5 Teaching Strategies to Transform Your Lesson Plans

Today on TeacHHUB.com, we look at some teaching strategies that are designed to transform your lesson plans.

The article, penned by frequent contributing writer (and seasoned elementary school educator) Janelle Cox, lays out five ways that teachers can positively alter their lesson plans for the better.

Janelle’s ideas include:

Use the Goldilocks Approach for Planning Objectives
Use Visual Learning Strategies
Give Students a Choice
And More!

Janelle sums up her article like this: “If your goal is to create transformational lessons, then they should focus on enriching the lives of your students. You can do this by carefully crafting your objectives so they are not too broad or too specific, but just right. In addition to that, they should be engaging and go beyond the textbook, incorporate visuals, and give students the opportunity of choice. When you do this, along with planning your assessment first, then you have ultimately transformed your lessons so that your students will be engaged and motivated to learn.”

How do you transform your lessons? Do you have any specific teaching strategies that you like to do? Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas in the comment section, we would love to hear what you have to say.

The Attention Dimension

Ever wonder what to do with kids in your classes that have ADHD? They can be frustrating, for you and the other kids in your class. Often, they can derail an entire class for an entire hour – or for an entire year.

Also, it’s important to note that approximately three kids is each class have been diagnosed with ADHD, and only half get treatment – if they are identified at all.

Today on TeachHUB.com, new contributing writer James Paterson looks at some teaching strategies educators can use to help them get ADHD-afflicted kids to coexist and even flourish in your class.

James offers up 12 tips today, including:

Report your concerns

Collect data

Consider seating

And more!

In a paragraph devoted to seating arrangements, James writes: “CHADD (Children and Adults with ADHD)recommends seating these students away from distractions and not paired with another student who is distractible. The organization also suggests seating near the teacher or a responsible classmate, and other arrangements that may help in a class where attention issues arise.”

James’ last paragraph reads lime this: “Teachable moments. Find time to teach these students basic organizational skills that they have never had an opportunity to try or practice. Using a planner is key. DuPaul says new research shows such times spent by teachers on these skills can pay off dramatically for students with attention issues, especially those in high school and middle school.”

Teaching Strategies to Deal with a Poorly Designed Textbook

We’ve all been there: The school district or school administration saddles us with a clunker of a textbook that we must utilize. Maybe it’s poorly written, maybe it’s outdated, maybe its ancillary materials like quizzes or websites are sub-par.

Whatever the case, you’re stuck with it. Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox looks at some teaching strategies designed to help you through that terrible tome.

Janelle, who is a seasoned elementary school educator based in Upstate New York, includes the following helpful teaching strategiesfor overcoming bad textbooks:

Have Students Do a Walk-Through of the Textbook
Look for Additional Online Resources
Use the Textbook Only as a Resource
Develop Students’ Ability to Analyze and Critique the Book
And More!

Janelle sums up her article like this: “Poorly designed textbooks or ones that are out of date can be utilized as long as you think of them as just one of the many resources you are using to have students gain knowledge about a topic. With a little forethought and creativity, these “Awful” textbooks can actually provide a useful guide for learning.”

Why the Need of new Examination System in Pakistan

WHY THE NEED OF NEW EXAMINATION SYSTEM IN PAKISTAN

This study focused on evaluating the quality of the examination system of Pakistan. Pakistan education is going down day by day. The purpose of this study is to find the causes of this detracted process in Pakistan. The objectives are: to evaluate the examination system in Pakistan, to find the causes of this deteriorated examination system, to suggest some measure to improve the examination system in Pakistan.

The current examination system is obsolete; it did not fulfill the requirement of 21th century. This education and examination system was left for us by British after the independence of Pakistan in 1947. The purpose of this education system was to prepare clerical staff in the subcontinent to run the day to day activities of the offices. For which the British officers were not ready to do it. They wanted people who help them, e.g., to control the mass illiterate population, they want people with no brain; they need the people who can count and calculate. They need people who can write reports in English for their officers. Who can extend their stay in the subcontinent. For this purpose they design an education system that can produce brainless people, who can\’t think just act on the orders of their officers. They do not want leaders and thinkers in the occupied territory. They want people who obey order not to argue and raise the questions.

Unfortunately after the independence of Pakistan, no one gives serious thoughts to improve education system in Pakistan. Especially, after 1971 when democracy was restored in the country and the feudal and capitalist who took control of the country, they imposed the same colonial education system for common people. For elite class they established private schoolssystem which was very expensive. To prevent people from getting good education, they implemented education polices that hinders the efforts of people to get good education. Following are the major

Reasons / Hinders of public education system in Pakistan.

· Medium of instruction

· Curriculum

· Examination system

· Bureaucracy of Pakistan

· The policy makers

· The elite class of Pakistan

In this article the focus will be on Examination system of Pakistan. However, to have good examination system we need to have a look at the Examination system of developed countries. The Examination system of the United States of America is a very good model.

In their examination system Students are marked on course they took in each subject studied from K to 12th class and the Grade Point Average (GPA) is calculated. Marks are dependent on their performance in different area, including student\’s performance in tests in the school, participation in class discussions, homework assignments, and school projects which they have selected.

Examination System in the US

High schools issue school ‘transcript\’ for each student showing their marks and grades, summarizing the courses taken. If a student wishes to go to college he can submit copies of his transcript to the college. College or university acceptance is also based upon personal recommendations from teachers and eligibility criteria. In some colleges and universities these school mark\’s sheet are not accepted. They only accept SAT and AST Test score for admission. For those institution\’s Students have to take national college aptitude tests during their last two years in high school, some colleges require Achievement (Ach) Tests. These Tests are based on multiple-choice general type test, but they are designed to measure students aptitude and verbal and mathematical skills.

The known and widely used tests are the American College Testing (ACT) programme and the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), both of these tests are recognized by accredited universities for admission.

The total SAT score is 1,600 in which half is for mathematical and half for verbal skills, with the average score usually between 900 and 1,000. Students must score over 650 in each section or a combined total of over 1,300.

High school exit exam is a test that a student must pass to receive his high school diploma. Sometimes states have a series of standardized exams for this purpose. These tests are often called “end-of-course exams” at the end of completion high school courses in various core subjects. In some states they require students to pass end-of-course exams in addition to a comprehensive exit exam. California, recently suspended its administration of exit exams.

Texas requires students to pass two types of exit exams. One the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), and the other is the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), at end-of-course exams when a student finishes a course. The TAKS test, test language, arts, math, science and social studies. While STAAR includes subjects like: English; Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra; Biology, Chemistry, and Physics; World History, US History, and World Geography.

“Not too long ago more than half of U.S. states required that students pass an exam to graduate from high school. That is changing, with a number of states dropping their exit exams — but a good number still require them, and that, this post explains, is a big and unnecessary problem for many students”

A national uprising has highlighted the misuse and overuse of standardized testing that hurts students. Now different state is looking for way to end high school exit testing. In the last few years, 10 states have repealed or delayed high school exit exams. South Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and California even decided to issue diplomas to thousands of those students who have been denied due to scores on discontinued tests. The reasons for this retreat is research, which researcher conducted on exit testing, which shows that exit tests hurt the students. They increase dropout rates from education.

The Gates-funded New America think tank 2014 study, “The Case against Exit Exams,” declared, “New evidence has reinforced the conclusion that exit exams disproportionately affect a subset of students, without producing positive outcomes for most.” The study further concluded that “have tended to add little value for most students, but have imposed costs on already at-risk ones.”

In the USA there is no federal mandate requiring high school exit testing. Since the law No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001, federal law has required testing once of the students during the grades 9–12 in math, English language arts, and science.

