Q.1 Explain the origin of critical approaches in social sciences.

Ans.

Introduction:
Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social
sciences. “Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several generations of German
philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the
Frankfurt School.
According to these theorists, a “critical” theory may be distinguished from a “traditional” theory
according to a specific practical purpose:
a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human “emancipation from slavery”, acts as a
“liberating influence”, and works “to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers” of
human beings (Horkheimer 1972, 246).
 The following features inform all varieties of critical social science:

 Critical social scientists believe that it is necessary to understand the lived experience of
real people in context. Critical Theory shares the ideas and the methodologies of some
interpretive theories.
 What makes critical scholarship different from interpretive scholarship is that it interprets
the acts and the symbols of society in order to understand the ways in which various
social groups are oppressed.
 Critical approaches examine social conditions in order to uncover hidden structures.
Naturally, critical theory borrows from structuralism. Critical theory teaches that
knowledge is power. This means that understanding the ways one is oppressed enables
one to take action to change oppressive forces.
 Critical social science makes a conscious attempt to fuse theory and action. Critical
theories are thus normative; they serve to bring about change in the conditions that affect
our lives.

Marxist-inspired movement in social and political philosophy originally associated with the work

of the Frankfurt School. Drawing particularly on the thought of Marks and Sigmund Freud,
critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to help
overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and oppressed.

Max Horkheimer:
Max Horkheimer, (born February 14, 1895, Stuttgart, Germany—died July 7, 1973, Nürnberg),
German philosopher who, as director of the Institute for Social Research (1930–41; 1950–58),
developed an original interdisciplinary movement, known as critical theory, that combined
Marxist-oriented political philosophy with social and cultural analysis informed
by empirical research.
Horkheimer studied philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, where he received his Ph.D.
degree in 1922. In 1930, after four years as lecturer in social philosophy at Frankfurt, he was
named director of the university’s newly founded Institute for Social Research. Under his
leadership, the institute attracted an extraordinarily talented array of philosophers and social
scientists—including Theodor Adorno (1903–69), Eric Fromm (1900–80), Leo Löwenthal
(1900–93), Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), and Franz Neumann (1900–54)—who (along with
Horkheimer) came to be known collectively as the Frankfurt School.
Horkheimer also served as editor of the institute’s literary organ, Zeitschrift für
Sozialforschung (“Journal for Social Research”), which published path breaking studies in
political philosophy and cultural analysis from 1932 to 1941.
Horkheimer described the institute’s program as “interdisciplinary materialism,” thereby
indicating its goal of integrating Marxist-oriented philosophy of history with the social sciences,
especially economics, history, sociology, social psychology, and psychoanalysis. 
The resulting “critical theory” would elucidate the various forms of social control through which
state-managed capitalism tended to defuse class conflict and integrate the working classes into
the reigning economic system.

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno:

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno, (born Sept. 11, 1903, Frankfurt am Main, Ger.—died Aug. 6,
1969, Visp, Switz.), German philosopher who also wrote on sociology, psychology,
and musicology.
Adorno obtained a degree in philosophy from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt
in 1924. His early writings, which emphasize aesthetic development as important to historical
evolution, reflect the influence of Walter Benjamin’s application of Marxism to
cultural criticism.
After teaching two years at the University of Frankfurt, Adorno immigrated to England in 1934
to escape the Nazi persecution of the Jews. He taught at the University of Oxford for three years
and then went to the United States (1938), where he worked at Princeton (1938–41) and then was
codirector of the Research Project on Social Discrimination at the University of California,
Berkeley (1941–48). Adorno and his colleague Max Horkheimer returned to the University of
Frankfurt in 1949.
One of Adorno’s themes was civilization’s tendency to self-destruction, as evinced by Fascism.
In their widely influential book Dialektik der Aufklärung (1947; Dialectic of Enlightenment),
Adorno and Horkheimer located this impulse in the concept of reason itself, which the
Enlightenment and modern scientific thought had transformed into an irrational force that had
come to dominate not only nature but humanity itself.
The rationalization of human society had ultimately led to Fascism and other totalitarian regimes
that represented a complete negation of human freedom. Adorno concluded
that rationalism offers little hope for human emancipation, which might come instead from art
and the prospects it offers for preserving individual autonomy and happiness. 
Adorno’s other major publications are Philosophie der neuen Musik (1949; Philosophy of
Modern Music), The Authoritarian Personality (1950, with others), Negative
Dialektik (1966; Negative Dialectics), and Ästhetische Theorie (1970; “Aesthetic Theory”).

