Monday, June 15, 2015

Did Marconi really invent the radio? Breaking the ice by Parth

Abhishek and I conducted the ice breaking session for kids. It began with introducing kids to each other by asking them to distribute i-cards to each other. We made pairs by asking them to randomly pick a card which had either a name of a famous Indian scientist or his invention and then they had to pair up with their counter part. It was interactive,engaging and informative - kids learnt something new by looking up these scientists on the internet. Some scientists like Birbal Sahni were hard finds. Kids were asking me what Paleobotany is. Also, the founding father of the modern radio lead them to Marconi- which is the usual perception, instead of the actual answer, which is JC Bose. It was a new learning for them too.
Ice breaking session
The name guessing game we played was also interesting in the sense that it gave us an idea of how kids think and rethink about a problem as you give them more data and more positive feedback. I think our next exercise could involve a similar concept too- assessing accuracy when more data is provided iteratively.
My experience with both the kids assigned to me for the exercise was very good. I think
the kids were fairly well acquainted with excel and understood what was being done. I think that we should go beyond visualizations next time, if we select our kids sample well. Some kids I thought were able to grasp a lot more. Junior senior collaboration was good but one of them did not know percentages while for the concept was already very thorough to the other. I think we should have more similar pairings now. The learning is incremental because their benchmarks are same.
For better results and clearer demarcation, I think there should have been more features in the data that was presented to the kids. Also, we should from next time select features that elicit a sharp response from children. I think the facial expression this time went unnoticed. Also the name wasn't noticed as much. Kids decided more on the basis of the activity.



  1. Well done,Parth...still lots of discoveries hv been credited to westerners(read thieves & terrorists)......whereas our brilliant rishis shud hv got the credit for these..such as electricity, electromagnetic waves., gravity, electrolytic cell...almost all the mathematical theorems...still lot more need to be done to educate our children about out rich cultural heritage..keep up the good work...

  2. Good Idea for the ice breaker for kids.. It will help them remember about the scientists and the new friends as well :)