EDU403.

20: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF

COMMERCETEACHER
NO.OF CREDITS :3
CONTACTHOURS :60
MARKS : 60 (External 50 + Internal10)
DURATION OF EXAMINATION : 2hours

OBJECTIVES
On completion of the course, the prospective teacher would be able to:
• cognicize with the essential qualities, duties and responsibilities of Commerce
Teacher.
• mould to endorse the professional spirit in diverse angles.
• tone up with the rudiments of reflective practices for nurturing professionalism
• conscientize with the recent research trends in Commerce education
• Inculcate a broader perspective on the varied activities enriching Commerce
Teaching and learning.
• shape their vision and mission as a professional

MODE OF TRANSACTION
Lecture cum discussion, demonstration, group presentations, seminars, debates,
and assignments, holding camps, brain storming sessions, and peer group
discussion, Peer tutoring, Project, interaction with community, case study,
educational survey and dialogue, ICT based teaching and learning

COURSE OUTLINE

Module 1 – The Teacher Qualities and Competencies (15hrs)

1.1 Essential qualities, Duties and responsibilities- Teacher as a
scaffolder, facilitator, researcher
1.2 Teacher competencies – contextual, conceptual, curricular and
context, transactional, assessment, management, community
extension
1.3 Teacher accountability- professional ethics of a teacher
1.4 Vision and Mission as a Teacher

Module 2- Professional Development of Commerce Teacher(10hrs)

2.1 Professional development – meaning significance
2.2 Teacher as a professional-Characteristics
2.3 Need for Continuous professional development
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 2.4 Ways and Means of Developing
Professionalism In service
Programme
Professional Organization
Participation in Seminars and
workshop E-twinning
2.5 Soft skills development for a Commerce Teacher
Module 3 - Teacher as a Reflective Practitioner (10hrs)
3.1 Reflective Teaching-conceptual Overview.
3.2 Reflective Practices in instruction, assessment -significance

Module 4–Commerce for All (10hrs)

4.1 Activities enriching Commerce learning- Commerce Club- Puzzles and
riddles
4.2 Field Trip, Trade Fairs, Exhibition
4.3 Current affairs and scope in commerce

Module 5 – Research trends in Commerce education (15hrs)

5.1 Researches in Commerce – Meaning and significance
5.2 Major areas of research in commerce
5.3 Recent research trends in commerce education

PRACTICUM (any one)

1. Prepare a personalized report on a news bulletin connected with commerce.
2. Prepare a list of topics suitable for commerce research
3. Reflect on your experiences as a Commerce teacher during internship and
post it in e- platform

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 EDU 403.20 Modules 1: Teacher Qualities and Competencies
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF A COMMERCE TEACHER
⮚ Plan, prepare and deliver instructional activities that facilitate active learning
experiences
⮚ Establish and communicate clear objectives for all learning activities
⮚ Identify and select different instructional resources and methods to meet students'
varying needs
⮚ Use relevant technology to support instruction
⮚ Observe and evaluate student's performance and development
⮚ Assign and grade class work, homework, tests and assignment and provide appropriate
feedback on work
⮚ Maintain accurate and complete records of students' progress and development
⮚ Manage student behavior in the classroom by establishing and enforcing rules and
procedures
⮚ Be accessible to students, providing academic support, active listening and advocacy
while observing appropriate boundaries
⮚ Participate in department and school meetings, parent meetings, and evening events as
assigned by the principal.
⮚ Continue to grow as a professional by attending in-service professional development
activities
⮚ Communicate necessary information regularly to students, colleagues and parents
regarding student progress and student needs
⮚ Supervise students outside of class as assigned by the principal
⮚ Plan study programs to meet students’ needs, interests and abilities.
⮚ Design curriculum as per the needs of the students.
⮚ Evaluate and assess students’ progress on a periodic basis.
⮚ Monitor individual student progress.
⮚ Take corrective measures to enhance student learning abilities.
⮚ Prepare student progress reports.
⮚ Instruct students on proper use of equipment, materials, aids and textbooks.
⮚ Set and monitor standards of student behavior.
⮚ Assist staff members in assessing students’ attitude, learning problems.
⮚ Advice parents on students’ progress and development.
⮚ Organize class time as per the instructional plans.
⮚ Maintain inventory of instructional materials, aids and equipment.

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⮚ Coordinate and support teaching aides and assistants in their tasks.
⮚ Ensure compliance of teaching objectives to state law, administrative regulations and
procedures.
⮚ Preparing and delivering ability- and age-appropriate curricula
⮚ Demonstrating hands-on activities prior to assignment
⮚ Assigning homework, including supplemental reading and Commerce projects
⮚ Collaborating with other teachers, staff, students and parents to support student progress
Teacher as a Facilitator, Researcher and Social Resource- Conceptual view
Teacher as a Facilitator
21st century educators are no longer the source of all knowledge in the classroom.
Educators should inspire the students to take ownership in their own learning and provide
opportunities for students to learn key concepts and discover the tools that they need for
learning so that they can become lifelong learners. In the 21st century, teachers are the
facilitators for learning who engage, lead, inspire, and encourage the students in their
classrooms.
A facilitator is a person who assists a group of people in grasping at their common
targets and in achieving them without any intervention on his/her behalf. Therefore, when
we say the teacher has to play, the role of a facilitator in the classroom, this means that
teacher should not be the king who controls the activities of the learner. He/She should
grant the learners some space to let this spirit of creativity and innovations.
A facilitator of learning therefore is a teacher who does not operate under the
traditional concept of teaching, but rather is meant to guide and assist students in learning
for them. Picking the apart ideas,forming their own thoughts about them and owning
material through self-exploration and dialogue. The teacher as facilitator values subject
matters knowledge, but less for its own sake and more the contributions in matters to the
growth of the students.
When teacher acts as a facilitator, we find a classroom where personal growth is
flourishing. Six characteristics of teachers who are high facilitators of personal growth are:
1. Effective Listener & Communicator
2. Genuineness
3. Understanding
4. Respectful
5. Intelligence
6. Skill in interpersonal communication
Role of Teacher as a facilitator
● Teacher creates learning environment where students are active participants as
individuals and as members of collaborative groups in creating, sharing, discussing,
reasoning and analyzing the processes invaded in solving scientific problems/tasks.

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 ● Teacher – motivates students and nurtures their desire to learn in a safe, healthy and
supportive environment which develops compassion and mutual respect.
● Teacher cultivates cross culture understanding and the value of diversity.
● Teacher encourages students to accept responsibility for their own learning and
accommodates the diverse learning needs of the students.
● Teachers display efficient and effective classroom management.
● Teacher provides access to students in technology tool and time.
● Teacher allows students to engage in hands in experiment, discuss and process
content and make meaningful connections.
● Teachers design lessons that allow students to participate in empowering activities.
Thus the Teacher as a facilitator is an educational visionary who
✔ Explores and invests in innovative practices and coaches learners through
challenges.
✔ Provides an educational atmosphere where students have the opportunity to fulfill
their potential for intellectual, emotional, physical and psychological growth;
✔ Evaluates the needs and abilities of students and determines methods and techniques
to best present and provide instruction to students within assigned subject areas;
✔ Ensures students show continuous improvement in learning basics and essential
skills;
✔ Embraces technology and looks for purposeful ways to engage students;
✔ Welcomes the challenge of creating an engaging and rigorous curriculum that makes
connection to important concepts and ideas within and across disciplines.
Teacher as a Researcher
Every classroom is different. It is this complexity in which they operate in that
provides a compelling reason for teachers to look more closely into their own teaching
practice. Increasingly, teachers find themselves faced with new and novel demands, with
no right or existing models to guide them. Instead of reusing the same old teaching
strategies that have worked in the past, they may have to come up with innovative ways of
teaching. One way for them to do so is to conduct research, right in their own classroom.
Marion MacLean and Marian Mohr (1999) explain that the term teacher-researcher
is an important term to them because it has redefined their roles as teachers. Teachers are
subjective insiders involved in classroom instruction as they go about their daily routines
of instructing students, grading papers, taking attendance, evaluating their performance as
well as looking at the curriculum. Traditional educational researchers who develop
questions and design studies around those questions and conduct research within the
schools are considered objective outside observers of classroom interaction. But when
teachers become teacher-researchers, the "traditional descriptions of both teachers and
researchers change. Teacher-researchers raise questions about what they think and observe
about their teaching and their students' learning. They collect student work in order to

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evaluate performance, but they also see student work as data to analyze in order to examine
the teaching and learning that produced it".
The Importance of Teacher Research to the Classroom Teacher
Many teachers already overburdened with curriculum requirements, accountability
requirements, and all the day-to-day pressures of keeping a classroom running wonder why
they should take on one more thing. The goal of Teacher Research is to put "Best Practices"
about teaching/learning into actual practice in the classroom. And the person who does that
is the classroom teacher. Educational researchers in turn are engaging with teachers, by
organising events especially for teachers at educational research conferences and
collaborating with teachers in classroom research.
The outcome expected from research should ideally be the solution to the problem
initially observed or the improvement of the conditions which originally made teachers
reflect on the problematic situation or, at least, the establishment of a path to perform a
longer or deeper research attempt.
What Do Teacher Researchers Do?
● Develop questions based on their own curiosity about their students' learning and their
teaching
● Investigate their questions with their students systematically documenting what
happens
● Collect and analyze data from their classes including their own observations and
reflections
● Examine their assumptions and beliefs
● Articulate their theories
● Discuss their research with their colleagues to validate their findings and interpretations
of their data
● Present findings to others
● Talk to their students
● Give presentations (talk to teacher in room next door, go to conferences)
● Write about their research (school-wide publication, national), participate in teacher
research web sites, online forums, and e-mail communications
Types of Teacher research
Informal Research
Classroom teachers are often looking to participate in or conduct informal research
that is specific to their own classroom context and practice. Teachers regularly carry out
informal research in their daily work in the classroom. By the nature of their role, teachers
are informal researchers. Every day a teacher enters their classroom with a new lesson to
try, a new strategy to test, and a new thought about how to manage young students in the
classroom.
However we know that teachers with better research skills, who are critically
reflexive, and who look outside their own experience will find and evaluate possible
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solutions to teaching and classroom issues more quickly and efficiently. This can make
their teaching more effective.
Formal Research
Formal research is “hard and it is technical, rigorous, and accountability for validity
and reliability are deeply entrenched within the system. (e.g. ethics applications, access to
literature, participant recruitment and informed consent, and the difficult work of analysing
and interpreting complicated data).With so many hurdles to jump, it can take a long time
to complete a formal research project. Occasionally, research is undertaken more formally,
purposefully, with a broad goal of improving school or system-wide policies or processes.
Teachers’ networks and events
Teachers often seek more definite and immediate resolutions to context-specific
issues. Teachers have created these networks and events to share, engage, collaborate and
direct their own research, as well as the formal research available to them. These networks
and events serve teachers’ aspirations for their own and their education systems’
improvements in order to achieve better outcomes for their students.
A growing group of teachers are flocking to social media such as Twitter, Facebook
and Pinterest to share their resources, experiences and ideas. We know that this informal
research is a normal part of the everyday work of a teacher, and teachers have found that
there is much to be gained through the sharing and discussing of such work through social
media. It is a great place to share research and explore teachers’ responses to and
incorporation of both formal and informal research into their daily work.
Teacher Action Research
Teacher action research is, according to John Elliott, "concerned with the everyday
practical problems experienced by teachers, rather than the 'theoretical problems' defined
by pure researchers within a discipline of knowledge" (Elliott, cited in Nixon, 1987).
Research is designed, conducted, and implemented by the teachers themselves to improve
teaching in their own classrooms, sometimes becoming a staff development project in
which teachers establish expertise in curriculum development and reflective teaching.
Effects of Action Research
● Action research provides teachers with the opportunity to gain knowledge and skill in
research methods and applications and to become more aware of the options and
possibilities for change. Teachers participating in action research become more critical
and reflective about their own practice. Teachers engaging in action research attend more
carefully to their methods, their perceptions and understandings, and their whole
approach to the teaching process.
● As teachers engage in action research they are increasing their understanding of the
schooling process. The future directions of staff development programs, teacher
preparation curricula, as well as school improvement initiatives, will be impacted by the
things teachers learn through the critical inquiry and rigorous examination of their own
practice and their school programs that action research requires.
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● Teacher research will force the re-evaluation of current theories and will significantly
influence what is known about teaching, learning, and schooling. It has been said,
"Teachers often leave a mark on their students, but they seldom leave a mark on their
profession" (Wolfe, 1989). Through the process and products of action research teachers
will do both.
Advantages of Teacher Research
✔ Privileged access to real-life data
Teachers, by being immersed in specific teaching contexts and as long as they are
properly qualified and have enough experience, also have privileged and knowledgeable
first-hand access to crucial information about their students’ needs, learning styles and
available resources and about the schools they work for and about the education policies
framing their professions, which allow them to reflect on their own educational settings
so they can provide effective, reliable and realistic possibilities to solve or improve them.
✔ Possibility to adopt a multi-functional approach
Teachers nowadays do not act as simple disseminators of information but they have
the possibility to change their roles constantly, even within the same lesson. This multi-
functional role allows teachers to approach learners and issues from different
viewpoints, enhancing the scope of their actions as well as the quality and
appropriateness of the changes and solutions they propose.
✔ Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Teachers who do research activities have to engage in a long-lasting quest for
updated information about the approaches and trends to deal responsibly with the issues
raised as part of their practice, with permanent activities of reflection and assessment
always framed by the policies stated by the government. Should they find
inconsistencies between their practice and the applicable government regulation, they
could propose changes with the appropriate authorities, and by doing this, teachers will
grow both as professionals and as active and responsible members of social groups.
✔ Direct benefits of research on the teaching practice, on institutions and on the
society
This process, once started and sensibly and responsibly supervised, generates the
need to engage the whole educational community in it. This situation makes members
commit to their duties by becoming reflective and critical on their performance,
improving the institution’s profile through constant self-reflection in general. Such
commitment can eventually generate the need to create research groups which help
assess the decisions made by the institutions as well as the regulations stated by
educational authorities, replicating their effect through a network of peer institutions.
They can expand the benefits of this kind of processes to the whole society, especially
because once standards are applied and analysed in real-life contexts –providing there is
a permanent and effective two-way communication pattern between schools and

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 regulators, real-life situations can be solved taking into account as much information as
necessary and the rules established are more likely to match real needs since
accomplishable and realistic goals can be set.
Disadvantages
✔ Specific training necessary
Teachers –even those having the best intentions, who are determined enough to carry
out research because they have identified issues worth paying attention to, may lack the
specific skills to carry out successful research. This indicates that most times good
intentions and determination are wasted in a sea of uncertainty. Even if they get to obtain
data, they need to be trained on how to work with statistical methods and processes for
those data to be reliable and not biased in any manner and this kind of knowledge implies
a considerable amount of time to master.
✔ Budget/Time limitations
Teachers find it very difficult to convince management or education authorities to
provide the financial support needed to carry out proper research, and consequently
teachers are to face two alternatives: sacrifice their own income to do research or convince
the people in charge to make a decision, a process which can take longer than the solution
for the problem observed.
✔ Risks
The old proverb says “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, and in case teachers
managed to convince administrators to support them, the fact they lack proper background
in the field of research can lead them to mislead institutions in processes to implement or
change policies constantly for the sake of supposed innovation without having done proper
and well-supported assessment of the effects of such decisions on the quality of the
students’ learning process or even on their lives themselves.
✔ Challenges
Research done by teachers seems attractive and useful at first, but careful attention
must be paid to carry it out in a responsible and sensible way, especially with enough
financial and time support from authorities and guidance from experts. In order to do so
there needs to be short-term, mid-term and long-term planning ranging from pilot research
projects at schools which could be supervised by research groups at universities to the
establishment of long-lasting education policies seeking to provide student teachers with
the tools they need to do research on their own and schools with the awareness of the
benefits of supporting them. It has to be taken into account that teachers, just as every other
member of society who has access to any kind of power to change conditions for members
of a society, are obliged to observe and abide by ethical issues which foster equality for
everyone, so in case they are interested in engaging in research activities, they should
seriously start training in types of research, statistics and educational policies to minimise
bias and adverse effects on the population while doing their projects.

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1.2 Teacher Competencies as Identified by NCTE
The National Council of Teacher Education has identified ten teacher competencies
for making teachers professionally competent. A teacher’s job is not at all that easy, unless
a high degree of professional qualities and commitment are inculcated in the teacher's
personality. Teacher's work involves rigorous effort in the classroom and outside as well
as frequent interaction with parents and community members for various educational
purposes such as universal enrolment and retention, remedial support for weak children,
enrichment programmes for bright children, maintenance of good climate within the school
and the immediate outside environment and the like.
To perform these concrete tasks with adequate quality and efficiency, the teacher,
first and foremost, should have love and affection for children, concern for optimum
attainment, regular contact with parents for the best possible education of their wards,
eagerness to elicit community support for optimum functioning of the school in all aspects
and achieving a high degree of commitment to attain higher professional standards. These
attitudes, values and qualities should, therefore, form an integral part of teacher education
programme right from the pre-service stage, to be reinforced further from time to time at
regular intervals throughout the teachers' professional career.
(1) Contextual Competencies:
One of the first and foremost obligations of school teachers is to ensure acceptability
of their efforts by the parents and the community. Towards this, they need to acquire a near
total understanding of the socio-economic, cultural, linguistic and religious contexts of the
specific family milieu and the community profile. Policy provisions for equality, social
justice, educational opportunity etc. will also have to be understood. The teachers' job is
thus an integral part not only of the total educational system but also of the total social and
cultural systems in which they have to operate. They must, therefore, be fully familiar with
the education systems at the National and State levels as well as with their global and local
ramifications. They should be able to identify and analyse the factors responsible for
obstructing the growth of literacy in the country and the concerned State, besides reasons
for poor enrolment, retention and the problems of wastage and stagnation in the schools.
They have also to understand the heterogeneities and diversities of the society while
working out unifying factors for building a cohesive society that believes in national
integration and attempt to provide every citizen a sense of belonging to the nation with
dignity and equality. They will also have to understand various other issues like
developmental activities, urbanisation, unemployment, value inculcation, political
dynamics, growing impact of scientific and technological development etc. against the
backdrop of the specific community. To ensure credibility of their actions and initiatives,
their preparation, based primarily on the afore-said considerations, has to be a pre-requisite
for the teachers. They have to be alive to contexts like these and develop, in turn, relevant
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competencies and corresponding skills. The existing curriculum could be explored for such
components as could be converted into competencies. The gaps, if any, could also be
identified and filled by working out suitable measures and developing workable strategies.
(2) Conceptual Competencies: The teacher should have competencies identified under it
are:
● Clarity of thought, deep understanding of educational theories and through knowledge
of various educational trends, pedagogical methods, techniques etc.
● They should develop the right perspective in education that would enable them to
receive new experiences meaningfully and in greater detail and depth, besides helping
them thoroughly understand the meaning of education and learning and the impact of
socioeconomic and socio-cultural factors on them. They should also know their
educational implications with reference to the physical, mental, social and cultural
needs of the child at different stages of child development
● The knowledge of sociometry of the class too would help them organize curricular and
co-curricular activities quite effectively in the classroom and outside. This would also
help them adopt various modalities of curriculum transaction such as teacher directed
learning, group learning, self-motivated individualized learning and the like.
● The student teachers should appreciate the constitutional provision of universalization
of elementary education and its three components, namely, universal enrolment,
universal retention and universal quality education, besides various efforts made so far
to achieve it in general and with special reference to the Minimum Levels of Learning
approach translated into competency based teaching-learning process in particular.
● It may also be essential to identify and realise special needs of the handicapped and
retarded children so as to enable the student teachers to provide congenial environment
for their learning.
● Concepts and educational implications of globalization, modernization, liberalization
and privatization have to be understood by teachers to translate them effectively into
the teaching-learning process.
(3) Content Related Competencies: These includes
● Full mastery over the content of the subject that they have to teach.
● They should find out the hard spots and gaps in the curriculum which require
explanation and elaboration.
● They should identify such areas from the curriculum where there is enough scope for
undertaking joyful activities, individual and group learning etc.
(4) Transactional Competencies: Teaching-learning process in education involves
interaction between the teacher and the taught resulting in the achievement of the desired
competencies. During transaction, the teachers put plan into action and evaluate its impact
in terms of competency achievement level at the end of the transaction. While transacting
curriculum content, the principles of psychology, management and societal aspects, should
be integrated and practiced. It becomes extremely important for the student teachers to
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understand clearly the process of child development and growth and the management
principles involved in order to effect maximum learning by the child. Thus it implies that
the teacher should be able:
● To organize a variety of activities such as storytelling, singing, games, field visits,
celebration of national, social and cultural events to make the teaching learning process
joyful, participatory and relevant.
● To prepare appropriate teaching aids and other teaching learning material to support
and enhance the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process.
● To integrate continuous evaluation while transacting subject content.
● To use continuous evaluation approaches to diagnose weakness and strengths of the
teaching learning strategy.
● To identify the weaker and brighter children in order to adopt remedial measures and
undertake enrichment programmes.
● In a single teacher school or the multigrade school, the teacher should acquire
competency to handle the children of different grades sitting in the same classroom by
using various techniques and devices to make learning by children meaningful and
effective.
(5) Educational Activities Related Competency: The curricular activities are expected
to promote cognitive development of children as well as non-cognitive development. So
here the competencies required by a teacher are:
● Ability to organize curricular and co-curricular activities for achieving educational
objectives.
● Ability to organize social and cultural activities like morning assembly, celebration of
national days, dramas, interaction of children with creative individuals who have
attained distinction in life and the like. The teacher should acquire skills and
competencies in planning and executing all such educational activities.
(6) Competencies to Develop Teaching Learning Material: It includes
● Ability to develop interesting teaching aids for making the teaching learning process
easy, interesting and activity based.
● The teachers' handbooks and similar other reading materials should be used by the
teachers in order not only to maintain but also to improve their own professional
standards
● The classical teaching learning aids such as pictures, charts, maps, diagrams, tables,
models etc. should be prepared, selected and used by the teachers to enrich the quality
of their teaching still further.
● Ability to develop textual and self-learning material for children as per their age and
nature.
● Ability to adopt/adopt the teaching learning materials to meet the educational needs of
children with special needs including children from disadvantaged groups and working
children.
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● Knowledge of how to develop work-books and activity books.
● Ability to use Teaching-learning materials based on new technology such Computers,
digital resources etc. to make the teaching learning process more effective and
interesting.
● Teachers should also make use of locally available learning resources such as bank,
post-office, hospital etc. to enrich their learning teaching experiences.
(7) Evaluation Competencies: As the entire programme is oriented to the quantitative as
well as qualitative achievement of the learner, training should be modified and geared to
an improvement oriented evaluation approach rather than the measurement oriented or
impersonal approach to evaluation. In order to follow this type of positivistic evaluation as
against the negativistic which evolves fear, contempt, creating the reverse influence on the
child development, a new set of concept should be developed in the teachers. The following
points need to be given due consideration:
● The teachers should develop the concept of illuminative evaluation, to be able to get
frequent feedback to their own individual effort in teaching as also in terms of the effort
made by pupils in learning by adopting different methods and materials, to testify their
competencies. Illuminative evaluation includes self-analysis on the part of the teachers
to improve their teaching strategies and, in turn, to improve the learners' achievement.
Wherever feasible, the help of peers and parents may also be taken to optimize the
learning outcomes.
● Teachers should be able to carry out continuous evaluation in a systematic and formal
manner. The ideal concept of continuous evaluation in the classroom should be adopted.
It will be based not on formal testing but on classroom observation integrated intimately
with the teaching-learning process itself, analysis of workbooks etc.
● The teacher should also be able to carry out periodical evaluation, in a systematic and
formal manner, for diagnostic purposes
(8) Management Competencies
● Every teacher is a manager of a particular class or group of students. As such the
teachers should be taught the required skills of classroom management including total
teaching as well as subject teaching in the class, and several other tasks expected of
them in and outside the school.
● The teacher has to develop necessary competencies and qualities to function effectively
and responsibly. In the case of multigrade and single teacher school system, the teacher
has to carry out certain additional responsibilities particularly in terms of management
competencies, the development of which deserves special attention in the teacher
education process and programmes, both pre-service as well as in-service.
● It involves the skill of the teacher to achieve high quality educational objectives in
minimum time, energy and money through appropriate and effective use of educational
aids and active participation of available human resources. Every teacher is a manager
of a particular class or group of students.
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● Teachers should have the skill of classroom management including total teaching as
well as subject teaching in the class.
(9) Competencies Related to working with Parents
• In order to achieve universal enrolment, parental contact is a must. However, parents,
who, due to various reasons, are not able to send their children to schools, should be
constantly contacted. Parents have varied backgrounds. The teachers should, therefore,
know various techniques of seeking parental co-operation for universal enrolment,
retention and quality education of their children.
• Parents could contribute substantially to help the schools ensure punctuality and
regularity of their children, both in terms of attendance as well as studies.
• Parent-teacher co-operation for proper achievement is also required. Constant vigilance
by the parents for quality improvement of their wards will be very useful.
• The teacher should develop a system for providing progress report in one form or the
other in respect of every student and discuss it with parents.
• In a classroom situation, the teacher has to deal with a variety of children who may
be naughty, weak or unusually bright. In such cases the teacher could seek parental
help and discuss their weak and strong points to help proper development of every
child.
(10) Competencies Related to Working with Community and Other Agencies
✓ To improve the standard of education in schools, teachers need to seek cooperation
and support of members of the community as well. No school can function in isolation
and, therefore, the teacher should work towards bringing the school and the
community as close as possible and inter-related.
✓ The teachers should understand the role of the community in the development of the
school and should analyse how best the local agencies can contribute to various school
purposes.
✓ Teachers need to develop competencies to be acceptable to the community and, in
turn, be able to ensure community support for the school. For this, the teachers should
be made competent in activities like community survey, school mapping etc.
Facilitating pupils' learning is, no doubt, an important function of teachers. This can
be performed effectively only when the teachers get the required support from local
people and as such they need to identify local resources to augment the possibility of
community support for educational purposes and quality school education
Thus the above mentioned competencies are significant and need to be developed
among teachers to make them professionally competent. It will help to improve the quality
of education.
1.3 TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY
Accountability is a concept of ethics and governance with several meanings. It is
often used synonymously with such concepts as responsibility, answerability,

