Wednesday 21 December 2011

The Hindu : Education : In search of the ideal teacher

The Hindu : Education : In search of the ideal teacher

In search of the ideal teacher

VIJAYKUMAR PATIL T+
UGC's new Academic Performance Indicators (API) to help choose better teaching faculty

At a time when the job market is becoming more and more competitive and the employers looking for competitive, dynamic and meritorious candidates for various positions, few job aspirants are aware about how their profiles are assessed for selection purposes. This is true of the majority of candidates applying for various positions in universities and colleges.
The University Grants Commission (UGC), which has the onerous task of maintaining quality, standards of teaching, examination and research in universities in the country, has revised the regulations on minimum qualifications for direct appointment of teachers and other academic staff in universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education.
Subsequently, all the universities are required to frame statutes and apply them to all direct recruitment posts carrying UGC scales.
The one-year-old Rani Chennamma University (RCU), Belgaum, has become the first university in Karnataka to frame the statutes governing appointment of professors, associate professors, assistant professors, physical education directors and librarians and conduct of interview to teaching, academic staff and allied posts under Section 40 (1) of the Karnataka State Universities Act, 2000 and set benchmarks for direct recruitments and qualifications
Governor H.R. Bhardwaj, who is also the Chancellor, has already given his assent to the statute. RCU has started recruitments as per these new statutes.
SELF-ASSESSMENT
The new API (Academic Performance Indicators) scoring system prescribed in the UGC regulations, according to RCU Vice-Chancellor B.R. Ananthan, not only helps the universities in making proper assessment of candidates but also facilitates self-assessment to a considerable extent by the candidates themselves to know where they stand.
The API enables selection of better candidates and assess their knowledge, teaching skill and domain knowledge, ability to communicate clearly and effectively, ability to make a PowerPoint presentation, aptitude for teaching, research potential, analytical ability, and innovative thinking.
It also assesses the candidate for positive and critical analysis competence, contribution to higher education, national development, instantaneous planning and other essential features.
A separate pro forma has been prepared to evaluate the merit of the candidate and marks allotted to each and every parameter prescribed for various positions, wherein a candidate is required to provide evidence of his or her claim on performances, qualifications, contributions, etc.
PROCEDURE
As per the UGC regulations, the university shall advertise the vacancies in two national dailies, indicating the minimum/mandatory qualification, reservations, specialisation, if any, and number of vacancies. Thereafter, the applications received are sent to a screening committee set up by the university, which will assess and decide API scores before a candidate is called for an interview.
The merit list is prepared on the basis of various parameters/points viz. qualification, NET and SLET examination, successful completion of post-doctoral studies/research for assessing academic record and the API score. For instance, the minimum API score required for the post of professor is 400 and for the post of associate professor, 300.
However, the seven-member selection committee headed by the vice-chancellor still retains 12.5 per cent points where each member could allot a maximum of 1.785 points to a candidate at the time of interview. Of the seven members in this panel, the vice-chancellor has powers to nominate three experts in the subject concerned.
The other members include dean of the faculty, chairperson of the department and an academician nominated by the Chancellor. Besides, an academician representing SC/ST/OBC/minority/women/differently-abled categories will be nominated by the vice-chancellor, “if any of the candidates representing these categories is an applicant and if any of the above members of the selection committee do not belong to that category.” At least four members, including two outside subject experts, shall constitute the quorum.
Prof. Ananthan says a large number of candidates who have already applied or in the process of applying are unaware of the API scoring system and the points allotted for various parameters and hence their bio-data provided with the application is vague. The candidates can check where they stood in the merit list by filling the API pro forma and totalling points for other parameters before coming to the interview. “We need to create awareness on API among the candidates, who must go through it and fill their application in the proper fashion.”
On the scope of manipulations of points by the screening committee and selection panel, particularly when the competition is close, the vice-chancellor says the new regulation has minimised the scope for all such aspects to a considerable extent. “We are trying our best to make the recruitment process fair and transparent and pick the best candidates.”

Sunday 18 December 2011

The Hindu : Opinion / Open Page : Has education lost its heart?

The Hindu : Opinion / Open Page : Has education lost its heart?

