Concept Note on IPL (Innovative Programmers and Learners) – Kids

The modus operandi and challenges to the current education system and of which many of us are

products of, are

 Rote learning with little emphasis on covering the application of the concept or context of

concepts

 Evaluation methods measuring memory but not understanding and participation,

 Differential significance and preference to subjects,

 One method fits all pedagogy – Teacher delivers, student absorbs pedagogy with little

participation from the students

A conscious questioning of what is the purpose of what i am learning started for me during

my B.Tech more than 20 years ago. A few teachers over the course of my own educational journey

(important to note the difference between the terms learning and education) with their different

approaches to teaching helped developed interest for their subjects and demonstrated that learning

can be exciting and fun, not drab and dull always. During my Master’s at URI and at IITM for

research, I had a chance to explore schools following child centric education and participate in

/engage with hands on learning based after school STEM programs for school kids. Significant

examples which I had a chance to visit, learn from and be part of are

1. “StemLand” program being run for 7th,8th,9th class students at Udavi School Edayanchavadi by

Dr. Sanjeev Ranganathan under the aegis of SAIIER.

2. Science and Math Investigative Learning Experience (SMILE) program at University of Rhode

Island.

3.Ek Asha trust, Bhubaneswar which focuses on experiential learning by encouraging

inquisitiveness and experimentation with the aim of inculcating seeking as a way of life

4. Agastya Foundation with aah!, aha! and ha – ha! defining its mission, works on sparking and

retaining curiosity of the children, nurturing creativity, ensuring children enjoy the process of

learning and gain confidence in their abilities, using hands on activities and projects.

Innovative kids is an initiative by Mr. Shivaram K R, CEO Curl Tech, which evolved out of

engaging his son aged 8 years during the pandemic which expanded to friends and relatives kids as

it progressed. Some description of the games developed by kids there are at these links(1 , 2).

IPL (Innovative Programmers and Learners) kids is an attempt to replicate Innovative kids

by Mr. Shivaram K R amongst kids of my friends and relatives in the age group 7-12. It shall be a

year long, once a week 1 1/2 to 2 hour session, either on saturdays or sundays (based on everyone’s

availability) limited to a batch size of 10.

Each session based on cognitive pedagogy model shall be designed to fulfill the 3 principles.

1. Nothing is outside syllabus

2. Inculcating open/growth mindset, learning being adaptive

3. Learning to work in ambiguity

What attracts kids to gaming or videos is the reward system they get when ever they clear

each level in a game. Each session from the second month onwards will have activities the

outcomes of which form the intrinsic reward, motivating the kids to participate further. Kids learn

autonomy, mastery and purpose in the process. Also the emphasis will be on inculcating cooperative

learning than competition, which will be essential in the interdisciplinary workplaces of tomorrow

where no single person can be expected to know everything. Once in a while we will have other

technology experts join in and lead the sessions to speak about their work.

In addition to using google to explore answers and more to questions that come up on a day

to day basis, the sessions will be using resources from code.org, MathCircles,

ScienceNewsforStudents, Isaac Asimov “How to series” books, tools like google sketch up, nero

board, draw.io, vscode as Python IDE, SageMath, Blender.