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 Blameworthiness, Liability. As a result the concept of "Accountability of teachers has
completely disappeared into the cold bag not leaving behind even a faint clue. For the last
three decades, all the committees and commissions appointed to suggest reforms in higher
education had recommended the regular teacher's performance evaluation and ensuring
their accountability:
In 1986, National Policy of Education and also its programme of action (POA) had
recommended for annual performance appraisal of teachers of education institutions to
ensure their accountability.
In 2008, UGC's pay review committee headed my professor G.K. Chadda
recommended "multiple parameters like regularity in classroom teaching, holding tutorials,
availability to students for consultation, participating in faculty meetings, guiding and
carrying out research and participating in other academic activities like seminar, workshop
etc. should be taken into consideration while assessing a teachers academic accountability.

Accountability towards lifelong teaching and learning - A teacher should devote his
whole life to teaching as well as learning for the future of humanity as his role is
multidimensional and multifarious.
Areas of Teacher's Accountability
Every profession has a set of ethics principles, guidance, responsibilities and norms
to guide the conduct and behavior of its profession. Accordingly in teaching as a profession
there are various guidelines, principles, norms of morality, accountability which a teacher
has to follow in the teaching profession while dealing with students, stakeholders, and
community. Every teacher needs to follow these principles and should be accountable for
his profession. The following are the expected teacher behavior in the form of
accountability:-
(i) Accountability towards the Learner: Student is the most important pillar in the education
system. Today, teachers have to concern themselves with the total development of a child's
personality. To achieve the optimal learning of the child the teacher should take care of the
students' progress according to their capacity. Hence the motto of the teachers should be
always for the benefits of their students because the success of the students depends
essentially upon the competences of teachers, their sense of dedication and accountability
(ii) Accountability towards Stakeholders/Parents: Parents are the most important
stakeholders because they invest a lot for the education and development of their children.
Therefore, not only the students, parents of the students also seek indulgence of teachers
in achieving their desired goal. Therefore, a teacher must develop more time in public
relation, parent counseling and behavioral therapy to fulfill the global societal needs
(iii)Accountability towards Community: A teacher must be accountable towards the
community to which he belongs. He should coordinate different activities of the
community and should motivate the deprived and weaker sections of the community to get
education. A teacher should work as a bridge between the school and community. So the
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 various behavioral problems and day-to-day learning problems can be solved easily. Hence
the teachers should be more concerned about the community which is above the classroom
teaching.
(iv) Accountability towards Profession: It is the duty of a teacher to think about various
ways and means to help the students in acquiring knowledge and skills and shaping their
future. He has to become a friend, a guide, more of an adviser and a partner to talk. For the
students' harmonious development, he will have to devote more time and energy to direct
the students for self learning. Through self learning one can achieve professional
enrichment and excellence which will be a great help to the nation in future
(v) Accountability towards Humanity and Values: A teacher should believe in human
values such as truth, beauty, goodness, honesty, love, equality, regularity, punctuality etc.
Because when a teacher inculcates these values through his behavior then his students will
automatically accept them. Hence, a teacher should believe in these values and exhibit the
same in his behavior and instructional system for the betterment of humanity.
(vi) Accountability towards Nation: A teacher must organize his research activities as per
the needs of the country. It means that the research process in education should be such
that these solve various problems from different angles. For example, India is being faced
by problems like violence by school students, sex linked problems at primary stage,
aspiration of parents that their child should excel in each activity (which results in increase
suicidal rate) going for tuitions even at preprimary level etc. The answer to such problems
is not so simple. Therefore, a teacher should get all essential knowledge to take-up the
issues and find appropriate solutions.

Characteristics of a Professionally Accountable Teacher

A teacher having professional accountability is concerned with a student's
harmonious development, community, his profession, humanity and national development.
Some of the characteristics of the teachers who are professionally accountable are:-
• Dedicated and have patience.
• Positive attitude/optimistic in his outlook.
• Guide in the right way and update his knowledge time to time.
• Start any work with appropriate knowledge.
• Work to remove social ills, violence and communalism.
• Work to remove class, caste and gender differences and to bring equality.
• Make the students do the work.
• Use diversity of resources and understand the problem.
• Understand and solve problems
• Aware about one's role and responsibilities and possess a high degree of professionalism.
In all systems of education the teacher occupies a central place. The teacher is at the
basis of the work of mankind, the builder of the nation, the maker of history. He sets ideal
examples before others. It is therefore very essential that he must be a man of sterling
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character & observe the code of professional ethics. Some of the professional ethics are as
follows:
▪ Manage their private affairs with the dignity of the profession.
▪ Seek to make professional growth continuous through study & research.
▪ Participate in professional meetings, seminars, conferences etc. towards the
contribution of knowledge.
▪ Maintain active membership of professional organization & strive to improve
education through them.
▪ Perform their duties of teaching, tutorial, practical, seminar work with dedication.
▪ Cooperate and assist in-admission, advising & counseling students conducting
examination work, supervision, invigilation & evaluation.
▪ Must participate in extracurricular activities including community service.
Teachers & Students
▪ Respect the right and dignity of the student.
▪ Deal justly and impartially with students.
▪ Be affectionate to students.
▪ Recognize the difference in aptitude capabilities among students & try to meet their
individual needs.
▪ Encourage students to improve their attainments & develop their personalities.
▪ Inculcate among student scientific outlook & respect for physical labour & the ideals
of democracy, patriotism & peace.
▪ Make themselves available to students & guide them without remuneration or reward.
Teachers & Colleagues
▪ Treat other members of the profession in the same manner as they themselves wish to
be treated.
▪ Speak respectfully to other teachers
▪ Refrain from raising questions of caste, creed, religion, race or sex in their professional.
▪ Refrain from lodging secret complaints against colleagues to higher authorities.
Teacher & authorities
▪ Discharge their professional duties & responsibilities according to existing rules.
▪ Give & Expect due notice before a change of position is made.
▪ Refrain from undertaking any other employment and commitment which are to
interfere with their professional responsibilities.
Teachers & Non-Teaching Staff
▪ Teachers should treat the non-teaching staff as colleagues & equal partners in a
cooperative undertaking.
▪ Teachers should help & function jointly covering both teaching & non-Teaching staff.
Teachers & Society
▪ Recognize that education is a public service & keep the public informed of the
educational programmes.
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 ▪ Work to improve education & strengthen the community’s moral & intellectual life.
▪ Be aware of social problems & strive to make progress in society.
▪ Work for national integration.
▪ Perform the duties of citizenship, participate in community activities.
A good and responsible teacher should have excelled in his teaching subject but they
should also understand the problems and needs of his students. This leads to the
harmonious development of the student's personality and prosperity of the nation. Hence a
teacher must be conscious, committed and accountable for his profession for providing
quality education. If a teacher contributes wholeheartedly to the profession, he can prove
that the saying ‘teaching is the noblest of all professions.’ is true.
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS OF A TEACHER
Ethics as a branch of philosophy is concerned with what is right, moral or fair. Most
professions have some form of ethical code that either takes the form of a code of practice
or conduct that governs behaviour in the profession, with the code of practice describing
specific behaviours expected in particular situations. Every profession is expected to
evolve a set of ethical principles to guide the conduct and behaviour of its professional
members. The Ethical principle provides the base to differentiate between desirable and
undesirable conduct of behaviour.
Teaching creates all other professions. A Teacher is said to be a candle that burns
itself to light up the life of others. They should develop appropriate ethics among
themselves so that the same values can be developed among students. While a great
majority of teachers carry with their heads high this noble tradition and even innovate and
teach beyond the classroom setting, other teachers have lost the passion to impart
knowledge and are simply going through teaching, for the sake of fulfilling an obligation.
Now, the teaching profession can also be riddled with corruption.
It is universally felt that like all other professions, the teaching profession should
also have its own Code of Professional Ethics which indeed is a prerequisite to ensure its
dignity and integrity. Professional ethics refers to the principles, guidelines or norms of
morality which a teacher has to follow in the teaching profession while dealing with
students, parents, community and higher authorities. It is also significant that the Right of
Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 entrusts teachers with some onerous
professional responsibilities to be internalized by them in the performance of their duties.
Accordingly, it is considered necessary that the Code of Professional Ethics be evolved
and adopted by the teaching community.
Need of Professional Ethics
• For self-correction: Man and his thinking keep changing. It is human to tend towards
comfortability, selfishness, laziness and money. It is difficult to follow and abide by
truth, hard work, simple living, honesty etc. As a result an individual turns towards the
easier ways of life without thinking what effect it will have on him, his family,
profession and society. Man slowly turns selfish and unethical without realizing. In
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 present time we all are affected by such factors and feelings to some extent.
Professional ethics correct us if we are doing any wrong or intending.
• For self satisfaction: Self satisfaction is more related to our inner self, our feelings
and thought process. When we follow the ethical code of society and profession we
are regarded as hardworking, honest, dutiful, righteous etc. All this makes us more
respectable and more prominent than others. Whenever anyone is acknowledged for a
right job, he starts governing respect and liking, all this gives self-satisfaction.
Professional ethics enable a person to judge himself and decide and not accept what
others decide for him.
● To guide the conduct and behaviour: The behaviour of students is moulded by the
teacher and the teacher‘s behaviour by professional ethics. Professional ethics in
education is supported by philosophy and psychology of teaching. By following
professional ethics, the teacher‘s conduct and behaviour becomes respectable and
socially acceptable.
● To shape the personality: Teacher keeps developing his personality by adding to his
knowledge and by refining his actions. The professional ethics in teaching profession
emphasize the teacher to follow pre-established norms in his thought and in actions,
even in one‘s dressing up, speaking, etiquettes etc. By following similar ethics, the
personality of an individual is reshaped and he becomes a teacher in real sense.
● To set up Ideals for Students: Students come to school not just to study the subjects
and books but also to learn to behave and polish their personality. Everyday students
come in contact with different teachers and are influenced by them. If a teacher is
behaving in a very positive and appropriate manner, the students follow him and want
to become like him. Hence by behaving in an ethical manner the teacher becomes ideal
for students.
● Improvement of Human Relation: Professional ethics guide to keep in mind the
social betterment, respect for others, sense of brotherhood, tolerance, co-operation etc.
Individual guided by professional ethics helps others to the maximum, by doing so
there
develops a positive feeling. Positive feelings improve human relations. When human
relations improve the school becomes the best place for teachers, students and parents
to work and co-ordinate. All this ultimately gives better results and improves over all
standards.
• Development of Society: School is the outcome of social necessity, the society makes
the school then the school makes the society. It is a cycle which grows bigger and
bigger with time. If the professional ethics are forgotten the individual as well as the
society starts moving in the wrong direction. The way of explaining truth and acquiring
knowledge determines the product of science. These two aspects are highly
influencing each other. These are interdependent and inseparable like the two sides of
the same coin. Universal viewpoint on science is that it is a body of knowledge and
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 the process of acquiring it, takes society in the right direction and makes it a better
place to live in.
• The Professional Excellence: Every profession has a unique work culture and work
climate. The work culture is strengthened when the professionals of the profession act
and interact in a professionally ethical manner i.e. so they do not cross each other’s
way or contradict bluntly instead cooperate and motivate. All this develops a smooth
co-ordination and effective functioning thereby bringing professional excellence.
• To improve the Professional Environment: Professional environment includes the
people, infrastructure, working conditions and working hours. Professional ethics
ensure that due place and respect is given to the seniors, to the higher authorities,
responsibility and working hours. When we follow such ethical codes of a profession
the environment remains calm, congenial and relaxed for effective working.
• To follow norms and principles of the profession: Norms and principles of a
profession are nothing but rules and regulation already framed in advance for effective
functioning. These rules change with time and situation. Professional ethics binds us
to our job and helps us to differentiate between professional development and self
interest. It also prepares us for extra responsibility which we have to shoulder from
time to time. Professional ethics are self-binding for better professional output
A four-member committee constituted by the NCTE reviewed this code keeping in
view the context of the relevant sections of the Right of children to Free and Compulsory
education (RTE) Act 2009 and also examined the code of professional ethics currently in
use in some countries. 23- point Code of Professional Ethics was constituted by committee
under Following Heads:-
1. Obligation towards students
2. Obligation towards Parents, Community and Society
3. Obligation towards the Profession and Colleagues
The present Code of Professional Ethics for school teachers is an attempt to provide
direction and guidance to the teachers in enhancing the dignity of their professional
work.
1. Obligations towards Students
1.1 Treats all students with love and affection.
1.2 Respects the value of being just and impartial to all students irrespective of their
caste, creed, religion, sex, economic status, disability, language and place of birth.
1.3 Facilitates students’ physical, social, intellectual, emotional, and moral development.
1.4 Respects basic human dignity of the child in all aspects of school life.
1.5 Makes planned and systematic efforts to facilitate the child to actualize his/her
potential and talent.
1.6 Transacts the curriculum in conformity with the values enshrined in the Constitution
of India.
1.7 Adapts his/her teaching to the individual needs of students.
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1.8 Maintains the confidentiality of the information concerning students and dispenses
such information only to those who are legitimately entitled to it.
1.9 Refrains from subjecting any child to fear, trauma, anxiety, physical punishment,
sexual abuse, and mental and emotional harassment.
1.10 Keeps a dignified demeanour commensurate with the expectations from a teacher as
a role model.
2. Obligations towards Parents, Community and Society
2.1 Establishes a relationship of trust with parents/guardians in the interest of all
rounddevelopment of students.
2.2 Desists from doing anything which is derogatory to the respect of the child or his/her
parents/guardians.
2.3 Strives to develop respect for the composite culture of India among students.
2.4 Keeps the country uppermost in mind, refrains from taking part in such activities as
may spread feelings of hatred or enmity among different communities, religious or
linguisticgroups.
3. Obligations towards the Profession and Colleagues
3.1 Strives for his/her continuous professional development.
3.2 Creates a culture that encourages purposeful collaboration and dialogue among
colleagues and stakeholders.
3.3 Takes pride in the teaching profession and treats other members of the profession
with respect and dignity.
3.4 Refrains from engaging himself/herself in private tuition or private teaching activity.
3.5 Refrains from accepting any gift, or favour that might impair or appear to influence
professional decisions or actions.
3.6 Refrains from making unsubstantiated allegations against colleagues or higher
authorities.
3.7 Avoids making derogatory statements about colleagues, especially in the presence of
pupils, other teachers, officials or parents.
3.8 Respects the professional standing and opinions of his/her colleagues.
3.9. Maintains confidentiality of information concerning colleagues and dispenses such
information only when authorized to do so.
A teacher has greater duties and responsibilities to perform for the betterment of
the society. Professional ethics and mannerism should go hand in hand so that the teacher
is able to move ahead as a real professional in changing time.

1.4 Vision and Mission as a Teacher

Vision is a concept that refers to one’s mental image of the future, it is a clear,
definite statement of what you want to accomplish. Vision is broader and future oriented.
Vision refers to the optimum future state of affairs that one can imagine for an individual

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or for an institution. Vision statements are by nature inspirational. They are meant to inspire
by painting a picture of a future worth working towards. Vision statements are written in
the present tense but still serve the future state. A lack of vision is like driving down a road
without a map. You may be moving forward but you have no idea of your actual
destination. A good vision statement will create that much-needed direction and will
express that direction's importance.
So if the vision statement answers what the world is going to look like in the future,
mission on the other hand answers the question “how?” as in “how are you going to make
that vision a reality?” How are we going to behave?” How are we going to win? A mission
defines a present state or a movement of an individual or an organization. It provides a
picture of what could be done. It defines the day-to-day activities of our work. It is like the
person who sets daily or weekly goals for them to accomplish. It is a catalyst that can impel
an organisation to move towards the vision. Mission provides a concise statement of why
it exists, and what it is to achieve. Missions or mission statements typically cover shorter
time frames than vision statements. A mission often indicates purpose and answers the
question "what do we do?" The mission is what people do in order to achieve the vision.

Vision vs. Mission

Parameters for Vision Mission
comparison
Meaning The ultimate goal to be A statement indicating the
achieved. A Vision activities to be pursued for
statement outlines WHERE accomplishing a goal. A
you want to be Mission statement talks
about HOW you will get to
where you want to be.
Main Purpose To inspire and hope to the To provide guidance or
people to contribute towards roadmap for achieving the
attaining the goal. It is a goal
vision that provides a
framework for planning.

