Ms. Sonaleeca Das is a science teacher at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Tenughat of Bokaro district in the state of Jharkhand. She has been teaching science to middle-school learners for eighteen years. She has an integrated bachelor’s degree in science and education from Regional Institute of Education, Bhubaneswar.
She is actively involved in planning and organizing science exhibitions, exposure visits to science centres, mentor talks, and workshops on nurturing design thinking among the middle-grade learners for their successful participation in national-level science competitions. In 2016 she received the Navodaya National Incentive Award for her contributions in the field of teaching learning in one of the remote north-eastern regions of India.
During her participation in the Fulbright DAI program, Sonaleeca plans to explore methods to nurture, develop, and scaffold reflection as a skill among the middle-school learners in science. She believes that the skill of reflection should help the current generation of learners to listen to their internal voice, to make meaning of their experiences and develop the ability to receive comments, suggestions, evaluations, and feedback. The learning and findings from her project will guide her to redesign the experiential learning process in her school. She plans to disseminate learnings from this project through research publications and workshops with fellow teachers.