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Better Teaching - Better Learning Ratna Das* “In the long history of humankind those who have learned to collaborate and improvise most efectively have prevailed”. - Charles Darwin As facilitators of education in the age of technology we realize the increasing demands of Generation E and endeavour to make the learning experience joyful while utilizing the full potential of the learners at the same time. Collaboration entails extensive planning and all the teachers contribute their thoughts and ideas to design an efective teaching strategy. Te lesson plans include the aims, objectives, group activities, peer interaction, individual activities, class discussions and debates to do away with the monotony of the conventional methods of instruction, wherein students are merely passive listeners. Parallel teaching across all sections of a particular grade level is maintained to ensure efective learning of all the learners. Deviations if any are discussed in the weekly department meetings and measures devised to attain the predetermined targets. Collaboration is sustained not only in a particular subject, but is also a cross-curricular motive, which allows the teachers to analyze the profound and authentic connections between their curriculum. Tereby, the once isolated standards are transformed into a web wherein the knowledge of various disciplines is interwoven. For instance, the scientifc knowledge of how rain falls can be substantiated by the teaching of a poem like ‘Te Voice of the Rain’ by Walt Whitman. Moreover, every teacher scans his/her skill-based curriculum and fnds reading, writing, speaking and research benchmarks which could easily be met through cross-curricular teaching. Collaboration of the highest kind is realized when the HoD’s, class teachers and subject teachers put their heads together to brainstorm an innovative subject-matter for an assignment that covers all the subjects included in the programme of study at a certain grade level. It is needless to mention that we have noticed the transformative power of this mode of teaching amongst the learners. Te excitement and enthusiasm they display while completing the inter-disciplinary project is matchless and we feel that the overall outcome of collaborative method of teaching is better teaching and better learning. * Teacher (English), Jubilee Hills Public School, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 32 Collaborative Learning