Empowering Educators: Workshops on ‘Nurturing Leaders in Teachers and Higher Order Thinking Skills

Under the banner of Continuous Professional Development Series, two workshops were organized at Delhi Public School Greater Faridabad on June 27, 2024 on ‘Nurturing Leaders in Teachers’ and `Higher Order Thinking Skills’ to enhance leadership capabilities in the participants and foster critical and creative thinking in the classroom.

The first session led by Ms. Pooja Bhatia, PGT Psychology and Ms. Pratima Sharma, Junior School Counselor focused on the role of teachers as leaders. The session commenced with an engaging activity, where participants shared personal experiences of leadership, fostering a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect. Following this, the workshop addressed the principles of change management, emphasizing that while change can be challenging, it is essential for growth and improvement. The participants further engaged in role-play exercise to develop adaptability, innovation and collaboration, the essential traits for effective change management. The workshop concluded with a discussion on integrating leadership principles into everyday teaching practices.

The second session focused on integrating Higher Order Thinking Skills in our day to day teaching. Beginning with an overview of Bloom’s Taxonomy, a hierarchical model used to classify educational learning objectives into levels of complexity and specificity, the Resource Person, Mr Sidheshwar Pandey, PGT Physics, elaborated on the practical strategies to move beyond foundational levels to more complex ones like analyzing, evaluating, and creating, imperative to encourage critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity among students.

The participants engaged in interactive activities like framing open-ended questions that required higher-level thinking, discussing designing of assignments that would encourage students to apply familiar concepts in new situations and using real-world problems to develop students’ analytical skills, logical reasoning and reflective thinking among other skills. The two sessions provided the participants rich insights and strategies to develop their leadership skills and integrate HOTS into teaching learning practices, to nurture the essential 21st century skills for personal and professional growth.