AIOU Course Code 8601-1 solved Assignments Spring 2022
AIOU Course Code 8601-1 solved Assignments Spring 2022
Semester spring 2022
course code 8601
Assignment No 1
- 1 Specify the personal and professional characteristics of good teachers.
Personal characteristics
1) Fairness
Fairness is one of the characteristics of the students’ favorite teachers. All humans possess an inbuilt sense of fair play. Whenever a person violates, the other person in this situation is prone to react negatively.
Any impression of favoritism, or lack of fairness, leaves scars on the life of persons that lasts forever. The students report in great detail, the unfair actions of their teachers when they had negative experience of competition between classmates, even after many years have passed.
2) Positive Attitude
Another characteristic that students’ like most is the positive attitude and approach of their teachers they use into the classroom. Scholars suggest that effective teachers are those who use meaningful verbal praise to get and keep students actively participating in the learning process. The effective teachers are generally positive minded individuals who believe in the success of their students as well as their own ability to help students achievements.
3) Sense of Belonging
Teachers developed a sense of family in their classrooms. A variety of strategies, such as random act of kindness awards, class picture albums, and cooperative class goals build a sense of unity and belongings and maintain an emotionally safe classroom. Good teachers also took strong measures to prevent mean and hurtful behavior like teasing and bullying. Effective teachers know well that when children feel emotionally and physically safe, they learn far better.
4 ) Personal Touch
Teachers who are connected personally with their students; call them by name, smile often, ask about students’ feelings and opinions, and accept students for who they are. As well as the teachers who tell stories of their own lives events which relate to subject matter currently being taught, motivate student’s interest and endorse bonding with the students. Teachers who show interest in their students have interested students.
5) Creativity
Students always like the unusual things that their teachers do in creative ways. Construction of models or things from wastage like plastic bottles provides a field into which children could go and work by themselves quietly on academics activities like puzzles and word-finds. Fun activities arranged by teachers into the classroom encourage the students towards learning. Teachers can use unique ways of motivating their class. Teacher can set a reward for the class on reaching a particular academic goal. For example a teacher can give extra marks of work done by the students in a creative way.
6) Forgiving
The effective teachers reflect a willingness to forgive students for misbehavior. For example if a student repeatedly asks irrelevant questions and detracts others from the lesson. The teacher can simply say the question is irrelevant and direct the student for further study.
7) Respect
The teachers desire be respected by their students. The teachers who give respect to their students are always respected by them. Effective teachers can train their students be respectful by many ways such as, he can keep individual grades on papers confidentially, or can speak to students privately after misbehavior not in front of others. Good teachers show sensitivity for feelings and consistently avoid situations that unnecessarily make students uncomfortable.
8) High expectations
Teachers with positive attitudes also possess high expectations for success. Teachers’ expectation levels affect the ways in which teachers teach and interact with students. Generally, students either rise to their teachers’ expectations or do not perform well when expectations are low or non-existent. The best teachers have the highest standards. They consistently challenge their students to do their best.
9) Sense of Humor
If a teacher has the ability to break the ice in difficult situations with the use of humor, this is an extremely valuable asset for teaching. According to McDermott & Rothenberg (2000) students enjoy teachers with a sense of humor and remember those teachers who made learning a fun. Good teachers enjoy a laugh with the class occasionally.
Professional characteristics
Collaboration
The teacher works with others to achieve a common goal.
- i) Interacts constructively with peers/colleagues, administrators, supervisors, staff, mentor teachers, and parents
- Shows consideration and respect for thoughts and feelings of others
- Demonstrates effective verbal and non-verbal communication skills
- Demonstrates flexibility with others
- Solicits suggestions and feedback from others
- Maintains communication with colleagues, supervisors, and mentor teachers when questions or concerns arise
- Recognizes a range of valid viewpoints
- ii) Functions as a contributing member of an instructional team to achieve long-term curriculum goals, state content standards, and district standards
- Communicates effectively both verbally and non-verbally
- Shares ideas and materials
- Offers ideas and observations at IEP meetings
Honesty and Integrity
The teacher demonstrates truthfulness, professional behavior, and trustworthiness.
- i) Displays honesty and integrity
- Maintains confidentiality
- Elicits trust and respect from both peers and supervisors
- In completing course and field experience assignments, produces original work and credits sources when appropriate
Respect
The teacher honors, values, and demonstrates consideration and regard for oneself and others.