Pakistan examination system

The examination system of Pakistan is based on colonial era, the education system that British imposed on us. The purpose of this education system was to produce only clerical Staff in subcontinent. After independence of Pakistan, different governments design education polices, but all these polices were fruitless. The demand of these polices was the quality in education, but the Burdon was put on the student\’s shoulders. The policy makers adopted old British era examination system. However with time they make it harder for the students to pass the exams and they called it a step forward toward quality education. The restoration of democracy in Pakistan in after 1971, the feudal took control of the government and the sole purpose of their education polices was to prevent common man from geting education in government public schools. In these polices the examination system is made harder and harder to increase dropout rate. Multiple time medium of instruction was changed. Board exams were introduced in different stages of education due to which millions of students drop out from the school without completing matric education. One of the worst experiment was in examination system was the combine exam of 9th and 10th class. This experiment was continued for more than two decades. Always the result of this exam was 20 to 25 percent pass. While majority of the fail students were dropout of schools without completing their matric education. Later in 2000 this experiment was stopped and 9th and 10th separate exams were started which improve the passing rate of the students and decrease the dropout from the schools.

After 2018 election people were hoping that PTI government will change the education, and will give the nation a good education policy, but they are also fail to do so. In the process they make a huge mistake to change the requirement criteria for employment of teacher without holding B.Ed. degree to get jobs in the school. This was not a very thoughtful decision because millions of trained teacher are without jobs and they started employing untrained teachers. The reason was the arrogance of the minister who gives an interview to newspapers for changing employment criteria. After objections on his decision from educationist and teachers, the KPK government made it compulsory to keep the words of their minister on the cost of education. Now there is a rumor that government are going for combine 9th and 10th class board exam. It shows that politicians did not learn from their fast mistakes. They may be the puppet of feudal and elite class who do not wants educated voters. This system suits feudal that needs illiterate people to vote for them in the election, the voters who don\’t know their rights, and the voter who doesn\’t ask questions. These voter still votes for the corrupt politicians who had been proven guilty on international level, who have billions of dollars and property abroad in several countries. However, still these mass illiterate people think that they are innocent and they vote for them again and again. They create hurdles in every step to prevent people from education and board exams are their best weapon to do so. A Ph.D. research study conducted in Punjab on the Issue of out of School Children in BISE Gujranwala.

Table 1.1 Five Years Class 9^th Annual Examination Result of BISE Gujranwala

Year	Applied	Appeared	Passed	Passed Percentage		Failed Percentage
2012	225031	221023	88649	40.11	59.89
2013	213547	207883	79200	38.09	61.91
2014	243128	240088	87334	36.38	63.62
2015	252548	248537	100857	40.58	59.42
2016	244454	240105	129670	54.01	45.99

Source: BISE Gujranwala, 2016

“Table shows that 45.99 percent students in 2016, 59.42 percent in 2015 and 63.62

Percent in 2014, 61.91 percent in 2013 and 59.89 percent in 2012 respectively, failed in class 9 annual examinations at BISE Gujranwala. This is an indication that most of class 9 pupils are not able to complete the secondary school certificate, and consequently drop out. (Mughal, 2018)”

While the overall enrollments in Pakistan Secondary/High Schools, in Class IX-X were 3.6 million students in 2016-17. The average pass rate was 40%, while failing rate was 60%. With this rate of failure 2.4 million (2400000) students dropped out of the school without complementing their matriculation certificate.

While in Higher Secondary Classes XI-XII the total number of 1.75 million students enrolled, with the average pass rate in Pakistan approximately half million students\’ and 1.25 million dropped out at this level. In 2018-19 approximately 1.84 million will appear in the examination in which 1342850 (1.3 million) will be dropped out.

Table 1.2 Enrollment in High and Secondary Vocational Institutes

Enrollment in High and Secondary

Table 1.2 shows that during 1981 and 2007 approximately 19077200 (190.77 million) passed the exam while approximately 28615800 (286.15 million) failed the examination and dropped out of school.

Table 1.3 enrollment in high and higher secondary schools

Table 1.3: Numbers are in thousands

Table 1.3 shows that from 2012 to 2018 the numbers of students enrolled were 20508600 (205.08 million). . Keeping in view average of fail students every year at this level, the number of fail students will be approximately 12305160 (123.05 million).

While in higher secondary/inter 9342700 (9.34 million) were enrolled and the number of failed rate at this level based on the average will be approximately 6673357 (6.67 million).

What is the purpose of examination system?

The purpose of examination is multi-fold; to evaluate the students learning achievements, to evaluate the teaching of teachers. Is it a right approach of examination system? A good approach of examination system is to give a comprehensive chance to students for learning. The purpose of education examination system is to improve the learning and reading skill of the students.

The second purpose is to evaluate the teaching skills of the teachers, for this purpose the country need such examination system which help to achieve both objectives of the examination system. The current board exams are very old and outdated. It did not improve the quality of education, but it decrease the numbers of dropout students in the country. It is the major reason that we are still lacking behind in education from other countries.

· The first purpose of education examination system is to improve the learning and reading skill of the students. A good collection of objective type questions from the textbook up to three hundred questions which cover every page of the book. To solve these objectives, he will learn to read, it will also help him to comprehend and learn the information that is provided in the textbook. This test must also include inductive and deductive type questions, so it develops the reasoning skills of the students. This objective type test should be given as home base test and they should be given enough time to read the textbook and found the answers. This home based objectives type assignment could be divided in two parts. One hundred and fifty questions in first semester and the rest one hundred and fifty questions in the second semester for every textbook.

· The second purpose is to evaluate the teaching skills of the teachers. With objectives type examination we can evaluate the teaching skills of the teacher on the base of the performance ofstudents\’ achievements in the test. A good result will show that teacher was committed to his teaching and he used every possible way to develop the reading and comprehension skills of the students. When the teacher knows that he will be accountable for the bad result of his students, he will make it possible that every student understand what he is teaching. For this very purpose the country need such examination system, which help to achieveboth the objectives of the examination. The current examination system is outdated. It did not achieve the literacy rate what we are looking for. Despite it creates hinders in the improvement of literacy rate.

In most of the develop countries objective type test is implemented for the evaluation of students learning and teacher evaluation. In the area where reading and writing skills assessment is require there they use subjective type test, e.g., English, mathematics, etc.

Conclusion

From analysis it is crystal clear that what we are doing with the education on the name of quality and board examinations. It is very hard and time-consuming to calculate the accurate drop out for the last 40 years (1980-2020) for secondary (9th and 10th) and higher secondary (intermediate) level. For this purpose data was collected using internet and easily available books, research and other government documents. Majority data is easily available, but five years of data from 2008 to 2011 is not available. The data were calculated on the bases of average of available data for the missing years, the margin of error is five percent on both sides.

From the data and its analysis it is evident that in last forty years 47020000 (470.2 million) students were dropped out from schools without completing their secondary school education and 29000000 (290 million) students were from the higher/ inter level. It shows that we are dropping out millions of students every year at different stages of school on the name of quality and board examinations. Most develop country like the United States could not afford that kind of strict examination system where the literacy rate is very high. That why majority of states are ending school exit exams. The students who are weak in a particular subject are to attend summer school system. In summer school system both students and teachers have to attend school in summer vacation because both are responsible for bad result.

Suggestions and Recommendations

1. We need to end board exams and any other drop out exams like United States; the majority of their states are ending school exit exams.

2. We need to change the internal examination system, to a system where students learn and acquire knowledge from examination and evaluate teacher teaching on students achievements.

3. Home objective type test is recommended for every subject. Three multiple choice questions from each page of textbook, all the questions should be arranged randomly. About every objective type question the page number of the respective question should be mentioned so the student read the page and find out the answer. The purpose of this drill is that student read every page of a textbook three times to build the reading habit of the students. Do not give a very easily discoverable objective type question.

4. For improving writing ability in Urdu, English and local language internal subjective type exam is recommended after every three months. Written test in mathematics and Islamic studies.

