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Classroom Management consists of the teacher’s thoughts, plans and actions that create an orderly environment and promote learning.

• Classroom management stands for management of resources, pupils’ learning activities and behaviours in the classroom. It is essentially a human relations skill.

Key Points

• Many teachers use various types of rewards and punishments to manage their classrooms.
• They use punishment to eliminate pupils’ undesirable behaviours and rewards to promote their desirable behaviours.
• Repetitive or excessive use of rewards or punishments will repress the innate interests and opinions of the students and will make them showcase the behaviour which is expected by others from them.

Hence, Repeatedly asking children to engage in learning activities either to avoid punishment or to gain a reward will Decrease children’s natural interest and curiosity involved in learning.

Hint 

• Intrinsic motivation is internal. It occurs when people are compelled to do something out of pleasure, importance, or desire.
• Extrinsic motivation occurs when external factors compel the person to do something.

The RTE Act of the Parliament of India was enacted on 4 August 2009 and came into force on 1 April 2010. 

• This act is also known as the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act because of its provision of, “the fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 to 14 with specifies minimum norms in elementary schools.”

Key Points Important Provisions of RTE are as follows:

• Right of children to free and compulsory education till completion of elementary education in a neighborhood school.
• It makes provisions for a non-admitted child to be admitted to an age-appropriate class.
• It specifies the duties and responsibilities of appropriate Governments, local authorities, and parents in providing free and compulsory education.
• It lays down the norms and standards relating to Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs), buildings and infrastructure, school-working days, and teacher-working hours.
• According to the RTE Act, a teacher will spend a minimum of 45 hours in teaching including preparation hours in a week, and will be prohibited from the practice of private tuition.
• It provides for the appointment of appropriately trained teachers, i.e. teachers with the requisite entry and academic qualifications.
• The act prohibits physical punishment and mental harassment.
• It provides for the development of a curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the Constitution, which would ensure the all-round development of the child.

Hence, from the given points, it is clear that the working hours per week for teachers are 45 hours.

Developing an effective tool is a challenging task. We need to follow a scientific and systematic procedure to develop or standardize a tool.

• To get accurate results, you have to prepare or select a proper tool.
• Before selecting a tool for a certain purpose, you have to look into the criteria or qualities of the tool.

Key Points The essential qualities or criteria of an effective tool may be as follows:

• Reliability: Reliability is an important criterion of a good test/tool. Reliability refers to consistency. A test that shows a consistent result in its frequent uses in different situations and places is called the reliability of the test.
• Validity: Validity tells us about the accuracy and truthfulness of a test. The accuracy of a test can be said if and when the test measures the purpose it was constructed.
• Usability: Usability refers to how successfully you, as a teacher, use the test in a classroom situation.
• Objectivity: Objectivity is another important feature of a good test. The objectivity of a test refers to two aspects of the test, viz; Item-objectivity, and Scoring-objectivity.
• Norm: Norm can be defined as the average or standard score on a particular test made by a specified population.

Hence, aptitude is not a characteristic of a good test.

HintAptitude: English and English (1958) defined the term as “the capacity to acquire proficiency with a given amount of training.”

The term ‘curriculum’ came into general use when the new curriculum movement of the 1950s gained momentum. 

• Taba (1962) defined curriculum as “a plan for learning”.
• Good (1973) defined curriculum as “a general overall plan of the content or specific materials of instruction that the school should offer the student by way of qualifying him for certification”.

Key Points Learner-centered Curriculum: A learner-centered curriculum considers children as individuals who learn differently from adults. In such a curriculum the characteristics of the child dominate the curriculum.

Learner-centered Curriculum:

• The child and not the teacher is the focus of the entire process of teaching-learning.
• The child is an active participant in the classroom process.
• Has a democratic climate so that the child gets maximum opportunities for interaction with others.
• Reflects planning of teaching-learning and its monitoring jointly by teacher and children.
• The curriculum and the instructional materials serve as a means to foster the child’s all-around development and are not ends in themselves.
• The goal of teaching-learning is not merely to help children to acquire knowledge but also to promote the all-round development of personality.
• Activities planned by teachers and carried out by children become the medium of learning for the child rather than only the textbook.
• Teacher adopts a variety of teaching-learning strategies to address the needs of all children at the same time.
• The child-centered curriculum perspective was accepted and propagated by John Dewey, Rousseau, and Parker, although they all have different perspectives on childhood.