MARXIST CRITIQUE:
One of the most important intellectual strands of the last century was Marxist-based social
theory. Based on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, this movement is made up of a
number of loosely related theories which oppose the dominant order of society, i.e., economic,
political, ideological, and theoretical.
Classical Marxism
In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels argued that the means of production
determines the very nature of society. This is the linear idea of the base-superstructure
relationship: The economy is the base of all social structure, including institutions and ideas.
In capitalistic systems, profit drives production and thus dominates labor. Working-class groups
are oppressed by the group (in power) who benefit from profit.
 All institutions that perpetuate domination within a capitalistic society arise from this economic
system. Only when the working class rises against the dominant groups can the liberation of the
worker be achieved.
Such liberation furthers the natural progression of history in which forces in opposition clash in
a dialectic that results in a higher social order. This classical theory is called the critique of
political economy.
Neo-Marxism
In The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, we see one of the longest and the most famous
traditions of Marxism. Often, commentators refer the tradition as "Critical Theory," meaning a
special kind of social philosophy.
To begin with, the Frankfurt School grew out of the Institute of Social Research, which was
founded in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt by Felix Weil, a political scientist with a passion
for Marxism.

Habermas:
Habermas believes that the formation of opinion takes place at the community and peer-group
level.
As well, Habermas argues that it is the INTERPERSONAL SITUATION in which we converse
that provides the necessary context for informed opinion. In formulating the concept of an
IDEAL SPEECH SITUATION, Habermas stresses the need for:
  adequate opportunity for people to speak,
 adequate opportunity to challenge the rules or the topic of discussion,
 adequate opportunity to acquire the skills of discourse (including those of the media), and
 adequate opportunity to be free of violence and other forms of coercion.
Theorists still place great emphasis on the means of communication in society. This means that
communication practices are an outcome of the tension between individual creativity in framing
messages and the social constraints on that creativity. Thus, only when individuals are free to
express themselves with clarity and reason will liberation occur.

Q.2 Explain in detail different social class theories.

Ans.

Social class:
Introduction:
Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or
cultures.
Social class, also called class, a group of people within a society who possess the same
socioeconomic status.
Besides being important in social theory, the concept of class as a collection of individuals
sharing similar economic circumstances has been widely used in censuses and in studies of social
mobility. Depending on the definition used, class can also be associated with social status, or
one’s social position in a culture.

Theories of social class:

Theories of social class and social stratification developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber focus
on class divisions, types of labor, and distribution of power in society.
Two German theorists, Karl Marx (1818–83) and Max Weber (1864–1920), influenced the field
of sociology, particularly in terms of theories of social class. Both of these theorists wrote
extensively on issues of social class and social inequality, or the unequal status and access to
opportunities that different groups have within a society. 
Schools of sociology differ in how they conceptualize class. A distinction can be drawn between
“analytical” concepts of social class, such as the Marxian and Weberian traditions, and the more
“empirical” traditions such as a socio-economic status approach, which notes the correlation of
income, education, and wealth with social outcomes without necessarily implying a particular
theory of social structure.
The Warnerian approach can be considered “empirical” in the sense that it is more descriptive
than analytical.

Marxist:
It was in Victorian Britain that Karl Marx became the first person to critically attack the
privileges not just of a hereditary upper class, but of anyone whose labor output could not begin
to cover their consumption of luxury.
The majority proletariat which had previously been relegated to an unimportant compartment at
the bottom of most hierarchies, or ignored completely, became Marx’s focal point.
 He recognized the traditional European ruling class (“We rule you”), supported by the religious
(“We fool you”) and military (“We shoot at you”) élites, but the French Revolution had already
shown that these classes could be removed. Marx looked forward to a time when the new
capitalist upper class could also be removed and everyone could work as they were able, and
receive as they needed.
Karl Marx defined class in terms of the extent to which an individual or social group has control
over the means of production. In Marxist terms, a class is a group of people defined by their
relationship to their means of production.
Classes are seen to have their origin in the division of the social product into a “necessary
product” and a “surplus product.” 
Marxists explain the history of “civilized” societies in terms of a war of classes between those
who control production and those who actually produce the goods or services in society (and also
developments in technology and the like). 
 In the Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and wage-
workers (the proletariat). For Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the situation that control
over social production necessarily entails control over the class which produces goods—in
capitalism this amounts to the exploitation of workers by the bourgeoisie.
Marx himself argued that it was the goal of the proletariat itself to displace the capitalist system
with socialism, changing the social relationships underpinning the class system and then
developing into a future communist society in which: “the free development of each is the
condition for the free development of all” (Communist Manifesto).