5. For improving writing skills of the students, dairy writing must be compulsory for students, at least five sentences in each language subjects.

6. These home objective type test should administered by parts for each subject and at the end of the year a short objective type test should administered from that home base test and in the subject where reading and writing assessment is required a subjective type test should be administered. The students who did not pass this test, they will attended classes in the summer vacations along their teachers. Afterward they should be promoted to next class.

7. For the purpose of admission in colleges or universities SAT type Test should be implemented during their last two years in higher secondary school, some colleges/ universities already require NTS Test. The score of this test could also be used for recruitment purposes. These Tests should be based on multiple-choice type test in textbooks subjects which they are studying at this level, with additional papers to measure student’s aptitude, general, verbal and mathematical skills.

References

Burdett , N., & Everett, H. (n.d.). The impact of an examination board in Pakistan on student outcomes. Retrieved December 15, 2019, from https://www.riseprogramme.org/sites/www.riseprogramme.org/files/publications/24_Burdett_RISEconferencepaper.pdf.

Mughal, A. W. (2018). Investigating the Issue of Out of School Children in Rural Pakistan: Implications for Policymakers. Loughborough University.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved December 15, 2019, from http://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/50_years_statistics/vol1/12.pdf.

Pakistan Education Statistics. (2005). Retrieved December 15, 2019, from http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters/10-edu.pdf.

Pakistan Economic Survey . (2018). Retrieved December 15, 2019, from http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapters_19/10-Education.pdf.

Why High School Exit Exams Are a Waste of Time Valerie Strauss – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/04/18/why-high-school-exit-exams-are-a-waste-of-time/

Educational Psychology

Concept of educational Psychology

What is psychology? The term \”psychology\” is derived from two Greek words – psyche (soul) and logos (science or study). Thus, literally it means study or science of soul. But now it is no more considered as science of soul. It has moved away from this focus and established itself as a scientific discipline which deals with the various processes and behavior of organism. Most of the contemporary psychologists agree on a definition of psychology as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes of organism.

There are three key terms in the above definition of psychology which have been clarified below: Scientific study means using techniques such as observation, description, and experimental investigation to collect information and then organizing this information. Mental processes refer to private and cognitive process such as attention, perception, remembering (memory), problem-solving, reasoning, decision-making, feelings, thinking, motives etc.

Definitions of Psychology • Psychology is the science of the activities of individual in relation to the environment (Woodworth). • Psychology is the positive science of behaviour (Watson). • Psychology is the science of human behavior and experience (Cruze). • Psychology is the science of mental activity of an organism (Guilford). • According to Charles E. Skinner, psychology deals with the responses to any and every kind of situation that life presents. By responses or behaviour is meant all forms of processes, adjustments, activities, and experiences of the organism.

Behaviour refers to all the actions or reactions of an organism (person or animal) in response to external or internal stimuli. The behavior of an individual, in a broad sense, refers to anything the individual does. According to Leagans (1961), behavior refers to what an individual knows (Knowledge), what s/he can do (skill – mental or physical), what s/he thinks (attitude), and what s/he actually does.

Behaviour may be simple or complex, short or enduring. Human behavior may be overt (expressed outside) or covert (expressed inside). While symbolic adoption is an example of covert behaviour, use adoption is an example of overt behavior. Both overt and covert behaviour can be measured. People who study psychological phenomena are not necessarily limited to the study of human beings only; they also study the behaviour of animals. They study the behavior and mental processes of individual not of group/community. Thus, when they are studying groups, the focus is generally on how individuals perform within the group rather than the study of the group as a whole.

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: MEANING AND DEFINITIONS

What is education? In order to know the educational psychology; we have to first understand what is education. The world education is derived from Latin word educare which means to bring-up. Education is also derived from another Latin world educere which means to lead out. Education as educere is more acceptable as it means leading an individual from ignorance to knowledge.

Education can be defined as the process of imparting or acquiring knowledge and habits through instruction or study. It can also be defined as a process in which human behaviour is modified so as to be in closer agreement with some model or ideal determined by the values of society. If education is to be effective, it should result in changes in all the behavioural components.

What is educational psychology?

Educational Psychology is a combination or overlapping of two separate fields of study; psychology and education. It is a distinct discipline with its own theories, research methods, problems and techniques. Educational psychology is distinct from other fields of psychology due to its focus on understanding the processes of teaching and learning that takes place in formal environments. Educational psychologists study what people think and do as they teach and learn a particular curriculum in a particular environment where education and training are intended to take place. They help in developing instructional methods and materials used to train people in both educational and work settings. They are also concerned with research on issues of relevance for education, counseling and learning problems.

Educational psychology deals with behavior of human beings in educational situation for definitions of educational psychology). This means that educational psychology is concerned with the study of human behavior or human personality, its growth, development, guidance under the social process of education. Education is possible in human beings; hence, human learning is the central core of educational psychology.

Definitions of Educational Psychology

• Educational psychology is that branch of psychology, which deals with teaching and learning. It takes its meaning from education, social process and from psychology, a behavioral science (Skinner).

• Educational Psychology is the discipline concerned with teaching and learning processes; applies the methods and theories of psychology and has its own as well (Woolfolk, 1995).

SCOPE OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Educational psychology deals with the behaviour of human beings in educational situations. Its main concerned is to identify various psychological factors affecting teaching and learning process. It describes and explains the learning according to scientifically determined principles and facts concerning human behaviour. Educational psychology addresses the questions – “why do some individual learn more than others\” and \”what can be done to improve that learning.\” Therefore, its subject matter is revolved around teaching and learning process and educational psychologists attempt to discover:

• The extent to which the factors of heredity and environment contribute to learning.

• The nature of the learning process.

• The educational significance of individual differences in rate and limit of learning.

• The inner change that occur during learning.

• The relation of teaching procedures to leaning outcomes.

• The most effective techniques for evaluating progress in learning.

• The relative effect upon an individual of formal learning as compared with incidental or informal learning experiences.

• To value the scientific attitude towards education.

• The psychological impact upon learner’s attitude of sociological conditions.

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

The importance of educational psychology in agricultural extension is immense as both disciplines deal with human behavior in educational environment. Following are the some of the reasons which explain the importance of educational psychology in agricultural extension.

• Educational psychology helps the extension agent to know the learner, his interest, attitudes, aptitude, level of aspiration, intelligence, interests, individual behavior in group, etc. which plays a major role in one\’s learning.

• Its main concern is on teaching and learning. This helps in formulating training programmes for improving the knowledge and skill of extension agent and farmers. It also helps in selection of teaching methods and aids for organizing effective learning situations and suggests technique of learning as well as teaching.

• It helps in imparting better education by organizing the subject matter of learning experience, preparation of different text books, development of assessment patterns, etc for heterogeneous learners.

• Educational psychology helps in acquainting learner with the mechanism of heredity and environment.

• It also deals with the problem-solving which is very important for extension agent to develop problem-solving skills amongst farmers.

• It helps extension agent to find causes of prejudices, the habit of sticking to old practices of farming and ways of doing things, the doubts and lack of confidence and factors affecting motivation.

• It also helps them to know the emotions and feelings of learner

Need and importance of the study of educational psychology for the teachers

1. Understand the developmental characteristics of the children

2. Understand the nature of class-room learning

3. To be aware of individual differences

4. Be aware with effective teaching methods

5. Understand the learning problems of the children

6. Know how to assess the learning outcomes of the students

7. Understand the principles of curriculum constructions.

8. Know the factors responsible for the mental ill-health and maladjustment.

9. Predict the behaviour of students on the basis of research studies.

10. Organize educational activities for exceptional students.

11. Help students develop positive attitude.

12. Understand student’s dynamics.

13. Organize remedial instructional activities for children facing special difficulties.

14. Know the nature of motivation in learning.

15. Be aware of the possibilities and limitations of transfer of learning.

16. Be familiar with the conditions associated with juvenile delinquency.

17. Be aware of the causes of emotional disturbance in children.

18. Make use of innovations particularly relating to method.

19. Handle the problems of discipline in the classroom.

20. Keep psychological considerations in framing of time table.

Difference between group guidance and group counseling

Group counseling has become the preferred term to describe \”counseling with more than one individual simultaneously.