Hence, the child is most important in a Learner-Centered Curriculum.

Important Points

• Subject-centered curriculum: Subject-centered approach:- The focus is on the delivery of the subject contents by the teacher for students to acquire i.e. importance is laid on topics/concepts included in the subject, around which all the teaching and learning activities revolve.
• Life-centered Curriculum: The International Commission on Education (1999) emphasized the concept of lifelong learning. Education throughout life is based on four major principles or pillars:
• i) Learning to know;
• ii) Learning to do;
• iii) Learning to be; and
• iv) Learning to live together

The meaning of learning becomes clear when a teacher opens up new vistas. The process of teaching is one of discovery both by the teacher and the learner and for the teacher it is also the process of reflection and planning for change.

• The values that a reflective teacher has been cultivated through practice and study. Every student has a unique way of learning. A sensitive and caring teacher's role is to facilitate learning and not channel it.

Key Points A Reflective teacher creates classroom situations for students as:

• The environment of the classroom should be flexible.
• All the students and teachers have equal right to deliver their point of view in front of others.
• Rules should be made by the discussion with learners so that rules and norms are flexible for all.
• Interaction between Teacher and Student should be increased when the curriculum is reflective and the student is the center of the classroom.
• The classroom environment should be free, there is no rigidity in any context that should be seen in the classroom.
• The teacher should encourage the students to take part in the classroom discussions so that they can learn conceptually.
• The topic of the discussion should be changed every time so that learners and teachers develop their skills of thinking in a divergent manner.
• Classroom discussion and other collaborative activities facilitate the learning of the students, students learn much by interacting with their peers and others.
• No limitations and prohibitions for the learners while discussing the respected topics.
• No partiality and differences to the learners for giving them the opportunity to take part in the discussion.

Hence, a reflective teacher creates classroom situations for students to promote interaction between students and the teacher.

Research is a systematic way of investigation, a process of discovering new knowledge. Research is also considered as searching for and gathering information, usually to answer a particular question. Each research study has its own specific purpose.

Key Points Action research:

• Its primary aim is to solve an immediate problem. It is cyclic in nature.
• It is a form of interpretive research to study human actions and social practices with the participation of the researcher.
• It is applied research, which is focused on immediate application, not to develop any theory for general applications.
• It refers to the application of research to educational problems in a particular classroom setting.

Hence, we can conclude that research initiated to solve an immediate problem is Action Research.

Important Points The Cycle of Action Research:

• Action Research achieves its goal by using a ‘cyclic research process, where each cycle is made up of four phases - Plan, Act (implementing plans), Observe (systematically) and Reflect.
• It is a continuous cycle one can circle back to earlier phases within a cycle (e.g., cycle back and forth between reflection and planning).

Characteristics of Action Research:

• There is always room for improvement when it comes to teaching and educating others.
• The main traits of action research related to collaboration between teachers, educational managers, and members of the organization to solve problems.
• Possibility to gain in-depth knowledge about the problem.
• It can be used with quantitative as well as qualitative data.
• This research focuses on specific situations and their context.
• This type of research is facilitated by the participation and collaboration of a number of individuals with a common purpose.

Additional Information 

1. A longitudinal research

• In a longitudinal study, researchers repeatedly examine the same individuals to detect any changes that might occur over a period of time.
• Longitudinal studies are a type of correlational research in which researchers observe and collect data on a number of variables without trying to influence those variables.

​2. Applied Research: 

• ​​It is also called field research.
• Fundamental research may propound a theory or discover a law, but applied research is concerned with the testing of such theories or laws in the actual field setting.
• It is almost always done based on fundamental research.

National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005 provides a guideline with which teachers and schools can choose and plan experiences that they think children should have. It seeks to reform the curriculum and to bring learning experiences in and outside the classroom.

Key Points As per NCF, the role of a teacher:

• The teacher is a facilitator, as his role is to create such an atmosphere of learning where the children can themselves realize their true potential and make meaning of the knowledge.
• A teacher is one who plays diverse roles like an innovator, action researcher, planner, manager, content provider, facilitator, leader, co-creator, etc.

Hence, from the above-mentioned points, we conclude that as per the NCF 2005, the role of the teacher is that of a facilitator. 

