Test: Education & Leadership (School Curriculum Principle) - Software Development MCQ

Role of a primary school teacher:
A Primary Teacher instructs elementary school students from ages five to 12 in various subjects. Effective teaching and learning are critically important for all pupils, especially for those with special educational needs. Meaningful inclusion implies that all pupils are taught in stimulating and supportive classroom environments where they are respected and valued.

Key Points 
Their main role is to: 

• Develop students’ abilities, and interests and coordinate through the mode of creative activities.
• Present subject matter utilizing a range of teaching materials and techniques.
• Guide discussions and supervise work in class.
• Test and analyze students for customized progress in oral and written work.
• Enforce personal development by supporting students to utilize and develop capabilities.
• Maintain and update attendance records as well as school discipline.
• Involve in staff meetings along with educational conferences and workshops.
• Conduct extra-curricular activities like supporting school concerts, sport, excursions along with special interest programs.
• Oversee student teachers on placement tasks.
• Head responsibility for the progress of a class of primary-age students.
• Organize classroom as well as learning resources to develop a positive learning atmosphere.
• Plan, prepare, and present lessons catering to the needs of the entire ability range within classes.
• Motivate students with enthusiasm and imaginative presentation.
• Prepare and facilitate positive student development.

Conclusion:
The main role of the primary teacher is to look after the well-being of the students. They are not directly involved with the supervision of teaching programs, school management programs. Though they are involved in classroom management their main role is in improving the skill, knowledge, and performance of the teaching workforce. Hence, option (2) is correct.

Curriculum planning is a process, in which participants at different levels take decisions about the goals of learning, decide about the teaching-learning process by which these may be achieved, and determine whether the methods and means adopted are effective.

Key Points
Principle of flexibility:

• It suggests that curriculum should be formed on the basis of individual differences as each child is different from the other.
• It must also be responsive to social and technological changes and meet learner’s needs arising from that change process. 
• It must encourage the effective use of new technologies as tools of learning.
• According to NEP 2020, While students must have a large amount of flexibility in choosing their curricula, certain subjects, skills, and capacities should be learned by all students to become good, successful, innovative, adaptable, and productive human beings in today’s rapidly changing world.

Hence, we can conclude that the Principle of flexibility suggests that a curriculum should be formed based on individual differences as each child is different from the other.

Additional Information

Some important theories of curriculum:

• Principle of Inclusivity: Inclusivity means providing all groups of learners, irrespective of educational settings, with access to a wide range of knowledge, skills, and values. It is necessary to provide learners with opportunities to evaluate how concepts such as culture, gender, disability, race, and class are constructed.
  • Principle of Coherence: A curriculum can be stated as coherent when learning is built on the previous knowledge of learners. Students learn at their own pace and in different ways, constructing new knowledge and understandings in ways that link their learning to their prior knowledge.

Key Points 
Curriculum design

• Curriculum design focuses on the creation of the overall course blueprint, mapping content to learning objectives, including how to develop a course outline and build the course.
• Each learning objective is met with assessment strategies, exercises, content, subject matter analysis, and interactive activities.
• Curriculum design is a term used to describe the purposeful, deliberate, and systematic organization of curriculum (instructional blocks) within a class or course.

Curriculum change:

• Curriculum change is a learning process for teachers and for their schools.
• A good understanding of change and a clear conception of the curriculum are necessary conditions for improved implementation of the new curriculum into practice.

Curriculum evaluation:

• Curriculum evaluation is an essential phase of curriculum development.
• Through evaluation, a faculty discovers whether a curriculum is fulfilling its purpose and whether students are actually learning.
• The term ‘curriculum evaluation’ has historically been used to refer to the evaluation of curriculum products and to the evaluation of curriculum programs within specific field contexts.

Curriculum criticism:

• Curriculum criticism is a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of. educational materials and settings. 
• Criticism combines and adapts information collection and reporting techniques of social anthropology and aesthetics. 
• Criticism in order to help others perceive and understand educational phenomena more fully.

Conclusion:

Curriculum designs provide clear relationships between and among the different elements of the curriculum: objectives, contents, activities, and evaluation.

• Change is the law of nature. With time changes should be made in the curriculum for better teaching strategy and better learning processes.
• Evaluation is an essential part of curriculum development as it helps to find out whether the real purpose is fulfilled or not. While critiques help to find the educational purpose more elaborately.

So, it could be concluded that curriculum design can be viewed as an arrangement of materials prepared in advance and intended for instruction. Hence, option (2) is correct.

For the child's physical development, being fit and healthy is of utmost importance.