Vladimir Lenin:
Vladimir Lenin defined classes as “large groups of people differing from each other by the place
they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most
cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social
organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of
which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it.”

Max Weber:
The seminal sociological interpretation of class was advanced by Max Weber. 
Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification, with class, status, and party (or
politics) as subordinate to the ownership of the means of production; but for Weber, how they
interact is a contingent question and one that varies from society to society.
One can have strength in one, two, all three, or none of these categories. For example, a drug
dealer may be wealthy and therefore of the upper class, but is not respected in society and
therefore of low status. A priest may not have any money but is held in high esteem in society.
A Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a corporation is likely wealthy and respected, but may not
have any political power.

William Lloyd Warner:

An early example of a stratum class model was developed by the sociologist William Lloyd
Warner in his 1949 book, Social Class in America. For many decades, the Warnerian theory was
dominant in U.S. sociology.
Based on social anthropology, Warner divided Americans into three classes (upper, middle, and
lower), then further subdivided each of these into an “upper” and “lower” segment, with the
following postulates:
 Upper-upper class. “Old money.” People who have been born into and raised with
wealth; mostly consists of old, noble, or prestigious families (e.g., Vanderbilt,
Rockefeller, Hilton).
 Lower-upper class. “New money.” Individuals who have become rich within their own
lifetimes (entrepreneurs, movie stars, as well as some prominent professionals).
 Upper-middle class. High-salaried professionals (doctors, lawyers, higher rung (were in
the corporate market, yet left for a reason such as family time) professors, corporate
executives).
 Lower-middle class. Lower-paid professionals, but not manual laborers (police officers,
non-management office workers, small business owners).
 Upper-lower class. Blue-collar workers and manual laborers. Also known as the
“working class.”
 Lower-lower class. The homeless and permanently unemployed, as well as the “working
poor.”
Another observation: Members of the upper-lower class might make more money than members
of the lower-middle class (a well-salaried factory worker vs. a secretarial worker), but the class
difference is based on the type of work they perform.

Others:
Sociologists who seek fine-grained connections between class and life-outcomes often develop
precisely defined social strata, like historian Paul Fussell’s semi-satirical nine-tier stratification
of American society, published in 1983. 
Fussell’s model classifies Americans according to the following classes:
 Top out-of-sight: the super-rich, heirs to huge fortunes
 Upper Class: rich CEOs, diplomats, people who can afford full-time domestic staff, and
some high salaried, prominent professionals (examples include surgeons and some
highly-paid types of lawyers)
 Upper-Middle Class: self-made, well-educated professionals
 Middle Class: office workers
 High Prole: skilled blue-collar workers
 Mid Prole: workers in factories and the service industry
 Low Prole: manual laborers
 Destitute: the homeless and the disreputable (but still free)
 Bottom out-of-sight: those incarcerated in prisons and institutions
Fussell no longer recognized a true lower middle class, its members either having advanced into
the middle class due to rising requirements of formal education or becoming indistinguishable
from the “high proles” or even the “mid proles.”

Q.3 Critical analyze the process of teaching and learning processes of 20 th and
21th centuries. What paradigm shifts have been occurred now?
Ans.

Critical Analysis:
Teaching and Learning Processes of 20th and 21th Centuries:
Traditional movements:
Against the various “progressive” lines of 20th-century education, there were strong voices
advocating older traditions.
Those voices were particularly strong in the 1930s, in the 1950s, and again in the 1980s and
’90s. Essentialists stressed those human experiences that they believed were indispensable to
people of all time periods.
They favored the “mental disciplines” and, in the matter of method and content, put effort above
interest, subjects above activities, collective experience above that of the individual, logical
organization above the psychological, and the teacher’s initiative above that of the learner.
The three concerns that guided the development of 20th-century education were the child,
science, and society.