- i) Is respectful of cultural patterns and expectations within a community context • Presents self in a professional manner (e.g., dress, communication)
- Speaks and behaves in a manner that is sensitive to linguistic and cultural differences and respects the dignity and worth of others
- Establishes good rapport with students and colleagues
- Seeks to address the varied learning needs of students in his/her classroom, including lower-performing children and those with disabilities
- Recognizes and respects identities informed by a group’s historical context
Commitment to Learning
The teacher values learning for self and students.
- i) Exhibits energy, drive, and determination to make one’s school and classroom the best possible environment for teaching and learning •
- Plans and delivers instruction that engages all students in his/her classroom and addresses their learning needs Values ongoing assessment as essential to the instructional process
Emotional Maturity
The teacher demonstrates situation appropriate behavior.
- i) Is self-confident and enthusiastic
- Displays enthusiasm for teaching and the subject matter
- Demonstrates self-confidence through body language, voice tone, eye contact, preparedness
- Exhibits energy, drive, and determination to become a professional educator
- ii) Is dependable, conscientious, and punctual
- Arrives early or on-time
- Completes assigned tasks in a timely manner
- Follows through with assignments and expectations
iii) Models social skills, character traits and dispositions desired in students.
- Establishes caring and mutually respectful relationships with students
- Explicitly teaches and models desired behaviors and attitudes
Leadership and Responsibility
The teacher acts independently and demonstrates accountability, reliability, and sound judgment.
- i) Is aware of and acts according to school policies and practices
- Has obtained and read school policy manual
- Adheres to class, school, and district rules and policies.
Q.2 Define effective teaching. Discuss the factors contributing towards effective teaching ?
Effective Teaching
The concept of “Effective Teaching” is considered as a range of factors that collectively work together and result in effective learning. Most of the people agree that the basic purpose of teaching is to enable learning. An elaboration to this concept is required to fulfill the needs of today’s youth in a knowledge-driven society where information rapidly increases at great scale. Therefore the concept of teaching should move beyond the lower order skills of acquisition and reproduction of knowledge and facts.
The students require equipping them with more recent and advanced body of knowledge, and enabling them to apply, upgrade and create knowledge.
There are various aspects of effective teaching, such as;
- Effectively managing a classroom,
- Starting each class with a clear objective, Engaging students with questioning strategies, Consolidating the lesson at the end of a period, and Diagnosing common student errors and correcting them that can be systematically measured by observing classrooms and by asking students.
Factors of Effective Teaching
Gurney, (2007) suggests five key factors that could contribute to an effective learning and teaching environment.
KEY FACTOR 1: Teacher Knowledge, Enthusiasm and Responsibility for Learning Good classroom is one in which knowledge is shared among teacher and students. Teacher not only gives instructions but takes ideas of students during the teaching- learning process and carry out discussions. In such an environment the knowledge is shared; students and teachers all become learners and discover the world of the subject. In such an environment, a teacher takes responsibility for the sharing and enjoyment of the knowledge.
KEY FACTOR 2: Classroom Activities That Encourage Learning
In a classroom of opportunity and experience, the learners explore and do experiment. In such a climate the process of learning become a measure of success and the students feel that they are the masters of their own learning. Attitudes of the teacher in such a classroom can influence the outcome. A teacher needs to be prepared to test what is going on in the class. The class activities used to engage the students must be reviewed, revisited and refocused in order to draw students into an effective interaction with the subject.
KEY FACTOR 3: Assessment Activities That Encourage Learning
Through Experience The assessment contributes towards the creation of an effective learning process. If the students know the value of assessment in the ongoing learning process, not at the end, then they can work well and take part in the process and use it to gain better results. The effective learning environment involves the processes of peer tutoring, co-operative learning, questioning, clarifying and summarising. All of these processes are used to empower the learners. For example if teacher asks the question: ‘What do you do in the classroom?’ If assessment activities are part of the ‘doing’ then they become a central part of the learning process.
KEY FACTOR 4: Effective Feedback That Establishes the Learning
Processes In the Classroom Appropriate learning related feedback is one of the important factors in effective teaching. Different methods of feedback enable the teacher to engage the students with learning. All explanations, questioning methods, instructions are part of feedback and student input (Hattie, 1999, p.9). In an effective classroom the students actively seek the feedback of their performance. Alton Lee (2003) highlights the value of feedback but warns that too much can be harmful as too little. The feedback that a teacher gets from the students is also essential to the creation of a learning environment. The more feedback that a teacher can obtain from students, and the more the teacher can act on that feedback, the better the learning environment will be that is created.