• In contemporary times, health has a comprehensive meaning because of the interrelationships between physical health and mental, social, emotional and spiritual dimensions.
• Health is important for the overall development of the child. It affects their learning and performance in school.

Important Points

To enable students to acquire positive attitudes and desirable habits for keeping themselves fit and healthy following skills are required:

• Cleanliness- It is very essential for getting good health, positive thoughts with well being. Unhygienic conditions can cause serious health issues which will affect the student's performance in school.
• Healthy eating- Students are able to learn better when they're well-nourished, and eating healthy meals has been linked to good grades, better memory and alertness, and faster information processing.
• Posture- Good posture will allow their muscles and other structures to function properly, helping them to avoid abnormal wear and tear. It can also reduce muscle fatigue and strain.

From the above, we can conclude that cleanliness, healthy eating, and good posture skills are required to enable students to acquire positive attitudes and desirable habits for keeping themselves fit and healthy.

A school curriculum is a complete set of organized experiences in the school. It includes aims, objectives, teaching content, teaching strategies, and all teaching-learning aids to cater totality of student's experiences that occur in the educational process.

• The Latin root explains 'Curriculum' as a comprehensive course of study to be undertaken by an educational institution and the Sanskrit equivalent emphasizes the sequence of content and processes to be followed.

Key Points 
Curriculum Implementation: 

• Implementation of the curriculum requires coordination among the various activities related to it.
• Implementation would be effective if the infrastructure facilities are adequate, teaching-learning material is provided and teachers are trained.
• It demands unanimity in thought and action on the part of the educational planners and administrators. 
• For curriculum implementation to be meaningful, the physical infrastructure in schools and trained teachers should be available as per requirement.
• Teachers determine to a large extent how the curriculum is executed in the classroom. Their role is defined in respect of curriculum transaction and evaluation.
• It is believed that teaching-learning would be more effective if the teacher is involved in the process of curriculum development.

Thus, it may be argued from the preceding that teachers, resources, and schools influence curriculum implementation, but the media does not.

Important Points 
Implementation involves the following activities: 

• Development of syllabus
• Preparation of textbooks
• Development of student support materials 
• Orientation and training of teachers and administrative staff.

A teacher is generally the one who represents the ideal behaviour, moral, values, and possess good knowledge of the subject matter, child development, and their psychology.

• He must be aware of the teaching methodologies, pedagogy, and the process of child development as he needs to deals with the children who possess different levels of skill sets.

Key Points

• The main work of a teacher is to do teaching to represent the content in a holistic manner to help the learner acquire new knowledge and skills.
• The teacher needs to address the needs and requirements of the students as teaching is done to improve their behaviour, bring the desired changes among them, and the whole teaching-learning process revolves around them.
• A teacher should not ignore the goals, interests, needs, and desires of his students in a teaching-learning process.
• This approach in teaching is known as the learner-centred approach.
• Discouraging the students, asking the low achievers to leave the school, rigid examination schedule, and advising the special children to go to the special schools, etc. All of this means that the teacher is not giving importance to the needs of the students.
• Low achievers can be turned into high achievers by using proper teaching techniques and practice.
• The examination schedule should be kept by keeping in mind the requirements of the students such as if a student wants to re-appear in any exam to improve his score or grades, he must be given a chance by removing the rigidity of examinations.
• Also, the special children must be taught in normal schools with normal children so that they will not feel left out of society and can gain confidence and learns better in a natural environment setting.

So, it is concluded that the learner-centred approach shows us that the teacher respects the rights of the children.

Additional Information 
Apart from teaching, the teacher has to play various roles while teaching, some of them are described below:​​

The process of classroom transactions is usually based on certain curricular areas. These curricular areas, specifically the subjects have some content areas. Each unit/content has certain learning objectives to be achieved. That means after studying the concepts included in the topic/subject, the student shall perform or demonstrate in the expected manner as stated in the objectives. Hence, learning objectives are also called ‘Expected Learning Outcomes’. The teacher needs to assess the achievement of these expected learning outcomes.

Key Points

• Learning is a purposeful activity. Therefore, any subject included in the school curriculum has specified learning objectives. It is expected that after studying each subject, a student shall demonstrate the competencies/behaviours specified.
• In this context, assessment becomes an integral part of instruction, as it determines whether or not the goals of education are being met.
• Assessment affects decisions about grades, placement, advancement, instructional needs, and curriculum.
• To make the task of assessment easy and more accurate, the expected learning outcomes need to be ‘specific’, ‘measurable’, ‘achievable’, ‘realistic’ and ‘timebound’ (SMART).

