Teacher Education Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The recommendation came from the Kothari Education Commission (1964-66).

The Commission found teacher education isolated, with separate institutions for each stage and little link with universities. It recommended comprehensive colleges of education that would train teachers for different stages together in one institution, the 'integrated' colleges the question refers to, along with State Boards of Teacher Education and closer university involvement.

The National Curriculum Framework 2005 is a school curriculum document. The National Policy on Education 1986 (revised 1992) created District Institutes of Education and Training and upgraded colleges into CTEs and IASEs. The Yashpal Committee of 2009 dealt with the renovation of higher education.

Answer: D

The emphasis came from the Justice Verma Committee Report (2012).

The Supreme Court appointed the Justice J. S. Verma Commission in 2012 while hearing a case on the recognition of teacher education institutions. Its report, Vision of Teacher Education in India: Quality and Regulatory Perspective, dealt directly with the quality of pre-service teacher education: it recommended longer programmes, locating teacher education in multidisciplinary universities, and tighter regulation by the NCTE.

The National Knowledge Commission dealt with knowledge institutions and higher education broadly, the 1986/1992 policy covered the whole education system, and the Yashpal Committee of 2009 dealt with the renovation of higher education in general.

Answer: A

A teacher's professional knowledge comes through Formal preparation and experience.

Teaching is a profession, and entry to it requires formal preparation: a recognised pre-service teacher education programme such as D.El.Ed. or B.Ed., with a planned curriculum, supervised practice teaching and certification. Experience in the classroom then builds on that base.

Non-formal and informal learning (open learning, reading, conversation with colleagues) and incidental learning (picked up by chance) all add to a teacher's growth, but they do not provide the systematic, certified preparation that makes a person professionally qualified.

Answer: C

That attitude is called Professionalism.

Professionalism is the way a person conducts himself or herself at work: dedication, sincerity, responsibility, ethical conduct and commitment to quality. It is an attitude towards one's work that earns trust and, with it, a living.

Performance is the outcome of the work, how well a task is done. Expertise is the specialised knowledge and skill a person has. Resourcefulness is the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties. Each of these may accompany professionalism, but none of them is the attitude of dedication and sincerity itself.

Answer: A

Shulman's two fields are Pedagogical knowledge and Content knowledge.

Lee Shulman (spelled Schulman in the paper), in his 1986 address 'Those Who Understand', criticised teacher education for treating subject knowledge and teaching methods separately. He proposed pedagogical content knowledge: the blend of knowing a subject and knowing how to teach that particular subject, including typical student misconceptions and the best ways of representing ideas.

Skill, historical, philosophical and methodological knowledge are not the pair Shulman set out to combine. The whole point of his argument was the union of content and pedagogy.

Answer: A

Such a person is called a Professional.

A professional is a person who has acquired the specialised knowledge, skills and attitudes of an occupation through training and applies them in practice, following its standards and ethics. Teachers, doctors and lawyers are professionals in this sense.

Professionalism is the quality or conduct expected of a professional, an abstract noun, not a person. An expert has exceptional knowledge in a field but need not practise an occupation, and a resource person is someone invited to share expertise in a programme or workshop.

Answer: D

It is called a Code of professional ethics.

A code of professional ethics is a set of ideals and principles that members of a profession accept for themselves to guide their conduct towards students, colleagues, employers and society, and so to attain professional excellence and self-respect. NCTE and teachers' organisations have framed such codes for teachers.

Professionalism describes the conduct and quality of a professional in general. Professional rules are imposed by an authority rather than self-imposed, and moral codes are general rules of right conduct not tied to a profession.

Answer: B

The answer is Schulman, that is, Lee Shulman.

In 1986 Lee Shulman criticised teacher education for separating knowledge of content from knowledge of teaching and introduced pedagogical content knowledge: the understanding of how particular subject matter is best represented and taught to particular learners. He argued that teacher education must build both content and pedagogical knowledge, and their blend.

Carl Rogers is known for student-centred, humanistic education, Sigmund Freud for psychoanalysis, and Deng and Luke for later writing on subject matter in the curriculum. The idea in the stem is Shulman's.

Answer: B

The key gives less than 50 were qualified for recognition.

The Justice Verma Commission was appointed by the Supreme Court in 2012 after the recognition granted in 2008 to 291 D.Ed. institutions in Maharashtra was quashed. It inspected the institutions and reported that only a small minority met the norms. A Lok Sabha reply gives the outcome as 44 institutions qualified out of 300 inspected, 249 did not qualify and 7 applied to close the programme. 44 is below 50, which fits option B.

Options A, C and D describe the opposite result: that most or all of the colleges were fit for recognition (A, D), or an awkward 'fit to disqualify' wording for all (C) that does not match a finding that a few qualified.

One caution: the reply counts 300 institutions inspected, not exactly the 291 named in the stem, so the figure is read as the commission's overall result.

Answer: C

The foundation course is Childhood, child adolescence and development of learning.

The National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE, 2009) organised teacher education into Foundations of Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy, and School Internship. Its foundations area includes learner studies, a course on childhood, child and adolescent development and on how children learn, alongside contemporary and educational studies.

The NCFTE moved away from the old separate papers in 'psychology' and 'philosophy and thinkers' and from history-of-education courses, which is why the other three titles do not match its proposal.