Focus A vision statement talks A mission statement talks

about your future i.e. about the present leading to
focused on tomorrow its future i.e. focused on
today
Vision comes first as it
guides the overall structure The mission comes after
Position for mission vision

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 Long timeline because it Short timeline because it can
focuses on achieving the be changed as per prevailing
Timeline final goal circumstances
Scope Wide Narrow
Answer It answers the question, It answers the question,
“Where do we aim to be?” “What do we do? For whom
do we do it? In other words,
Why we do what we do?
What, for Whom and Why?
It can change as per
Ideally will remain constant, changing circumstances but
Change changes will be minimal will relate to the main goal

Vision Statement:To make your vision Statement you have to answer the following
questions:
• What do you aim to accomplish as a teacher?
• What is your goal for the year, for all the years?
• What kind of a difference in students’ thinking and acting are you committed to?
Example: I will be creating knowledgeable leaders who have the ability to take their own
decisions and rise with their community. (The vision reflects your teaching ideology and
strategies. It implies your classroom atmosphere)
Eg: A classroom climate that fosters thoughtful and respectful consideration of alternative
viewpoints and ideas, personal ownership of learning, and individual construction of
personally meaningful knowledge.
Mission Example
To facilitate the collaborative construction of the learning environment via attention
to the following:
– whole and small group dynamics;
– increased literacy in academic discourse (comprehension and production, oral
and written); and
– opportunities for active engagement with course content and materials

EDU 403.20
Module 2 – Professional Development of Commerce Teacher
2.1 Professional Development- meaning and significance
School systems today are charged with addressing ever-increasing demands:
reducing the achievement gap, adopting evidence-based practices, meeting adequate yearly
progress goals, managing the requirements of special-needs students, and the increasing
amount of pedagogical and content area research. Teachers must keep abreast of the

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important advancements that are occurring in education. This is where professional
development comes in. Professional development is defined as “the process of improving
teacher’s skills and competencies needed to produce outstanding educational results for
students” (Hassel, 1999). As Thomas Guskey (2000, p.4) states, “One constant finding in
the research literature is that notable improvements in education almost never take place in
the absence of professional development.”
Professional development is defined as activities that develop an individual’s skills,
knowledge, expertise and other characteristics as a teacher. The term professional
development refers to different types of facilitated learning experiences that are designed
to support the acquisition of professional knowledge, skills and dispositions as well as the
application of this knowledge to practice.
Professional development for teachers is a key mechanism for improving classroom
instruction and student achievement. Professional development is the key for meeting
today’s educational demands. Professional development for teachers should be analogous
to professional development for other professionals. Becoming an effective science teacher
is a continuous process that stretches from pre-service experiences in undergraduate years
to the end of a professional career.
Need and Significance for professional development of teachers
➢ To keep themselves abreast of the developments in science and pedagogy of physical
sciences.
➢ To think creatively for context-specific examples and to come up with the innovative
ideas for using local resources to provide meaningful teaching-learning experiences in
physical science to the learners.
➢ Science teachers need to develop their abilities to align the teaching-learning
experiences to learners’ environment, to find learning resources from their environment,
locally available resources and the community. Local indigenous knowledge and
practices in the local area are important to consider in the training of teachers. In order
to make generalised knowledge relevant and meaningful, school knowledge should be
connected to local knowledge.
➢ To improve the skills in the development of teaching aids, science kits, improvised
apparatus; laboratory work; writing better test items; continuous and comprehensive
assessment of learners and how to create and organise constructivist learning situations
such as observation, collaboration, multiple interpretation, etc.
➢ To move beyond textbook and classroom
➢ To engage learners to reflect, analyse and interpret in the process of knowledge
construction, etc.
➢ Science teachers need to keep track of developments in other curricular areas so that
they can adopt integrated approach and provide holistic learning experiences to the
learners.
➢ To adapt the teaching-learning strategies to the changes in the society.
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➢ To develop understanding of how students with diverse interest, abilities, and
experiences make sense of scientific ideas and what a teacher does to support and guide
all students.
➢ To study and engage in research on science teaching and learning, and to share with
colleagues what they have learned.
➢ To update teacher’s knowledge of a subject in light of recent advances in the area.
➢ To enable teachers to apply changes made to curricula or other aspects of teaching
practice.
➢ To enable schools to develop and apply new strategies concerning the curriculum and
other aspects of teaching practice.
➢ To exchange information and expertise among teachers and others.
➢ To help weaker teachers become more effective.
➢ To understand and explore the learners to provide conducive environment for learning
and suitable learning experiences

Effects of Professional Development

Harland and Kinder (1997) suggested the following nine possible types of outcomes or
effects of PD:
➢ Materials and resources – provisions for teaching, such as worksheets or activities
➢ Informational outcomes – fact-based information, e.g. about new policies or schemes
➢ New awareness – a perceptual shift, teachers becoming aware of new ideas and
values
➢ Value congruence – the extent to which teachers’ own values and attitudes fit in with
those which the PD is trying to promote
➢ Affective outcomes – how teachers feel emotionally after the PD, may be negative
(e.g. demoralised) or positive (e.g. confidence).
➢ Motivation and attitude – such as enthusiasm and determination to implement
changes.
➢ Knowledge and skills – both curricular and pedagogical, combined with awareness,
flexibility and critical thought
➢ Institutional outcomes – on groups of teachers, such as consensus, collaboration and
support
➢ Impact on practice – The ultimate aim of PD- transferring the skills to the classroom.

More generally, reported gains from PD include:

• Increased confidence and enthusiasm.
• Improved self-efficacy
• Openness to new ideas and changing practices
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• Development of reflective and critical practice, and an enquiry-based approach to
pedagogy
• Development of problem-solving skills with reference to teaching practice
• Increased links, collaboration and cooperation with other teachers, with modelling and
sharing of best practice
• Opportunities for promotion
• Personal satisfaction.
• The opportunity to continue learning and rediscover an interest in the profession
• Updating of skills and knowledge
• Curriculum development and planning
• Diagnosing and catering for needs of pupils and
• Moving on to deliver training and lead projects.

Pupils reported that their teachers’ change in behaviour had affected them in the following
ways:
• Greater pupil enthusiasm and motivation
• Increased confidence and improved performance in their work
• Higher self-esteem
• Greater participation in lessons
• Better organisation of work and
• Greater empathy between teacher and pupils
2.2 Teacher as a Professional-Characteristics
Teaching as a Profession
Defining profession is the most challenging task at hand in general and teaching as
profession in particular. Profession is derived from the Latin word “profiteri” meaning to
profess. A profession may be defined as a paid occupation based upon intellectual study
and training, the purpose of which is to supply skilled service to others.The connotation
here is that a professional is a person who possesses knowledge of something and has a
commitment to a particular set of values both of which are generally well accepted
characteristics of professions. A professional is a member of a profession or any person
who earns their living from a specified professional activity. The term also describes the
standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the
particular knowledge and skills necessary to perform their specific role within that
profession.
Some characteristics of profession can be enumerated that are found to be relevant
towards determining the existence of teaching as a profession.
1. A profession requires specialised knowledge with extensive training and an advanced
level of intellectual skills in carrying out its service to society.

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2. A profession provides an essential service that is both unique and definite to society and
only the people within that profession should provide the service. For instance, only
doctors practice surgery in this country as opposed to a variety of individuals who
believe they have the skill.
3. Members of a profession enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy and decision-making
power. They are largely free of closely supervised performance. Members of a
profession primarily make their own decisions and regulate their own activities.
4. Members of a profession are required to accept personal responsibility for their actions
and decisions.
5. A profession is responsible for monitoring its own members and self-governing. The
implications of the previous statement make it essential for professional groups to
perform various duties to keep the level of their services high and to watch for the
economic and social well–being of the members of the profession.
6. A code of ethics exists within a profession that sets out acceptable conduct for its
members. The existence of this code is necessary to enforce a level of high standards.
7. A profession emphasises the services it provides over the financial rewards.
8. It is generally agreed that members of a profession not only get paid for their work, but
receive a high salary commensurate with the time and effort required to obtain their
specialised knowledge and skills.
9. Society must recognise an occupation as a profession
10. A profession is considered a lifework or terminal occupation. Those involved usually
stay in the field for the rest of their careers.
11. Professional development of a person in a profession is a continuous process.
It is important to remember that a profession needs not have all the above
characteristics. Many professions do not satisfy all of the characteristics. The members of
any profession have the responsibility to identify, develop and maintain high standards of
competence. Teaching is a profession-indeed a noble one, conceptually and ideally. It is
also different from other professions because of its multitude of dimensions. Teachers are
the largest professional group engaged in human development activities. Training of the
practitioners is considered to be one of the important characteristics of a profession.
Therefore, in order to befit the teachers to their roles, a sound professional training is
needed.
Teacher needs to recognise herself as a professional endowed with the necessary
knowledge, attitude, competence, commitment, enthusiasm, spirit of seeking new ways and
means of dealing with teaching-learning situations and capability of reflection on her own
practices. She should be sensitive and perceptive not only to the learners and theinstitution
but also the emerging concerns in a larger social perspective within which one functions.
Teacher as a Professional- Characteristics
I. Understanding Teaching: Knowing the Content and Pedagogy of the Discipline
A. Creating a classroom environment that values and enhances learning
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B. Setting and communicating clear, measurable learning goals
C. Developing coherent plans consistent with learning goals, learner diversity, and learning
theory
D. Selecting and using instructional strategies and resources appropriate for learning goals
and supportive of students’ learning needs
E. Engaging students in active learning
F. Promoting critical thinking through inquiry, problem solving, and reflection
G. Monitoring student learning through formal and informal assessments
II. Understanding Professional Responsibilities: Knowing the Personal, Ethical, and
Legal Obligations of the Teaching Profession
A. Acting in the best interests of students and safeguarding their welfare
B. Modelling behaviour characterized by civility, empathy, and ethical decision making
C. Fulfilling professional obligations
D. Working collaboratively with colleagues in the school community to support teacher
growth and student learning
E. Reflecting on teaching and learning in order to improve professional practice and
enhance student learning
F. Establishing professional goals and engaging in continuous, purposeful professional
growth and development
G. Extending professional involvement and influence beyond the school to the wider
community and profession
III. Understanding Students: Knowing Adolescent Development and Students as
Individuals
A. Treating each student equitably, recognizing individual differences in gender, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity, religion, and abilities, and taking those into
account when working with students
B. Using knowledge of adolescent development to facilitate the way in which students
process concepts, acquire skills, and develop habits of mind
C. Managing student behaviour and classroom routines effectively
D. Providing meaningful feedback and communication to students about their learning
progress
E. Incorporating student feedback about the learning environment and experiences in
instructional decisions
IV. Understanding School and Community Culture: Knowing the Unique Culture of the
School and Community and how it affects Teaching
A. Contributing constructively and creatively to the school and community
B. Establishing and maintaining communication with colleagues, students, and families

2.3 Continuous Professional Development

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 The term CPD embraces the idea that individuals aim for continuous improvement
in their professional skills and knowledge, beyond the basic training initially required to
carry out the job. CPD is a planned, continuous and lifelong process whereby teachers try
to develop their personal and professional qualities, and to improve their knowledge, skills
and practice, leading to their empowerment, and the development of their organisation and
their pupils. CPD is a lifelong process of learning. As an investment in one’s work skills
and knowledge, CPD can also help groom the next generation of effective, well trained
teachers.
A widely cited definition of CPD is offered by Day. Day’s (1999) definition of CPD
encompasses all behaviours which are intended to effect change in the classroom:
“Professional development consists of all natural learning experiences and those conscious
and planned activities which are intended to be of direct or indirect benefit to the individual,
group or school, which contribute, through these, to the quality of education in the
classroom. It is the process by which, alone and with others, teachers review, renew and
extend their commitment as change agents to the moral purpose of teaching; and by which
they acquire and develop critically the knowledge, skills and emotional intelligence
essential to good professional thinking, planning and practice with children, young people
and colleagues throughout each phase of their teaching lives.” (Day, 1999, p.4)
This definition highlights several important elements of CPD: it is multifaceted
(addressing behaviours, knowledge, emotions, and thinking); it may occur naturally (i.e.
through workplace experience) or through planned activities (most discussions of CPD
focus on the latter); and its benefits extend from individuals to groups and institutions, and
ultimately to the quality of education in the classroom. This point about the benefits of
CPD is particularly important in current debates and it is increasingly stressed that CPD
should not only address teachers’ individual growth and fulfilment. The development goals
of institutions also need to be addressed through CPD, as do, of course, student outcomes.
In fact some have argued that improving student outcomes is the primary purpose of CPD
and that students’ needs (rather than teachers’) should be the starting point in decisions
about the kinds of CPD that are pursued.
The definition recognises that development can be provided in many ways, ranging
from the formal to the informal. It can be made available through external expertise in the
form of courses, workshops or formal qualification programmes, through collaboration
between schools or teachers across schools (e.g. observational visits to other schools or
teacher networks) or within the schools in which teachers work. In this last case,
development can be provided through coaching/mentoring, collaborative planning and
teaching, and the sharing of good practices.
CPD is thus a critical element in successful educational systems, enhancing teacher
quality, organisational effectiveness and student outcomes.
Aims of Programmes for Continuous Professional Development of Teachers
As a professional, teachers seek for avenues for their self-development:
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 ✓ To explore, reflect on and develop one’s own practice
✓ To deepen one’s knowledge of, and update oneself about one’s academic discipline
or other areas of school curriculum
✓ To research and reflect on children and their education
✓ To understand and update oneself on education and social issues
✓ To prepare for other roles professionally linked to education/teaching, such as
teacher education, curriculum development or counseling etc.
✓ To break out of one’s isolation and share ones experiences and insights with others
in the field, both teachers and academics working in the area of one’s discipline, as
well as intellectuals in the immediate and wider society.
Education and curriculum planners also seek to provide avenues for the professional
development of teachers as a part of curriculum reform and strengthening:
❖ To enable teachers to work towards prioritized goals in education such as
universalisation and inclusion
❖ To influence social attitudes and generate greater commitment to constitutional
values and overcoming discrimination in the classroom
❖ To transform existing practices towards more child friendly methods and methods
suited to strengthening conceptual learning and understanding rather than rote
learning.
❖ To enable teachers to implement and achieve specific targeted aspects in the
curriculum, such as the use of a type of technology, or the addition of topics such as
AIDS, or adolescent education, etc.
❖ To prepare teachers to play enhanced roles in the education system, as resource
persons, or head teachers, etc.
In the context where many pre-service training programmes are of poor quality and
often fails to provide teachers with sufficient understanding that could lead to reflective
practice, and where state governments have recruited untrained personnel in various kinds
of non-formal centers, it becomes necessary to include the unaddressed needs of pre-
service programmes through continued professional development.
Benefits of CPD
CPD involves the process of regularly assessing current and future skills and knowledge
requirements that are relevant to teacher responsibilities, as well as planning and
implementing an on-going programme of training and development to address these needs.
When adopted and embraced the process allows to:
➢ Foster excellence in teaching and leadership practice.
➢ Be accountable for remaining current in your practice, thus improving the
profession’s credibility with the public.
➢ Enhance professional image
➢ Progress the career
➢ Reflect on personal achievements and invest in future developments
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 ➢ Learn from others and exchange knowledge and ideas
➢ Benchmark your performance
➢ Plan and design your own professional development
➢ Develop the skills you need to do your job more effectively
➢ Learn in a flexible style, identifying and making the most of available development
opportunities.

2.4 Ways and Means of Developing Professionalism

Teacher professionalism has relevant significance in education in that it affects the
role of the teacher and his or her pedagogy, which in return affects the student‘s ability to
learn effectively. It can be defined as the ability to reach students in a meaningful way,
developing innovative approaches to mandated content while motivating, engaging, and
inspiring young adult minds to prepare for ever-advancing technology. Teacher
professionalism contains three essential characteristics, competence, performance and
conduct, which reflect the educator‘s goals, abilities, and standards, and directly impact the
effectiveness of teaching through the development of these qualities.
Professionalism for a global society demands teachers to be innovative in their
attitude, flexible in their approach and inquisitive and reflective in their mind always
refreshing themselves with the day today increase of knowledge in their subject area.
Professionalism, therefore, implies professional preparation of teachers and their
professional development through the mechanism of continuous professional development
programmes.
2.4.1 Inservice Programme
The American Commission on Teacher Education rightly observes, “The quality of
a nation depends upon the quality of its citizens. The quality of its citizens depends not
exclusively, but in critical, measure upon the quality of their education, the quality of their
education depends more than upon any single factor, upon the quality of their teacher.”
Everyone concerned with the educational system’s performance agrees that the
improvement of teaching qualities is a high priority in any educational programmes.
Teachers are assigned the role of change agents and are presented with new challenges.
Teachers have to learn to adapt creatively to changes in science and technology and to
prepare generations who are universal, critical, and creative and who have firm identities
with their socio-cultural background. Though the pre-service professional training is very
important, the professional training received by teacher during a pre-service teacher
training programme is not always sufficient for her entire career. When a teacher starts her
teaching career, the situation faced by each teacher is unique. The expression `in-service
training’ refers to training of teachers who are already in service. In-service training include
everything that happens to a teacher from the day he takes up his first appointment to the
day he retires which contributes, directly or indirectly, to the way in which he/she executes
his/her professional duties.
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 Hence, in–service training is “any activity which a teacher undertakes after he/she
has begun to teach, which is concerned with his/her professional work. “In General, in-
service teacher training can be defined as “structured activities designed exclusively or
primarily to improve professional performance. According to M.B. Buch, In-service
Programme is a programme of activities aiming at the continuing growth of teachers and
educational personnel in-service. In-service training programme is conducted by many
organisations and institutes that can contribute significantly to the professional
development of new teachers as well as experienced teachers. In short, In-service
Education is
✓ Education to become a better teacher
✓ Received while in service
✓ That includes all the programmes in which the teacher plays a vital part and gets
benefited by professional improvement
✓ Some sort of provision which may make the teachers up-to-date with respect to the
knowledge of his/her subject of teaching, methods and techniques, innovative ideas in
each sphere of his/her academic life.
The Teacher Education Policy in India has evolved over time and is based on
recommendations contained in various Reports of Committees/Commissions on
Education, the important ones being the Kothari Commission (1966), the Chattopadyay
Committee (1985), the National Policy on Education (NPE 1986/92), Acharya Ramamurthi
Committee (1990), Yashpal Committee (1993), and the National Curriculum Framework
(NCF, 2005). The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009,
which became operational from 1st April, 2010, has important implications for teacher
education in the country.
Need and Importance
Kothari Commission observes the need of in-service education is most urgent in the
teaching profession because of the rapid advance in all fields of knowledge and continuing
evolution of pedagogical theory and practice.
➢ In-service training provides teachers with opportunities to learn specific skills,
techniques and new instructional approaches that they can use in their own teaching.
➢ Suggests remedies for inadequacies of existing Teacher Training Programmes;
➢ Provides opportunities for updating the knowledge of developments in science
technology and application;
➢ Helps to acquire improved understanding of generally applicable pedagogical
techniques and those reinforcing equitable teaching practices;
➢ Gives an opportunity to practice in new teaching techniques and to share experiences
with other teachers;
➢ Helps in updating knowledge of teaching techniques; and
➢ Provides an exposure to effective new techniques and developments in informational
educational technology.
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Objectives
✓ Enrich and update teachers’ knowledge in their discipline, pedagogy and other areas of
school curriculum continuously.
✓ Develop a culture of shared learning and accountability such that teachers are not mere
recipients of training conceptualised in a top down manner but are engaged with the
task to develop their own and the group’s knowledge.
✓ Evolve a mechanism by which effective programmes of teacher professional
development can be initiated for large number of teachers in vastly different areas and
to deal with a range of diverse learners for inclusive education.
✓ Research and reflect on the gaps in students’ learning and their progress
✓ Understand and update their knowledge on social issues
✓ Apply Information Communication Technology (ICT) in their classrooms for better
student learning.
✓ To provide incentives to the teachers
✓ To help the teachers to know their problems
✓ To broaden the mental outlook of the teachers
✓ To increase the professional efficiency of the teacher
✓ To give teachers the opportunity to enlarge and improve their knowledge and
educational capacities in all fields of their work.
✓ To make teachers ready and able to understand and face in time new situations coming
up in society and to prepare their students for the new economic, social and cultural
challenges.
✓ To enable teachers to gain additional qualifications and to develop their special talents
and dispositions.
✓ To raise the cultural and professional standard of the teaching force as a whole and
strength its innovative vigour and creativity.
Teachers can identify the areas related with learning of physical science where they
feel the need of training, and send them to such organisations for consideration of their
participation. To achieve all this, a science teacher will have to continuously strive for her
professional development. A sincere and dedicated teacher can have to devote extra time
and efforts beyond school hours for her professional development.
The teacher has to continuously hone her abilities of integrating a variety of learning
experiences such as debate, discussion, drama, poster making, celebrating specific days
and field trips with classroom experiences. In-service training provides opportunity to the
participating teachers to work collaboratively; share ideas, thoughts and experiences on
learning resources, activities, experiments and strategies of transaction of different
concepts. Teachers have to be sensitive to the needs of these diverse groups of learners. All
these requirements make continual in-service training important for teachers.
Teachers need to develop their abilities to align the teaching-learning experiences to
learners’ environment, to find learning resources from their environment, locally available
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resources and the community. Local indigenous knowledge and practices in the local area
are important to consider in the training of teachers. In order to make generalised
knowledge relevant and meaningful, school knowledge should be connected to local
knowledge. The teacher should continuously improve her skills in development of teaching
aids, writing better test items; continuous and comprehensive assessment of learners and
how to:
✓ create and organise constructivist learning situations such as observation, collaboration,
multiple interpretation, etc.
✓ move beyond textbook and classroom; and
✓ engage learners to reflect, analyse and interpret in the process of knowledge
construction, etc.
Teachers also need to understand the problems of students having special needs and
must be sensitive to the needs of diverse groups of learners. Helping such children and
instilling in them a sense of confidence is essential for the development of these children
and to help them lead a successful life.
Opportunities for In-service Professional Development
Some of the opportunities through which a science teacher can achieve continuous
professional growth are given below.
❖ Interacting with peer teachers
❖ Reading for professional growth
❖ Attending teacher training programmes and workshops
❖ Membership of professional organisations
❖ Sharing through seminars, conferences, journals and magazines
❖ Online sharing and collaboration
❖ Travel
❖ Cultivating hobbies related to different subjects
❖ Mentoring
❖ Teacher exchange programmes
❖ Acquiring higher qualifications
❖ Professional writing
❖ Publication
Institutions or Agencies for In-service Education
For in-service training, the country has a large network of government-owned
teacher training institutions (TTIs), which provide in-service training to the school
teachers. At the National Level, the National Council of Educational Research and Training
(NCERT), along with its six Regional Institutes of Education (REIs) prepares a host of
modules for various teacher training courses and also undertakes specific programmes for
training of teachers and teacher educators. Institutional support is also provided by the
National University on Education al Planning and Administration (NUEPA). Both NCERT
and NUEPA are national level autonomous bodies. At the state level, the State Councils of
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Educational Research and Training (SCERTs), prepares modules for teacher training and
conducts specialised courses for teacher educators and school teachers. The Colleges of
Teacher Education (CTEs) and Institutes for Advanced Learning in Education (IASEs)
provide in-service training to secondary and senior secondary school teachers and teacher
educators. At the district level, in-service training is provided by the District Institutes of
Education and Training (DIETs). The Block Resource Centres (BRCs) and Cluster
Resource Centres (CRCs) form the lowest rung of institutions in the vertical hierarchy for
providing in-service training to school teachers. Apart from these, in-service training is
also imparted with active role of the civil society, unaided schools and other
establishments.
Problems related to In-service Education (Limitations of Current In-
serviceProgrammes)
➢ Participants have to be persuaded to take part in summer institutes, as motivation to
attend such programmes is low.
➢ There is no follow-up programme to keep alive the knowledge and skills assimilated in
the in-service programmes.
➢ Inadequate planning by the coordinators leads to a colossal waste of time for all
concerned.
➢ Shortage of books leads to teacher having nothing to take back to their schools, where
they could use what they have learned.
➢ The examination-ridden system leaves teachers with scarcely any time to practice what
they learn at the summer institutes.
➢ Training programmes conducted by ill-equipped and in-experienced resource persons
lead to waste of resources – both human and material. Therefore, only experience and
well-equipped teachers should be selected as resource persons.
➢ Training programmes spoil many school working days and students learning hours.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to review the duration of training with a view to
reducing it suitably.
➢ In-service education and training is important. But too much of training does not result
in improvement in teachers’ classroom processes.
➢ Training sessions should be participatory and interactive; Resource persons should use
transactional approaches which produce conducive environment in the training session
for learning processes. Training approaches presently being used by facilitators are not
appropriate.
➢ Lack of Incentives
➢ Lack of Interest
➢ Inappropriate Methods and Techniques
➢ Inadequate Evaluative Techniques
➢ Inappropriate Curriculum and Courses
2.4.2 Participation in Workshops and Seminars
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 Whenever teachers feel a need for training in a particular area, they may request the
authorities to provide them opportunity to attend such a training or workshop.There are
online conferences, seminars and workshops, and classes that teachers could attend as well
as on-site workshop and classes.
Seminar is a group meeting led by an expert that focuses on a specific topic or
discipline. Seminars typically take place over the course of a few days and involve
cooperative discussion, multiple speakers and opportunities to share perspectives and
issues related to the topic. Usually there are several keynote speakers within each seminar,
and these speakers are usually experts in their own fields, or topics.
Workshop is defined as an assembled group of people who share a common interest
or problem. They meet together to improve their skill of a subject through intensive study,
research, practice and discussion.The objective of conducting workshop is to achieve
higher cognitive objectives and develop psychomotor skills. In workshops there is a
complete and an active involvement by the participants. The whole point of attention is to
work and learn from practical experiences. Workshop offers each participant an
opportunity to make his or her own contribution.
Seminars and workshops involve cooperative discussion, multiple speakers and
opportunities to share perspectives and issues related to the topic. Attending a
seminar/workshop has numerous benefits, including improving communication skills,
gaining expert knowledge, networking with others and renewing motivation and
confidence.
They are the platform to meet the people with same field of interest, where personal
experiences are shared, refresh old skills and also gain state- of- the art information about
various topics. They provide us with the opportunity to meet other teachers face to face
and benefit from the knowledge of teacher trainers and experienced teachers. Sometimes,
this happens through large events that last an entire weekend and sometimes, it happens
through smaller, local events in or near our own school.Virtual Conferences/
seminars/classes are events held entirely online and usually don't need any special software
or technological know-how. Just log on at the right time, watch and listen.
In seminars and conferences, one gets an opportunity to meet a large number of
teachers and exchange teaching-learning experiences and innovative ideas with them. By
attending relevant science seminars and conferences, a science teacher can learn about the
innovations that other teachers are doing. The science teacher herself might have developed
a new idea to improve teaching- learning of science/physics/ chemistry and she may present
it as a paper in seminar or conference. The notifications for seminars and conferences come
out in newspapers and journals. This information is also available on the relevant websites.
The teachers can send their request for participation after seeking permission from their
school authorities. They should use opportunities of attending such programmes to enrich
their professional experiences.

