booklets of about 16-20 pages each which can be mastered by the time they go into tatters in the child’s hands. These small books will keep the excitement of getting a new book after mastering one continuously through out the year.
7. There should be carefully designed adequate (not too much, not too little) material in terms of cards and manipulanda.
8. The textbooks and workbooks should be individual copies for every child.
9. The cards and other material may be required in multiple copies depending on the group size and learning levels. It has to be carefully planned. Can not be described in detail here.

Set 2: Planning for one teacher teaching more than one UTGs (I have changed the vague language of the question as per my understanding).

Question 5: How to plan? Is there any format for such teaching plans?

Answer to Q5: Difficult to answer in vacuum. But every school has to develop their own formats of recording progress of the children and planning. In both, each child should figure individually as well as in smaller sub-groups which are learning together. The teacher has to roughly divide the sub-groups and children into two main categories for the purpose of planning every day: those who can work on that particular day solely on the basis of written instructions in their notebooks and/or a separate very short but clear note, and two, those who will need help as soon as the class begins, that is can not do anything on their own on that particular day. Some of them may have to be engaged for a few minutes (not more than 5-7) in revision or some practice work or may have to be assigned to a child who is at a higher level then them. Other the teacher can start explaining the new concept or difficulty. The teacher should also arrange the material (textbooks, workbooks, cards, manipulanda, etc.) clearly marked for the sub-group or the child; she should not waste time in searching the material in the classroom when the children are waiting. That will ruin the enthusiasm and seriousness for learning.

Planning for more than one groups will be no different than planning for one group except that it will require more time, and that should be provided by the school management.

Question 6: How to track the progress of each child if they are in different groups?

Answer to Q6: The question is rather vague. I see no reason for a child to be in different groups except in the case of subject groups, that is a child may be in group A in, say Hindi, and Group B in Math. It does not have any implications for the planning. In any case all children may be at different levels in different subjects. In my view the best arrangement for primary level is that one teacher teaches all the subjects to a group throughout the year and is held responsible for coordinated progress in learning.

Question 7: How often should the teaching plans be revised/updated?

Answer to Q7: I am not sure what “teaching plan” means here. One is a daily teaching plan which actually is made every day, and thus gets revised and progressively modified every day. Another could be a monthly teaching plan for a group. The progress made by children should be matched with the progress assumed in the monthly plan every week in the reflection group of teachers. And the plan may or may not require modification but thus will be reviewed every week.

Set 3. Grouping the children

Question 8: How to group the children?

Answer to Q8: In my view this kind of arrangement is most suitable for Primary Level. Suppose a school has only 30 children in the primary section. They can naturally be in a single UTG. This will be somewhat difficult for the teacher to manage the range of learning levels but can be done. Now suppose a school has about 90 children, they can be suitably organised in Beginners (those who are just beginning to the ones who are comfortable in reading small simple stories, and similar levels in math etc.), Readers (those who can comfortably read and write, and getting familiar with working alone on books) and Advanced (those who are working independently and are near the completion of the primary education). Only two principles are important: one, the range should be manageable by the teacher, and two, there is no harm in overlapping levels on learning between the groups.

For upper primary the usual grades can be retained if the teachers are not very well trained, but freedom of pace of learning and independence of learning may be ensured withing the group. With confident and well-trained teachers one can have children from the whole upper primary range as described above. Actually, this is a matter to be decided in the school.

Question 9: How to switch from homogeneous to heterogeneous groups and vice versa? (This I understand as How to switch from Graded School Organisation to Ungraded School Organisation?)

Answer to Q9: This is a very important question and can not be answered in a few lines, it will take a separate full-length article or maybe even a book. All I can say here is the following: Don’t do it for romantic or for boasting purposes. Do it only if you understand the need and principles behind it. Some steps could be worked out:

1. Discuss in the whole school and make sure every teachers understand the principles and is conceptually clear.
2. Ensure that every teacher is committed to the pedagogy and the teachers can form a very critical no-nonsense discussion group.
3. Prepare material and plan to move children from herd-fed-teaching to self-reliant independent learning and collaboration with each other.
4. Start with primary and let the children who get used to this pedagogy progress to the upper primary over the years.
5. A different level of planning and thinking will be required for upper primary level.
6. Train your teachers well, no token 2-3 days motivating lecture by some spuriously wise educator will help. It will only create frustration.
7. Keep sufficient funds and time for training your teachers. Say minimum 3 months residential training. If that scares you, be happy with what you are doing.

Question 10: How to change grouping when the topic changes?

Answer to Q10: I do not know what this question means. Why should the groups change when topic changes? If this is about sub-groups in the same UTG of, say, about 30 children then it has to be a regular practice of working in different sub-groups for different topics, so what is special about it?

This article or note is, as said above, a response to questions asked, and therefore may have many gaps in it. You are most welcome to comment on such gaps and other things as well as write questions or critique of your own.

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2^nd September 2023