Report of Core Committee Discussions reported by Mrs. Poornima, Research Scholar

REPORT ON THE COMBINED MEETING OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE, CORE COMMITTEE AND THE BOARD OF STUDIES IN EDUCATION (UG) FOR DISCUSSION OF FRAMEWORK OF THE PROPOSED REVISION OF THE B.ED CURRICULUM

• VENUE: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, THYCAUD, THIRUVANATHAPURAM

DATE: 13.02.2013

AGENDA: planning a vision of the B.Ed curriculum revision 2013.

Suggestions by educators:

Dr. A. Sukumaran Nair

• A major drawback of Indian education is that it has always focussed on looking back. Our revisions have always been accepting the existing structure and doing patchwork when necessary. Till now the practice has been retaining 99% of the existing curriculum and making 1% change. But broad structural changes have to adopted to meet the current challenges.
• Opinions on teacher education gathered by the NCTE:
• ·         Non trained teachers perform better than trained teachers.
• ·         Motivation of non trained teachers is a step ahead than their trained peers.
• ·         The concepts with which the teachers start their course are strengthened and not corrected.
• ·         Teacher education fails to provide professionalism to teachers.
• ·         New practices are presented in a convincing manner to the new teachers.
• Competencies to be developed:
• ·         Lesson designing
• ·         Making instruments for Formative and summative evaluation.
• ·         Dealing with disciplinary problems
• ·         Adopting new strategies for practical teaching
• ·         Questioning
• ·         Answering questions
• ·         Audio visual aids preparation to aid teaching
• Suggestions:
• ·         Record the classes of the student teacher and help them make improvements on that.
• ·         Practice teaching sessions should have 5-6 phases.
• ·         The student teacher should handle small classes and finally to higher classes at the final phase.
• ·         Record all the practice teaching sessions to assess the student teacher’s performance and behaviour in class.
• Conclusion
• We should not just stop with theory. The teacher training institutions is responsible for converting theory to practice for the student teacher. This must be reflected in every paper. The professionalism should start from teacher education. Teacher education has an important role to play in improving the quality of education.
• 
  
• Dr. K. R. Sivadasan
•          Aim should be to provide world class teaching.
• ·         Changes to be made based on a strong foundation of education.
• ·         Statutory provision should be made to provide space in school for visiting teacher educators and student teachers.
• ·         Teachers should be given conscientization.
• ·         At least 6 months internship for student teachers should be made statutory.
• ·         A curriculum committee should be established under the purview of the university.
• ·          All teaching courses to be brought under the purview of the university.
• ·         2 or 3 research oriented lessons.
• ·         New ideologies of philosophy, sociology and psychology should be included excluding the out dated ones. (stress on cognitivism)
• ·         Starting new courses in education.
• ·          Improving the infrastructure (bigger buildings)
• ·         Mentors to smoothen management.
• 
  
• Dr. J. Exemmal
• Curriculum revision is a must. Stress should be on addition of new and omission of old. The existing curriculum is not defective. The problem with it was the gap in the implementation of it at the grass root level.
• The revision should stress:
• ·         Making changes keeping in par with international level while taking into account our culture and needs (state, national and international)
• ·         The B.Ed curriculum stressed on activity based learning and the school curriculum on issue based learning. The current curriculum is defective because of its failure to recognize it. The B.Ed curriculum should be expanded to include it.
• ·         Introducing brain compatible strategies in all subjects.
• ·         Language learning strategies to be improved.
• ·         The aim of teacher education should be to make student teacher a full resource unit.(in terms of thinking, seeing connection, etc.)
• ·         Expanding the theories of learning that comes in the teaching – learning process as recorded in the lesson plan.
• ·         Training the teacher educators to meet the objectives of the new curriculum for effective curriculum transaction. The training should be need based.
• 
  
• Dr. B. Suresh
• One of the problems of the existing curriculum was the lack of awareness among teacher educators in implementing the revised curriculum.
• Suggestions:
• ·         Workshop for teachers for creating awareness among teachers regarding the revised curriculum.
• ·         The revision adopted by the Kerala University should be based on comparisons made with the other universities.
• ·         Community living camp for teachers and students to be introduced.
• ·         Criticism lessons to be modified: student teachers’ perspective to be included.
• 
  