36
 Many teacher training programmes and workshops are conducted round the year, all
over the country, by various organisations such as NCERT, SCERTs, DIETs, KVS
(Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan), NVS (Navodaya Vidyalaya Sanghtan), Teacher
Education Colleges, Teacher Associations, University Education Departments and NGOs.
In-service training programmes and workshops are conducted by experts to take care of the
particular needs of teachers. Some of the areas in which teacher training programmes and
workshops are conducted regularly in Physical sciences are Designing improvised
apparatus, Developing Low cost teaching-learning materials, Writing test items, Improving
laboratory skills, Content enrichment in concerned subjects, activity based teaching-
learning etc.
Seminars Vs Workshops
While seminars and workshops are both are intended to educate their audience on a
specific topic or topics, there are some differences between them. Some of these differences
include the format, the primary purpose or goal, and the interaction between the instructor
and students.
➢ The primary difference between these events is the format in which each event is held.
A seminar has a structure that is more like a lecture or classroom style of learning. In
this respect, the lecturer, speaker or instructor gives a speech or shares information with
the audience. The difference between seminars and a workshop is that workshops also
add hands-on activities into the mix.
➢ Seminars tend to have much larger audiences because it simply consists of an expert
sharing information with the audience on a specific topic. Workshops on the other hand
tend to have smaller audiences, or are broken up into smaller groups, because of the
hands-on activities that are a part of learning in the workshop experience.
➢ One of the other differences between seminars and workshops is the planning and
implantation phase of each. Planning a seminar tends to be much less time and cost
intensive than that of a workshop. This is because a workshop tends to require a lot more
employees to pull the event off, such as managing the breakout groups for the hands-on
activities after the lecture or speaker portion of the workshop.
➢ Workshops are generally more interactive than seminars. A seminar is structured much
like the classroom style of teaching.
➢ Workshops may have several different activities that the participants can choose. A
seminar may only have the main lecture and there are no further follow-up activities or
ways for the attendees to apply the knowledge they have learned during the seminar.
➢ Seminars tend to have a one-way communication, whereas communication in workshops
runs both ways between instructors and attendees.
Benefits of attending Seminars and Workshops

37
 ✓ Teachers attending workshops/seminars meet like-minded people. Whether the
workshop/seminar is in a traditional setting or online, educators can establish new
relationships and these new relationships are important in a teacher’s career
✓ Seminars and workshops provide a chance to interact with experts from the specific
field. Discussing about the relevant topics of the particular subject, teachers tend to
learn about the latest information and new skills related to the concerned subject.
✓ Talking and learning about a new topic will encourage teachers to explore new areas
relevant to the topic. They will feel motivated to research and learn new things, to
publish their own research articles, contributing significantly to the education sector
✓ Attending seminars/ workshops to learn the latest skills in specific areas leads to
becoming a better teacher. That, in turn, can help teachers guide others in areas where
they have developed expertise.
✓ When teachers learn new skills, so do the students. Teachers who pick up new skills
and knowledge bring a higher level of energy into the classroom. They are better
prepared to handle challenges involving difficult students. This leads to better
outcomes for students.
2.4.3 Professional Organisations
In a democratic society, various professional organizations owe responsibility of
contributing dynamism, growth and excellence in their respective professions. Teachers’
organizations are no exception in this regard. They assume a greater role in nation building
process because teachers participate in shaping the quality of human material which is basic
to any concept of national development and social growth. Through their research and
critical studies on a wide range of problems they contribute to the national capacity to
tackle these problems. They are responsible for the professional growth of their members.
In other words, they bring the academic community to the doorsteps of the larger society.
The role of the teachers’ organizations is considered as a very important input by the
Kothari Commission (1964-66) in the professionalization of teaching. It enunciated the
below mentioned functions of teachers’ organizations:
➢ To secure organizations members, individually and collectively and their equitable
status: social, economic and professional;
➢ To preserve their professional interests and secure acceptable environment of work and
service;
➢ To make safe the professional growth of teachers all the way through research,
publications, refresher courses, seminars, and library services;
➢ To work for the advancement of education in response to the challenge of the ever-
changing socio-economic circumstances;
➢ To improve the lessons of subjects in the course by the establishment of subject
teachers’ associations;
➢ To ascertain a professional code of conduct for teachers to make sure that it is followed
by members.
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Objectives of Professional Teacher Organizations
✓ To acquire associations of teachers into relations of mutual assistances and cooperation.
✓ To attain for teachers all the privileges to which they are entitled.
✓ To raise the standards of teaching profession by securing the situations necessary to the
best professional service.
✓ To support the welfare of the children of the nation by providing with time improved
educational opportunity.
✓ To promote a democratization of the colleges / institutes / departments as well facilitate
them better to provide their pupils to take their places in the industrial, social and
political life of the community.
✓ To fight for all forms of racial discrimination in education.
Some of the activities conducted for the professional growth of member teachers
are
➢ creating conducive environment for research
➢ organize seminars, symposia, debates and workshops, to improve
teaching/education
➢ form subject teacher association to strengthen various disciplines
➢ form interdisciplinary association to exchange views and opinions
➢ invite experts from different disciplines to address the teaching community on
innovations and new developments
➢ help in the curriculum development, conduct of examinations and evaluation
➢ publish monthly journal, papers and newsletters evolve a code of conduct or
professional ethics for its members and the academic community to follow.
There are many national and international professional organisations which provide an
excellent forum to teachers for exchanging their ideas.
Some other professional associations for teachers in Kerala are
• Kerala School Teachers Association (KSTA)
• Kerala Primary and Secondary Teachers Union (KPSTU)
• Government School Teachers Union (GSTU)
• Kerala Higher Secondary Teachers Union (KHSTU)
• Aided Higher Secondary Teachers' Association (AHSTA)
• All Kerala Private College Teachers' Association (AKPCTA)
• All Kerala Training College Teachers' Association (AKTCTA)
• Kerala Government Medical College Teachers Association (KGMCTA)

2.4.4 Published Work

If a teacher has a flair for writing and she can explain a concept in a lucid style then
she may write articles on different topics for spreading awareness among public and send
39
them for publication in newspapers and magazines. The teachers can also send their articles
to any national or international journal or magazine for publication and wider
dissemination. This is the most convenient way to exchange ideas with other teachers.
Usually, directions for submitting an article are given in each issue of the journal/magazine.
Each journal/ magazine prescribes a special format and style that one has to follow for
submitting the article.
There are many online blogs, discussion forums, e-journals and e-magazines which
provide teachers immense possibilities to share experiences and learn from each other.
Writers must remember that every time they publish their work, they put their
professionalism on the line. That means that when they publish a blog post, journal article,
or a book, they must be sure they are putting their best work out into the world. The number
of publications is a good measure of teacher's academic experience and helps keeping
updated with recent trends in a field.
The Web offers teachers and students several advantages over traditional means of
publishing. Students and teachers can retain control of the format and content of the works
they have created. The process of Web publication may also be quicker and less expensive
than traditional publication. But most uniquely, the Web provides an immediate and real
audience that has the ability to communicate feedback immediately.
Benefits
➢ To enhance personal growth and development.
➢ To promote reflection/critical thinking.
➢ To improve writing and research skills: The process of researching, writing,
editing, and publishing a work for the first time will provide valuable feedback on
what steps may require improvement and where strengths may be. Going through
these steps will improve writing and research skills.
➢ To experience the scholarly publication process: Publication is a requirement in
many disciplines. Going through the process will make the experience familiar and
will also provide context and understanding of the field.
➢ To connect with professionals and researchers: Publishing help to connect with
other professionals and researchers in the field, providing new opportunities for
collaboration and future study.
➢ To display leadership and initiative: Being involved in the publication process is
not simple and will recognize that pursuing this endeavour as an example of
leadership and drive.
➢ To professionalize one’s experience: Having a published work will provide a certain
level of professionalization to oneself.

2.4.5 E-twinning

40
 Teacher networks are learning networks as well as technology-supported
communities through which learners share knowledge with one another and jointly develop
new knowledge.The unprecedented opportunities brought about by networking tools
enable teachers to network and collaborate with other teachers from anywhere, at any time.
Such development in the profession of teachers is a significant aspect which cannot be
ignored when discussing the future of education.
Teachers could come together and form their own forum to discuss academic
matters. For a teacher desiring to bring an improvement in her professional work, the best
way is to share and seek help from other experienced teachers of the school who are
themselves keen to grow as effective teachers. Issues like planning for learning
experiences, designing improvised apparatus, context specific examples, etc. can be
discussed for mutual enrichment. Observing classroom teaching-learning and laboratory
work conducted by colleagues may also be helpful in getting many ideas. Integrated
approach to teaching-learning implies continuous interaction with the teachers of other
subjects as well. This practice can initiate the breaking of tight boundaries between various
disciplines.
Teachers should not restrict their professional interactions with teachers of their own
schools only. They should also interact with teachers of neighbouring schools through
informal/formal meetings, e-mails and various social networking sites. They can create
occasions to meet each other without institutional initiative. Contributing in the magazines
for Commerce teachers, organising seminars, symposia, exhibitions, interacting with
businessmen and educationist of eminence can all contribute to the development of quality
in teachers.
Internet penetration is increasing in the country day-by-day and hence, the internet
facility is becoming available to an increasingly large number of teachers. There are many
online blogs, discussion forums, e-journals and e-magazines which provide teachers
immense possibilities to share experiences and learn from each other. Through internet,
teachers across the regions and nations can connect with each other, discuss and exchange
views. In fact, irrespective of the distance between them they can collaborate and work
together.
Many colleges, universities and institutions conduct training for teachers in various
areas of Commerce. Teacher herself can visit and discuss with the professors on the
concepts she needs elaborations. This can help her to plan field visit to these places for her
students also. She can involve herself in the preparation of training modules, textbook
development, research project, etc. taken up by colleges and other institutions. This would
break isolation among Commerce teachers teaching at various stages at the school and
college.
Co-operation among staff creates opportunities for social and emotional support,
exchange of ideas and practical advice. It can enhance professionalism; feelings of self-
efficacy and prevent stress and burnout. It can contribute to the quality of the teaching
41
profession and the learning experience of students by encouraging collaboration and
knowledge exchange at both teacher and student level
E-twinning is the main action of the European Commission’s eLearning
Programme. The objective of the eTwinning action is to strengthen and develop networking
among schools using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). It promotes
teacher and school collaboration through the use of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT). Currently, thirty one countries in Europe participate in eTwinning.
Since 2005, eTwinning has been one of the most successful actions of the school education
programme under the European Union’s Lifelong Learning Programme.
Teachers from all participating countries can register and use the eTwinning online
tools to find each other, meet virtually, exchange ideas and practice examples, team up in
eTwinning Groups, learn together in Learning Events and engage in online-based projects.
Additionally, each country involved has a National Support Service (NSS) that represents
and promotes the eTwinning action by providing training and support (face-to-face, by
phone and online), organising meetings and national competitions, and running media and
public relations campaigns.
Since December 2005, eTwinning has diversified its offers to schools by initiating
European-wide Professional Development Workshops (PDW). They are aimed at
individuals who want to learn more about eTwinning and develop their skills in European
collaboration using ICT. Aims of these workshops also include tackling some of the key
competences at the European level, e.g., communication in foreign languages, digital
competence, and interpersonal, intercultural and social competences. These workshops
bring together participants from different European countries to network and share
experiences.
From a survey conducted in late 2008, where 1,308 eTwinning teachers from
different countries were surveyed (Crawley et al., 2009), one third of the respondents said
they signed up for eTwinning to improve their teaching skills. Moreover, more than75%
of the respondent teachers stated that their eTwinning project had an impact, or even a high
impact, on improving their ICT skills, communication skills, teaching skills and
interdisciplinary working skills, as well as learning about new teaching methods. The
survey from 2008 brings evidence that a teacher and school collaboration initiative, such
as eTwinning, has a place among wide panoply of professional development activities that
range from qualification programmes to informal peer dialogue to improve one’s teaching
practices.
More formal types of professional development activities, such as courses,
workshops, educational conferences and seminars are also characteristics of eTwinning.
This can indicate that eTwinning, as a professional development network, has a high
potential for satisfying some of the professional development needs of teachers in Europe.
Professional development of teachers

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 An important effect of an eTwinning project can be the implicit professional
development of the teachers involved. By sharing knowledge with others and cooperating,
discussing and working towards set goals teachers are indeed stimulated. Many report their
satisfaction from this kind of collaboration and the learning effect they experienced. There
are many levels and areas of teacher professional development possibilities in eTwinning.
Even in-school cooperation can be new to the teachers who are used to work in isolation,
‘behind the classroom doors’. A multidisciplinary project stimulates professional
discussion and cooperation among local teachers.In many countries, cooperative and
collaborative ways of learning lag behind: still the instructive methods dominate.
eTwinning can contribute to the long-wished paradigm shift in those countries.
Collaboration between methodologically more advanced countries(schools) and those of
practising instructive teaching can have a big effect on the latter.
Benefits
• One of the most important elements of eTwinning is collaboration among teachers,
students, schools, parents, and local authorities. In eTwinning teachers work together
and organise activities for their students. They have an active role, interact, investigate,
make decisions, respect each other and learn 21st century skills.
• eTwinning can cover (parts of) the curriculum or certain objectives (e.g. international
cooperation).Furthermore, international projects, that are part of the curriculum, can be
carried out more easily.
• Subjects that are taught in English can be enriched by international contributions.
• International projects and using ICT contribute to the appeal of lessons, so students
become more attentive. Thus, teaching becomes easier and more efficient.
• It can cause motivation by the personal work style which can be used, the change of
perspective and fun with ICT.
• It can stimulate teachers who coach their pupils to broaden their minds by using ICT as
a tool to access and improve their knowledge.
• It broadens the way teachers work in the classroom in real time
• It helps integrating different pedagogical approaches and contents in the daily school
lessons.
• International projects are stimulating, motivating and fun for the teachers.
• eTwinning can stimulate collaboration with colleagues within and outside the school.
• It can improve the relationship between students and teachers.
• It provides powerful learning for the teachers by working with others from other
cultures. It stimulates the exchange of ideas and makes the sharing of educational
knowledge and know-how possible.
• Teachers can contact experts directly, if they need something for their lessons.
• It can stimulate teachers to develop learning materials in co-operation.

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• It helps exchanging material that has been tested by colleagues elsewhere. It allows
teachers to implement new ways of teaching practice (grouping,
methodology,motivation...) and leads to pedagogical innovation.
• Teachers develop intercultural communications skills by using ICT in a realistic way.
• The teachers’ eTwinning community and the more playful approach help them to use
ICT-Tools in specific learning.
• Online Seminars are live communication sessions where there is a chance to learn, talk
and discuss with your peers. The topics covered by Online Seminars are related to
pedagogy and eTwinning aspects in general. They are led by an expert, and are run in a
widely-spoken European language.
• The eTwinning Online Courses are long courses aimed at addressing the needs of the
eTwinning community in the area of online moderation, teaching and learning, and
ambassadors at national and European level.
2.5 Soft Skills Development for a Commerce Teacher
The main responsibility of shaping the behaviour of students is in the hands of
teacher. Teachers in fact, are the designers of the future of their students and thus, the
society. They are required to exhibit universal values like world peace, justice, freedom
equality and unity along with established social and civic values as enshrined in Indian
constitution. Hence the society expects teachers should be honest, sincere, and punctual
and should follow the professional ethics. Prospective teacher should not only be
intellectually competent and technically skilled but also civilized in his/her emotions and
refined in his /her state.
Soft Skills
“Soft Skills” are “People Skills” comprising of personal attributes that drive one’s
potential for sustained growth, enhances an individual’s social interactions, job
performances and career prospects. According to World Health Organization (WHO) “Soft
Skills are nothing but Psychological Skills, which insists upon accepting the behavior of
others along with their culture”. Fundamental Soft Skills put forth by WHO are:
Self- Awareness-Self Esteem;
Critical thinking Skills;
Decision Making skills:
Problem Solving skills;
Interpersonal Skills;
Communication Skills;
Empathy;
Coping with emotions;
Handling peer pressure and Negotiation Skills.
Perrault (2006) defined soft skills as "those traits and capabilities that an
individual possesses in addition to the individual's technical and/or knowledge
skillset".
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 A person’s soft skills are related to his emotional intelligence. Soft skills are rather
ambiguous and difficult to assess or measure. It is only after spending a significant period
of time with an individual and noticing his manner of speaking and expressing himself, one
can gauge his emotional intelligence and see how well his soft skills are developed. Based
on how an individual interacts with other individual, one can gauge what soft skills the
person has. Not everyone is born with all soft skills and these soft skills can be acquired
without much trouble. Some people are able to pick up soft skills with just a little training
where as there are others, who no matter how much they try are just unable to develop the
soft skills. It is mandatory to have at least some soft skills to achieve success in the
professional life. Very broadly speaking it means the social manners which an individual
has, how he is able to think as well as process new information which is given to him, how
effectively he is able to communicate with others, language skills and even whether or not
a person has leadership qualities.