Thus from the above-mentioned points, it is clear that all of the above is true.

The approach is begun to deal with problems. It is the way that identifies the aptitude of the person to deal with things.

The topical approach gives mastery over the topic. It is organized around themes, topics, and units of the content or subject matter.

Key Points 
Topical Approach: 

• This approach is also known as the topic approach.
• The topical approach is based on the principle of totality.
• It specific topic is started in a particular class and finished in the same class.
• The topical approach is the opposite of the concentric approach.
• Topics are selected according to the mental level, capabilities, and interests of the student.
• Topics studied in the previous class received no attention.

Thus by all these references, we can conclude that The curriculum organization which gives scope for both ‘principle of difficulty’ and ‘principle of repetition’ in the same class is the Topical approach,

Important Points
Merits:

• The topical approach is psychological topics have been selected according to the interest, age group, mental levels, and needs of the students.
• Teaching is purposeful.
• Logical subject matter.
• In-depth knowledge.

Demerits:

• Destroys the continuity of subject matter.
• unsuitable for the same topics.
• Reading everything about one topic is very difficult.
• Knowledge attained is more bookish.

Additional Information

• Spiral approach: This approach helps students score better on tests and retain information longer than students who learn from curricula that take massed approach.
• Logical approach: Logical approach is very useful and significant to construct social studies curriculum. A sequential arrangement of the topics of the syllabus is known as a logical approach. It is based on logic.
• Concentric approach: In this approach, the topics will find a place in different classes of different years of the course in a progressive manner. the concentric approach takes into consideration the mental growth of pupils.

Expectations from the Teaching Profession

• Due to the paradigm shift in the teaching-learning process, the teacher’s role has become more challenging due to increasing expectations. The teacher has to fulfill the expectations of the family, school, society as well as the nation.
• To match those expectations, the teacher has to play diverse roles like a planner, facilitator, co-creator of knowledge, leader in the classroom and outside the classroom, manager, counselor, and apart from that, a true human being. 

Key Points

Teacher in the Community: For fulfilling the social expectations that the community, the teacher has a very dynamic role in the community.

• Teacher, being a responsible member of the community, should either directly inform people or lead them to proper sources of information.
• Teachers should arrange some cultural events and activities so that the children can relate to their cultural patterns. This will help them to know about the different cultures of the diverse society.
• Provide leadership to students and to coordinate a variety of activities as they and learners work interdependently to accomplish academic and social goals of schooling.
• The teacher should record and guide the performance and behavior of students while performing in cultural events. Through cultural events, they communicate and socially interact with their peers and learn social skills.
• Effective teachers should possess the skills to make school as a replica of society because the school is a miniature of society. The teacher should be planned and organize a cultural exchange program like One India, One world, etc. 
• Teachers should know about the cultural heritage of students while organizing a cultural event so that it will not harm the sentiments of students from diverse cultures.

Hence, we conclude that "make the school a replica of adult society" is not an expectation of the society from the teacher because the school is a miniature of the society, not an adult society.

National Curriculum Framework, 2005, published by NCERT, is quite significant for bringing contemporary changes in school and teacher education curricula. Keeping in view the changing perspectives and contexts of school education across the globe, necessary curricular changes have been recommended in NCF, 2005.

Key Points

• The major features of NCF, 2005 have been articulated in five different areas of the School Curriculum, they are
  • Perspectives of Education
  • Learning and Knowledge
  • Curricular Areas, School Stages, and Assessment
  • School and Classroom Environment
  • Systemic Reforms
• Perspectives of Education-
  • To integrate examination into classroom learning and also to make it more informal, alternative, and flexible.
• Learning and Knowledge-
  • To focus on the holistic development of the students to enhance their physical and mental development.
  • To create an inclusive environment in the schools and classrooms for all students.

Thus from the above-mentioned points, it is clear that the perspective of knowledge and classroom environment is one of the major features of NCF, 2005.

The way the curriculum is implemented in the classroom is mostly decided by the teachers. Their function is described in terms of the implementation and assessment of the curriculum. Additionally, it is thought that if the instructor is involved in the process of developing the curriculum, teaching and learning will be more successful. Their contribution might be crucial to the curriculum's overall progress.

Key Points

Doll identifies three reasons why educators could be successful in enhancing the curriculum:

• Work in close proximate with the learners
• Engaged in individual study and
• Interact with other teachers and share their curricular experiences.

These three elements provide them the chance to grow in knowledge and ability, which can enhance the caliber of the learning opportunities they offer to students.

