All around the world, teachers do fantastic work. They don’t just teach a curriculum – they instil values, encourage, support, befriend and truly impact the lives of their students and colleagues around them.
To help celebrate teachers and publicise their fantastic stories, we run a global competition called the Cambridge Dedicated Teacher Awards. The awards invite students, parents and other teachers to nominate an educator for something wonderful they have done. We then share these nominations for the world to see.
After we received over 11,000 entries from 99 different countries for the 2023 awards, our judges decided on Maths Teacher, Gaurav Sharma from FirstSteps School, India, as the regional winner for East and South Asia. So let’s find out more about Gaurav!
Bio
Gaurav Sharma is a Mathematics facilitator & Exams Officer, an enthusiastic learner and a person with the vision to make learning simple, engaging, interesting, and realistic.
Gaurav did B.Sc. from Panjab University and completed Master’s degree in Computer Application from VIT University. Afterwards, he moved to Bengaluru where he got a chance to explore international curriculums.
To develop his professional skills, he received the degree Bachelor of Education. With more than a decade in the field of education, recently he enrolled in a Master’s in Psychology to enhance his skill and provide better support for students’ mental wellbeing.
Gaurav has been associated with PISA (Programme for International Students Assessment) as a Resource person and Master Trainer. He worked on developing CCT (Creative and Critical thinking skills) resource material for which he received commendation by Chandigarh Administration.
With vision “Education for all”, Gaurav planned free of cost classes during pandemic and tried his best to reach students in need. Recognising his efforts, Gaurav received the Education Excellence Award in 2021. He believes education can change the world and make it a better place to live.
Gaurav’s nomination
Here is the nomination from Gaurav’s Head that earned him the title of regional winner for East and South Asia.
“The term “dedicated teacher” is like a synonym of Mr. Gaurav Sharma, as his devotion and planning make mathematics classrooms engaging and realistic, connected through activities conducted on patterns & prediction of pandemic rise in 6 months and using online tools (Desmos, Triumph Cloud) for graphs and geometrical constructions. Beyond classroom, he mentored IGCSE students for the Ghaghar Toli Project on River Cleaning in Chandigarh. During the COVID pandemic, floating a Google Form link on different social sites to book time slots for clearing the mathematical doubts of needy students across the country free of charge was a selfless endeavour beyond classroom. Beyond the national and international curriculum, Mr. Gaurav created the monthly booklet series “Mathelete” and “Mathemania,” as well as the Question Bank for PISA practice in Chandigarh schools. He is a passionate teacher who instils joy and discovery in everyday teaching while spreading knowledge without boundaries.”
Gaurav’s Q&A
What does it mean to you being a regional winner the 2023 Dedicated Teacher Awards?
It’s an honour for me to be selected as a regional winner for such a prestigious award. I believe every teacher has a goal to make a positive change in learners’ lives and ultimately help to build this world to be a better place to live.
This award is not only a recognition of work done, but also an encouragement for all of us in the teaching fraternity to strive for the best and keep evolving in our teaching and learning, fulfilling the future needs of society at large while keeping the mental well-being of the learner in focus.
I am thankful to all my students and colleagues who nominated me and shared their experiences. I am thankful to the jury, Cambridge University Press for providing me with this unique opportunity and recognition. It has filled me with a greater sense of responsibility for shaping the future of global citizens.
Why did you become a teacher?
I find myself privileged to be in this noble profession. The only profession in the world which creates and helps all other professions to grow and develop skills to attain the maximum out of limited resources!
My passion for learning and sharing my knowledge has drawn me into this profession. I have always been inquisitive and enthusiastic about learning something new and exploring further what I already know.
The best part of this job, I believe, is the chance to interact with and know the thoughts, and visions of, young minds, and it helps me also to grow and update myself in terms of what are the requirements of the future. Sometimes I get flabbergasted to witness the potential of young learners and their level of sensitivity toward society.
The vertical and horizontal aspects of growth are where I get a chance to attain logical, emotional, and social growth and help learners also to attain the same. All these unique aspects of this profession make me feel in love with my job.
Do you have a dedicated teacher that inspired you?
I remember in my childhood when my mathematics teacher helped me to understand the concepts with so much ease. In the very early stages, I struggled with maths but one of my Class 8 teachers helped me by guiding me through the basics and giving me that encouragement to do well in the subject. He inspired me with the way he used to always make himself available for students irrespective of class timings.
I always try to inculcate those qualities that I saw in my teacher, to provide that support, and encouragement to students. Making class an interactive one where students take a lead in their learning. I will always be thankful to my teacher for inspiring me and changing the course of my life toward a better future.
Do you have a memorable teaching moment?
In my more than a decade of experience in the field of education I came across multiple moments which I could say are memorable to me.
The moment when one of my students who was not seen as very promising put in that rigorous effort, 3 years of persistent working on developing his mathematical skills ended up topping his pre-university college. The day I saw his result and later saw him grow in life making a mark in the field of economics study, representing his college at a national level competition, was kind of inspiration for me too, how someone has overcome the difficulty to excel in something which he was once fearful about. To see that pride and joy in his parent’s eyes.
Another moment when during the pandemic while interacting with some of the students online knowing the hardship they are facing and even in the time of the stress the entire globe was going through, still putting in the effort and enthusiasm of learning has given me the strength and encouragement to take further steps to help them.
The Interdisciplinary presentation based on mathematical concepts surprised me to see the observational skills of students and made me think about how much we can learn just by observing our surroundings.
Every day is exciting and encouraging and I believe every day is memorable when we love what we do, and do what we love.
Please share three words to describe your typical week of teaching
Interaction: Interacting with students of different age groups irrespective of whether that class is assigned to me as a teacher or not. I feel the most important part of my job is to keep an open interaction with all students on diverse topics and issues. I love to hear their views and thoughts. During classes I encourage class discussions and interactions while guiding them in between so we understand the concepts from different perspectives.
Connecting: In my teaching, the next important aspect without which I don’t believe learning is complete, is making a connection with the surroundings and day-to-day life events. Whatever I teach, I make sure learners know the exact area of application of it and up to which extent and in which manner it is applied to the things they see around them. I believe with these connections I am able to draw learners’ attention towards the main goal behind learning, which is to apply it in a useful and productive manner. Making connections across different subjects and topics.
Evolve: To refine and evolve is another aspect that I include as part of one of the important stages of learning. I see students not only knowing the connections but also refining it further, remodelling it, and applying it in different ways. I make sure that the students develop the capabilities to become independent learners and be able to observe, think, understand, and evolve.
Tell us about a current project or school initiative that you’re excited about
I recently got an opportunity to provide my support to teachers and students of the primary wing in developing mathematical aspects of the theme “How we organize ourselves”.
I am quite excited to work around this theme and work for the first time with this age group, because their thoughts and ideas, as well as their perspective toward the theme, would be very different. I am planning to develop some activities which would be friendly to their age group and easy and exciting to perform, so we can justify the theme mentioned above.
Alongside this, we will be working on a science, technology, engineering, arts and maths (STEAM) activity which we are at the planning stage of. We would love to interact with students of the secondary group to know their ideas. Another exciting work is in progress by one of the students of grade 8 on robotics and self-balancing model of security device. I always feel a keen interest in robotics and working in assistance with ICT facilitator. It’s another year of exciting projects at hand and the chance for a lot more to learn and evolve.