• Dr. K.Y.Benedict
• Plus points of the existing curriculum:
• ·         Multi phased teaching practice.
• ·         Encouraged reflective thinking.
• ·         Scope for innovation and experimenting.
• The problem was:
• Lack of orientation given to teacher educators.
• Suggestions:
• ·         Orientation programmes
• ·         Providing  handbook for teacher educators.
• ·         Create subject wise performance indicators. It should be at 2 levels- mentor level and mentee level.
• ·         Listing process skills for student teachers related to teacher performance and efficacy
• ·         Listing the challenges faced by teacher educators.
• ·         Fixing fundamental concepts of teaching for all options.
• ·         Education entrepreneurship should be encouraged.
• ·         Curriculum should be suitable to meet the future educational autonomy.
• 
  
• Mr. Thomas Uzhuvathu
• ·         Making the course more professional.
• ·         Rethinking on the evaluation of classes
• ·         Making links between school curriculum and B.Ed curriculum.
• ·         Training teachers to handle high school and higher secondary school students.
• ·         Structural changes to be brought about in B.Ed course.
• ·         Designing the curriculum based on course designing principles.
• ·         The expected evaluation procedure to be followed by the trainees should be practiced by the teacher educators.
• ·         Create a cluster of teachers who would list out the performance indicators on which the evaluation would be based.
• ·         A more humane approach while including technology in the Indian context.
• 
  
• Dr. R. L. Bindu
• ·         Nature camps and club activities to be promoted.
• ·         Freedom to select topics for practicum.
• ·         Models of teaching to be taught to the trainees based on their B.Ed syllabus.
• ·         Encourage reflective practices.
• ·         Linking co-curricular activities and practicum to reduce the burden of practicum.
• ·         Omit out dated content form the syllabus.
• ·         Make practice teaching more effective.
• 
  
• Dr. C. Narayana Pillai
• ·         The present curriculum the objective specified in the 1^st semester is achieved only in the 2^nd semester.
• ·         Lack of proper in-service training. Therefore the revised curriculum should focus on providing suitable in-service training.
• ·         Objectives of the curriculum should be specified.
• ·         NCTE guidelines/ curriculum should be reviewed before framing the curriculum.
• 
  
• General Discussion Highlights
• ·         Trained teachers should be able to teach pupils from 11 – 18 years.
• ·         Stress on reflective thinking.
• ·         Practice teaching should include at 1 class at the higher secondary level
• ·         Shelter curriculum. Focus on language for effective transactin of the curriculum.
• ·         Stress on language proficiency of the teachers.
• ·         Prepare trainees to handle problems created in classroom by inclusive education.
• ·         Discipline management strategies
• ·         Development of competent management skills.
•  On Broad visions:
• ·         Moulding 21^st century teachers for 21^st century students.
• ·         Adopting VSK (value, skills and knowledge) paradigm for moulding students.
• ·          Stress on competency
• ·         Concept of Techno pedagogue to be introduced.
• ·         Evidence based evaluation of performance of the trainees.
• ·         Problem based strategies.
• ·          Culture centric curriculum
• ·         Process oriented curriculum
• ·         Action research based mentoring.
• ·         Inclusion of weightage of lateral skill of students 
• ·         Making teaching Reflective
• ·         Change pedagogical analysis to pedagogical content knowledge analysis
• ·         Listing 21^st c challenges
• ·         Making the curriculum more futuristic.
• ·         Social based curriculum
• ·         Specifying skills to be included
• ·         Value oriented with a base on the traditional values.
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• 
  
• Components of Conceptualisation of Vision Statements
• ·         Designing curriculum to meet challenges of 21^st c.
• ·         Visioning teacher as a techno pedagogue for facilitating the demands of a knowledge generating society.
• ·         Development of teacher competencies.
• ·         Education as a social sensitization.
• ·         Synergy of theory and practice.
• ·         Development of professionalism.
• ·         Developing healthy citizens.
• ·         Student teacher evaluation/ performance assessment; creating guidelines for teacher educator for evaluating student teachers.
• ·         Educational entrepreneurship
• 
  
• Thoughts for Further Thinking:
• ·         21^st century challenges
• ·         Teacher competencies
• ·         Techno-pedagogic perspectives
• ·         Teacher’s professionalism