Need for Soft Skills for Teachers

The Indian society is passing through crises of values and is gradually being
uprooted from its cultural heritage in the name of modernization. One of the important
tasks of the teacher will be to help the pupils to arrive at a synthesis of material and ethical
values, to uphold the past culture and to mould it for a renaissance suited to the future age.
The teacher is to generate love for the mankind there by bringing about a synthesis between
doing and feeling by coordinating the use of head and heart in the educative process.
Prospective teachers who have great responsibility in developing the society with values
and good culture need soft skills to transmit the culture to the students.
➢ Soft Skills helps teachers to make their classes more interesting: If teachers wish to
have a powerful impact on their students and make their classes lively and memorable
it is vital that teachers have soft skills. A teacher who has soft skills will be able to
modulate her voice and even make charts according to the need of the moment so that
students are able to grasp the maximum amount of knowledge.
➢ To serve as an example for the students: Soft skills are things which cannot be taught
via a book or by a long lecture. Students need to improve soft skills by observing their
teachers. If teachers are exemplary examples for their students then the students grow
up becoming exemplary individuals who are able to make a success of their lives and
also contribute very positively to the society in which they live.
➢ To interact with students at their own level: It is important for teachers to have soft
skills, because if they do not have soft skills, then they will never be able to give the
students lessons and lectures according to their respective ages and cognitive ability.
➢ Enables teachers to be good leaders: Teachers need to be good leaders and command
respect so that their students listen to what is said to them and obey instructions which
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 are given. Having soft skills is vital for teachers so that they can be good leaders who
are able to lead the students from the front and in turn encourage the students to become
good leaders themselves.
➢ Makes them much more approachable: There is a fine line which ought to be
maintained between the teachers and students. This means that both should maintain a
respectable distance between each other. Teachers should function as advisors and a
guide for their students and it is only if they have soft skills that they will be able to
guide the students along the right path and give them useful advice.
➢ Allows them to be sensitive to the needs of the children: It is very important that
teachers have soft skills, because if they are lacking in soft skills, they will not be
sensitive to the needs of those students. It is only a sensitive teacher who has high
emotional intelligence that will be able differentiate one child from the next
To live to the challenge of globalization which is in line with the era of information
economy, the strength of a nation is strongly dependent on the ability of its citizen to be
highly intellectual and skillful. A quality human capital comes from a quality education
process. A carefully designed and well planned education system is critical to developing
such human capital. Thus, institutions of higher learning play a very important role to
produce a human capital that is highly knowledgeable and skillful to meet the demand and
expectations of many people.
The teaching and learning processes in institutions of higher learning should be
capable to provide such knowledge and skills to future graduates. In order to be competent
in the career of teaching, teachers are expected to develop and build not only hard skills
but also need to develop most significant skills namely soft skills. In the current education
system, teachers who possess soft skills would be a role model for teachers in numerous
ways like decision makers, team leaders, negotiating stress, effective communication skills,
solving the problem effectively and so on (Fulton, 2006).
Conclusion
The profession of a teacher is a calling, a vocation and a mission. An effective
teacher will definitely touch the minds and lives of the students and will bring desirable
changes and modification in their behaviour and develop positive attitudes towards life.
The importance of teacher in the process of education is of great value. “Of all the different
factors, which influence the quality of education and its contribution to National
Development, the quality, competence and characters of teachers are undoubtedly the most
significant (Kothari Commission 1964-66). In the words of Kothari D.S. “A right kind of
teacher is one who possesses a vivid awareness of two missions. He not only loves his
subject, but also loves whom he teaches. His success will be measured not in terms of
percentage of the result alone, but by the quality of life and character of men and women
whom he has taught”. Hence Professional development of teachers is a crucial element for
school improvement and increased student achievement.

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 EDU 403.20
Module 3- Teacher as a Reflective Practitioner

3.1 Reflective Teaching – Conceptual overview

The term reflection may be used to refer to deliberate thinking about something that
has already taken place. Reflective teaching has to do with a deliberate examination of
how we teach and learn. It fits in the interpretive view of teaching and learning, a move
towards critical thinking of the way we teach and learn. It is a kind of teaching strategy
which has to be viewed in terms of what a teacher can do for herself and her students to
ascertain productivity in teaching and learning.
John Dewey (1933) was a pioneer in the concept of reflection as a form of thinking.
He maintained that, “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on
experience.” (p.78). He promoted educators to stand back from routine and move into a
more conscious form of practice. Learning is ongoing in the teaching world; we are
constantly evolving. There is always more to learn and understand in order to bolster our
teaching skills.
Braun and Crumpler (2004) put it best in their study on teacher reflection. “To be
unreflective results in a teacher who is merely a skilled technician, i.e. one who has limited
ability to make good decisions; to consider the consequences of their actions; and, to alter
their actions.” (p. 60)
Boudet al (1985) define reflection as ‘a generic term for those intellectual and
affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead
to new understandings and appreciation' .
Williams (1998) sees reflection as 'a theory of metacognition which directs skilled
behaviour during professional activity or assists in the deliberative processes which occur
during problem solving’.
Bergsgaard and Ellis (2002) - Reflection may be take the form of self-observation
to gain insight about the reasons for one’s own thinking and one’s own actions and their
consequences In short, in reflection, people recall, consider and evaluate their experience
usually in relation to improve their practice and to deepen their understanding of that
experience (Richards,1990).

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Reflective teaching
Reflective teaching is a teacher initiative programme. It is a personal tool that
teachers can use to observe and evaluate the way they behave in their classroom, thinking
about why they do it, and thinking about if it works - a process of self-observation and self-
evaluation. It can be both a private process as well as one that you discuss with colleagues.
Thus reflective teaching identify and explore our own practices and underlying beliefs by
collecting information about what goes on in our classroom. This may then lead to changes
and improvements in our teaching.
Reflective teaching is therefore
(i) a means of professional development which begins in our classroom and
(ii) a means to institute meaningful changes and improvements in our teaching.
Cruickshank and Applegate (Kathleen M. Bailey, Andy Curtis & David Nunan,
2004) defined reflective teaching as “the teacher’s thinking about what happens in
classroom lessons and thinking about alternative means of achieving goals or aims”. It is a
means for teachers to think, analyze and objectively judge their classroom action. Based
on their teaching experience, teachers find problems in real practice, then seek strategies
and solutions to solve the problems through thoroughgoing consideration and observation,
in order to improve their teaching.
Reflecting on teaching is a way to make one aware of how he/she teach. It is a
method for self-assessment. If we don't reflect, then we are teaching "in the dark" without
knowing if we are effective and if we should modify our teaching. Reflective Teaching is
remembering, thinking about, and evaluating a teaching experience. It is a metacognitive
strategy that helps teachers to think critically up on their experiences, actions and decisions
during their teaching practices. Reflective teaching is a process where teachers think over
their teaching practices, analyzing how something was taught and how the practice might
be improved or changed for better learning outcomes. Reflecting requires us to answer a
number of questions, including the following:
• How do I interact with students?
• How do I respond when they ask questions?
• What kind of classroom atmosphere do I create?
• Is my classroom spontaneous or is it predictable?
• Are my students involved?
• Am I determining what the students "know"?
• What kind of questions do I ask? - Genuine questions for which I do not know the
answers? - Testing questions to find out what my students know? - Focusing questions
that encourage students to think further about some idea; to explain, justify, or
hypothesize.
• Am I using wait time before and after I receive responses to questions?
• Am I exploring alternative strategies posed by different students?
• Am I using various forms of communication; reading, writing, listening, and
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 speaking?
• Am I modeling scientifically thinking?
• What kind of questions are my students asking?
• Are my students talking to each other- disagreeing, challenging, and debating?
• Are my students taking time to think about the problem, question, idea, or the like?
• Are my students able to explain their ideas clearly and precisely?
• Am I making use of the technology that is available?
• Do I encourage using various tools to communicate ideas?
• Are students encouraged to show respect for, and listen to, other students?
Reflective practitioners not only ask questions routinely and deliberately, but
they also use the answers to these questions to guide and change their instructional
practices so they can be more effective. She empowers her students to ask these why
questions to their classroom experiences. Her relived/recalled experiences as a teacher and
those of her students are explored and evaluated to let her to fulfil her mission and vision
in the teaching profession. This demands that the teacher and the students be involved in
a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. Thus, the teacher and the students must
gather information on their practice and experiences. This information is organized,
analysed and interpreted to identify what beliefs, assumptions and values are attached to
their practices and experiences.
Need for Reflective Teaching
• Reflective teaching informs that the teacher is responsible of his/her teaching/learning
and that he/she has a major contribution to make towards its success. This is why his/her
behaviour must not be taken for granted, as it needs to be continuously evaluated, to let
his/her practice and experiences are meaningful.
• To the teacher, reflective teaching is a deliberate move to allow him/her to think
critically of his/her teaching practice so that the students can maximize their learning.
Thus, through a change oriented activity, the teacher contributes highly to his/her
professional development. Richards (1990) argues that experience alone is insufficient
for professional growth, but experience coupled with reflection is a powerful impetus
for teacher development.
• According to Bailey (1997) reflective teaching is about a skilled teaching of knowing
what to do. In Reflective teaching a teacher examines his/her work so that he/she
considers alternative ways of ascertaining that his/her students learn. This takes place
through searching for deeper understanding of his/her teaching. So, he/she is able to
monitor critique and defend that which he/she implements and how he/she implement
it.
• It is possible that reflective teaching may turn the teacher to be a researcher because of
its dimension of self-inquiry. Through self-inquiry, much of what is unknown becomes
clear so that the teacher end up improving his/her practice and planning. Thus, his/her
personal experiences are turned into stories which can be shared with his/her peers. In
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 this manner, reflective teaching is a professional alternative to action research. It is a
personal means of conducting teachers’ own ongoing professional life by solving
problems in a systematic manner. Reflective teaching is an intrinsic motivational device
to one’s work.
Gibbs’ (1988) Reflective Cycle
In 1988, the American sociologist and psychologist Graham Gibbs published his
Reflective Cycle model in his book ‘Learning by Doing‘. Gibbs Reflective Cycle
encourages people to think systematically about the experiences they had during a specific
situation, event or activity. This often makes people think about an experience, activity or
event in more detail, making them aware of their own actions and better able to adjust and
change their behaviour. By looking at both negative and positive impacts of the event,
people can learn from it.
Gibbs’ (1988) reflective cycle is a popular model for reflection. The model includes
6 stages of reflection and is presented below.

Step 1: Description
Describe the situation, event or activity in detail, without drawing any conclusions right
away. It should be noted that important details must not be left out. All information that is
key to better understanding the situation is relevant.The following questions may be helpful
What happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Who were involved? What
did you do yourself? What did other people do?
Step 2: Feelings
This phase is about the feelings that the event triggered, as well as what someone’s thoughts
were during the event, activity or situation described in step 1. The intention is not to
discuss the feeling in detail or comment on it directly. Emotions don’t need to be evaluated
or judged. Awareness is the most important goal of this phase. The following questions
may be helpful

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What did you feel leading up to the event?
What did you feel during the event?
What did you feel after the event?
How do you look back on the situation?
What do you think other people felt during event?
How do you think others feel about the event now?
Step 3: Evaluation
In this step, you ask yourself whether the experience of the event in step 1 was good/bad
in order to still conduct a proper evaluation; the following questions may be helpful:
What went well during the event or activity? Why was that? What didn’t go so well?
Why was that? What was your contribution? What contribution did other people make?
It is also worth evaluating bad experiences, because the subsequent steps in the Reflective
Cycle help people learn from it.
Step 4: Analysis
This phase is about what you have learned from the situation, event or activity. Because of
the experience, you now know what to do in similar, future situations. This means that both
positive and negative things and/or problems you experienced will be written down and
analysed individually. This analysis is often done together alongside step 3.
Step 5: Conclusion
This is the step where you take a step back and look at yourself from a distance and ask
what else you could have done in this situation. The information gathered earlier is very
valuable in this step and can encourage you to come to a good and useful conclusion. The
following questions may be helpful:
To what positive experience did the event, situation lead? To what negative experience did
the event, situation lead? What will you do differently if the event, situation were to happen
again in the future?
Which skills do you need to develop yourself in a similar event, situation or activity?
Step 6: Action plan
In this final step, actions are developed for future situations, events or activities. In the 5th
step ‘Conclusions’, people makes concrete promises to themselves. The intention is to keep
the promises. If everything went fine, you can promise yourself to act the same way next
time. In areas where things didn’t go so well, you can promise yourself not to make the
same mistakes again.
What will be a more effective approach and which change will lead to actual improvement?
In addition to an action plan, it’s wise to also make a schedule to discourage yourself from
avoiding promises. Thinking about one’s own experience can help to perform better or do
things differently in the future. People don’t just learn to understand certain situations
better, but also learn to judge how the same situation can be handled in different ways in
the future.

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 In Gibbs' model the first three sections are concerned with what happened. The final
three sections relate to making sense of the experience and how you, as the teacher, can
improve on the situation. This is what Gibbs Reflective Cycle is all about.

Kolb's Learning Cycle

David Kolb, educational researcher, developed a four-stage reflective model. Kolb’s
Learning Cycle (1984) highlights reflective practice
as a tool to gain conclusions and ideas from an
experience. Kolb’s reflective model is referred to as
“experiential learning”. The basis for this
model is our own experience, which is then reviewed,
analysed and evaluated systematically in three
stages. Kolb's cycle follows four stages.

1. First, practitioners have a concrete experience. This means experiencing something new
for the first time in the classroom. The experience should be an active one, used to test out
new ideas and teaching methods.
This is followed by…
2. Observation of the concrete experience, then reflecting on the experience. Here
practitioners should consider the strengths of the experience and areas of development.
Practitioners need to form an understanding of what helped students’ learning and what
hindered it.
This should lead to…
3. The formation of abstract concepts. The practitioner needs to make sense of what has
happened. They should do this through making links between what they have done, what
they already know and what they need to learn. The practitioner should draw on ideas from
research and textbooks to help support development and understanding. They could also
draw on support from other colleagues and their previous knowledge. Practitioners should
modify their ideas or devise new approaches, based on what they have learnt from their
observations and wider research.
The final stage of this cycle is when…
4. The practitioner considers how they are going to put what they have learnt into practice.
The practitioner’s abstract concepts are made concrete as they use these to test ideas in
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future situations, resulting in new experiences. The ideas from the observations and
conceptualisations are made into active experimentation as they are implemented into
future teaching. The cycle is then repeated on this new method.
Kolb’s model aims to draw on the importance of using both our own everyday experiences
and educational research to help us improve. It is not simply enough for you to reflect. This
reflection must drive a change which is rooted in educational research.

Effect of Reflective teaching on students’ learning

A reflective teacher empowers his/her students to be reflective about their learning
experiences. This suggests that a teacher has a responsibility and commitment towards
ascertaining that his/her students are reflective in their learning.
The essence of being reflective is asking why questions of what one goes through.
A teacher should teach his/her students to be critical, creative, heuristic and insightful
thinkers of their experiences and practice. To achieve this, he/she requires using teaching
methods which are liberational in nature. These are methods which make them not take
anything for granted. For instance, through use of questioning technique, the student will
be able to address his/her practices and experiences in a critical manner. Thus, he/she
manages to challenge beliefs, assumptions and values attached to certain practices and
experiences. He/she gets liberated from narrow mindedness and moves towards positive
evaluation of what is encountered in the learning. In this extent, learning becomes
meaningful as rational judgment is attached to it.
The students become key partners in the effort of the teacher, to be an effective
practitioner. Their reflective capability becomes a major ingredient towards the teacher’s
professional development. They have a contribution to give towards his/her meaningful
teaching.
Advantages of reflective teaching
The primary benefit of reflective teaching is a deeper understanding of their own
teaching style and ultimately, greater effectiveness as a teacher. Other specific benefits
noted in current literature include the validation of a teacher's ideals, beneficial challenges
to tradition, the recognition of teaching as artistry, and respect for diversity in applying
theory to classroom practice.
Freidus (1997) describes a case study of one teacher/graduate student struggling to
make sense of her beliefs and practices about what constitutes good teaching. Her initial
pedagogy for teaching was based on the traditions and practices of direct teaching. Her
traditional socialization into teaching made it difficult for her to understand that her views
of good teaching were being challenged in her practice. But the opportunity for exploration
through reflective portfolio work enabled her to acknowledge and validate what she was
learning.
The research shows that reflective practice is a crucial way of learning and extending
professional understanding. Reflection and critical reflection are highly personal processes
53
that require the professional to take daily experiences, internalise them, turn them over in
their mind and filter these new thoughts through previous lived experiences and personal
values and biases, before deciding how best to proceed.
▪ Reflective teaching develops the quality of teaching through continuous improvements.
▪ It gives educators new opportunities to reflect on and assess their teaching.
▪ It enables teachers to explore and test new ideas, methods, approaches, and materials.
▪ It provides opportunity to assess how effective the new approaches were.
▪ Teachers share feedback with fellow team members.
▪ They make decisions about which new approaches to include in the school’s
curriculum, instruction, and assessment plans.
▪ Through reflection, teachers can maintain their voices and creativeness thus having
authority to affect students, curriculum and school policies.
▪ To expand our understanding of teaching learning process
▪ To enhance learning opportunities for our students
▪ Reflective teaching helps teachers free from impulse and routine behavior.
▪ Reflective teaching allows teachers to act in a deliberate, intentional manner and avoid
the "I don't know what I will do today" syndrome.
▪ Reflective teaching distinguishes teachers as educated human beings since it is one of
the signs of intelligent action.
▪ As teachers gain experience in a community of professional educators, they feel the
need to grow beyond the initial stages of survival in the classroom to reconstructing
their own particular theory from their practice. Dewey (1933:87) said that growth
comes from a "reconstruction of experience" so by reflecting on our own experiences,
we can reconstruct our own educational perspective.
▪ It gives them the opportunity to examine their relations with students, their values, their
abilities, and their successes and failures in a realistic context. It begins the developing
teacher's path toward becoming an 'expert teacher.
Characteristics of reflective teachers
• Reflective teachers are purposeful and active
Reflective teachers initiate instruction cognizant of the needs of the students
as expressed through their experience. Reflective teachers aim instruction toward
actions or convictions that resolve the questions, tensions, and perplexities that
initiated the student's process of inquiry.
• Reflective teachers are open to the individuality of students
Reflective teachers recognize that the social process of education is also
personal, and that it cannot be coerced from others, but must be chosen by them.
• Reflective teachers are sympathetic to the interests, needs, and insights of the
students

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 Reflective teachers enhance relationships with students by acknowledging
students' capacity as reflective thinkers. Reflective teachers take seriously students'
problems, hypotheses, and conclusions.
• Reflective teachers are patient.
Reflective teachers know that it takes time for ideas to be developed,
delineated, and evaluated. Reflective instruction may take days, weeks, or years to
achieve its purpose.
• Reflective teachers are flexible.
Reflective teachers allow for divergence and technological change. They seek
to expand options rather than limit them. They consider alternative methods and
points of view, and they are willing to change their mind.
• Reflective teachers are tentative.
Reflective teachers explore, investigate, and grow. They are suspicious of
their own conclusions because they know that they are learners.
• Reflective teachers are self-regarding.
Reflective teachers take their own reasoning processes as part of their field of
inquiry. They are conscious of their assumptions, logic, choices, priorities, and
conclusions.
• Reflective teachers look at ends as well as means.
Reflective teachers ponder how their decisions will affect the lives of the
children they teach. They ask not only, "How can I do this better?" but also, "Why
do I do this?"
Significance of reflective teaching
1. Teachers can improve their teaching practice and achieve better teaching effect via
observation of teaching process. At the same time, their understanding of teaching
can be deepened.
2. Reflection is a significant basis for teachers’ professional development. For teachers,
reflective teaching is not only the basis for them to make teaching plans and
decisions for action, but also beneficial for them to strengthen their exploration
ability, to raise their ability of supervising teaching, to improve their awareness of
self-reflection and to construct new teaching beliefs and concepts.
3. Reflective teaching makes teachers re-identify their roles. With the constant
development of society and education, teachers’ roles are taking on a tendency of
transforming from knowledge transmitters to teachers with multi-roles. Teachers
should play nine different roles according to different teaching situations: controller,
assessor, organizer, prompter, participant, resource-provider, facilitator, guide and
researcher (Wang, 2000).
4. Reflective teaching helps teacher achieve the transformation of teaching beliefs.
Teaching beliefs are influenced by one’s learning experience, knowledge structure,

55
 teaching context and teaching experience, and they in turn influence teacher’s
judgment on a certain problem, and further influence his/her decision in classroom
teaching, teaching procedures, teaching behavior, assessment, error correction, and
almost all the aspects of teaching. Actually, only by internalizing those scientific
theories and accurate beliefs extracted from practice, can teachers teaching skills and
reflective ability gradually get improved. Hence teachers can make clear what beliefs
are favorable for teaching specific subject, what are unfavorable, so that we will
adhere to those which conform to learning laws.
5. Reflective teaching promotes the combination of theory and practice. By reflecting
on not only their teaching beliefs, interest, motivation and morale, but also their
teaching methods, materials and media, teachers either query or evaluate their
teaching effect, and then correct the inappropriate teaching action according to the
result of reflection. In reflection, teachers study the teaching objects, grasp students’
individual difference, and properly apply the result of reflection to their teaching, so
that they can carry out classroom teaching with better teaching practice, students’
creative thinking can be inspired, and the expected teaching effect can be achieved.
Through this process, teaching based on experience is changed into reflective
teaching.
6. Reflective teaching improves teaching and research skills. Teaching is a complicated
process, in which teachers apprehend teaching context and reflect on their own
cognitive process. They analyze and evaluate their teaching plans, teaching behavior
and their influence on students. They explore and ponder over the teaching
phenomena which seem ordinary to others. They reflect on and judge their teaching
practice, take efforts to exploit resources, learn from others’ strong points to offset
their weaknesses. They integrate the merits of different methodologies and develop
their own teaching methods based on the context where they teach. Therefore, their
teaching skills can get constant improvement. In addition, reflective teachers always
pay close attention to the academic development, collect feedback information,
reflect on, query and deeply analyze and evaluate teaching practice, constantly
thinking about teaching strategy at a higher and more macro level, pursuing the
rationality of teaching process.
7. Reflective thinking allows one to act in deliberate and intentional ways, to devise
new ways of teaching rather than being a slave to tradition, and to interpret new
experiences from a fresh perspective.
8. The primary benefit of reflective practice for teachers is a deeper understanding of
their students, their own teaching style and, ultimately, greater effectiveness as a
teacher.
9. Generating Professional Learning and Knowledge: Reflection can help teachers to
become lifelong learners as they can continuously generate and store personal
knowledge through engaging in the reflective process
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 10. Reflection and Developing Theory: The process of reflection can be considered as a
form of educational theorising because in reflective process, teachers make more
conscious and articulate their implicit, practical theories explicit in and subject them
to the other’s criticism.
11. Increasing Self-awareness: Reflective teaching can be seen as a means by which
teachers can develop a greater level of self-awareness about their actions and
behaviour while teaching.
12. Reflection and Change: There is an agreement that reflection is one of the essential
conditions for change in schools (Day, 1999b; Griffiths, 2000). As Osterman (1990)
indicates, reflective practice challenges teachers to become personally and actively
involved in the creation of better schools and to examine the ideas, which shape
schools.
13. Developing Informed Action versus Routine Action: Reflection can enhance
teachers’ effectiveness through developing an informed action as opposed to routine
action because it is believed that reflection aims at supporting a movement from
routine actions rooted in common sense thinking to reflective action stemming from
professional thinking (Pollard and Triggs, 1997).
14. Reflection and Collaboration: It is argued that reflective practice can enhance
professional growth and development by facilitating dialogue among teachers
because ‘reflection occurs in a collegial environment encouraging social
responsibility, flexibility, consciousness and efficacy' (Newell. 1996: p. 568). This
dialogue can, in turn, establish a basis for understanding, caring, and co-operation in
schools because the process of describing one’s own experience increases
opportunities for communication and collaboration between them.
Challenges facing the use of reflective teaching
The whole process of reflective teaching is complex because of its diverse players
like the self, the students, the school and society at large. The teachers are expected to
have knowledge of all these, which many times is not easy. This becomes more
complicated when the solution to the issue of concern may not be feasible and one has to
keep on trying. Time management becomes a factor as reflective teaching is time
consuming in terms of the fact that one is not only a professional teacher, but there are
other life issues which may demand some urgency and thus end up competing with ones
professional development.
Reflective teaching is more of an intrinsic motivation device towards professional
development. This makes it fit in the self fulfilling prophecies. The challenge here is that
anxiety and frustrations may creep in making the teacher get discouraged. However, one
will have to go on bearing in mind that challenges are part of moving on towards
professional development.
The diverse characteristics of the students may make it difficult for the teacher to
teach them how to be reflective learners. Each student has to be handled as an individual
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with unique learning styles. This becomes a challenge because of the multiple
intelligences, interests, needs and backgrounds of the students. The teacher will need to
apply multi tasks organization to address students’ individual differences.