The age groups for which this approach to group counseling has been directed include: preschool and early school (ages 5-9); preadolescent (ages 9-13); adolescent (ages 13-20); and adult. For each group the treatment conditions are set forth including preferred size of the group, group composition, setting and media utilized, and the nature of counselor intervention. The basic contention of the developmental approach to group counseling is that different age groups require significantly different treatment conditions. For example, the size of a counseling group of five-or six-year-olds would be about 3 or 4; nine-and ten-year-olds 5 or 6; fifteen-and sixteen-year-olds, 6 to 8; and adults, 8 to 10. The treatment setting for those five to nine years of age would be a playroom; for those approximately nine to thirteen years of age, an \”activity\” or game room, outdoor play areas, and a conference room; for adolescents and adults, a conference room would be preferred in most instances. The media would vary with the age level of the counselee with greater emphasis on toys and play materials for the young child, games and crafts for the preadolescent, and counselee talk for adolescents and adults.

1. Children

In the school setting, group counseling is often suggested for children who display behaviour problems, such as excessive fighting, chronic tiredness, violent outbursts, extreme withdrawal, inability to get along with peers, and a neglect of appearance.

In small groups, children have the opportunity to express their feelings about a wide range of personal problems. Children frequently experience learning difficulties in school as a result of inner turmoil. Some of these children suffer from anxiety over broken homes and disturbed family relationships. If the group is structured properly, these children can receive psychological assistance at an early age, and will stand a better chance of dealing effectively with the tasks they face later in life.

2. Adolescents

For most people, adolescence is a difficult period. It is characterized by paradoxes.

Adolescents strive for closeness, and yet fear intimacy and often avoid it. They rebel against control, and yet want direction and structure. While they push and test the limits imposed on them, they see limits as a sign of caring. They are not treated as mature adults, and yet are expected to act as though they had gained complete autonomy.

They are typically self-centered and pre-occupied with their own worlds, and yet are expected to deal with social demands and expand their horizons. They are asked to face and accept reality and, at the same time, many avenues of escape are available in the form of drugs and alcohol.

With adolescence come some of these conflicts: dependence/independence struggles, acceptance/rejection conflicts, identity crises, the search for security, pressure to conform, and the need for approval. Because of the stresses of the adolescent period, these years can be lonely, and it is not unusual for an adolescent to feel that there is no-one who can help.

Group counseling can be useful in dealing with these feelings of isolation, because it gives adolescents the means to express conflicting feelings, explore self-doubts, and realize that they share these concerns with their peers. A group allows adolescents to question openly their values, and talk freely about their deepest concerns. In the group, adolescents can learn to communicate with their peers, benefit from the modeling provided by the leader, and can safely experiment with reality and test their limits.

A unique value of a group is that it offers adolescents a chance to be instrumental for one another\’s growth and change. Because of the opportunities for interaction in groups, the members can express their concerns and be genuinely heard, and they can help one another gain increased self-acceptance.

3. Adults

A wide variety of special interest groups can be developed for adults of all ages. For example, groups can be formed for couples, single parents, parents who want to explore problems they have relating to their children, middle-aged people who return to college or change careers, and adults who want to explore developmental concerns, such as the search for identity.

On college campuses, groups have become increasingly popular as a way of meeting the diverse needs of students, who range from young adults to the elderly. Such groups can be created for relatively healthy students who experience a developmental crisis, or students who want to talk openly with others about their concerns. The purpose of these groups is to offer participants an opportunity to explore ways of changing certain aspects of their lives.

In group situations, college students of all ages deal with several different issues. They may include issues regarding career decisions, male/female relationships, the need for, and fear of, love, sex-role identity issues, educational plans, the meaning of life, challenging one\’s value system, and the meaning of work. There are also issues regarding feelings of loneliness and isolation, learning to form intimate relationships, exploring marital conflicts, and other concerns related to becoming a self-directed adult.

4. The Elderly

As people grow up, they face feelings of isolation, and may struggle with the problem of finding a meaning to life. Some of these older persons may resign themselves to a useless life, for they see little in their future. Like adolescents, the elderly often feel unproductive, unneeded, and unwanted by society. Another problem is that many older people have uncritically accepted myths about ageing.

Themes that are more common to the elderly than other age groups include loneliness, social isolation, losses, poverty, feelings of rejection, and the struggle to find a meaning to life, dependency, and feelings of uselessness, hopelessness and despair. There are also fears of death and dying, grief over another\’s death, sadness over physical and mental deterioration, depression, and regrets over past events. Acceptance can be through listening to their messages, and by not patronizing them. These individuals need support and encouragement, and the chance to talk openly about what they feel, and about the topics which concern them.

A counseling group can do a lot to help the elderly challenge the myths they may have that limit their lives. It can also help them to deal with the developmental tasks that they face. Like any other age-group, they must be able to face them in such a way that they retain their self-respect. Groups can assist the elderly to break out of their isolation, and encourage them to find a new meaning in life.

DEFINITIONS: GROUP GUIDANCE, GROUP COUNSELING, AND GROUP Psychotherapy

Group counseling lies on a continuum between group guidance and group psychotherapy. Group guidance is organized to prevent the development of problems. The content includes educational-vocational-personal -social information which is not otherwise systematically taught in academic courses. The typical setting is the classroom which ranges in size from approximately twenty to thirty-five. Providing accurate information for use in improved understanding of self and others is the direct emphasis in group guidance, whereas attitude change frequently is an indirect outcome or goal. The leadership is provided by a classroom teacher or a counselor who utilizes a variety of instructional media and group dynamics concepts in motivating students and in obtaining group interaction. Instructional media include unfinished stories, puppet plays, movies, films, filmstrips, guest speakers, audio-and video -taped interviews, student reports, and the like. Group dynamics concepts refer to the process employed in group guidance, such as social dramas, buzz groups, panels, and other related techniques.

The goal of group guidance is to provide students with accurate information which will help them make more appropriate plans and life decisions and, in this sense is prevention-oriented; group counseling is both prevention and remediation oriented. Group counseling is prevention oriented in the sense that the counselee or client is capable of functioning in society, but may be experiencing some \’rough spots\’ in his life. If counseling is successful, the rough spots may be resolved successfully with no serious personality defects incurred.

Group counseling is remedial for those individuals who have entered into a spiral of self-defeating behavior but who are, nevertheless, capable of reversing the spiral without counseling intervention. However with counseling intervention, the counselee is likely to recover more quickly and with fewer emotional scars.

Group counseling is defined as follows. Group counseling is a dynamic interpersonal process focusing on conscious thought and behavior and involving the therapy functions of permissiveness, orientation to reality, catharsis, and mutual trust, caring, understanding, acceptance, and support. The therapy functions are created and nurtured in a small group through the sharing of personal concerns with one\’s peers and the counselor(s). The group counselees are basically normal individuals with various concerns which are not debilitating to the extent requiring extensive personality change. The group counselees may utilize the group interaction to increase understanding and acceptance of values and goals and to learn and/or unlearn certain attitudes and behaviors.

Difference between group guidance and group counseling:

Although the content of group counseling is very similar to group guidance-including educational, vocational, personal, and social concerns-a number of other factors are quite different. First, group guidance is recommended for allschool students on a regularly scheduled basis: group counseling is recommended only for those who are experiencing continuing or temporary problems that information alone will not resolve. Secondly, group guidance makes an indirect attempt to change attitudes and behaviors through accurate information or an emphasis on cognitive or intellective functioning: group counseling make a direct attempt to modify attitudes and behaviors by emphasizing affective involvement. Finally, group guidance is applicable to classroom-size groups, whereas group counseling is dependent upon the development of strong group cohesiveness and the sharing of personal concerns which is most applicable to small, intimate groups.

