Perspectives on Pre-service Teacher Education Curriculum
This 6‑day course, which is offered in both Hindi and English, engages with the vision of teacher education, curricular areas of teacher preparation, and the organisation and objectives of pre-service programmes. With this understanding, it makes an attempt to deduce the principles and approaches of transaction of the curriculum.
The centrality of teachers in ensuring quality education is non-negotiable. The National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education 2009 (NCFTE 2009) provides a basis for developing pre-service teacher education curricula intended to prepare teachers who will be able to develop school classrooms as envisaged by policy documents.
The NCFTE 2009 envisages a paradigm shift in the transaction of pre-service teacher education, which is distinguished by the emphasis on developing professional and humane teachers. This paradigm shift will be enabled by deep engagement of teacher educators with the curriculum and its guiding principles, along with the principles for transaction. This will strengthen the capacity of teacher educators to effectively interpret and implement the curriculum, thus achieving curricular objectives.
This 6‑day course, which is offered in both Hindi and English, engages with the vision of teacher education, curricular areas of teacher preparation, and the organization and objectives of pre-service programmes. With this understanding, it makes an attempt to deduce the principles and approaches of transaction of the curriculum.
- Derive essential knowledge base for teachers.
- Understand the guiding principles of the curriculum framework of teacher education.
- Illustrate the paradigm shifts in different curricular areas- Foundations of Education, Curriculum & Pedagogy, School Internship and Practicum.
- Engage with the objectives and nature of curricular experiences in light of guiding principles of teacher education curriculum.
The pedagogy of the course will be intended to facilitate discussions among participants. This will be done through engaging participants with readings, case studies, reports, exemplars of student teacher work, videos, short films and curricular documents with appropriate scaffolding. The focus will to simulate as far as possible the ‘real’ experiences as expected in pre-service teacher education institutions. A digital compendium containing the resources used in the programme, and also resources of both historical and contemporary relevance to teacher education will be shared by participants at the end of the programme. These are meant for reading and reflection by participants, and to provide them with additional perspectives.
Course Outline
| Unit | Description |
|---|---|
| Setting the Context – Understanding Teaching & Teachers | The aim of this unit is to set the context for the course. The unit is designed to facilitate engagement with the multiple and competing discourses around teaching. A theoretical understanding of teaching is important to understand the essential knowledge base for teachers. This will also help recognize and analyze assumptions about teaching, such as, teaching as an educational, intentional relational act; teaching as science and art, as craft, as common sense activity; teaching as a reflective, social and professional practice. The participants will also be encouraged to re-examine what happening in contemporary classrooms in the school ecosystem, and reflect on larger question — what are we preparing teachers for. This will facilitate arriving at a comprehensive understanding of knowledge base of teachers both from theoretical perspectives and practice of teaching. |
| Understanding the Context and Vision of Teacher Education Programs | This unit will further build and concretize the understanding of teacher knowledge base and its curricular implications for professional preparation of teachers. It will build an understanding of how gaps in professional preparation of teachers and expectations from teachers contribute to vision of teachers and teacher education. This unit intends to explore what it means to be a humane, reflective and professional teacher, and will focus on engagement with conceptual frameworks which guide curriculum design and transaction. |
| Curriculum Framework for Professional Preparation of Teachers — From Mind Scan to Action plan | This unit aims at deeper engagement with curricular areas by providing an experience to participants of designing a learning plan. This plan will be examined for the alignment of content and process with the curricular goals and guiding principles discussed earlier. |
The course is intended for teacher educators working in pre-service teacher education programmes.