Reflective Practice
The term ‘reflective practice’ carries multiple meanings. For some, reflective
practice simply refers to adopting a thinking approach to practice. For others, it involves
carefully structured and crafted approaches towards being reflective about one’s
experiences in practice. Reflective practice is described by MacNaughton (2003) as “an
intellectually engaged activity geared to changing practices by transforming knowledge”.
Reflective practice is, in its simplest form, thinking about or reflecting on what we
do. It is closely linked to the concept of learning from experience. In that we think about
what we did, and what happened, and decide from that what would do differently next time.
Thinking about what has happened is part of being human. However, the difference
between casual ‘thinking’ and ‘reflective practice’ is that reflective practice requires a
conscious effort to think about events, and develop insights into them. Once we get into
the habit of using reflective practice, we will probably find it useful both at work and at
home.
Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on an action so as to engage in a process
of continuous learning. According to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to
the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by examining practice
reflectively and reflexively. This leads to developmental insight". A key rationale for
reflective practice is that experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning;
deliberate reflection on experience is essential.
Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice-based professional
learning settings where people learn from their own professional experiences, rather than
from formal learning or knowledge transfer. It may be the most important source of
personal professional development and improvement. It is also an important way to bring
together theory and practice; through reflection a person is able to see and label forms of
thought and theory within the context of his or her work. A person who reflects throughout
his or her practice is not just looking back on past actions and events, but is taking a
conscious look at emotions, experiences, actions, and responses, and using that information
to add to his or her existing knowledge base and reach a higher level of understanding.
History and background
The concepts underlying reflective practice are much older. Earlier in the 20th
century, John Dewey was among the first to write about reflective practice with his
exploration of experience, interaction and reflection. Soon thereafter, other researchers
such as Kurt Lewin and Jean Piaget were developing relevant theories of human learning
and development. Dewey’s (1933) distinction between “routine action” (action driven by
habit and routine) and “reflective action” (action given careful consideration and
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justification) is cited frequently in the literature. Dewey is attributed with having extended
the notion of reflection as being critical to the development of professional practice.
In 1987, Donald Schon introduced the concept of reflective practice as a critical
process in refining one's artistry or craft in a specific discipline. Donald Schön's book The
Reflective Practitioner introduced concepts such as reflection-on-action and reflection-in-
action which explain how professionals meet the challenges of their work with a kind
of improvisation that is improved through practice. Schon recommended reflective
practice as a way for beginners in a discipline to recognize consonance between their own
individual practices and those of successful practitioners. As defined by Schon, reflective
practice involves thoughtfully considering one's own experiences in applying knowledge
to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline (Schon, 1996).

Reflection-in-action is reflection during the ‘doing’ stage (that is, reflecting on the
incident while it can still benefit the learning). This is carried out during the lesson rather
than reflecting on how you would do things differently in the future. This is an extremely
efficient method of reflection as it allows you to react and change an event at the time it
happens. For example, in the classroom you may be teaching a topic which you can see the
students are not understanding. Your reflection-in-action allows you to understand why
this has happened and how to respond to overcome this situation.
Reflection-in-action allows you to deal with surprising incidents that may happen in
a learning environment. It allows you to be responsible and resourceful, drawing on your
own knowledge and allowing you to apply it to new experiences. It also allows for
personalised learning as, rather than using preconceived ideas about what you should do in
a particular situation, you decide what works best at that time for that unique experience
and student.
Reflection-on-action, on the other hand, involves reflecting on how practice can be
developed after the lesson has been taught. Schon recognises the importance of reflecting
back ‘in order to discover how our knowing-in-action may have contributed to an
unexpected outcome’ (Schon, 1983).
Reflection-on-action means you reflect after the event on how your knowledge of
previous teaching may have directed you to the experience you had. Reflection-on-action
should encourage ideas on what you need to change for the future. You carry out reflection-
on-action outside the classroom, where you consider the situation again. This requires
deeper thought, for example, as to why the students did not understand the topic. It
encourages you to consider causes and options, which should be informed by a wider
network of understanding from research.

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 After the concept of reflective practice was introduced by Schon, many schools,
colleges, and departments of education began designing teacher education and professional
development programs based on this concept.

Reflective Practice Attitudes and Attributes

Attitudes
Dewey was the first to describe the 3 attitudes that form the basis of reflective practice,
namely:
o Open-mindedness - a willingness to consider new evidence as it occurs and to admit
the possibility of error. It involves being open to other points of view, appreciating that
there are many ways of looking at a particular situation or event, and staying open to
changing one’s own viewpoint. Part of open-mindedness is being able to let go of
needing to be right or wanting to win.
o Responsibility - the careful consideration of the consequences of one’s actions,
especially as they affect students. It is the willingness to acknowledge that whatever
one chooses to do (for example decisions about curriculum, instruction, assessment,
organisation, management) will impact on the lives of students in both foreseen and
unforeseen ways.
o Wholeheartedness - a commitment to seek every opportunity to learn and a belief that
one can always learn something new.
Attributes
Larivee further identified the attributes of practitioners who have these attitudes
(open-minded, responsible and wholehearted):
• reflect on and learn from experience
• engage in ongoing inquiry
• solicit feedback
• remain open to alternative perspectives
• assume responsibility for their own learning
• take action to align with new knowledge and understandings
• observe themselves in the process of thinking
• are committed to continuous improvement in practice

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 • strive to align behaviour with values and beliefs
• seek to discover what is true.

Reflective Practices in Instruction, Assessment and Classroom management

1) Teaching journal:
Teaching experience is the main content of the journal. Richards. J and Lockhart, C.
(1996) suggest that teachers record their feelings about what happened in class, describe
things that are significant to teaching, take down the problems worth investigation and the
solutions in the teaching journal. For instance, while the teacher is reviewing classroom
teaching, he/she can reflect on the following questions: Is it beneficial to the students? In
which case should I correct students’ mistakes? etc. Jarvis (1992) pointed out that inferior
journals are those which simply list what happened in class and those which generally
summarize the whole teaching process. Those which are favorable for solving problems,
seeing new teaching ideas and legitimizing own practice are regarded as remarkable
journals. Writing journals can stir teachers’ insight into teaching and expose the problems
in teaching, providing favorable preparations for making plan of improvement. However,
teachers differ in their ability of reflection, so it is very necessary to offer training to
develop their reflective ability. For example, teachers can be asked to analyze several
different teaching journals and find out the reflective sentences in them, or they may be
assigned reflective tasks, so that they can make sense of how to write teaching journal.
2) Observation:
Teachers can observe each other’s class and mutually analyze their teaching practice.
To be specific, they can learn how their colleagues arrange their teaching procedures, how
they manage their class, how they teach students, how they tackle sudden matters to ensure
that the class can continue smoothly, how the students react to the teacher, how is the
relation between teacher and students. They may also pay attention to the frequencies of
the teacher’s and students’ classroom behaviors:, students’ frequency of answering
teacher’s questions voluntarily, boys’ and girls’ respective frequency of participating in
group discussion, teacher’s frequency of asking general questions and special questions,
etc. Such an observation is different from traditional ones, in that the latter’s only purpose
is to check on the quality of teaching, it is merely a form of teacher assessment. While the
former is a means of collecting information or data—while observing class, the teacher
take down the problems they find out, discuss them with their colleagues after class,
propose measures for improvement and eventually get self-development. Teachers can
learn a series of teaching methods and approaches through observation, and apply what
they learned into their teaching practice. Therefore, learning teaching approaches is the
main purpose of observation, and ‘how to teach’ is its focus. Nevertheless, some problems
cannot be observed directly through observation, so it’s necessary to go through the surface
and carry out deep exploration as to ‘why’ the teacher did so.
3) Teacher assessment:
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 Teacher assessment is similar to observation. It does not focus on the ‘right’ or
‘wrong’ in the teaching, but it requires the observer to pay attention to the teacher’s
teaching throughout the class, helping the teacher to improve his/her teaching through a
cycle of observing, analyzing, evaluating, improving and practicing. By assessing teachers
can better develop their teaching skills and their professional competence can be enhanced.
Another form of teacher assessment is collecting students’ feedback to teachers teaching.
Internet teaching assessment is a very convenient form, which provides significant
information for teachers to reflect on their teaching.
4) Self-Reports
Self-reporting involves completing an inventory or check list in which the teacher
indicates which teaching practices were used within a lesson or within a specified time
period and how often they were employed (Pak, 1985). Self-reporting allows teachers to
make a regular assessment of what they are doing in the classroom. They can check to see
to what extent their assumptions about their own teaching are reflected in their actual
teaching practices.
5) Questioning/Questionnaire:
Through effective questioning the facilitator may bring focus to an activity, cause
group members to reflect on alternatives not otherwise discussed, promote identification
of issues in more depth, control the direction or mood of practitioners, promote beliefs and
values clarification and deepen insight of practitioners.
Teachers can design questionnaires in a planned way and with particular purposes.
The contents can be concerned with teachers (such as teaching approaches), or students’
attitudes, affections, learning strategies and subject knowledge. The subjects can be some
students, or a whole class of students, the whole grade or even the teacher’s colleagues.
The interval between questionnaires is decided by the teaching progress. Through effective
questionnaires, teachers can keep abreast of students’ development and revise teaching
plans and rate of progress accordingly, reflect on their teaching practice in order to carry
out further research and improve their teaching strategies.
6) Micro-teaching:
Teachers can record a certain process or aspect of teaching chosen by themselves as
the object of reflection and then observe and analyze the recording as an observer so as to
work out countermeasures to the problems. Such a vivid material can provide a detailed
feedback of the whole classroom teaching, stimulate teachers’ reflective thinking,
encourage them to sum up the success and failure in their teaching. With such a detailed
and vivid material, teachers can turn to others for analysis and explanation. In addition,
teachers can record slices of others teaching relative to their reflection, observe and analyze
carefully, find inspirations in them, based on which they can further their reflection.
7) Action research:
Action research is related to the ideas of ‘reflective practice’ and ‘the teacher as
researcher’. It involves taking a self-reflective, critical and systematic approach to
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exploring teacher’s own teaching contexts and intervening in a deliberate way in the
problematic situation in order to bring about changes and, even better, improvements in
practice (Burns, 2011). It typically involves four broad phases in a cycle of research,
namely, planning, action, observation and reflection (Kemmis&McTaggart, 1988). The
first cycle may become a continuing, or interactive, spiral of cycles which recur until the
action researcher has achieved a satisfactory outcome and feels it is time to stop. Action
research is an effective approach to teachers’ professional development, since compared
with traditional teaching practice, it conforms more to research norms, it attaches more
importance to the value of theories in research, and it puts more emphasis on collaboration.
8) Creative writing:
Creative writing is one way of expressing feelings and finding the solutions for
problems. When teachers write, they have to put it into habit so that they can find the
specific areas for planning.
9) Discussions:
Creation of understanding by exchanging information, opinions, or experiences. The
facilitator observes and encourages the group’s efforts without becoming directly involved.
It can be done by encouraging group efforts through face to face or technological formats.
Group discussions can simply be a group of teachers who come together for regular
meetings to reflect on their work. A teacher trainer (or moderator) should provide
encouragement and support for the group
10)Portfolio-Writing
A portfolio-writing is defined as a purposeful collection of self-selected work that,
together with personal reflections tells the story of who a student is now and who she or he
is becoming (Johnson et al., 2006). According to Shulman (1992), it is a structured
documented history of a carefully selected set of achievement(s) in (a) given areas(s), and
fully realized only through reflective writing, deliberations, and serious conversation. In
the context of the study, the Portfolio strategy aims to develop a reflective approach to
learning and teaching and in the process to help learners to critically evaluate situations
and refine their use of language in due course.
11) Critical friends:
Groups and individuals link critical friendships in some way to observations of
classes. In this way the critical friends can have an open dialogue which is grounded in
their observations and experiences. Colleagues can engage each other in systematic
reflection and thus direct each other's professional self- development. Francis (1995:234)
says that critical friends can "stimulate, clarify, and extend thinking...and feel accountable
for their own growth and their peers' growth."
12) Thinking Aloud: A deliberate and systematic reflection that is visible or audible
promotes teaching. Practitioners can induce reflection by pauses during teaching; to
consider a remark or through care and effort to put observation into verbal thought.
13) Class observations
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Teachers themselves are expected to:
• Observe student responses more to respond to them with some questions raised;
• Observe students’ facial expression to check whether or not they are attentive and
interested in the questions;
• Observe students’ performance in taking a task in the teaching and learning activities
to adjust the arrangement and schedule of the lesson plan;
• Observe students’ use and response to their own prior knowledge with a view to
adjusting the teaching progress; and
• Observe and listen to students’ dialogues and questions so that teachers can motivate
students to work and respond to them positively and actively.
14) Recording lessons
Video or audio recordings of lessons can provide very useful information for reflection.
You may do things in class you are not aware of or there may be things happening in the
class that as the teacher you do not normally see.A video recording of teachers’ lessons is
valuable because it provides an unaltered and unbiased vantage point for how effective
their lesson was from both a teacher and student perspective. A video also acts as an
additional set of eyes to catch disruptive behavior that they may not have spotted at the
time.
15) Lesson evaluations
Evaluations require you to think back on the lesson, assessing its strengths, weaknesses
and opportunities for development. To help focus your evaluation, consider the following
questions:
• What went well in this lesson? Why?• What problems did I experience? Why?
• How engaged and active were the students?• How much learning took place? How do I
know?
• What could I have done differently?• What did I learn from this experience that will help
me in future lessons?
Once you have taught your lesson, record your reflections on the lesson as soon as possible.
This will help to keep track of your progress as a developing reflective practitioner and
also help to track your students’ progress.
16) Student feedback
You can also ask your students what they think about what goes on in the classroom. Their
opinions and perceptions can add a different and valuable perspective
17) Student Evaluations (Midterm and End-of-Term): In many courses, teachers will
obtain feedback from students in the form of midterm and/or end-of-term evaluations.
Teachers can consider student evaluations as one data source in their instruction and take
note of any prevailing themes. They can seek out other ways to assess their practices to
accompany student evaluation data before taking steps to modify instruction. One option
is to include external observation and anonymous discussion with students for more real-
time, and often more honest, feedback.
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18) Collection of pupils’ learning evidence
Keeping learning evidence of students is another important sourceof reflection for teachers.
Understanding of students and their performance from their projects, portfolios, pictures,
essays, and so on, help teachers to take follow-up actions to get further improvement.
Teachers can also adjust their teaching goals and content according to students’ needs and
interests. Nevertheless, teachers should remember to give adequate time for students to
finish their work and allow more time and space for their thinking.

The Benefits of Reflective Practice

A synthesis of the research suggests that in education, reflective practice is best
described as a continuous process that involves the professional analysing their practice in
order to identify what drives children’s learning and development, as well as the impact of
their values on children’s learning and development.
The catalyst for reflection can be either internal or external; it can be self-reflective
or involve others. Reflection can be spontaneous or can be deliberately planned.
Reflection can provide both the basis and the motivation for further inquiry which serves
as a guide for future behaviour to improve our practice and ultimately the outcomes for
children.
• Reflective practice has huge benefits in increasing self-awareness, which is a key
component of emotional intelligence, and in developing a better understanding of
others.
• Reflective practice can also help you to develop creative thinking skills, and encourages
active engagement in work processes.
• In work situations, keeping a learning journal, and regularly using reflective practice,
will support more meaningful discussions about career development, and our personal
development, including at personal appraisal time.
• It will also help to provide us with examples to use in competency-based interview
situations.
The following seven characteristics of reflective practice are useful in helping professionals
to gain a collective understanding of what reflective practice involves and how it can
improve learning outcomes:
1. An active focus on goals, how these might be addressed and the potential consequences
of these.
2. A commitment to a continuous cycle of monitoring practice, evaluating and re-visiting
it
3. A focus on informed judgements about practice, based on evidence
4. Open-minded, responsive and inclusive attitudes
5. The capacity to re-frame one’s own practice in light of evidence-based reflections and
insights based on research
6. Dialogue with other colleagues, in-house and with external networks
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7. The capacity to mediate and adapt from externally developed frameworks, making
informed judgements and defending or challenging existing practice.

Significance of reflective practices in instruction, assessment and classroom

management
Reflective practices are methods and techniques that help individuals and groups
reflect on their experiences and actions in order to engage in a process of continuous
learning. Reflective practice enables recognition of the paradigms – assumptions,
frameworks and patterns of thought and behaviour – that shape our thinking and action.
1. Reflective practices help teachers to identify the real situation in the classroom, during
instruction and assessment.
2. Reflection is a productive way to manage the classroom time and keep these learners
engaged until the end of the lesson.
3. It acts as a tool for continuous assessment.
4. It helps teachers to found solutions to many problems related to instruction assessment
and management in the classroom by themselves.
5. With the help of critical and reflective questions teachers can identify what they do and
do not do in their classrooms and thus improve.
6. It helps to preplan what to do when a particular situation occur.
7. The reflection in action approach helps teachers to solve many problems and
misbehaviors during instruction.
8. The reflection on action helps teachers go deep into classroom activities done and plan
to do better in the next time.
9. The reflective practices like, sharing of experiences, peer observation, lesson notes,
diary writing helps teachers to develop and be aware of various procedures to tackle
difficulties arise in the classroom.
10. It encourages teachers to try out new ideas and promote changes in pupils' learning
behaviour in the classroom.
11. It helps to develop confidence among teachers to face problems.
12. Since reflective practice promotes constructivism the classroom environment,
instruction and assessment become tune with the needs of students.
13. It brings gradual progress in instruction, implementation of assessment procedure and
classroom management day by day.
14. It forces teachers, to be well prepared before going class, to develop the observation
skill and to give individual attention to students and reduces boredom during
instruction, indiscipline in the class and malpractices related to assessment.
15. It helps to identify the weaker and gifted sections in the class room and provide remedial
teaching and enrichment programme respectively.

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 16. It encourages teachers up to date with subject knowledge, methods, and strategies,
innovations in the field and master pedagogical skills, techno pedagogical skills and
teaching skills. As a result teachers become competent in, instruction, assessment and
classroom management.

EDU 403.20 Module 4: Commerce for All

Enrichment Activities
Enrichment activities can span a number of areas from bird-watching to basketball.
Enrichment activities expand a student's learning in ways that differ from the ways students
learn during the school day.
An enrichment activity can be any activity that promotes critical thinking, listening,
memorization, visualization and concentration. The activities themselves should try to
approach the varied interests of the students and involve puzzles, physical education
games, singing, science experiments and art activities. The purpose of enrichment activities
is to enhance the educational learning being done in the classroom. Whenever possible,
enrichment activities should be cross-curricular and consider the interests of the students.
Enrichment programs are often interactive and project-focused. They enhance a
student's education by bringing new concepts to light or by using old concepts in new ways.
These activities are fun for the student, but they also impart knowledge. Other benefits
from enrichment activities appear to provide leadership and social skills development.
These skills can help to build greater self-esteem and higher goal achievement in both
current academic situations and in the pursuit of long-term careers.
Planning and creativity are important qualities for the enrichment developer, so that he may
make the most out of each activity for the students.

Commerce Club
There should be a place for a school of today to widen the knowledge of his students.
A good teacher can involve his students in a number of co-curricular activities. Among
them, Commerce club is also are to create interest and maintaining interest in Commerce
using the structures be encouraged to themselves into Commerce club. Certain activities
like discussions, lectures, certain games can be arranged. Totally this is helpful to the
students in having an idea of the practical utility of Commerce in addition to creating their
interest in Commerce.
Objectives of Commerce club:
The objectives of Commerce club can be summarized as under.
· Commerce club helps in the proper utilization of leisure time.
· It helps in arousing and maintaining students’ interest in Commerce.