Group psychotherapy

Group psychotherapy, the third part of the guidance, counseling, therapy continuum, was coined by J. L. Moreno in 1936 (Corsini, 1957). Moreno\’s definition is a general definition: \”Group psychotherapy means simply to treat people in groups (1962, p. 263).\” It is generally accepted that there is a difference in group counseling and group psychotherapy although there is overlap between them.

Brammer and Shostrom (1960) have characterized these differences by the following series of adjectives in which counseling is described as \”educational, supportive, situational, problem solving, conscious awareness, emphasis on \’normal’s\’, and short term. Psychotherapy is characterized by supportive (in a more particular sense), reconstructive, depth analysis, analytical, focus on the unconscious, emphasis on \’neurotics\’ or other severe emotional problems, and long-term. Although these differentiation\’s were applied to individual counseling and psychotherapy, they are equally applicable to group counseling and group psychotherapy.

PURPOSES OF GROUPS

The following are the goals and purposes of groups:

• To grow in self-acceptance and learn not to demand perfection.

• To learn how to trust oneself and others.

• To foster self-knowledge and the development of a unique self-identity.

• To lessen fears of intimacy, and learn to reach out to those one would like to be closer

To.

• To move away from meeting other\’s expectations, and decide for oneself the standards

By which to live.

• To increase self-awareness, and increase the possibilities for choosing and acting.

• To become aware of choices and to make choices wisely.

• To become more sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.

• To clarify values and decide whether, and how, to modify them.

• To find ways of understanding, and resolving, personal problems.

Educational Guidance

Guidance is as old as civilization. In the primitive society, elders in the family offered guidance to the young and to persons in distress. It is true that a very minor percentage of our total population is capable of handling its problems independently without the cooperation and guidance of others. We find that majority of the people do not have either confidence or insight to solve their problems. There have always been people in the past who need occasional help from older or more experienced associates in meeting with their problems of daily life in the society.

Traditionally, in our society, the leader of the family or the local community was supposed to provide the necessary guidance and advice whenever any member of the family or the community needed it. With the passage of time, revolutionary and evolutionary changes have taken place in all walks of life. The variety of jobs, high aspirations of the people and vocational specialization have made the work of guidance very difficult. The head of the family or the leader of local community with the limited knowledge of changed conditions such as globalization, liberalization and consumerism is not capable of providing guidance to the youth of today.

In the last two decades, guidance movement has spread like a wild-fire throughout the world and generated a great amount of enthusiasm and zeal among parents, teachers and social workers who have devoted time to explore its feasibility and the utility for general population including school going adolescents. All are convinced that proper provision of guidance services should be made for children at different age levels for the harmonious development of their personalities in the larger interest of the society and the individual.

Meaning of Guidance:

Guidance is an assistance made available by personally qualified and adequately trained men or women to an individual of any age to help them manage their own life activities, develop their own points of view, make their own decisions and carry out their own burden.

Ordinary Meaning:

Ordinary meaning of guidance is help, assistance and suggestions for progress and showing the way. In that sense is a lifelong process. Man needs guidance throughout his life. He needs it even from his infancy. When a child is born, the world for him is big, buzzing, blooming confusion and he knows nothing. He learns everything from the society. From the mother, he learns how to stand on his feet, from the father, he learns to walk and from the teacher he learns to seek knowledge and education, all learning takes place through guidance. The society guides the individual to learn, to adjust oneself to the physical and social environment.

To sum up we may say that guidance is a personal help rendered by the society to the individual so as to enable him to adjust to the physical and social environment and to solve the problem of life.

Specific Meaning:

Guidance in our society, is comparatively a new field within the larger and more inclusive field of education, and is used as a technical term as the specific meaning. It covers the whole spectrum of education, which starts from the birth of the child and continued till his death. This is a wide meaning of the term, which includes all types of education such as formal, non-formal, informal and vocational etc., which aims to adjust the individual in his environment in an effective way.

In the context of dynamic inter-personal relationships, Carter V. Good has said in dictionary of education (1959), while defining guidance:

“Guidance is a process of dynamic inter-personal relationships designed to influence the attitudes and subsequent behavior of person”.

Guidance is a help to the students in making the best possible adjustment to the situations in the educational institutions and in the home and at the same time facilitates the development of all aspects of the personality. According to Skinner:

“Guidance is a process of helping young person learns to adjust to self, to others and to circumstances”.

Aims of Guidance:

The aims of guidance are the same as those of education in a democratic society like ours. Just like education, guidance services are also based on the principle that the individual is a crucial importance in an educational institution. The aims of guidance lend emphasis and strength to the educational program and make it more dynamic, specifically the aims of guidance may be laid as follows from the individual’s point of view:

1) To help the individual, by his own efforts as far as possible to realize his potentialities and to make his maximum contribution to the society.

2) To help the individual to meet and solve his own problems and make proper choice and adjustment.

3) To help the individual to live a well balanced life in all aspects i.e., physical, mental, emotional and social.

4) To help the individual to lay a permanent foundation for sound and mature adjustment.

From the point of view of the institution t he aims of guidance can be stated as follows:

1) The guidance program should encourage and stimulate teachers towards better teaching.

2) The program should aim at providing assistance to teachers in their efforts to understand t heir students.

3) It should provide teachers with systematic technical assistance and in-service training activities.

4) It should contribute to the mutual adjustment of children and school.

5) It should provide for referral of students by teachers.

Types of Guidance:

Guidance is the help given by one person to another in making choices and adjustments and in solving problems. Guidance functions in all sorts of problem situations may be in educational, vocational, or personal. Thus, there are different types of guidance programs depending upon the nature of a problem. It is an interesting phenomenon that educationists and guidance workers have been describing types of guidance in diversified ways. Many of them do not agree on the number and types of guidance.

W.M. Prestor described six types of guidance:

(a) Educational Guidance

(b) Vocational Guidance

(d) Guidance in Health and Physical activities

(e) Guidance in worthy use of leisure time

(f) Guidance in character building

Paterson has grouped them into five types:

1. Educational Guidance

2. Vocational Guidance

3. Personal Guidance

4. Health Guidance

5. Economic Guidance

If we examine the classification of all the psychologists a common thread passes through mainly three types of guidance, these are:

(i) Educational Guidance

(ii) Vocational Guidance

(iii) Personal Guidance

Educational Guidance:

According to Arthur J. Jones, “Educational Guidance is concerned with assistance given to pupils in their choices and adjustment with relation to schools, curriculum, courses, and school life.”It means that educational guidance is mainly concerned with such problems of education as are faced by students engaged in the study of different subjects for their vocational preparation. There are various problems of educational guidance, which have been discussed by Brewer in his book “Educational Guidance”. Brewer is of the view that educational guidance concerned strictly with the pupil’s success in his educational career. Keeping this in view, he stated a number of problems pertaining to educational guidance. In educational guidance, one of the main problems is o help the individual to make desirable progress in his educational career. Educational career obviously “the path of learning which has been to be followed by a pupil”.

In order to explain educational guidance activities, Ruth Strong says that it must include the following:

1. Helping a student to adjust academic load to his ability.

2. Substituting a more suitable course for one in which the student has failed, instead of requiring him to repeat the subject.

3. Adopting methods of teaching to the individual in a class.

4. Scheduling opportunities for counseling students as an intrinsic part of their curriculum.

5. Placing the responsibility for learning with the students.

6. Re-organizing student’s real interest and providing opportunities for each student’s participation in the student activities, which unless carried to access seem to have a benefit effect on scholarship.