PROFESSOR B. M. HEGDE
SHARE  ·   COMMENT (4)   ·   PRINT   ·   T+  
The Hindu
Education today in our country has not only lost its heart; it seems to have lost its direction and goal. It is a sad situation for the future generation. Well-meaning people in society are keeping quiet. The powers that be, who ought to know better, seem to be either ignoramuses or they couldn't care less! The following case history will showcase one of the major areas where modern education, especially at the primary level, nay at all levels, is going astray to the detriment of mankind's future.
Kalyani — it is her pseudonym — was a good child who, as a teenager, was as happy as any of her age could be. Her overambitious parents were charting her educational course when she was still in high school. They were obsessed with her becoming an IITian or doctor, the mark of excellence in education these days, what with the IITs advertising the hefty pay packets that their alumni were offered by the corporates for whom profit alone mattered at the end of the day.
Many people think that the pay packet of the alumni is the yardstick of excellence of an educational institution. Kalyani's parents, with their influence, could get her a seat in one of the “top-end” schools reserved for the best “parrot repeaters,” otherwise called bright students, who can get anywhere above 95% marks in the finals. The school was proud of its distinction of sending the maximum number of students to IITs in the recent past. Kalyani did not very much relish her mathematics classes, right from her KG days.
For the carefree girl, it was too much to cope with the stress of keeping pace with her teachers' expectations almost from day one at school. Smelling a rat, her parents, anxious as they were, engaged a “bright” IIT student to coach her in the evenings, so much so Kalyani did not have any time for herself, not to speak of physical exercise of any kind. Sports were taboo too. Parental anxiety is highly contagious among children. Gradually, there seemed to be a visible change in Kalyani's demeanour. The truly extrovert girl became withdrawn, not paying much attention to her own needs, eating less and less, and she started having sleeplessness especially after a short bout of sleep in the early part. She started losing weight. Naturally, the “intelligent” parents took her to a doctor who ran all the tests and said that everything was normal and so his job was done. He advised them to take her to a psychiatrist!
Concurrently, Kalyani was irritable at school; her grades started falling, attracting more and more rebuke from her teachers and periodic dressing down by the Principal, who had a reputation of being a task master. She was a no-nonsense person who could not and did not “understand” a young mind!
As ill luck would have it, the psychiatrist happened to be one of the “proud” parents of one of the students of the same school. He was very proud of his son's achievements. The first thing that Kalyani heard was: “Did you not know that in your school, students getting less than 95 per cent are not recognised and they are usually not admitted there. How did you, a real dolt, could even think of getting there? The school's elevated standards have depressed you.”
So saying, the next thing the psychiatrist did was to give her a long list of antidepressants with sedatives which made her sicker. She needed to be hospitalised for a few days! Grace E. Jackson, former chief of the U.S. Navy psychiatry service, in her seminal book on anti-psychotic drugs, especially antidepressants, has shown, using solid data, that all those drugs are the cause of a new disease, even in the not-so-old people, called Alzheimer's disease! The present choice of depression treatment is counselling and behavioural therapy, and not reductionist chemicals, that too for a teenager.
The last straw that broke Kalyani's back was the remark of her tutor one day: “I am sorry, I cannot coach you anymore as I find I am too intelligent to teach a dunce like you!” That was the stage when I happened to see Kalyani. The rest of her story is irrelevant to the topic of this write-up. It is time that thinking people in society raised their voice against this new crime on children by both anxious parents with misplaced priorities and the whole educational set-up.
Education is not stuffing information into the child's head to be vomited during the examination to get ranks and seats in IITs and leading medical and business management schools. Education is, in effect, getting the best out of the student. The teacher, like a midwife, should assist the student in delivering, and not deliver herself. “Every child is a genius only to be converted into an idiot in school,” wrote Nobel Laureate Alexis Carrel. Education should aim at making healthy minds and not just making wealthy careers. Here, society needs to be thoroughly deschooled to get rid of the obsession with marks and ranks in place of healthy education.
(The writer is a former Professor of Cardiology, Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London, and former Vice-Chancellor, Manipal University. His email id is: hegdebm@gmail.com)