KEY FACTOR 5: Effective Interaction between the Teacher and the Students, Creating an Environment That Respects, Encourages and Stimulates Learning through Experience Learning is an emotional exercise. Students like those things or actions that appeals to them emotionally. The teacher who brings a sense of personal involvement to the classroom, and who wants to share the knowledge with the class, who shows that he/she is also a part of the learning cycle, is setting up a relationship with the learners. The working environment generated by the interaction can remove the stigma of ‘working’ and turn the learning process into rewarding.
Q.3 Highlight the steps of planning “development of instruction”.
STEPS IN LESSON PLANNING
The plans of class room activities to be happened each day make the teaching effective. The teachers go through many steps for planning a lesson. Six steps are given below to guide the teachers to create their first lesson plans. Each step is comprised by a set of questions:
- Outline learning objectives
The lesson objectives are usefully stated in terms of what students will achieve at the end of the lesson. The first step is to determine as a teacher what you want students to learn and be able to do at the end of class. To help you specify your objectives for student learning, answer the following questions:
- What is the topic of the lesson?
- What do I want students to learn?
- What do I want them to understand and be able to do at the end of class?
- What do I want them to take away from this particular lesson?
Once you outline the learning objectives for the class meeting, rank them in terms of their importance. This step will prepare you for managing class time and completing the learning objectives. Consider the following questions:
- What are the most important concepts, ideas, or skills I want students to be able to grasp and apply?
- Why are they important?
- If I ran out of time, which ones could not be omitted?
- Which ones could be skipped?
2 Develop the introduction
After determining learning objectives and specifying them in order of their importance, the teacher has to design the specific activities for the students. They may already be familiar with the topic; therefore it is necessary to gather background information from the students prior to lesson. You may start with a question or activity to assess students’ knowledge of the topic. For example you can ask a question or take a simple poll: “How many of you have heard about this? Raise your hand if you have” or ask them to write comments on paper. This additional information can help you to shape the introduction and learning activities of the new concept.
Develop a creative introduction to the topic to encourage thinking. You can use a variety of approaches to engage students for example, personal anecdote, historical event, real example, short video clip, practical application, probing question, etc. following questions may help you in planning your introduction:
- How will I check whether students know anything about the topic?
- What are some commonly held ideas (or misconceptions) about this topic that students might be familiar with?
- What will I do to introduce the topic?
- Q.5 What is an activity? Discuss the importance of activity method. Name the different types ofactivities you would use in English.
Activity Method
Before explaining the activity method, it seems better to answer this question, what is an activity? Anything which is carried out with a purpose in a social environment involving physical and mental action. Such activities help in the establishment of stimulating environment for creative expression.
Importance of Activity Method
The learners are actively involved as the environment is democratic. The activities are interactive and student-centered. The teacher facilitates a process of learning in which students are encouraged to be responsible and autonomous. Children learn on their own pace. Provision of more time for self-directed learning and teacher directed learning is reduced considerably. Group learning, mutual learning and self learning are promoted. Teachers teaching time is judiciously distributed among children. Only needy children are addressed by teachers. Children participation in every step is ensured in the process of learning. Evaluation is inbuilt in the system it is done without the child knowing it.
Activity-based learning can successfully be used to improve both learning as well as teaching. One of the greatest challenges that an educator is mentoring students successfully by teaching hordes of students, all of whom have different personalities, capabilities and learning preferences. With high expectations of everything digital, students wish for a variety of activities, rewards, surprises and humour to stay abreast in their interest in learning. When you find new ways to grab the attention of learners and engage them in the learning process is becomes one of the main challenge and issue nowadays.
Activity based teaching and learning method is a technique adopted by teachers to emphasize their method of teaching through activity in which the students participate willingly and get efficient learning experiences. It is a child-centered approach. It is a method in which the child is actively involved in participating mentally and physically. Learning by doing is the main focus in this method. Learning by doing is important in successful learning since it is well proved that more the senses are stimulated, more a person learns and longer he/she retains.
Types of Activities:
Activities can be of three types:
- Exploratory – Knowledge getting
- Constructive – Experience getting
- Expressional – Presentation