Progressive Education:
The progressive education movement was part and parcel of a broader social and political reform
called the Progressive movement, which dated to the last decades of the 19th century and the
early decades of the 20th.
Child-Centered Education:
Proponents of the child-centered approach to education typically argued that the school should
be fitted to the needs of the child and not the child to the school.
Scientific-Realist Education:
The scientific-realist education movement began in 1900 when Édouard Claparède, then
a doctor at the Psychological Laboratory of the University of Geneva, responded to an appeal
from the women in charge of special schools for “backward” and “abnormal” children in
Geneva.

Inventory of Emerging and Anticipated 21st Century Concerns

The education enterprise and its processes are very likely to continue to change in the 21st
century in response to and in incorporation with several concerns, including:
 The many major developments in measurement theory and technology over the
past century;
 Emerging technologies for the amplification of human senses and the capacities
of the human mind and body;
 The declining centrality of long-term memory and recall in an age of electronic
access to and processing of information (short-term, “working” memory remains
critical);
 Changing conceptions of the transactions by which teaching and learning proceed;
 Growing recognition of the importance of attributional, existential and
transformational processes (see below) to human behavior, consciousness an
intentional performances;
 Recognition that all life experiences are educative and productive and should be
 assessed;
 The continuum of knowing, understanding, adjudicating relationships, reconciling
contradiction, judging, and acting wisely;
 Growing awareness of the roles of context, situation, empathy, compassion and
 perspective in human learning, thought and performance;
 Recognizing the tension between using assessments for accountability and using
assessments in developing teaching and learning strategies, and emphasizing these
latter purposes more;
 The growing use of assessments in summative evaluations and their decreasing role in
providing information for the improvement of teaching and learning, and formative
evaluation.
The bi-directional integration of assessment, teaching and learning as symbiotic pedagogical
processes is a necessary paradigm for the future. Assessment has the ability to inform the
curriculum for teachers and to reveal what students know or do not know15 (Pellegrino, 2012;
Pellegrino, Chudowsky, and Glaser, 2001).
The mastering of specific skills, the discovery of the contexts in which a student can perform
these skills, and the definition of the status of a student are the overall goals of assessment.
As such, the aim of assessment should be to inform teaching and learning, where the concepts
that we assess are developed. Else Hausserman (1958) wrote about the assessment of
developmental potential in preschool children with neurological insults.
Dynamic pedagogies, such as the concept explored by Edmund W. Gordon and Eleanour
Armour-Thomas (2006), use diagnostic test data to create assessments that can identify the
cognitive strengths and needs of students

Changing Paradigms for Education:

“All knowledge is human knowledge and all knowledge is a product of human hopes, fears, and
passions. To bring knowledge to life in students’ minds we must introduce it to students in the
context of the human hopes, fears, and passions in which it finds its fullest meaning. The best
tool for doing this is the imagination.” (Egan, 2005)
Perhaps one of the greatest difficulties our schools face today is the challenge of “lighting fires”
or engaging students and creating excitement about learning.
Traditionally, our educational endeavor has been pre-occupied with “filling buckets,” or teaching
students to recall specific content given to them through lecture. Exciting students about learning
and education is an integral part of preparing them for future success as students and as members
of society.
The persistent dominant role played by families in the education and socialization of children
(Bailyn, 1960; Coleman, 1966; Cremin, 1970, 1980, 1990) has, perhaps, contributed to the
emergence of schooling relatively late in the history of education.
Competition from religious institutions, print and now digital media could overshadow both
families and schools as the principal sources of education (experiences and materials) in the 21st
century.
Autonomous learners will be less dependent on the human teachers to assist them in the learning
endeavor. The content and process of study will, more and more, come under the control of
learner choice and engagement.
“Since there is no single set of abilities running throughout human nature, there is no single
curriculum which all should undergo. Rather, the schools should teach everything that anyone is
interested in learning.” – John Dewey (1859-1952)

Learners as knowledge managers and knowledge producers:

We are beginning to see a shift from thinking about education as concerned with "filling buckets
to lighting fires. Increasingly, the goals of education reflect the growing concern with
encouraging and enabling students to learn how to learn, and to continue learning over their
entire lifetimes; to become enquiring persons who not only use knowledge, but persons who also
produce and interpret knowledge.

The three R’s, meet the 5 C’s:

Reading, writing and arithmetic will continue to be essential skills but thought leaders in
education, Sir Kenneth Robinson among them, increasingly point to varying combinations of
five Cs as essential processes in education: Creativity, Conceptualization, Collaboration,
Communication, and Computation.
For 21st Century societies, the illiterate will include not just those who cannot or will not read,
but also those who cannot navigate the world of digital technology.
Computer literacy will be a requirement of economic, educational and social intercourse, but
literacy will also mean far more than the ability to do word processing, social networking and
play electronic games.