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 It provides the students with opportunities to develop their explorative, creative and
inventive faculties.
· It inculcates the habit of self-study and independent work among the students.
· It offers an ideal avenue for a free exchange of Commerce ideas and for frank and helpful
criticism of these ideas.
· It provides an informal and a social atmosphere, which the classroom can hardly provide.
· It offers excellent opportunities for free consideration of matters of special interest to the
members without the necessity of following any particular sequence as required in a
classroom.
· It helps in developing heuristic and problem solving attitude among the students.
· It provides opportunities for students to translate the theory into practice and to apply their
learning in daily life situations.
· It helps the student to imbibe social qualities like co-operation, tolerance, adjustment and
open-mindedness, as they work in groups.
· It helps to meet individual needs of the students and every member gets an opportunity to
work in his areas of interest.
· The informal knowledge acquired through Commerce club activities supplements
classroom learning.
· Commerce clubs extend learning beyond the limits of the classroom.
· Commerce clubs may meet during school hours, their activities may often extend to out of
school hours at home in the laboratory, in the field etc.
· Club activities provide first hand experiences to the learners as they participate in model
making, arranging for exhibition, field work, laboratory work and so on.
Importance:
1. It is useful in arousing and maintaining interest in Commerce.
2. It stimulates the active participation of the students.
3. The knowledge gained by students in various functions of such club activities supplements
the classroom teaching.
4. It provides the students and opportunity of free discussion and they are benefited from one
another’s view.
5. Gifted students get an opportunity to satisfy their needs and interest by actively participating
in the activities of such clubs and organization.
6. It gives the students basic training in such programmes.
7. It is helpful in making proper utilization of leisure time.
8. It helps in developing the habit of self-study among the students.
9. It proves helpful in acquainting the students with the latest knowledge and developments in
Commerce.
10. It gives them opportunity to translate the theory into practice and to make use of their
learning in day to day life.

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11. It provides opportunity to discuss the classroom topics in detail and this helps in knowing
more and more about the subject.
12. It gives an opportunity to work together then the students learn the lesson of co-operation.
13. The students get opportunity of Commerce hobbies relation, projects, games, discussions
talks etc.
14. It provides an opportunity of listening to experts and teachers from outside.
15. It provides an opportunity to inter school and intra school Commerce competitions.
16. It can organize excursion and visits of Commerce value.
17. It is an agency to prepare and display Commerce illustration.
18. It helps in the decoration of Commerce classroom.
19. It provides inspiration for independent in such work and thus helps in grooming future
Commerce.
20. Through its various programmes, it provides opportunity to the parent and other members
of the community to familiar with the school.
21. It provides to same students to the opportunity of leadership.
22. It can arrange Commerce exhibitions.
23. It can help in educational and vocational guidance in respect of Commerce.

Organization:
A Commerce club if properly organized will be a great help in teaching of
Commerce. Such a club should be run by the students under the guidance and supervision
of their teacher. For proper running of the club the most important thing is the preparation
of a draft constitution of the club. This draft is prepared by the Commerce teacher in
consultation with the head of the institution. The draft constitution should provide all
important details about the name of the club, aims and objectives of the club, details
regarding membership and the fees etc. To be paid by members, purpose for which the
expenditure can be incurred and person competent to approve such an
expenditure.
For efficient and successful working of Commerce clubs is expert body has
suggested the organization as under.
1. Head of the institution as its patron.
2. A senior Commerce teacher as advisor.
3. Membership of the club is open to all the Commerce students of the school.
4. Associate-membership may be allowed to some other students interested in Commerce.
5. The club should have an elected executive committee for the academic year. This
execution should include the following duties of members of Commerce club.
a) Chairman
b) Secretary
c) Assist. Secretary
d) Treasurer
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 a) Chairman:
He being the elected representative of the student should be asked to preside over
all the formal functions organized by the club. He has also to preside over the meetings of
the executive committee of the club.
b) Secretary:
He is also an elected member of students and is to look after and maintain a proper
record of various activities of the club. He should keep a true record of the meeting of the
executive committee. He is also responsible to carry out all correspondence on behalf of
the club and to extend invitation to speakers and guests for various functions of the club.
c) Assistant Secretary:
His main role is to assist the secretary in performance of their duties, i.e., in the
absence of secretary he has to carry out all the functions of the secretary.
d) Treasurer:
He is the person who is responsible for collection of membership fees for the club.
He has also to maintain proper account of receipts and expenditure of the club.
These members of executive committee are expected to extend their active co-
operation and participate actively in clubs programme. He should utilize his knowledge
and influence to make the programmes of the club success.
Activities of Commerce club:
i) Organizing inter-class, inter-school competitions on some interesting topics in
Commerce .
ii) Arranging a lecture by some renowned Commerce teacher/Businessman/ scholar.
iii) Celebrating days and events relating to Commerce or men of Commerce.
iv) Organising discussions about the practical applications of Commerce.
v) Organising recreational activities in Commerce such as puzzles, riddles, catch-
problems, business games etc.
vi) Making or collecting charts, models, picture, graphs etc. for the mathematics
laboratory.
) vii) Conducting related project activities.
viii) Preparing items for commerce magazine
ix) Organizing exhibitions (or) fairs.
x) Organizing certain visits to post-offices, banks, market places, industries, big business
concerns etc.

xi) Organizing seminars and career course relating to Commerce.

Thus we see that Commerce club can cover a wide variety of topics relating to the subject.
If the students participate in such activities whole-heartedly, then we derive great benefit.
The club can go a long way in arousing and maintaining interest of the students. They will
develop love for the subject. The utility of Commerce club depends upon the interest shown

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 by the teacher and the extent to which the students are motivated to take part in the activities
of Commerce club.

Field Trip
A field trip is a visit to a place outside the regular classroom which is designed to
achieve certain objectives, which cannot be achieved as well by using other means. Field
trips give opportunity for students to get out of the classroom and experience something
new. The chief purpose of fieldtrip is to give students first hand experiences that cannot be
had in the classroom. Students can see things, hear things, handle things and can examine
them minutely. Hence fieldtrip is an outdoor lesson in action. Many objects and phenomena
can be studied best in their natural setting. Fieldtrip provide opportunities for learning
through the use of many techniques other than in the classroom with the community, it
develops better social awareness and social skills development in pupils. In short fieldtrip
provide enough raw materials that would promote of senses, knowledge, emotions and skills.
Field trip and excursion are interchangeably used in educational literature. But in
strict sense they are different. An excursion is school journey involving any organized travel
made by teachers and students primarily with an educational motive in mind. An Excursion
is a trip by a group of people, usually made for leisure, education, or physical purposes. It is
often an adjunct to a longer journey or visit to place sometimes for other purposes.
Field trips are organized visits of teachers and students to immediate or distant places to
enrich learning experiences and to further instructional purposes of regular classroom
activities. It is a short journey or short excursions for education or for observations of natural
phenomena are called field trips.
Field trips and excursions allow the students to learn outside of the classroom. Many field
trips and excursions combine educational content with team building activities, such as
working together to clean a stream that has been polluted. In fact, it is often a good idea to
go on an excursion early in the school year to help create a bond between the students. It is
a way to bring the students closer together. A good field trip and excursion supplements the
curriculum and it offers the opportunity to teach the students something new. A field trip and
excursion can create a rewarding and exciting learning experience for a student.
Values of Field Trip
1. Gives first hand experiences.
2. It supplements and enriches classroom teaching
3. It creates spirit of scientific enquiry.
4. Fieldtrip gives training in observation.
5. Stimulates interest in nature and learning.
6. It correlates the school life with the outside world.
7. Provides opportunities for utilizing community resources.
8. Gives relief from the routine classroom work.

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9. It develops qualities like leadership, co-operation, good public relation, self-confidence,
etc.
10. Field trips also provide opportunities for bringing out talents and tastes.
Purpose of Field Trip
• It enhances the curriculum. Field trips are rich in educational possibilities as students
learn from actual hands-on experiences, rather than by simply reading or hearing about
something. Involvement in a real world experience makes learning more meaningful and
memorable comparing to regular classroom instructional programs.
• Give students experiential learning experiences. Involvement in a real world experience
makes learning more meaningful and memorable. As a result the students will have more
concept of the topic as they have learnt through their hand-on experiences.
• Concrete skills such as note taking. Students have to develop questions to be asked, write
reports or thank you letters after the trip, or evaluate their experiences. By doing such
activities, students will develop various skills such as note taking skills, speaking skills,
writing skills will enhance.
• Involvement in a real world experience makes learning more meaningful and
memorable.
• Field trips can add variety to the regular instructional program; they tend to be special
and enjoyable learning experiences, ones which develop positive attitudes in students toward
related classroom activities. Field trips are rich in educational possibilities because students
learn from actual firsthand experiences, rather than by simply reading or hearing about
something
• Field trips help the students appreciate the relevance and importance of what they learn
in the classroom. An example of a motivational trip is an end of year visit to Buddha point
by a student body. First a teacher must choose the kind of trip to take and then decide on a
general location for the trip.
Steps involved in conducting field trip.
To be effective, the trip must be planned carefully, otherwise it will be just wastage of time,
energy and money. Careful attention should be given to trip selection, pre-visit preparation,
the trip itself, appropriate follow up, and evaluation. When considering a field trip, teachers
are advised to first consult with their administrator regarding existing school policies and
follow those recommended procedures in planning a field trip.
1. Trip Selection
• Identify the rationale, objectives and plan of evaluation for the field trip.
• Select the site to be visited. Contact the educational coordinator for the site and arrange
the date and time. Obtain the pre-trip information package if one is available. Record
addresses, directions, contact persons, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.
• Conduct a pre-visit to familiarize yourself with the major features of the field trip.
2. Logistics Planning

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a. Apply for administrative approval from the head of the school.
b. File requisition for bus transportation if the school has any or seek administrative
support for arranging
transportation if the school does not have the facility
c. Make arrangements for meal or sack (pack) lunch if needed
d. Develop schedule for the day
e. Arrange for special equipment -supplies, film, video camera, digital camera if needed
f. Collect money for admission fees if the visit site demands
g. Inform the parents (in case of day school) about the following things:
Date and location of field trip and transportation arrangements
Educational purpose of field trip
Provision for special needs students
Cost, Clothing for the trip, Lunch arrangements
Money needed, Trip schedule
Whether a child will need prescribed medication administered
h. Provide alternative arrangements for pupils who will not be going on the trip.
i. Submit a list of students who will be attending the field trip to other teachers if their
schedules will be affected.
j. Create a list of all student names and home phone numbers for use in an emergency.

3. Preparing Students before the Trip / Field Trip Preparation/Pre-trip discussion

a. Discuss the purpose of the field trip and how it relates to the current unit of study.
b. Show photographs or posters of the field trip site or related to exhibits that will be
viewed.
c. Assign students "specialists" roles in one aspect of the topic that they will be studying
during the field trip.
Students could be grouped in different subject areas related to the field trip topic to research
(e.g., history,
art, religion, science, environment, etc).
d. As a class brainstorm a set of standards of conduct for the trip and discuss suggested
spending money,
lunch plans, appropriate clothing to wear for the trip including gear for rainy weather.
e. Discuss with students how to ask good questions and brainstorm a list of open-ended
observation questions
to gather information during the visit. Record questions on chart paper or in student field trip
journals.
f. Overview the field trip schedule.
4. Final Planning / the field trip
Check all permission slips the day before the field trip.
Activities that will occur during the Field Trip
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Plan activities that allow students to work alone, in pairs or small groups. Activities might
include:
• Sketch pages with partial drawings of objects found in the exhibits for students to complete
the drawings based on their observations
• Ask them to describe what they see, what they notice now that they missed before, and
how their perspective changes with each new view
• Field notebooks for recording answers to prepared questions based on clues
• Hand drawn postcards to write near the end of the tour that will summarize the field trip
visit
• Provide time for students to observe, ask questions, and record key words, ideas and
phrases as journal entries in their Field book after viewing each exhibit
• Provide time for students to work in their Field Book writing questions, describing
favourite displays or making sketches of artefacts, structures, scenery, etc
5. Post-Field Trip Activities
Just as quality pre-planning is essential to the success of a field trip, planning for
appropriate follow-up activities will facilitate student learning and multiply the value of
hands-on experiences outside the classroom. The following activities provide a general guide
when planning for post-field trip classroom experiences.
• Provide time for students to share general observations and reactions to field trip
experiences
• Share specific assignments students completed while on the field trip.
• Create a classroom bulletin board displaying materials developed or collected while on
the field trip.
• Develop a classroom museum that replicates and extends displays students observed on
the field trip.
• Link field trip activities to multiple curricular areas. For example, students can develop
vocabulary lists based on field trip observations; record field trip
• Share and evaluate student assignments/activities from the Field Book.
• Have the class compose and send thank-you letters to the field trip site host, school
administrators and other persons that supported the field trip. Include favourite objects or
special information learned during the field trip.
• Create a short news report about what happened on the field trip. Publicize the trip via
an article in your local newspaper, school bulletin board, trip presentation for parent's night,
or school web page.
6. Evaluating the Trip
Complete a "Teacher Journal" regarding the field trip. This will provide a good reference for
future field trips.
• What was of unique educational value in this field trip?
• Did the students meet the objectives/expectations?
• Was there adequate time?
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• Was there adequate staff and adult supervision?
• What might be done differently to make this an even better experience in the future?
• What special points should be emphasized next time?
• What special problems should be addressed in the future?
• What would improve a visit to this site in the future?
Share the evaluation with the students, volunteers, hosts from the field trip site, and school
administrators.
Advantages
1. They provide direct source of knowledge and acquaint the student with first hand
information.
2. They provide an opportunity to the student for development of his aesthetic sense.
3. By such excursion students become interested in the exploration of their environment.
4. They help to develop in students a love for nature and to acquaint them with the real
happiness in the outside world.
5. It helps in development of power of observations, exploration, judgment and drawing
inferences, problem solving ability of students.
6. It helps in developing qualities of resourcefulness, self-confidence, Initiative and
leadership amongst students.
7. It helps in developing cooperative attitude and various others.
8. It helps in proper utilization of leisure.
9. It motivates the students for self study and self activity.
10. It helps in the development of creative faculties of the students.
Disadvantages
1. If the field trip is not planned well with specific learning objectives it will result in
wastage of teaching learning resources
2. Students of younger ages are not able to correctly interact with the environment and
other members of the society without supervision.
3. Budgetary constraints: a field trip may require travel from one region to another. This
means the school or parents will have to take care of transportation costs and meal costs.
4. Safety concerns: when students are out of school, they may come in to contact with
harmful substances like toxic chemicals or hazardous equipment. Keeping them safe from
these things may present quite a challenge.
5. Student behaviour: On field trips and excursions, students normally get a sense of
freedom which may lead them to misbehave. This can create an unpleasant experience for
those in charge and those they interact with.
EXHIBITION
In education, the term exhibition refers to projects, presentations, or products through
which students “exhibit” what they have learned, usually as a way of demonstrating
whether and to what degree they have achieved expected learning standards or learning

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objectives. An exhibition is typically both a learning experience in itself and a means of
evaluating academic progress and achievement.
Defining exhibition is complicated by the fact that educators use many different terms
when referring to the general concept, and the terms may or may not be used
synonymously from place to place. For example, the terms capstone
exhibition, culminating exhibition, learning exhibition, exhibition of learning,
performance exhibition, senior exhibition, or student exhibition may be used, in addition
to capstone, capstone experience, capstone project, demonstration of learning,
performance demonstration, and many others. Educators may also create any number of
home-grown terms for exhibitions—far too many to catalogue here.
In contrast to worksheets, quizzes, tests, and other more traditional approaches
to assessment, an exhibition may take a wide variety of forms in schools:
• Oral presentations, speeches, or spoken-word poems
• Video documentaries, multimedia presentations, audio recordings, or podcasts
• Works of art, illustration, music, drama, dance, or performance
• Print or online publications, including websites or blogs
• Essays, poems, short stories, or plays
• Galleries of print or digital photography
• Scientific experiments, studies, and reports
• Physical products such as a models, sculptures, dioramas, musical instruments, or
robots
• Portfolios of work samples and academic accomplishments that students collect over
time
Generally speaking, there are two primary forms of exhibition:
1. A multifaceted assignment that serves as a culminating academic and intellectual
experience for students, typically during their final year of high school or middle
school, or at the end of an academic program or learning-pathway experience (in
this case, terms such as capstone exhibition, culminating exhibition, or senior
exhibition may be used).
2. A project, presentation, product, or portfolio that teachers use as a form
of summative assessment—i.e., an evaluation of student learning, skill acquisition,
and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period, such
as a unit, course, semester, program, or school year (in this case, terms such
as performance exhibition, learning exhibition, or student exhibition may be used).

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What is Trade Fair? Definition and Importance of Trade Fairs

Definition

Trade fair is an event in which firms belonging to the same industry present
their products and services in a defined setting to prospective clients, end-users, retailers,
wholesalers, and distributors. Some trade fairs have a massive audience as they can attract
visitors and participants from every corner of the world.

Meaning of Trade Fair

Trade fair is a massive stage that provides widespread exposure and interactions. It is one
of the most popular means of promotion and gaining recognition as participants can meet
customers and industry partners, examine opportunities and market trends, study the
activities of their competitors and showcase their latest services and products to one and
all.

Some trade fairs are open to the general public, whereas others are open only to the
company representatives and media personnel. Some of them are hybrid and allows some
days for public viewing and some for corporate members.

Trade fair is commonly also known as

• Trade show
• Expo
• Trade exhibition

Importance of Trade Fair

The importance of trade fair is as follows-

• Helps to launch new products or services – The importance of a trade fair is that it
is generally used by organizations as a ground to launch new products and services
and do initial testing about them. Video presentations, product demonstrations, free
trials, and free samples are some of the best ways to lure in potential customers and
gain a consensus about the brand and its offerings
• Helps to create lasting impressions – A trade fair offers numerous options of
interaction with potential clients, customers, and even rival companies. A well-

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 designed booth is one of the best ways to promote the brand image and encourage
others to view the products and services. When companies offer an enhanced booth
experience by drawing the attention of its target, it leaves a long-lasting impression
on their mindset. This promotional activity captures and increases potential client
engagement so that they can become actual clients of the company
• It is a place for personal interaction – Personal or face-to-face interaction can
influence the other party very quickly. Trade fair provides this opportunity to the
companies who have their stall or booth in it as they can engage with potential
customers and make them understand the value of the goods and services on display.
The presentation and subsequent conversation matter a great deal as this is the time
when the potential customer tilts in your favor and becomes a client of your company.
The personal interaction helps in closing the deal with a minimum of fuss
• Lead generation potential – Most of the trade fairs are very popular and have been
able to account for a massive attendance. Remember, every one of the people in
attendance is a potential lead waiting to become a regular client. Trade fair is one of
the best places to make and develop contacts, give business cards, make a presentation
and get a viable opportunity to impress others. Make sure to follow up by contacting
them when the event is still fresh in their minds.
• Direct sales opportunities – A trade fair is a specific industry-related market, and
the people who visit them are most probably on the look-out for relevant or related
products and services. It gives a company the chance to gain direct exposure for its
products and services in front of its target audience. Be ready with your statement so
that you can create a favorable impression. The personal meeting is the best way to
create opportunities for direct sales and make sure that you are not going to let it go
to waste
• Cost-effective networking – Renting a booth for a trade fair, traveling to and fro
with a team, designing your box and paying for meals might look like unnecessary
and additional expenses at the onset for a single event. Still, if you look at it from
another angle, it surely is an investment in the future. The business that a company
receives after the trade fair is generally far huge than the investment and this fact is
the reason why organizations love taking part in it. It is cost-effective networking that
can lure in potential customers and make them your loyal ones
• Levels the marketing field – Trade fair is one of the most popular platforms for
organizations belonging to the same industry. You will find all sorts of business
entities participating in it from locally-owned entities to companies at national
and international levels. One of the most exciting things about a trade fair is that it
gives ample opportunities to every company so that they can explain their viewpoint
to potential clients irrespective of the size of their company. Trade fair levels the
playing field, and this is one of the reasons why it is considered so important in
industry circles.
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Functions of Trade Fair

Trade fair revolves around demonstration, discussions, and presentation in the booths to
conduct the following functions

• Trade marketing
• Business-to-business sales
• Competitive intelligence
• Customer marketing
• Brand visibility
• Media relations
• Industry marketing

Advantages of Trade Fair

The advantages of the trade fair are as follows-

• One of the advantages of participating in a trade fair is that it gives the company a
chance to sell their products and services directly to the customer
• It provides personal contact so that the company representative can interact with
potential clients directly without any middlemen or interference from others
• Trade fair is considered a cost-effective promotional strategy by the organizations
because the initial cost of renting a booth and related expenses is very less if you
compare it with the amounts the company spends as part of their promotional
or marketing strategies.
• Trade fair helps to zero in on your target market, identify the target audiences and
target them so that they ultimately become customers of the organization. Even if the
fair is for a day or a few days, it leaves a long-lasting impact on the mindset of the
customers
• Trade fair is a perfect place to launch new products and services. Several
representatives of different companies visit these places to view and learn about new
brands, new products and of course, unique solutions that have been recently
launched.
• Trade fair is beneficial as it provides more personal time with the client. It is a perfect
place to engage in real-time interaction and conversation with your target audience
• Trade fair is a platform for personal interaction, and this direct communication helps
to build a one-on-one relationship that can prove beneficial in the long-run. If the
connection proves fruitful, it can help in establishing a widespread client base that
belongs to different parts of the country and sometimes even offers global exposure

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 • Strong and deeper connections with potential clients can open several other channels.
The new leads provide ample opportunity to tap the unchartered market that had been
a distant horizon until now
• Trade fair is considered a hunting ground that helps to identify potential clients
• It aids in the networking process because you meet with numerous people who
become impressed with the offerings. This results in profitable alliances for the
company
• Trade fair allows small business entities opportunities to make contacts and establish
a market base of their own. They can reach out to several clients at once that in the
typical setting would have been impossible for them.
• Trade fair offers an opportunity to hand out pamphlets and brochures, explain about
their products and services, provide promotional samples and increase product and
service awareness in the consumer market
• Trade fair gives organizations ample opportunity to scope out the products and
services of their competitors and use the acquired knowledge for further gain
• Trade fair is open to a broad audience of varied interest, and it gives the company a
chance to promote to a more extensive and diversified group who might not have been
aware or knowledgeable about its products and services
• Organizations consider trade fair a good ground for testing out new products and
services and garnering general opinion about the offerings
• Trade fair is one of the best platforms to create brand visibility, loyalty, and credibility
in the market. It results in higher sales and more significant revenues for the
organization

Disadvantages of Trade Fair

• There are several expenses involved in the trade fair that are not possible for new
companies to mete out at their initial stages. It is not only about the booth and design
of the booth along with traveling, lodging and food expenses. It is also about time and
effort that is involved before; during and after the trade fair long comes to an end.
• Another disadvantage of a trade fair is that one organization is judged against another
because both are placed at the adjacent corners, and it is easy to make comparisons
of their products and services
• Sometimes things get out of your control, and even if you have done everything right,
it is not possible to make a mark of your own. Companies should be prepared to face
any eventuality
• Participating in the trade fair is a lot of work, and it often proves hectic and stressful
• With so many tasks and responsibilities involved with the trade fair, it looks
overwhelming for most companies especially first-timers

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 • Excessive frequency of trade fairs makes it difficult for companies to chose which
one they should attend and which ones to ignore. Sometimes the ones that are ignored
have the best footfall and thus proves disastrous for the company

Selecting the perfect trade fair

Choosing the right trade fair is crucial because it is not feasible to spend a vast amount of
money on the trade fair if you do not have a fair chance of getting a significant return on
your investment. Go through the following steps to select the trade fair that is appropriate
for your organization

• Get the statistics – Request for detailed information and statistics about the past events
from the organizer. This will give you a fair idea about the footfall, the companies
that had participated previously and whether there is a pattern that demonstrates
success or not
• Identify target audience- Make sure that you have identified your target audience and
planned accordingly. The trade fair that you become a part of must have high visibility
and audience that is interested in your product and services
• Scout potential shows – Scout various trade fairs to get a feel about them and gauging
the quality of attendees
• Weigh the value of exhibiting – Selecting the perfect trade fair is as important as
considering whether the event will be able to provide the necessary value to your
business. Will you be able to handle the additional expenses that are an integral part
of such fair without incurring any undue difficulties is an important question
that needs to be addressed beforehand

Preparing for a Trade Fair

Once an organization has selected a trade fair, it is the time to make preparations for its
attendance and that it proves a profitable venture.