Important Points The NCF 2005 emphasizes these points concerning children’s learnings:

• All children are naturally motivated to learn and are capable of learning.
• Making meaning and developing the capacity for abstract thinking, reflection and work are the most important aspects of learning.
• Children learn in a variety of ways – through experience, making and doing things, experimentation, reading, discussion, asking, listening, thinking, and reflecting and expressing themselves in speech, movement, or writing—both individually and with others. They require opportunities of all these kinds in the course of their development.
• The physical activity of moving, exploring, and doing things, on one’s own, with one’s peers, or in the company of adults, and using language—to read, to express or ask, to listen, and to interact—are the key processes through which learning occurs.
• Learning takes place both within the school and outside the school. Learning is enriched if the two areas interact with each other.

Evaluation: Evaluation is a systematic way to assess learners’ abilities, analyze performance, provide appropriate feedback to each learner, and help them to progress. High-quality evaluation is required in teaching for successful learning. Evaluation needs to be integrated with the process of teaching and learning.

Key PointsPurpose of Evaluation in Education: 

• To encourage thinking and reasoning in learners
• To provide constant feedback regarding the effectiveness of the course.
• To diagnose the difficulties and strengths of learners
• To know learner’s performance and bring improvement
• To measurement of the value of teaching methods
• To build a system of feedback that helps the learners to enhance their learning
• To assess the attainment of students’ learning.

Thus by all these references, we can conclude that the purpose of the evaluation is to provide feedback on the extent to which we have been successful in imparting education for a productive life.

Important Points Other purposes of evaluation:

• To enhance learning through diagnostic and remedial teaching.
• To assess both scholastic and co-scholastic aspects of learning.
• To improve academic achievements and students' motivation level.
• To find and diagnose learners' diverse learning needs for effective learning.
• To evaluate learner's achievement to bring improvement for meaningful learning.

The term ‘development’ refers to qualitative changes in an individual such as changes in personality or other mental and emotional aspects. However, very often growth and development are used interchangeably.

Key Points

Thus by all these references, we can conclude that (1) - (d), (2) - (a), (3) - (b), (4) - (c), is the correct answer.

Important Points 

• Proximodistal sequence:  means that the development proceeds from the central part of the body towards the peripheries. In this sequence, the spinal cord of the individual develops first, and then outward development takes place. 
• For example, babies cut their front teeth before they cut their side ones.
• Cephalo-caudal sequence: means that development spreads over the body from head to foot i.e. individual begins to grow from the head region downwards. Sufi first gained control of her head, then she could catch hold of objects, sit, crawl and later she could stand and walk.
• Principle of Interrelation: The development of an individual is reflected through the balanced interrelation of all the aspects of life. Development in any aspect affects the other aspect also.
• Principle of Individual Differences: It says that every individual is unique in himself/herself as the heredity and environmental factors make him/her different from others.

The term ‘development’ refers to qualitative changes in an individual such as changes in personality or other mental and emotional aspects. However, very often growth and development are used interchangeably.

• The process of development continues even after the individual has attained physical maturity (growth). The individual is continuously changing as he/she interacts with the environment.

Key Points There are some principles of development, which show the features of development, these are:

• Principle of Continuity: Development follows the principle of continuity which starts with conception and ends with death. It is a never-ending process in life.
• Principle of Individual Differences: It says that every individual is unique in himself/herself as the heredity and environmental factors make him/her different from others.
• Principle of Generality to Specificity:  The development process starts with general responses shown by the child as s/he passes through the later stages s/ he starts exhibiting specific behaviors.
• Principle of Interrelation: The development of an individual is reflected through the balanced interrelation of all the aspects of life. Development in any aspect affects the other aspect also.
• Principle of Interaction: The principle of interaction suggests that an individual is the product of heredity and environment. In other words, the interaction takes place within and outside forces of the child.
• Principle of Differentiation in Rate: Differentiation in the rate indicates that individuals differ in the rate of development. There is a difference in the rate of development in girls and boys like girls grow faster than boys at the early stage of development.
• Principle of Integration: The principle of Integration refers to the integration of various aspects of development like physical, mental, emotional, social, and moral.
• Principle of Predictability: Development is predictable i.e. with the help of the uniformity of the pattern and sequence of development, we can predict the behavior to a great extent of a child in one or more aspects in a particular stage of her/his growth and development.
• Principle of Sequentiality: It states that every individual although exhibit difference in change, they follow the same sequence of change.

Thus by all these references, we can conclude that Development proceeds from General to Specific.