• By encouraging student understanding and tolerance, arousing curiosity, and encouraging independent thought, teachers work to achieve educational goals.

• The way in which the material is delivered is also heavily influenced by the teaching method.

• Teachers must thus be involved in the curriculum creation, planning, delivery, evaluation, and review processes.

• The teaching style of a teacher has the power to either encourage role learning or, conversely, spark a child's interest.

Hence, it is concluded that All of the above are correct.

The Latin meaning of the term ‘curriculum’ is a ‘racecourse’ used by chariots. Hence, it can be understood as any path or course of study which to be undertaken by an educational institution, to be covered in a specified timeframe.

Key Points

• Tanner and Tanner said, “Curriculum is the reconstruction of knowledge and experience systematically developed under the auspices of the school (or university), to enable the learner to increase his other control of knowledge and experience” 
• Carter V. Good describes the curriculum as “a systematic group of courses or sequences of subjects required for graduation or certification in a major field of study.
• According to Wiles and Bondi, “a curriculum can be called a plan for learning, which contains assumptions about the purpose of education in our society, it also has a definite structure through which the vision of the planners can be translated into learning experiences for the learner.
• According to Brown D.F. curriculum include all student school experiences relating to the improvement of skills and strategies in thinking critically and creatively, solving problems, working collaboratively with others, communicating well, writing more effectively, reading more analytically, and conducting research to solve problems. 

Hence, it is concluded that the above statement is given by Tanner and Tanner.

The Latin meaning of the term 'curriculum' is a racecourse used by chariots. Hence, it is any path or course of study to be undertaken by an educational institution, to be covered in a specified timeframe. The course of events can take place inside the school and also outside it.

Key PointsTeacher-centered curriculum-

• The teacher is the center of the teacher-centered curriculum. The focus of this kind of curriculum is the teacher.
• It emphasizes the importance of the teacher's input in the creation of the curriculum and leaves no space for the personal interest of students.
• The development of the learner is significantly influenced by the teacher. The teacher decides on instructional methods, teaching materials, the usage of audio-visual aids, and other things.
• Students in a teacher-centered curriculum, concentrate solely on the teacher. Students only listen to the teacher when they speak.
• In this curriculum, teacher focuses on developing essential knowledge in various subject areas, teamwork is discouraged, and memorization is encouraged.

Hence, we conclude that the teacher based curriculum least focus upon learners where teachers put all their focus on, children talk and the teacher exclusively listen.

A school curriculum is a complete set of organized experiences in the school. It includes aims, objectives, teaching content, teaching strategies, and all teaching-learning aids to cater totality of students' experiences that occur in the educational process.

Key Points

• The hidden curriculum is all the things that student pick up throughout their academic career that is not explicitly taught as part of the formal curriculum.
• The hidden curriculum is not primarily for Cognitive development. They can include social lessons, work habits, attitudes, beliefs, values, and perceptions.
• The concept of a hidden curriculum refers to the unspoken or implicit values, behaviors, and norms that exist in the educational setting.

• The knowledge of the hidden curriculum is of advantage to move towards a more enlightened future.

Therefore, we can conclude that hidden curriculum consists of learning experiences, both negative and positive, that are not part of the explicit curriculum, but that result in changes in the attitudes, beliefs, and values of students.

Additional Information 

• Null curriculum is also known as an excluded curriculum which focuses on what not to teach in schools.
• Activity-based curriculum is strictly based on the students learning by doing and their interest areas. 

A curriculum is a set of predetermined actions that are intended to carry out a certain educational goal. It comprises assertions of the selection criteria for the topic to be taught, as well as decisions about the techniques, resources, and assessment to be used.Key Points 

Overt curriculum:

• The terms explicit curriculum and intended curriculum are also used to describe overt curriculum.
• It covers all the extracurricular and co-curricular activities that the school, college, or university organization has purposefully designed to be provided to the learners.
• It contains information that learners are explicit to be given, including knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. An overt curriculum is created by keeping the school's aims and objectives in mind.
• As a result, it is limited to written understandings that have been explicitly created by curriculum designers and administrators.

Hence, it is concluded that Overt Curriculum involves experiences that are intentionally planned by the school, college or university organization to be provided to the learners.

Additional Information

• Implicit/hidden curriculum is all the things that student pick up throughout their academic career that is not explicitly taught as part of the formal curriculum.
• Null curriculum is also known as an excluded curriculum which focuses on what not to teach in schools.