Re-integrating knowledge:
In the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, we privileged de-contextualization in the pursuit of
precision in measurement and control in experimentation. When we turned to multivariate
analysis to study complex (dynamic, multi-level) phenomena, it was with a view to the
sequential teasing out of the contribution made by each of several component variables, even
while we were beginning to understand the notion of dynamic and dialectical interaction.

Reviving the subjective:

In the interest of scientific validity, traditionally we have privileged “objective” knowledge over
“subjective” information. We have been taught to try to control for or contain variance that is
associated with affect and social/psychological situation.

Re-balancing assessments:
Assessment of the outcomes of learning in the interest of accountability will be with us for a
while, but the future is likely to bring increased concern in assessment for the purpose of
informing and improving learning and the teaching processes that enable learning.

The “new” functions of learning:

Humans will very likely continue to create technologies that make their work easier and that
amplify and expand human abilities. Some of these new technologies, as with artificial
intelligence inventiveness, could change the importance of some of the competencies for which
we currently educate.

Learning as a social process:

Just as human intellect is increasingly recognized to be a social phenomenon, both experienced
as, and produced by social interaction and consensus, so also are teaching and learning. Even the
learning we do “alone” benefits from the social transactions that have preceded it.
 Isolated and collaborative performance as targets of assessment;
 Knowledge and skill retained in one’s mind, and knowledge and technique
accessed or generated in social transaction;
 Contextualize and perspectives validation and the limits of empiricism; and
 Systematized documentation of relationships among attributions, contexts,
identities, and performances.

Q.4 Describe in detail classroom assessment techniques. Critically analyze

which type of assessment technique is better for which sort of subject?
Ans.

Introduction:
Classroom assessment techniques (CAT) are relatively quick and easy formative evaluation
methods that help you check student understanding in “real time”. 
The incorporation of classroom assessment techniques is an age-old concept which teachers have
been using and practicing for years. Whether a teacher uses a technique learned in training, or
simply a strategy conjured up on their own, teachers need to know if their methods are successful
and many feel that the desire to understand students' comprehension is instinctive.
These formative evaluations provide information that can be used to modify/improve course
content, adjust teaching methods, and, ultimately improve student learning. Formative
evaluations are most effective when they are done frequently and the information is used to
effect immediate adjustments in the day-to-day operations of the course.
The aim of classroom assessments is to provide faculty with information on what, how much,
and how well students are learning.
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are flexible and can be both speedy and anonymous
for students (although they need not be).

Benefits to Faculty:
By using feedback attained through CATs, teachers gain insight into which concepts their
students understand the best and which ones are most confusing. They can then use this
information to decide when there needs to be more instruction, and when the class is ready to
move on to the next topic. In this way, teachers are able to meet the needs of their students most
effectively.
These techniques can also help teachers understand the ways their students learn the best, as well
as alert teachers when a certain teaching approach is not working very well. Other benefits
include flexibility and timeliness. Many of the techniques, although not all, can be used in a
variety of ways.
 provide day-to-day feedback that can be applied immediately;
 provide useful information about what students have learned without the amount of
time required for preparing tests, reading papers, etc.;
 allow you to address student misconceptions or lack of understanding in a timely
way;
 help to foster good working relationships with students and encourage them to
understand that teaching and learning are on-going processes that require full
participation.

For students, CATs can:

Classroom Assessment Techniques allow students a chance to see how they are progressing over
time. Along with that, it shows students that their feedback can make a difference in what and
how they learn, which in turn could lead students to take more ownership of their education.
Students have reported that they feel more involved in the learning process when these
techniques are used in the classroom because it requires them to focus on what they're learning–
they become active participants rather than passive learners. The integration of CATs in the
classroom can also serve as an example for how learning is an ongoing, highly adaptable
process.
 help develop self-assessment and learning management skills;
 reduce feelings of isolation, especially in large classes;
  increase understanding and ability to think critically about the course content;
 foster an attitude that values understanding and long-term retention;
 show your interest and support of their success in your classroom.