Vocational Guidance:

It was for the first time that the term “Guidance” came into prominence along with adjective Vocational. All have not universally described the term. In the same way, different scholars have visualized them in different modes. Some have considered it as “getting a job for the child” while others visualized it as “keeping the individual happy at his work,” while still others considered it as “fitting the occupation to the individual”. The National Vocational Guidance’ Association of USA in 1924 defined it: “The process of assisting the individual to choose an occupation, prepare for it, enter upon it and make a progress in it,” In accordance with this definition, the vocational guidance counselor or the vocational guidance officer is to do everything for the pupil. This is all against the spirit of Guidance service as in this process the pupil is to be assisted to decide for himself and someone else is not to decide for him. Keeping all this in view the Association revised the definition in 1937 and said, “Vocational Guidance is the process of assisting the individual to choose an occupation, prepare for it, enters upon it and progress in it.” It is concerned primarily with helping individual to make decisions and choice involved in planning a future and building career decisions and choices necessarily in affecting satisfactory vocational adjustment.

Personal Guidance:

Personal guidance is meant to provide assistance to all problems, which do not come within the purview of educational and vocational guidance. This type of guidance starts from early childhood and continues throughout the life of an individual. Personal social guidance has become relevant under existing problem conditions. These day individuals are facing emotional problems, mental ill-health, attitudes towards social evils, changing values towards social system and superstition. Such problems necessitate the importance of personal guidance.

Personal guidance may be defined as the assistance offered to the individual to solve his emotional, social, ethical, and moral as well as health problems. Thus, in the nature of personal guidance we find a concern for individual and social problems, which are not generally dealt with under educational and vocational guidance.

The purpose of personal guidance is to help the individual in his physical, emotional, social, moral, and spiritual development and adjustment. As regards physical development; play activities of the children have to be properly organized likewise for emotional development; children have to be provided with opportunities for self-expression. In matters of social development, children have to plan to get along with others.

Counseling

Counseling is a process of helping individuals or group of people to gain self-understanding in order to be themselves. Counseling is a process designed to help clients understand and clarify personal views of their life space, and to learn to reach their self-determined goals through meaningful, well informed choices and a resolution of problems to an emotional or inter-personal nature. It believes that every human individual has the potential for self-growth, self development and self-actualization.

Aims of Counseling:

Counseling aims at helping the clients understand and accept themselves “as they are”, and Counseling is to help the client to himself. The main aim of Counseling is to bring about a voluntary change in the client. For this purpose the Counselor provides facilities to help achieve the desired change or make the suitable choice.

According to Dunsmoor and Miller, the aims of student counseling are:

1) To give the student information on matters important to success.

2) To get information about student which will be of help in solving his problems?

3) To establish a feeling of mutual understanding between student and teacher.

4) To help the student work out a plan for addressing his difficulties.

5) To help the student know himself better his interests, abilities, aptitudes and opportunities.

6) To encourage and develop special abilities and right attitudes.

7) To inspire successful endeavor toward attainment.

8) To assist the student in planning for educational and vocational choices.

Types of Counseling:

There are five types of counseling as under:

(1) Directive Counseling:

This type of counseling is directive in its nature. The counselor plays an important role in it. He / She is the authority which states a judgment over any problem. In this type of counseling student has not any important role but counselor has problem in his/her main focus. Student has to cooperate to his/her counselor. Since it is an authoritative type of counseling so students communicate a little and counselor does most of talking. In it we cannot see democratic environment. Student has to work under the counselor not with him. We can give counseling regarding intellectual aspects in it.

(2) Non directive Counseling:

In this type of counseling, student is provided a great opportunity for free expression in which he/she could give information to counselor completely. In this type of counseling student works with counselor not under him/her. It is democratic in behavior where counseling develops further insight, a more complete and accurate understanding of the problem. Since student plays a central role in it so we can also say it client centered counseling.

(3) Eclectic Counseling:

In this type of counseling, counselor offers many alternative solutions of a problem from which student could select the most appropriate one.

Counselor has the need of individual in his/her vie at the time of counseling. Counselor has the effect of counseling on student in his/her mind.

A teacher should use this type of counseling according to need and nature of students as well as problems.

(4) Individual Counseling:

This is referred to as one to one counseling. It occurs between the professionally trained counselor (Therapist) and his client (Counselee). The goal of this is to help the client to understand himself, clarify and direct his thought, in order to make a worthwhile decision. Through this, client’s problems are alleviated.

(5) Group Counseling:

This is a counseling session that takes place between the professionally trained counselor and a group of people. Number of this group should not be more than seven, or at least ten, in order to have a cohesive group and an effective well controlled counseling session. Members of the group are clients/counselees whose tasks or problems that are meant for resolution are similar.

Difference between Guidance and Counseling

Writers in most cases find it difficult to distinguish between the two words. According to Shertzer and Stone (1976), the attempt to differentiate between guidance and counseling has not met with any measure of success because it is difficult to make distinctions between the two terms. On this basis of similarities, the terms could be interpreted to mean the same thing because in terms of people’s welfare the two words are out to achieve the same goals. Although they are both educational services but contextually, they can be differentiated. The table below shows some differences between the two terms:

S.No.	Guidance	Counseling
1.	Counselor directed. Locus of Control remains with the Tutor (Counselor).	Student (client) directed. Locus of control moves towards student (client). This means the client is more involved at every stage in counseling.
2.	The Tutor (Counselor) is information/advice giver.	The Tutor (Counselor) is a facilitator/enabler. He is not the decision maker.
3.	Counselor determines objectives and methods.	Client and Counselor jointly negotiate a contract about agenda and methodology.
4.	Assessment/diagnosis and evaluation is in the domain of the counselor.	Client participates in assessing needs and evaluating progress.
5.	Concern is with decision (decision seen at product). The way it is reached is not regarded as especially significant.	Concern is with the process of decision making. Understanding how decision is reached is as important as the content of the decision.
6.	Learning is seen as specific to the problem in question.	Learning is seen as transferable. What is learnt in one context is seen utilizable in another e.g., the learning of a skill such as breaking down problem into its component parts.
7.	Feelings are not regarded as important in learning.	Learning is seen as an emotional as well as a cognitive process. This means the behavior and the thinking are important.
8.	Learning about a subject is not seen as involving self-discovery.	Learning about a subject is seen as involving a process of learning about self.

Problems of Secondary School Students

· The main problem to cope is the poor passion for the job demonstrated by the students involved in initial vocational training, which is caused by their lack of motivation when they had to choose the training career, mostly because of guiding mistakes. Sometime the pupils receive a wrong guidance. The causes appeared to be linked with the criteria of evaluation of the possibilities of the students, which are mainly based on the progress at school of the students. When the students finish the lower secondary school, they usually know in which school they should go, but they do not know which profession they can do.

· It is difficult to interact with the students for the guidance operators of the upper secondary schools because it is difficult to find and develop specific tools for guidance settled for each target of students. With the students with special needs the guidance plays an important role as they are moving towards the transition to the vocational education. The guidance at comprehensive school gets often continuation in form of the preparatory education lasting from one year to even two years. Otherwise, it is difficult to organize individual meetings with students. There is not school time scheduled for this purpose.

· It is hard to organize guidance in the classrooms because the expressed needs vary from student to student. For this reason, it is not easy to involve each student in the guidance activities. Every partner expressed a common problem concerning the different level of participation and motivation of the students of each class. While some students participate to the proposed activities, another part of the class is not interested. Furthermore, the pedagogical approach, used in the individual meetings, cannot be used in the classroom.

· The students do not have enough information about: the training profiles, the risks of the professions and the criteria of selection of the job. They have a wrong perception of some job because many professions are subject to stereotypes and prejudices. The trainers do not guide girls and boys in the same way. They do not encourage them when they would like to choose a job which is made traditionally by the other sex. The students reject guidance because it is difficult to understand the offer and the channels of guidance. There is a difficulty to know the services of guidance of the territory and in some area of the partnership there is a poor diffusion of them.