Saturday 17 December 2011

Educational Evaluation

ii) Educational Evaluation
Unit I: Concept of Evaluation
1.       Meaning and scope, standards for educational evaluation- content-related, construct-related and criterion- related measurement
2.       New concept of evaluation,- objective-based; continuous; comprehensive evaluation
      Unit II: Instructional Objectives
1.       Instructional objectives as the basis of scientific evaluation, pupils’ performance; relationship between and among educational objectives, learning experiences and evaluation; objectives-based evaluation
2.       Taxonomies of educational objectives of Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor domines; subject- wise objectives; ‘create’ as an objectives
      Unit III: Tools of Evaluation
1.       Types of evaluation- formative and summative; product vs process; internal vs external, criterion-referenced vs norm-referenced
2.       Purpose of evaluation- assessment; diagnosis; placement and prediction
3.       Tools of evaluation- types of tools - tests, checklists, rating scales inventories- their nature and functions; achievement tests- oral, writers and practical; projects- individual and group; process- oriented tests
4.       Characteristics of a good evaluation, tool- objective- based, comprehensiveness; discriminating power; reliability; validity; objectivity and practicability
Unit IV: Achievement Tests
1.       Construction of Achievement test- design, blueprint, writing and arranging items, scoring key and marking scheme; question- wise analysis; significance of planning in realising the qualities of a good test
2.       Construction of objective- based questions; different forms of questions; different forms of objective type questions ; their relative importance in evaluation
Unit V: Evaluation for Diagnosis and Remediation
1.       Concept of educational diagnosis
2.       Purpose of diagnostic test
3.       Steps in the construction of a diagnostic test
4.       Analysis of the results and identification of difficulties
5.       Distinction between diagnostic test and achievement test
6.       Remedial teaching- different techniques.
Unit VI: Statistics for Analysing Test Scores
1.       Classification of data- need and purpose
2.       Graphical- representation of data- Pie diagram, Histogram, Frequency polygon, Frequency curve- advantages and limitations
3.       Measures of central tendency- mean, Median, Mode- their advantages
4.       Measures of Dispersion- Range, Quartile deviation, Mean deviation, Standard deviation- their advantages.
5.       Concept of correlation- Calculation of Coefficient of Correlation by
a)      Rank difference method and
b)      Product- moment method
6.       Test of significance- significance of the difference between
a)      Mean; and
b)      percentages

Monday 12 December 2011

Educational Technology and Educational Evaluation

i) Educational Technology
Unit I Concept of Educational Technology
1. Concept and meaning of Educational Technology
2. Approaches of Educational Technology- Hardware, Software and System Approach
3. Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience- its relevance
Unit II Communication and Iteration
1. Concept of communication
2. Types of communication
3. Communication in classroom
4. Interaction analysis- Flander's Interaction Analysis Category System (FIACS)
5. Microteaching- Concept and procedure
Unit III Print and Non- Print Media
1. Support of print media- programmed instruction, instructional modules, Audio- visual, teleconferencing, computer education
Unit IV Functional Introduction to Computer
1. Functional Knowledge about hardware and software, computer as a medium
2. The scope of Computer- Assisted Instruction
3. Precautions to be taken to eliminate the danger of dehumanisation- How computer- assisted lessons can be prepared for the development of thinking skills.


Unit V
Operating System

1.       Graphical operating system (Windows or Linux)
2.       Basic functions of an operating system: File management, desk top management, utilities.
3.       Word processors: Functional knowledge and operational commands (MS Word or Open Office Writer)
4.       Presentation package: for transparency and slide preparation (MS Power Point or Open Office Presentation)
5.       Spreadsheets: for preparing graphs and simple statistical analysis (MS Excel Open Office Spreadsheets)
6.       Functional Knowledge and operational commands
Unit VI
Introduction to Internet
Major services, s in the internet: WWW, Email, Newsgroups, Chats, etc. Academic resources on the web, search engines
Unit VII
Application of Computer in Teaching and Learning
Computer an interactive, participative and anon-linear medium, new educational experiences through computer, case studies of learning software, critical evaluation, use of IT in educational administration, distance learning evaluation, research, student counselling, etc.

Practical Work
a.    
             1.    Hands on experience on computer for each student


b.     2.  Preparation of two transparencies for OHP- one using DTP and the other handwritten for High School Classes

c.       3. One hand- made slide for slide projector


d.    4.   Operating with CDs and Floppies in a computer- based learning


e.    5.   Preparation of visual presentation through Power Point or Open Office presentation



Saturday 10 December 2011

Ten Principles of Teaching

  1. Principles of being pleasant
  2. Principles of Reinforcement (Positive Strokes)
  3. Principles of Exercise (Repeat important points)
  4. Principles of Effect
  5. Principles of Talking with Eyes, Hand & Face
  6. Principles of Eye Contact
  7. Principles of Response and elicit
  8. Principles of Relationship
  9. Principles of Readiness
  10. Principles of Stimulus Variations

Friday 9 December 2011

Psychological Base of Education

I
Introduction
1. Psychology as the science of human behaviour
2. Meaning and nature of Psychology
3. Perspective on Psychology
4. Neuro biological, behaviouristic, psychoanalytic, cognitive, humanistic psychology in education-why teachers study
II
Growth and Development
1. Concept and Principles of growth and development
2. Maturation
3. Need and importance of studying growth and development
4. Role of teachers in facilitating growth and development
a. Physical development
b. Intellectual development
c. Language development
d. Socio-emotional and moral development
III
Individual Differences
1. Factors in individual differences
2. Individual differences experienced in different aspects- intelligence, gender, creativity, learning- ways of dealing with individual differences- teaching exceptional and disadvantaged students