Assessing Prior Knowledge, Recall, and Understanding:

1. Background Knowledge Probe:
Short, simple questionnaires prepared by instructors for use at the beginning of a course or at
the start of new units or topics; can serve as a pretest; typically elicits more detailed
information than other techniques.
2. Focused Listing:
Focuses students’ attention on a single important term, name, or concept from a lesson or
class session and directs students to list ideas related to the “focus.”

3. Misconception/Preconception Check:
Focus is on uncovering prior knowledge or beliefs that hinder or block new learning; can
be designed to uncover incorrect or incomplete knowledge, attitudes, or values.

4. Empty Outlines:
In a limited amount of time students complete an empty or partially completed outline of
an in-class presentation or homework assignment.

5. Memory Matrix:
Students complete a table about course content in which row and column headings are
complete but cells are empty.

6. Minute Paper:
Perhaps the most frequently used CAT; students answer 2 questions (What was the most
important thing you learned during this class? And What important question remains
unanswered?)

7. Muddiest Point:
Considered by many as the simplest CAT; students respond to 1 question (What was the
muddiest point in?); well suited to large, lower division courses but not to those which
emphasize integration, synthesis and evaluation.

Assessing Skill in Analysis and Critical Thinking:

1. Categorizing Grid:
Student complete a grid containing 2 or 3 overarching concepts and a variety of related
subordinate elements associated with the larger concepts

2. Defining Features Matrix:

 Students categorize concepts according to presence or absence of important defining
features

3. Pro and Con Grid:

Students list pros/cons, costs/benefits, advantages/disadvantages of an issue, question or
value of competing claims

4. Content, Form, and Function Outlines:

In an outline form, students analyze the,

5. What, How, & Why Outlines:

“what” (content), “how” (form), and “why” (function) of a particular message (e.g. poem,
newspaper story, billboard, critical essay); also called “What, How, & Why Outlines

6. Analytic Memos:
Students write a one- or two-page analysis of a specific problem or issue to help inform a
decision-maker

Assessing Skill in Synthesis and Creative Thinking:

1. One-Sentence Summary:
Students answer the questions “Who does what to whom, when, where, how, and why?”
(WDWWWWHW) about a given topic and then creates a single informative,
grammatical, and long summary sentence.

2. Word Journal:
Involves a 2-part response; 1st the student summarizes a short text in a single word and
2nd the student writes 1-2 paragraphs explaining the word choice

3. Approximate Analogies:
Students simply complete the 2nd half of an analogy—a is to b as x is to y; described as
approximate because rigor of formal logic is not required.

4. Concept Maps:
Students draw or diagram the mental connections they make between a major concept
and other concepts they have learned.

5. Invented Dialogues:
Students synthesize their knowledge of issues, personalities, and historical periods into
the form of a carefully structured illustrative conversation; 2 levels of invention (select
and weave quotes from primary sources or invent reasonable quotes that fit characters
and context).
 6. Annotated Portfolios:
Students assemble a very limited number of examples of creative work and supplement
with own commentary on significance of examples.

Assessing Skill in Problem Solving

1. Problem Recognition Tasks:
Students recognize and identify particular problem types

2. What’s the Principle:

Students identify principle or principles to solve problems of various types

3. Documented Problem Solutions:

Students track in a written format the steps they take to solve problems as if for a “show
& tell”

4. Audio- and Videotaped Protocols:

Students work through a problem solving process and it is captured to allow instructors to
assess metacognition (learner’s awareness of and control of thinking)

Assessing Skill in Application and Performance

1. Directed Paraphrasing:
Students paraphrase part of a lesson for a specific audience.

2. Demonstrating Ability:
Demonstrating ability to translate highly specialized information into language the clients
or customers can understand.

3. Application Cards:
Students generate examples of real-work applications for important principles,
generalizations, theories or procedures.

4. Student-Generated Test Questions:

Students generate test questions and model answers for critical areas of learning.

5. Human Tableau or Class Modeling:

Students transform and apply their learning into doing by physically modeling a process
or representing an image.
 6. Paper or Project Prospectus:
Students create a brief plan for a paper or project based on your guiding questions.

Assessing Students’ Awareness of Their Attitudes and Values

1. Classroom Opinion Polls:
Students indicate degree of agreement or disagreement with a statement or prompt.

2. Double-entry Journals:
Students record and respond to significant passages of text.

3. Profiles of Admiral Individuals:

Students write a brief description of the characteristics of a person they admire in a field
related to the course.