· The students find difficult to imagine what they want to do in their future because they do not know their personal wishes/attitudes, having a poor attitude to analyze themselves. They do not will to play the game because the tools/instruments used in the guidance activities are not very effective. The guidance with special needs students faces similar challenges. More intensive, personalized and holistic approach to guidance and assistance in the second transition would carry the student to the next level i.e., to vocational studies. The risk in the transition phase is that students (mainstream or special needs students) drop out entirely from school.

· The families do not stimulate their pupils and sometimes they are not interested in the school progress of their sons. The problems analyzed in the guidance sector have a strong influence also in the didactic field, analyzed by the partners but not included in the partnership activities which focus mainly in guidance. The poor passion for the job makes more difficult to involve the students in the classroom and laboratories activities, improving the difficulties to make classes for the trainers. In order to understand who and how many people might benefit directly and indirectly form the results of the project, we can consider them divided by countries.

Behavioral Problems of Secondary School Students

Most human problems arise from life situations and significantly affect the development of individuals. There are various reasons of behavior problems among the students. There may be hereditary, environmental factors which include home environment, defective discipline, unwanted home atmosphere, school environment, etc. Other factors are physical abnormalities, adolescent period, and poverty of parents and lack of suitable recreational facilities.

The following are the some common behavioral problems of Secondary School Students:

1- The student is attracted towards anti-social elements.

2- He fails in the examination.

3- He shows frequent nervousness.

4- He does not show interest in his studies.

5- The students make false excuses in the school.

6- The student remains absent in the school.

7- He is shy by nature.

8- He is cut off from the group.

9- The pupil may project emotional disturbances through nail biting, head scratching, thumb sucking, etc.

10- Truancy

11- Stealing

12- Cheating

13- Bullying

14 Lying

Definition Staff of Counseling and Aims of Staff Counseling

Staff counseling is a psychological health care intervention which can take many forms. Its aim is to assist both the employer and employee by intervening with an active problem-solving approach to tackling the problems at hand.

Employee counseling can do much to prevent the negative effects of stress at an individual level and ultimately at an organizational level.

Aims of Staff Counseling:

The specific aims of staff counseling are to:

· Explore and find the key sources of difficulty.

· Review the individual’s current strategies and styles of coping.

· Implement methods of dealing with the perceived problem, thereby alleviating the issue. Often, this step may involve also improving interpersonal relations at work and/or improving personal performance.

· Evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen strategies.

Staff Assignments

While the program must be defined and organized to meet the identified needs of students and the established goals of the program, the assignments of the program staff also must be appropriately defined and organized. Although school counselors have the primary responsibility for delivery of the Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program, full program implementation calls for employing a wide range of categories of staff and distinguishing between their roles. Organizing the staffing patterns and defining their organizational relationships are also required.

Staff categories: The personnel resources available to a campus or district guidance program vary with the size of the district and the school / district’s commitment to the guidance program. Professional, paraprofessional, and volunteers from the school guidance department, the school staff, and the district and community are used.

School Staff:

• Administrators’ responsibilities may relate to the guidance program: provision of responsive services to students who are having behavior or other problems; referral of students for counseling; provision of system support to the program and the counseling staff; administration of functions which link to guidance activities (e.g., scheduling, testing program coordination).

• Teachers may perform such guidance functions as the teaching guidance curriculum, advising in the individual planning system, and referring students for counseling.

District staff:

• Guidance department administrators and supervisors lead and assist in developmental guidance and counseling program planning, design, implementation, and evaluation. They provide staff development activities through supervision, evaluation, and in-service training of campus guidance staff. They are responsible for materials and resources.

• Psychological services personnel coordinate and collaborate with counselors to ensure continuity of services for students with special, psychological needs.

• Social Workers and other related mental health specialists augment the guidance program staff. In general, their services are extensions of Responsive Services.

Competence. The responsibilities that various people carry out in comprehensive, developmental guidance and counseling program implementation must be specifically defined. Responsibilities should be appropriate to the individuals’ background, training, and competence; for example, guidance department heads should be trained in supervision of school counselors.

Personnel without school counselor certification should be trained to carry out their responsibilities in the guidance and counseling program, e.g., teachers trained to be advisors, community representatives trained to be school speakers, and parent volunteers trained in tasks and parameters of their jobs. They should also be schooled regarding the needs of students.

Personnel without school counselor certification cannot legally be used in place of certified professional school counselors, but rather to augment the program. All personnel assisting in the delivery of the guidance program should adhere to the ethical and legal standards of the counseling profession. Key standards are those regarding students’ and parents’ rights and confidentiality.

Staffing patterns. Staff load and/or special program assignments for individual staff members need to be:

• supported by a rationale appropriate to student and community needs, and to campus guidance program goals and objectives;

• appropriate to each counselor’s or staff member’s program responsibilities;

• Appropriate to each counselor’s or staff member’s training, background, and area of specialization.

Organizational relationships. The guidance department has primary responsibility to implement the Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program the local board of education adopts as policy. Personnel without school counselor certification who are active in the program should be supervised by the professional school counselors.

Within the professional school counseling staff, organizational relationships should be clearly defined. Those counselors with special responsibilities should be clearly identified. The guidance department head should be delegated the authority needed to supervise the counseling and guidance department staff.

Mechanisms which facilitate communications between the various members of the guidance program staff need to be employed; for example, regular staff meetings should be held.

Guidance Department:

• Counselors may be assigned to conduct their responsibilities comprehensively (i.e., to fulfill all responsibilities for the counselees in their group assignments). Specialist counselors may be assigned to carry out special program assignments or to serve special student groups. Special program assignments include guidance department leadership, crisis team, and building test coordination. Special group assignments include students in compensatory education, special education, career and technology education, and substance abuse/prevention programs.

• Paraprofessional support personnel are needed to fully implement the Texas Comprehensive, Developmental Guidance and Counseling Program and include secretaries, registrars, career center technicians, and scheduling clerks.

Counselors’ Responsibilities

When a fully certified school counselor is employed, the administration, faculty, parents, and community should expect the counselor to carry out eight basic responsibilities competently and in a professional and accountable manner. The eight responsibilities are:

• Program Management

• Guidance

• Counseling

• Consultation

• Coordination

• Student Assessment

• Professional Behavior

• Professional Standards

Technology in the Classroom: How to Assess Writing

If you’re like most teachers, teaching the craft of writing is a task that goes across multiple educational platforms: A history teacher for instance, must instruct on how to write a five-paragraph essay, synonyms, plan-revise-edit-rewrite, persuasive essays, letter writing, and more.

With this in mind, today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jacqui Murray, who is a seasoned technology teacher based in Northern California, takes a look at how to use technology in the classroom to assess writing.

Jacqui begins by calling out what writing brings about, including:

Conduct research based on focused questions that demonstrate understanding of the subject.
Gather relevant information, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Write routinely for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

She also notes what shouldn’t be assessed when grading writing, including:

Ability to catch typos: Even excellent typists make typos. Don\’t let keyboarding errors affect a writing grade. You may assess keyboarding as a separate skill, deducting from the final grade for each mistake, but don\’t blend that into the writing grade.
Skill with technology: If a writing project requires a student to create a digital timeline, trifold, or poster, don\’t assess how well they blend colors, use tools, or mash up apps. That\’s a separate skill. You want to only assess how well they communicate ideas.

Jacqui sums up her article like this: “By mentally removing the detractors that obfuscate good writing and providing students with the tools they require to communicate in the manner best suited to them, writing assessment becomes more authentic, granular, dynamic, and personalized.”

Classroom Activities: Morning Meeting Yoga

As we all know, the morning routine sets the tone for the entire day. Starting the day on a positive note is an imperative.