• Set measurable goals – Take a positive approach and treat it as an opportunity for
garnering sales and boosting brand visibility. Setting measurable goals will garner
enthusiasm about the proceedings without thinking about the related expenses
• Set specific goals – You are aware of the purpose of your participation in the trade
fair. Keep your eyes on the target and make suitable moves towards it
• Publicize the event and your involvement – Take help of personal invitation via
telephone, SMS, email, WhatsApp and trade journal to publicize your participation
and invite people to the trade fair

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 • Direct the attendees – Take help of staff and other members to direct the attendees to
your booth if you are interested in making it a success

Puzzle
A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's knowledge. In a puzzle, one
is required to put pieces together in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct solution of
the puzzle. There are different types of puzzles for different ages, such as crossword puzzles,
word-search puzzles, number puzzles, or logic puzzles.
Puzzles are often devised as a form of entertainment but they can also arise from
serious scientific problems. In such cases, their solution may be a significant contribution to
Science research. Solutions of puzzles often require the recognition of patterns and the
creation of a particular kind of order. People with a high level of inductive reasoning
aptitude may be better at solving complicated puzzles than others. But puzzles based
upon inquiry and discovery may be solved more easily by those with good deduction skills.
Deductive reasoning improves with practice.
Puzzles help us to gain more knowledge about science in a much more interesting
way. Puzzles have an inherent appeal to children and can use that appeal to sharpen students'
thinking and problem-solving skills, develop new concepts, and reinforce skills in science.
To expand your mind you need to learn new facts and develop new modes of thinking that
will make the information that you already know more useful. Solving the following
problems requires a combination of world knowledge, mathematics, common sense, logic,
and science (chemistry, physics).

E.g.:
➢ What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it
away ? ANS. Charcoal
➢ Crosswords
These are suitable for a variety of ages. They can serve as a reinforcement and revision tool
covering a range of subjects particularly general biology, chemistry and physics.
➢ Spot the words
Suitable for a range of age levels from 11 to 16 years. There can be many different games
based on this one idea in which the object is to find words hidden in a table, horizontally,
vertically, and if desired, diagonally as well as horizontally, vertically, etc in the opposite
direction. The basic skill to be developed is word recognition but this can be extended if the
pupils themselves are asked to prepare the games since subject knowledge/recall to a greater
depth than word recognition is required.
➢ Word Search puzzles
➢ Mechanical puzzles

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The best example of this puzzle is Rubik’s Cube. It is an extremely common type you can
see today. They come in various options but all of them require trial and error to solve it.
You will need to push move and connect pieces in order to solve it.
➢ Logic puzzles Logic puzzles have a grid of some kind that must be filled properly.
There are rules and the solution is usually completely unique. These puzzles may come with
a partially filled grid, which makes the solution easier to find.
➢ Trivia
As you may know already, trivia puzzles are based on trivia on any topic and area in the
world. They can be found as a part of escape room puzzles, and they may be extremely
difficult unless you are familiar with the niche.

Math
Math puzzles are based on math, obviously. They use algorithms (not simple ones), and
the main purpose is to test the math skills of a student. There are many tricks and tips you
can use but in general, you need to be proficient with math to solve one.

Jigsaw Puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a type of picture that has been cut into many pieces and can be
reassembled to form the whole image. Doing this requires concentration, problem-solving
skills and patience. The benefits of doing jigsaw puzzles include increased problem-
solving skills and concentration as well as mental stimulation because it engages both
sides of your brain at once – the logical left side that deals with numbers and symbols;
and creative right side which loves images.

Tangram
A Tangram uses 7 pieces to form geometric shapes by following certain rules as well as
using 2 more “empty” spaces on the board where you will need to draw the shape before
solving it.

Escape Room
Escape rooms are physical puzzles that provide a team of participants with the challenge
to escape from a contained room. Participants must work together and use elements
inside the room or puzzle in order to solve their way out within an allotted time limit,
usually one hour. The first person who goes through all the steps needed to escape is
considered “The Escapist.” Players may choose not only how they approach these
challenges but also what kind of danger they wish to encounter, be it mental or physical.

Advantages of Puzzles for Children

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 Puzzles are also an important educational learning tool for young children as they
provide many skills and mental learning benefits and opportunities. Puzzles not only help to
keep children involved but also improve their memory and vocabulary.
• Develop Eye and Hand Coordination
Initially children use trial and error method to solve the puzzle and this needs lot of
concentration and right coordination of eye and hand. The child will have to try and remove
one or more parts of the puzzle when trying to solve the puzzle and this requires eye and
hand manipulation.
• Problem Solving
Puzzles are in pieces that have to be joined properly. This shows a clear problem that needs
to be carefully solved. Unlike others, puzzles have only one solution and so the child keeps
trying till he succeeds. This is worthwhile and meaningful and so the children should be
provided with many experiences.
• Cognitive Skills
Puzzles help develop reasoning skills and problem solving capability of the child. It also
helps increase their visual special awareness and depending on the subject matter on which
the puzzles are based, they happen to learn varieties of topics like vocabulary, colours,
alphabet, numbers, shapes, vehicles, animals and many more.
• Sorting and Classifying
Puzzles have to be sorted out before solving. Some children like to sort and classify parts of
the puzzles through colours while some sort them on the basis of designs.
• Vocabulary Skills
One of the most significant advantages of offering puzzles to children is development of
vocabulary skills which remain unobserved. Each time your child completes a puzzle, he is
introduced to a new word and since he has solved the puzzle, he can remember the word and
its meaning for his entire life.
• Improve Memory Skills
Children like to repeat solving same puzzle over and over again and this makes his memory
sharp. They stop and think and recall how to solve a specific puzzle and this helps sharpen
their brains also.
• Fine Motor Skills
Solving puzzles help children develop fine motor skills which are very important in day to
day life. They learn to grasp big and small pieces of puzzles and concentrate to make them
fit in the space provided in order to complete the puzzle. Some puzzles even require twisting
knobs to make the parts fit in or needs to be pressed to fit in the space. All these activities
help the child develop strength in his fingers and use them to grasp things and hold onto
them as well.
• Best Learning Tool

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Puzzles are the best learning tools for small children. Children need to place the puzzles on
exact place because they fit in only when placed properly. Kids have to place each puzzle,
turn them and make sure they fit in properly before proceeding to another piece of the puzzle.
• Social Skills
Puzzles can be worked on cooperatively to get completed and this helps develop social skills
in children.
• Confidence Building
Since children solve the puzzles independently, their self confidence gets boosted up.
The benefits of puzzles are not limited to the above mentioned benefits. There are also many
other benefits of puzzles for children. Puzzles are open-ended and imaginative. A little bit
of one part and a little bit of another part of the puzzle fits in making your child rounded,
creative and happy as well. The best thing about puzzles is that children love to play with
them and the puzzles help them develop their educational skills not only at home but also in
school as well.
Riddles
A riddle is a statement, question, or phrase that has a double meaning. A riddle can
also be described as a puzzle to be solved. When someone uses a riddle, it can be a thought
provoking challenge to figure it out on your own, or it can be a funny comment that makes
you laugh. Riddles can be great brain busters or conversation starters to get you think.

A riddle is as hard or as simple as you and the person you’re telling makes it. The
answer can be right in front of your nose and even in the riddle itself, or it can be difficult
and hard to comprehend. It depends on how much you open your mind to the possibilities.

The Functions/Purposes of Riddles

➢ While riddles often serve the function of entertaining the audience by proposing
challenging questions to be solved.
➢ For instance, they may allow for deeper thinking regarding an issue or to allow other
questions to arise.
➢ Mood-booster: When you solve a puzzle, your brain's production of dopamine
increases. These neurotransmitters helps make us feel happier and can impact our
memory, motivation and concentration.
➢ Brain games such as puzzles, teasers, riddles, crosswords, and quizzes are marketed
as easy and effective ways to expand your mind and increase intelligence

Difference between puzzles and riddles

A riddle is basically a question. It's a kind of puzzle, but it always involves words (written
or spoken).
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Puzzle is a general term that can include many kinds of formats. Sudoku is a number puzzle.
The solution to this kind of puzzle is numeric.

Jigsaw puzzles and rubix cubes are tangible games with moveable parts. To solve these,
you have to manipulate the parts in a specific way.

Word searches and crossword puzzles also fit into this category. To solve these you locate
or produce the word that the clues describe.

Key Difference: A riddle is a type of statement, question or phrase, whose purpose is to

make the person think. A puzzle is a type of game, problem, or toy, whose purpose is to
test a person’s ingenuity or knowledge.

It is normal to get confused between a riddle, and a puzzle. After all, they serve the same
purpose, which is to challenge someone and to access and test someone’s brain capacity.
They further help to improve knowledge, and logical reasoning. While the terms are often
used interchangeably, in reality they are a little different in their context.

A riddle is a type of statement, question or phrase, whose purpose is to make the person
think. A riddle has a correct answer, which the person must answer after logical reasoning
and deliberation. A riddle often has a double or hidden meaning, so as to purposefully
mislead.

A puzzle, on the other hand, is a type of game, problem, or toy, whose purpose is to test a
person’s ingenuity or knowledge. A puzzle must be solved via logical reasoning. A puzzle
usually has a number of pieces, which if put together correctly will lead to the answer.
There are many different types of puzzles, such as crossword puzzles, word-search puzzles,
number puzzles, or logic puzzles.

The main difference between a riddle, and a puzzle, is that a riddle is usually verbal,
whereas a puzzle is not. This means that a riddle is spoken, whereas a puzzle is usually in
a tangible form such as a game or a toy.

Comparison between Riddle, Puzzle and Brain Teaser:

Riddle Puzzle Brain Teaser

Definition (Oxford) A question or A game, toy, or A problem or

statement problem designed to puzzle, typically one

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 intentionally test ingenuity or designed to be
phrased so as to knowledge solved for
require ingenuity in amusement.
ascertaining its
answer or meaning

To test logical
To test ingenuity or
Purpose reasoning and for For amusement
knowledge
amusement

Usually a spoken
sentence or
Spoken sentence or A toy or game, i.e.
Type question, but can be
question physical object
in the form of a toy
or a game.

Mary's father has

“What animal walks
five daughters: 1.
on all fours in the A crossword puzzle,
Nana, 2. Nene, 3.
Example morning, two in the a jigsaw puzzle, a
Nini, 4. Nono. What
afternoon and three maze
is the name of the
in the evening?”
fifth daughter?

1.
.
Advantages of riddles

1.Introduce them to intellectual humour: Laughter is important to happiness and health.

In addition, laughter is a very good way to motivate peopl1e to continue working after a long
monotonous day. It can relax the brain and body, helps us release stress, and makes us feel
great. Boredom and keeping children's attention is one of the largest problems associated
with education today, so riddles can be a great way to break up the day and relax the brain,
while keeping the brain working.
2. Work their brains: Problem solving and critical thinking skills are two of the most
important and sought after abilities in society today1. This is demonstrated by the importance

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of standardized testing when getting into college and graduate school. Both the ACT and
SAT are heavily based on critical thinking and problem solving skills. Riddles have been
shown to improve children's comprehension and creativity, making them the perfect prep for
children.
3. Reading comprehension: In the United States literacy rates are at 99 percent, but
comprehension is very different and falls on a spectrum. Everybody can read to some extent,
but this doesn't mean that they can read quickly enough or understand difficult content that
will enable them to be useful in the workforce. Riddles can help out with this by expanding
vocabulary and increasing the ability to understand context.
4. Expand their vocabulary: When children (and really everyone) encounter words that
they don't understand they figure them out through context. Riddles give words a great deal
of context which makes it easier for children to learn, remember and use these words. In
another way, riddles force kids to ask more questions about words they don't understand.
5. Giving them the opportunity to teach: Teaching kids riddles allows them to know
and understand something that most other people do not, giving them an opportunity to
repeat them and teach them to others. When children learn riddles it's very different from
most of what they learn, they can teach these riddles to their peers, parents, and teachers.
This reinforces their understanding of the riddle and it also allows them to interact with
people in a constructive social way.
6. To bond with children: Telling and teaching riddles to children is a great way to form
relationships with them and break through any social issues the child may have, making it
easier for them to form social relationships in the future.
on learning.
How do you teach current affairs?
Smart Ways to Teach Current Events in the Classroom in 2017
1. Analyze data side by side. ...
2. Use websites like Flocabulary. ...
3. Read picture books. ...
4. Challenge students to think about news from different perspectives. ...
5. Gamify current events. ...
6. Read differentiated news stories. ...
7. Create podcasts instead of research projects. ...
8. Increase current events comprehension through SCAMPER.
Importance/Need of current affairs

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 • Keep the students up to date information
• To prepare the students for tomorrow
• To develop insight into the democratic process
• To prepare the alert citizen
• To develop interested, attitude and skillfully students
• To develop abroad mental horizon
• To prepare students for better social living
• To integrate the past and the present
Objectives
• To promote interest in current affairs
• To promote the grow in desirable skills
• To help relating school Learning to life outside the school
Criteria for selection of current affairs
• Suitability
• Reliability
• Scope
• Utility
• Notability
• Consequences
• Continuity
Tools of current affairs:
• Newspaper reading
• Radio listening
• News making
• Abbreviations
• The five W,H type questions

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 • Local, regional,national,intenational events
Module 5 – Research trends in Commerce education
New Trends in Commerce Education & Research
Commerce education carefully studies the individual’s action which is injurious to
the society as a whole and recommends the methods of their prevention. There are then
certain commerce issues which are of direct interest to the society. The problem of money
is protection, incidence of taxation, import-export, the development of agriculture,
industries and the like affect the society as a whole. Commerce carefully studies these
problems in the light of social welfare and gives its unbiased opinion..
Commerce education gives the knowledge of well-earnings with good business. The
growing phenomenon of globalization, liberalization and privatization has been immensely
influencing the Commerce Education. Alvin Toffler in his famous book “Future Shock”
says that, “To help avert future shock, we must create a super industrial educational system
and to do this, we must search for our objectives, methods in the future rather than past.
Education must shift into future tense.” The Higher Education sector in India is very vast.
The role of Higher Education in National development is well established.
The objectives of Higher Education can be achieved only through qualitative change
in the system. The output of Commerce Education should be multidimensional and with
full global competitiveness. But we have to realize that the Commerce graduate have lack
of practical knowledge. The practical oriented Commerce Education is a need of the age.
The main objective of education is to develop Human Resources to face any challenges
of the life . The role of commerce education is to develop Human resources to overcome
the challenges in the field of commerce and business. To achieve this goal the commerce
education must be focused on linkage with business and industries. It should be more
practical and as like on job training and hands on experience.
Interesting research topics in commerce in relation to current trends
1. Organizational working
2. Relational impact in companies
3. Financial status and prospects of E-Commerce in rural level
4. Consumer experience, pattern and analysis.
5. Derivatives market
6. Micro finance
7. Accounting & Management controlling system
8. Fundamentals of economy
9. Risk Management
10. Banking system
11.Digital technology And business
12.M commerce and business
13.E-commerce business models
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14.Competing at the bottom of the pyramid
15.Leadership and job satisfaction in general

Research in Commerce Education- Need and importance

Introduction
Commerce education is a living discipline and is totally different from other
disciplines. Hence, it must charter new routes to service the aspirations of the nation. To
man the economic development of the country and to meet the growing needs of the
society, there is greater demand for sound development of commerce education in Indian
Universities. But, what has been going in the name of Commerce education is only liberal
and general education. Is that the objective of commerce education? In the process of
catering to everybody, we are not able to cater to the needs of any body. "Commerce is an
organized system for the exchange of goods between the members of the industrial world."
Meaning
Commerce is the strongest and most influential social institution in all societies these
days. It is a social institution which provides goods and services. Commerce is operated
for a profit-that is, individuals using the system find it advantageous to pay a money price
to have other individuals make goods and render services for them. Commerce is owned
privately by individuals or group of individuals or by Government or partly by Government
and partly by individuals; it competes with other commercial units to make goods and
render services of the highest quality, at the lowest prices and in the shortest possible time;
and it is regulated by the Government.
Definition
Commerce is the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for
business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural and technological
systems that are in operation in any country. Thus, commerce is a system or an environment
that affects the business prospects of an economy. It can also be defined as a component of
business which includes all activities, functions and institutions involved in transferring
goods from producers to consumers.
OBJECTIVES
1. To enable the learner to analyse the nature and scope of commerce education in the
modem era.
2. To enable the students to understand the aims and objectives of teaching commerce.
3. To acquaint the students with the modem trends in teaching commerce
4. To conscientize the students with current trends in developing commerce curriculum at
higher secondary level.
5. To equip the students with various models, strategies, methods and techniques in the
teaching of commerce.
6. To evaluate essential skills and accountability of a competent commerce teacher.
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7. To understand the significance of following principles and approaches in giving
instruction.
8. To develop insight into modern practices of student evaluation and assessment.
9. To enable them to analyze the role of IT in commerce education.
10. To create a research perspectives among prospective teachers in the field of
commerce

Importance of Commerce
It is said that whole life is a big schooling. One is never too old to learn. What is
necessary is the willingness to learn. All knowledge is possible through the two eyes -
curiosity and desire. Knowledge is like a vast, unfathomable ocean. Education may be
liberal or it may be special. Now a days there are three faculties in higher education namely
arts, commerce and science. Young people, now a day, are generally guided by lucrative
aims. Their main desire is to earn money and become rich. Very few aspire for knowledge
for the sake of knowledge-the aim for the older generations.
Business education offers good prospects for the ambitious person. Many of them
join commerce colleges or take admission in commerce with the aim of getting good jobs.
Economic activities and aims dominate the minds of modern men. Business, commerce
and industries are important branches of economic activities. Industries are said to be the
backbone of national economy. Trade or business follows the flag. The Englishmen came
to India as traders and ultimately became the masters.
Commerce is at the moment a promising subject as a whole. In the present day world,
almost every human activity is related with economy, whether in the shape of trade and
industry or Commerce and banking. Any concern which has transaction of money, a
commerce graduate has his footing there. Secondly, the related fields of commerce are
many and varied. Science, in spite of its expanding scope, is yet limited in providing jobs
to the teeming millions. The scope of science is all the more limited in backward countries
like Pakistan. The Humanities subjects are also not very promising from the profession
point of view. Arts subjects appear to have lost their worth from earning point of view.

Conclusion
Commerce Education in India was started in 1886, over a hundred and twenty years
ago. Since then it has experienced tremendous growth. Commerce faculties are established
in many Universities. In order to understand the progress of commerce education in India
since Independence and its present position, we have to rely on statistics. There are the
increasing numbers of commerce students since 1950-51. The increase in enrolment is
substantial from 0.36 lakh in 1950-51 to 14.10 lakhs in 1995-96 and to 20 lakhs now. The
enrolment in M.Com and B.Com courses in India during last one and half decades. One
important feature of it is that the number of girl students in commerce is on increase in
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absolute and relative terms both at M.Com and B.Com levels. The proportion of enrolment
at B.Com and M.Com levels. It is clear that about 8% only are going for M.Com/higher
education. About 92% stop with graduation. Therefore there is a need to make commerce
graduation courses more meaningful and purposeful.

Recent development and emerging trends in research

Recent efforts towards globalisation of Indian economy has contributed to two most
important developments in the case of education and research. They are:
Flow of international aid for educational development, and Emergence of private
entrepreneurship in education and research. Both have serious implications for the quality
and quantity for research in India.
Another major shift in research and education is that; the shift from basic or
fundamental research to applied and empirical research. Many fundamental research
contributions have not been noted in the recent past.
Equally important is a shift from empirical to action research. Researchers are not
content with empirical and applied research. They became more action oriented and action
research became a hot favourite among many.Except for a few action research
programmes, many action research activities end up in a fiasco, essentially because action
cannot be an alternative to theoretical and empirical research.
A strong tendency in research in the recent past has been a shift from data analysis
to collection and compilation of data. The funding agencies or consulting firms,
particularly international consulting firms who do not know even the basic information
about a country or a given region, seem to be more interested in information rather than
the analysis. Researchers play to the tune of those who pay for.

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