4. Everyday Ethical Dilemma:

Students respond to a case study that poses a discipline-related ethical dilemma.

5. Course-related Self-Confidence Surveys:

Students complete an anonymous survey indicating their level of confidence in mastering
the course material.

Assessing Students’ Self-Awareness as Learners:

1. Focused Autobiographical Sketches:
Students write a brief description of a successful learning experience they had relevant to
the course material.

2. Interest/Knowledge/Skills Checklists:
Students complete a checklist survey to indicate their knowledge, skills and interest in
various course topics.

3. Goal Ranking and Matching:

Students list and prioritize 3 to 5 goals they have for their own learning in the course.

4. Self-Assessment Ways of Learning:

Students compare themselves with several different “learning styles” profiles to find the
most likely match.

Assessing Course-Related Learning and Study Skills, Strategies, and

Behaviors:
 1. Productive Study-Time Logs:
Students complete a study log to record the quantity and quality of time spent studying
for a specific course.

2. Punctuated Lectures:
Students briefly reflect then create a written record of their listening level of a lecture.
Repeat twice in the same lecture and 2-times over 2 to 3 weeks.

3. Process Analysis:
Students outline the process they take in completing a specified assignment.

4. Diagnostic Learning Logs:

Students write to learn by identifying, diagnosing, and prescribing solutions to their own
learning problems.

Assessing Learner Reactions to Teachers and Teaching:

1. Chain Notes:
On an index card that is distributed in advance, each student responds to an open-ended
prompt about his or her mental activity that is answered in less than a minute.

2. Electronic Survey Feedback:

Students respond to a question or short series of questions about the effectiveness of the
course.

3. Teacher-designed Feedback Forms:

Students respond to specific questions through a focused feedback form about the
effectiveness of a particular class session.

4. Group Instructional Feedback Technique:

Students respond to three questions related to the student’s learning in the course.

5. Classroom Assessment Quality Circles:

A group or groups of students provide the instructor with ongoing assessment of the
course through structured interactions.

Assessing Learner Reactions to Class Activities, Assignments, and Materials:

1. RSQC2 (Recall, Summarize, Question, Connect and Comment):
 Students write brief statements that recall, summarize, question, connect and comment on
meaningful points from previous class.

2. Group-Work Evaluation:
Students complete a brief survey about how their group is functioning and make
suggestions for improving the group process.

3. Reading Rating Sheets:

Students complete a form that rates the effectiveness of the assigned readings.

4. Assignment Assessments:
Students respond to 2 or 3 open-ended questions about the value of an assignment to their
learning.

5. Exam Evaluations:
Students provide feedback about an exam’s learning value and/or format.

Q.5 Describe theoretical perspectives and models of professional development.

Ans.

Introduction:
Distance education poses the problems of professional development in a particularly acute form.
These problems have been defined, broadly speaking, in relation to debates about the relation
between theory and practice:
 does theory address issues which concern practitioners as they do their job?
 how is theory applied to practice?
 what counts as theory: are academic disciplines the only valid basis for the development
of theory?
 could there be a theory of practice, developed by practitioners themselves reflecting on
their own direct professional experience?
These issues are confronted in a particularly acute form in the distance education context
precisely because there are so few opportunities for face to face contact and therefore for the
participant sharing which is the life blood of so much staff development.
However, there is potential in distance education for the achievement of more than a narrow
banking concept of learning and in the area of professional development, for more than a
utilitarian form of updating.
Multi-media course materials and carefully designed project assessment are just two of the
strategies which can be used to engage students in deep rather than surface learning, and to
enable them to relate course content to their own direct experience.
Stainton Rogers for example, reports the success with which materials can be used in areas
where there is very significant emotional content and where some might argue against any form
of distance learning:
One of the most effective teaching items I have observed in use is a tape-recording of one
woman’s problems - and her emotional reactions - arising from caring for her elderly mother ...
No class teacher’s description could have the impact of this harrowing story as told by the person
who experienced it.
Stainton Rogers identifies two major advantages in using a multi-media package of materials: the
wider range of learning experiences which can be documented and portrayed, and the creation of
a basis of common experience through course study which learners can use in their interactions
with each other.
Group sessions are thus freed for the process of mutual interaction and engagement with new
ideas, rather than the communication of material by a tutor in order to enable the process to
begin.
There is evidence therefore that distance education can be used successfully to communicate
different approaches to good practice and to the development of understanding within
professions such as nursing and social welfare.
It does not of course resolve the basic problem of which elements of a large body of theory to
present and how to work with practitioners in appropriating such knowledge and developing
theoretical perspectives which can be productive in their own context.
Usher and colleagues have commented on these issues as they apply to the professional
development of adult educators and have suggested a move away from the technical rationality
model which sees practice only in terms of the application of rules or principles derived from
theory.
These issues have been most consistently addressed in relation to teaching within compulsory
education. Stenhouse and his colleagues developed the model of teacher as researcher during the
1970s, at a time when it might have seemed possible that the profession would develop in a
fashion which would allow time for teachers to engage in problem definition, data collection and
analysis as well as teaching. Research, particularly the action research model, was promoted as
an informative and sensitising process, aspects of which might be undertaken by practitioners
themselves as a means of refining their awareness of interaction and outcomes in teaching.