However, a good and often overlooked method of beginning the day is with classroom activities like yoga.

Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, who also is a seasoned elementary school teacher based in Upstate New York, looks at some classroom activities you can use to implement a yoga morning meeting sequence into your school day.

Janelle’s ideas include easy steps to implementing yoga, including:

After a few breaths, have students reach their arms up and over their heads then dive down to touch their feet as they exhale. Encourage students to hang here for a few breaths and shake their heads “Yes” and “No” while either holding their elbows or hanging their arms loosely.

Next, have students do a sitting mountain pose by sitting at their seats with their feet planted firmly on the ground and their hands on their laps. Instruct them to sit up tall and slowly breathe in and out through their nose.

After this sequence, have students do a seated back bend. To do this pose, students should start in seated mountain pose, place their hands on the back of their chair, and push back so that they are looking up at the ceiling. Another option is to do this pose standing.

She also includes a paragraph on Encouraging Breathing : “One of the hardest things students have when first learning yoga is how to breathe properly. If you find that students are forgetting to breathe, then encourage them to count as they inhale and exhale. You can also teach them how to properly breathe when just sitting in a chair before you even teach them a new pose.”

Janelle sums up her article thusly: “Before trying it in the classroom, make sure that you take a class or try a free one on YouTube. This will help you feel confident when instructing students. Namaste.”

Do you incorporate yoga classroom activities into your morning meeting? Which poses do you like to do? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

Plan a Memorable Back to School Night

We’ve been covering all you teachers need to know for your inevitable return to the classroom, and today is no different. A staple of the back to school schedule is now Back to school night, in which teachers and parents meet, with or without kids, to discuss and preview the school year. On the discussion docket are generally methodology, grading schemes and tactics, connecting parents, and more.

Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Jacqui Murray, who is a seasoned tech teacher based in Northern California, looks at how you can make back to school night memorable, informative, and fun.

Jacqui’s ideas include:

Make the Invite Engaging

Ask a Volunteer to Take Notes

Introduce the Class Page

And More!

Here’s how Jacqui suggests you create a class webpage, blog, or other electronic method of communication: “At some point during the evening (or in a form you display on one of the class computers), ask what parents would like to find here. Practice accessing it if there\’s time. Have the page available on one of the class computers so parents can try it out before leaving for the evening.”

Jacqui sums up her article like this, in a paragraph entitled Provide a Parent-Child Questionnaire: “Before you wrap up for the evening, have parents fill out a form (with Google Forms) that includes what motivates their child, his/her strengths, parent concerns, and anything else you should know about the child. This too can be available on one of the class computers. It should take only a few minutes to complete. You can also email the link to everyone on the class roster to be completed at their leisure.”

You never have a second chance to make a good first impression. This is as true today as when Will Rogers (was reputed to have) said it. Make parents your partner this school year. Their participation will make a huge difference in the child\’s success. Take advantage of that.

Curriculum Compacting Teaching Strategies

Although as teachers we often spend our time making sure that everyone can grasp what we’re teaching about, oftentimes we have kids in our classes who have already mastered the curriculum. So what teaching strategies do we use to reach those that already know what we’re instructing?

Today on TeachHUB.com, we examine those teaching strategies we can use to hopefully challenge the gifted kids who are at risk of becoming bored in our classes. Our centerpiece article, penned by frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, looks at curriculum compacting, or a pace-based method that can engage kids who have already mastered what we’re teaching.

Janelle suggests we first identify kids who are already familiar with our upcoming subject matter. How do we do that? A potential student:

· Finishes tasks quickly.

· Appears bored during instruction.

· Finishes assignments first.

· Is performing high academically in more than one area.

Janelle offers up seven steps that you can use to compact a curriculum, including:

· Identify students who should take the pre-assessment. Use your academic records and class performance to help you determine what student would benefit from this pre-test.

· Use the pre-assessment test to determine mastery of the topic or subject.

Janelle sums up her article like this: “Teachers like using curriculum compacting because it’s an effective teaching strategy that can be used in any grade and in any school district. It’s also flexible enough that teachers find it easy to implement. Just remember that meeting the needs of all learners takes time and patience, so go at a slow pace.”

Have you used curriculum compacting as a means to differentiate instruction with your gifted learners? If so, do you find this an effective form of teaching strategies? Please share your thoughts in the comment section, we would love to hear what you have to day on this topic.

11 Back-to-School Activities for the First Month

We’re all already knee-deep (well, maybe ankle deep) into the new school year. Some of us are immersed in chaos, others are already inspiring their legions of 2017-20187 students.

Regardless of how your class is coming along, you can probably use some helpful back to school activities to help you along. With that in mind, frequent TeachHUB.com contributing writer Jacqui Murray, who is a seasoned technology teacher based in Northern California, takes a look at some “Activities I\’ve collected from colleagues using transformative tools that optimize learning while making students active participants in expected learning outcomes.”

Jacqui’s ideas include:

Create a Timeline of Class Events
Class Rules
QR Codes
Virtual Collaborative Board

And More!

Jacqui sums up her article like this: “Whatever you do, make it a dynamic example of what is in store for students this school year. Leave them energized, excited, and ready to participate in a year\’s worth of learning.”

Classroom Management for Noncompliant Students

Noncompliant students can sink even the best-made lesson plans. Oftentimes these kids are disruptive, lack motivation, and as a result, perform poorly.

However, with a little planning and knowledge, you can use some classroom management techniques to overcome those noncompliant students and bring about a more positive learning environment.

Janelle Cox, a TeachHUB.com contributing writer who also has moonlighted as an elementary teacher in Upstate New York, looks at classroom management strategies you can use to overcome noncompliant students in today’s centerpiece website article.

Janelle’s ideas include:

Model Positive Behaviors
Be an Active Listener
Ask Questions
And More!

Janelle sums up her article thusly: “No one ever said that managing noncompliant students would be easy. You have to remember that like everything in life, it will take some time and patience. However, when you implement these teaching strategies (more than one at a time is recommended), then you can change a student’s unwanted behavior.”

Fitness-Based Classroom Activities Can Boost Learning

Budget constraints and other concerns have forced some teachers to incorporate classroom activities that get kids (and the teaches themselves!) up and moving. Some incorporate brain breaks, as frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox points out in today’s centerpiece article on TeachHUB.com. Janelle’s brain break ideas include:

· Have a five-minute dance party! Turn on your students’ favorite radio station and encourage them to let loose.

· Try 30-second intervals of your students’ favorite exercise. 30 seconds of jumping jacks, 30 seconds jogging in place, 30 seconds of high knees.

· Set a timer for five minutes and have students take turns playing follow the leader.

Instruct students to follow you in a few yoga poses like the standing mountain pose or tree pose

We also take a look at what educators can do in their personal lives outside the classroom to get and maintain health. Janelle sums up her article in this manner, with some bulletpoints on eating more healthfully:

· Plan ahead. It’s all in the planning. If Sunday is your day to grocery shop, then take a little extra time to prepare healthy snacks and foods for the week. Chop up veggies and stick them in a baggie for an easy grab and go. Make a batch of hard-boiled eggs for a quick breakfast. Buy premade salads to take with you to work.

· Invest in a crockpot. A slow cooker is a convenient and inexpensive way to make healthy meals. All you have to do is throw in a lean protein, some veggies and spices, and it will be ready for you when you get home from work.

· Make extra. Whatever you plan on making, double or even triple the recipe. Leftovers are a busy person’s best friend.

· If you’re going to eat out, choose wisely. Skip the sugary drinks and choose water. Cut your portion in half and take the other half home with you. Ask for salad dressing on the side, and order your food steamed or grilled instead of fried.

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WHY THE NEED OF NEW EXAMINATION SYSTEM IN PAKISTAN

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