The curriculum is the full set of subjects constituting a course of study / a program of study in a school or a college. Along with curricular subjects, it covers all scholastic and co-scholastic activities. Therefore, the curriculum comprises the totality of all educational experiences associated with a program of study.Key Points 

• The traditional curriculum was centered around subject-centered and teachers predominates in it.
• In Traditional curriculum, the greatest emphasis is on facts, principles, and skills in the subject concerned. 
• The purpose of traditional curriculum is to offer quality instruction and ensure active mode of learning in the classroom.
• In this curriculum, the teacher plays a pivotal role in scheduling and carrying out lectures, s/he carries out instructional planning and its implementation. 

Hence, we can conclude that 'Developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills' is not an advantage of the traditional perspective of curriculum.

Additional Information

• Competency-based curriculum emphasizes on the learner-centered approach with its focus on the changing needs of students, teachers, and society. The competencies like self-efficacy, citizenship, digital literacy, communication, and collaboration, learning to learn, imagination and creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving competencies could be developed through competency-based curriculum.

“Curriculum is the sum total of student activities which the school sponsors for the purpose of achieving its objectives”. It facilitates the planning of instruction by teachers. 

Key Points 
A curriculum includes the following elements -

• Learning outcomes /Goal of education - It includes the purpose for which the course is designed. For example - At a particular instructional level the learner, on the successful completion of the course, will be able to display and use purposefully all the four language skills commensurate with that level.
• Subject matter - It includes all the activities that an educational institution can organize include not only the classroom activities but also the social, cultural, and playground activities conducted under the direction of an educational institution.
• Planned Learning Experiences- These include all the experiences of learning that a student receives during the course of action to unfold the abilities of the individual.

Hence we conclude that Good marks are not an element of the curriculum.

Mathematics is the study of patterns, numbers, geometrical objects, data, and chance. It is a diverse discipline that deals with data analysis, and integration of various fields of knowledge, involves proofs, deductive and inductive reasoning, and generalizations, and gives an explanation of natural phenomena and human behavior. 

• The National Curriculum Framework (NCF)-2005 stated that the primary goal of mathematics education in schools is to mathematize the child's thought processes.

Key Points

Scope of mathematics curriculum: 

• The mathematics curriculum's main goal is to develop the child to think and reason mathematically, to pursue assumptions to their logical conclusions, and handle abstractions. 
• Also, the school Mathematics curriculum helps the children learn to enjoy Mathematics.
• It assists children in drawing correct conclusions and inferences.
• Students should learn to reason and build proofs as influential and significant aspects of understanding and applying mathematics.
• The scope of a mathematics curriculum should be broad, and another benefit of this curriculum is its flexibility. 
• Furthermore, mathematical knowledge is essential for comprehending the contents of other school subjects such as science, social studies, and even music and art.

Hence, it is clear from the above-mentioned points that the scope of mathematics should be broad. 

The Latin meaning of the term 'curriculum' is a racecourse used by chariots. Hence it is any path or course of study to be undertaken by an educational institution, to be covered in a specified timeframe. The course of events can take place inside the school and also outside it.
Key Points

• A curriculum would consist of several events like plans for learning, study periods, sports activities, cultural events, etc.
• A disguised curriculum is that which is not taught but it is knowledge and experience systematically developed
  under the auspices of the school, to enable the learner to increase his or her control of knowledge and experience". 
• It is a collection of all of the experiences that individual learners have gained that were not taught in the classroom traditionally.
• It is a list of unplanned learning experiences gained by the students through their own means which help them to build their future.

Hence, it is concluded that a curriculum that is not taught and includes the child's experiences is called a disguised curriculum.

Curriculum and instructional development are often used synonymously. Curriculum development is what students will learn, while instructional development is how students will learn it.​

Key Points

• Curriculum development is a specialized area of work that expects a teacher to have a deep understanding of the underlying concept of curriculum and also the skill to systematically design learning experiences to achieve the socially desired goals set by the society we live in.
  • Curriculum development is a process of focused improvement. The primary focus of curriculum development is to improve the content that is being taught to the students.
  • A child's mind is like a sponge, it tends to absorb all it can from its vicinity. It is necessary that what we provide to the child is the best version of the learning that can be taught so that the child grows up to his/her maximum potential.
• Whereas instructional development is a micro part of curriculum development. It acts as a tool required for preparing the way forward to achieve intermediate milestones in the pathway of educating a learner.
  • Instructional development focuses on specific courses, topics, or lessons to ensure that emphasis is given to small steps to achieve the larger goal.

Thus, it is concluded that both the given statements are true.