Coaching & Mentoring:

Coaching and mentoring is a research-based, highly effective professional development model
that has been used extensively by Project Venture in Ph'enix, which is a diverse consortium
consisting of urban, suburban and rural school districts. At the heart of the districts' professional
development model are 21 Technology Mentor Teachers (TMTs) who work with more than 330
teachers across the consortium.
This model has built great capacity and created a natural process of sustainability by having a
significant number of highly trained teachers who are becoming technology leaders in their
schools.
Our project's evaluator, Dee Ann Spencer, Ph.D., found that 65.6% of teachers were integrating
technology to a great or seamless extent by the end of the project's third year (2000).

Face-to-Face Training:
Face-to-face training is a widely used model of professional development that can be found in
the majority of TICG projects.
During four-week period, teachers work in a residential setting where they often work
collaboratively for long hours to perfect their integrated units or solve their technology issues.
Most of their face-to-face training happens right in the teachers' classrooms. A substitute from
within the community of each district is secured for the specified training days and is present in
the classroom to support the training in a variety of ways.
One way is for the trainer to model the integration of technology into the teacher's curriculum
with the substitute and teacher present, which makes it a team-teaching approach. By having the
same substitute on a regular basis, the substitute becomes familiar with the teacher and students,
as well as gains technology skills that enhance his or her ability to support the district in the
future.

Train-the-Trainer Model:
Two "master" teachers are selected from each of the 81 schools, and they provide professional
development workshops that enable teachers to earn CEU credit for teacher recertification.

Web-Based Training:
The primary goal of these courses is to prepare classroom teachers to teach online in the Virtual
High School, an Internet-based school.
Apart from the underlying epistemological problems of the theory-practice relation, there are
also context specific factors which doubtless operate in the ease of experience reported by Usher
et al. Courses aimed (in part if not completely) at goals of professional development have
particular problems arising from the university context.
Universities and higher education generally, characteristically value abstract analytical
knowledge more highly than other forms of knowing, and assess in terms of outcomes defined
typically in the form of academic essays.
Time is needed therefore, and a structured context of the kind provided by an Open University
assignment, to explore the concrete implications (even in terms of the implications for my
student and my teaching/facilitation) of abstract theories.

REFRENCES
1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/

2. http://people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/critical.htm#:~:text=Critical%20approaches
%20examine%20social%20conditions%20in%20order%20to%20uncover
%20hidden%20structures.&text=Critical%20social%20science%20makes
%20a,conditions%20that%20affect%20our%20lives.
3. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/

4. http://people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/critical.htm#:~:text=Critical%20approaches
%20examine%20social%20conditions%20in%20order%20to%20uncover
%20hidden%20structures.&text=Critical%20social%20science%20makes
%20a,conditions%20that%20affect%20our%20lives.
5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-theory

6. https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-class

7. https://www.coursehero.com/sg/introduction-to-sociology/theories-of-social-class/

8. https://brewminate.com/history-and-theories-of-social-class/
9. https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/gordon_gordon_berliner_aber_changing_p
aradigms_education.pdf
10. https://www.britannica.com/topic/education/Progressive-education

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classroom_Assessment_Techniques

12. https://provost.tufts.edu/celt/files/Classroom-Assessment-Techniques_Mihram-.pdf

13. https://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/assessment-and-evaluation/classroom-
assessment-techniques-quick-strategies-to-check-student-learning-in-class/
14. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002827.htm

15. https://thejournal.com/Articles/2003/06/01/Models-of-Professional-
Development.aspx?Page=3