Week 6: The Final Presentation

So, this was it...our final report and our final presentation. From my earlier post, we realized that surverys were great in trying to figure out what questions to ask on how is PV actually helping these schools raise their SSLC pass percentages.But it wasn't so great in getting the responses we were hoping for. Students were praising the videos like no other and they seem to like school...a lot. My point being that, we found out that students did not like to criticize the school or the video intervention.

Drawing from my experiences during primary and secondary school, I did realize that we were often trained to "listen to elders". We were taught that your parents, teachers, grandparents or whatever, are elder than you and you must always show respect and that they are always right.And while we were taught in school, a teacher may be giving the wrong information but we were taught to not interrupt and not "talk back", although the 'talking back' can be just correcting the teacher correctly.

We were taught to memorize the textbooks and regurgitate those information and it was drilled within our brains that "The only right answer is in the textbook.Give another answer and you are wrong." Isn't this how we prepared for SPM?We memorized a whole paragraph on the breathing mechanism of humans or how the Portugeese took over Malaysia...but do we even know why it's relevant?We are basically machines at that time.We emphasized so much on knowing the theory and being submissive to our teachers that I think our minds were narrowed by the system itself.

And I think a somewhat similar system is being practised here.Please know that I do not claim to know all about the Indian education system.I am merely trying to draw a parallel between the education system that I grew up with and what I am seeing in these students.

So,the answers were always favorable and we could not determine how these students are learning. Therefore, we did quite a bit of research and came up with a focus group approach. A focus group allows the interviewer to speak with 5-10 students on a certain topic and it is mostly driven by the answers obtained during that session. The interviewer will be with another person who will be taking notes on the session. Here, the second interviewer pays attention to the body language and certain subtle phrases that you will not normally get from a written surveys.

Basically, a focus group gives a rich set of qualitative data. And the interviewer has to be able to intepret the data objectively and be able to recognize repetitive aspects.For example a few students may say that "The moving objects help me remember better." From this, we can draw a hypothesis that animation within the videos help with students retention. To test this hypothesis, you can do statistical analysis to determine if the animations in the videos really help with retention.

We did more research and interviews with students, teaching assistants and the staff of PV to learn more about the pedagogy of PremaVidya's intervention.We found out that PV's pedagogy is actually parallel to a learning theory, Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory.

This theory states that learning happens through these four domains:Attention, Retention, Motor Reproduction and Motivation. We found out that PV's engaging audio visuals(attention),Question-Pause-Answer Method(retention), confidence in asking questions(Motivation) and Peer-to-Peer Learning(Motor Reproduction) are parallel to this theory. If the focus group is conducted using these four domains as guidelines and the answers support this theory, we can say that PV's pedagogy is sucessful as proved by this theory.

Basically,this was our argument and we have to present this argument to our advisor, our professor and the administrators of PremaVidya during our final presentation.

The four of us presenting our final report

After our presentation

Our advisor, Cathy and our supervisor Darsana

It has been an amazing journey for me this far.I have learned a lot about myself and I have grown so much from this experience.Although my interests still lie in the medical field,I have found new causes that I care about and these are the causes that I would like to fight for, as I pursue my path towards becoming a physician.

Week 5:Field Trips & Sari Day

So, every Thursday afternoons we have CSIM sessions where different speakers who are involved in the social entreprenurship field are invited to speak to us.Our last week, we went on field trips to visit two different organizations

The first organization we visited was Navadarshanam. This organization promotes alternative modern way of living and thinking. They work with eco-farming, alternative energy, and eco-restoration.They try to be 100% organic in all their activities, which is really cool. Guests are allowed to visit, but one should not treat this as a vacation getaway. They want people who are truly interested in learning about this new way of lifestyle with an open mind.

The view outside

Lord Krishna

The crow who ate part of Abby's idli

We went to explore the surrounding area

A guy cleaning the well

Next,we visited Narayana Hrudayalaya Heart Hospital. This hospital is the brain child of Dr. Devi Shetty, one of the world renowned heart pediatric surgeon. This hospital has never refused a single patient in need of medical treatment. If a patient is not able to pay for his/her treatment, the hospital sets a fund for the patient and uses its networks with numerous benefactors and non-governmental organization to pay for the medical expenses of the patient. 

Tele-medicine

                                     

The view as soon as you enter the hospital, Lord Narayana

Faith plays an important role in healing. There is a mosque,a Hindu and Buddhist temple and a church outside of this hospital

 Al Jazeera did a coverage on this hospital and you can watch it here. It has been awe inspiring to be able to tour the hospital and to see what great work this surgeon is doing. He is truly an inspiration.

Sari Day

Since Maddy and Kristen bought saris, our office decided to hold a sari day.So I borrowed Sam's sari and we all headed to PremaVidya so that our collegues can help us tie those saris. We all looked beautiful and at the same time, there was a prayer session for our boss, Mr. Naresh, who has leukemia.

The four of us!:))

Us and the ladies

Us and the guys

                                                                                                                                                           
I'm missing all of them terribly now and can't wait to see them next week when I go visit them!:)            

Week 5: Temple Hopping

So,in before attempting to start our final report and working on our final presentation, we decided to go temple hopping to seek the blessings of all the gods in Bangalore.Just kidding...we went temple hopping just to see different temples in Bangalore.So, Kristen, Maddy, Kasie, Maria and me headed off at 10am to these different temples.

Since they didn't let us take picture of the temple,I took a picture of the fruit sellers instead!

The outside of the Bull temple

Nandi or the bull.Legend says that the bull grows every year and when the world comes to an end, the bull stands up and destroys Earth under his feet.

Tusks of Lord Ganesh in the Ganes temple

Shiva temple

A cow chilling in the middle of the road

I found that people do these all the time.

Tipu Sultan palace.And Kristen.

Tipu Sultan palace's garden

I tricked the guy into believing that I'm an Indian citizen.Saved 95 rupees. #winning

Little Tirupathi temple

Donkeys!

Big B looking classy as usual.

Vidhana Saudha,Karnataka's legislative building

Women riding scooter. #respect

UB City

Shiva temple from outside

Shiva Linga made out of ice.

Make a wish and put the lamp in floating water

Lord Shiva,the Destroyer.When Shiva does his Tandava dance,that's an omen that it's the end of the world

 So Shiva is the Destroyer and part of the Hindu Trimurti(Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma). Vishnu is Presever, Brahma the Creator and Shiva is the Destroyer.In the statue above, his eyes is half closed where he is in deep meditation. The deep meditation symbolizes his detachment from the material world and all its miseries. Shiva's weapon is the trident, as seen above and the snake around his neck, the snake symbolizing wisdom and eternal. Shiva is the Destroyer and therefore, he is not bound by time and universe.When all else perishes, he remains and even Death do not come close to him.