*Qualities and professional comepetencies of computer science teacher

1. 1
Q. Explain qualities and professional competencies of a computer science
teacher.
Ans: the teacher is the pivot of the educational system. The teacher is a
dynamic force of the school. A school without a teacher is just like a body
without soul, a skeleton without flesh and blood, a shadow without
substance. The growth and development of the child depends
considerably on the type of teaching staff under whose care the child is
left for studies. A healthy type of environment is possible only if the
teaching personnel have something unique about them.
In words of Rabindranath Tagore- “A teacher can never truly teach unless
he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it
continues to burn its own flame”.
There is a famous dictum
“ A poor teacher tells
An average teacher explains
A good teacher demonstrates
An ideal teacher inspires”
A certified teacher is a teacher who has earned credentials from an
authoritative source such as the government, a higher education
institution or a private source. This teacher qualification gives a teacher
authorization to teach and grade in pre-schools, primary or secondary
education in countries, schools, content areas or curricula where
authorization is required.
Academic and professional qualification of a computer science teacher.
1. Academic qualification refers to a basic level of expertise and
currency required of faculty member teaching at the state
board/university level. Academic qualification requires a
combination of original academic preparation(degree completion)
augmented by subsequent activities that maintain or establish
preparation for current teaching responsibilities.
2. Intellectual quality, participating faculty are expected to produce
intellectual qualities in order to attain and/ or maintain academic
qualification. There are 3 basic qualities of intellectual qualities are,
a) Expertness in learning and pedagogical research.
b) Efficiency to practice.
c) Discipline based scholarship.
3. Initial academic qualification requires a Master degree (M.Sc Computer
Science/M.C.A) with B.Ed in Computer science is essential to recruit as a
teacher.

2. 2
4. Maintenance of qualification:
According to the Central Board of Education(CBE) the minimum
requirement for intellectual contributions during the previous five years is
as follows.
a. For undergraduate faculty, a faculty member must have produced
three intellectual contributions that support their teaching
assignment. At least two of these intellectual contributions must be
published in a peer- reviewed journal, articles related to their current
teaching field.
b. For graduate faculty, a faculty member must have produced four
intellectual contributions that support their teaching assignment. At
least two of these intellectual contributions must be published in
peer- reviewed journals, articles related to their current teaching
field.
Examples of intellectual contributions may include journal articles,
research monographs, scholarly books with first editions, textbooks
with first and subsequent editions, chapters in scholarly books etc.
5. Professional qualification:
Professional requires a combination of original academic
preparation(degree completion) and relevant professional experience
augmented by subsequent activities that maintain or establish
preparation for current teaching responsibilities.
● Initial professional qualification : it requires a Master’s degree or
higher degree in a discipline related to teaching.
● Professional experience relevant to the faculty member’s teaching
assignment, significant in duration and level of responsibility at the
time of hiring.
Thus at the time of hiring, faculty member must have appropriate
minimum qualification as mentioned below:
❖ Education: completion of a Master’s degree and professional
certification in the educational field.
❖ Experience: work experience related to the area if computer
science teaching is required. Generally upto 3 years and but
minimum requirements are not specified.. It depends on
institution hiring. After five years on the faculty, experience
should be maintained through multiple activities within the
previous five years such as different programming skills,
consulting, service on company boards, publication of
scholarly articles etc.

3. 3
❖ Continued professional development: participation in at least
two professional development activities within the previous five
years associated with remaining current in the discipline in
which the faculty member teaches such as sessions at
professional conferences, teaching seminars offered internally
or externally, professional training etc.
❖ To maintain professional qualification, during span of 5 years a
faculty member must have at least three qualifying activities
such as:
a. Continuing educator/certification.
b. Additional university coursework in the discipline.
c. Attending discipline related conferences.
d. Presenting paper at academic or professional
conferences.
e. Designing and publishing instructional materials.
f. Continued work related experience
g. Profession related consulting
Qualities of a computer science teacher:
● They love the subject, and are genuinely fascinated by it and its
possibilities.
● They keep up to date with developments through popular
magazines, books, radio and tv programmes.
● They keep up to date with academic research in the subject.
● They proactively seek and take part in professional development
opportunities.
● They introduce topics from simple to complex. That is, information
and activities about things they already know about, in order to lead
on to things they do not know about.
● They set up activities which are challenging, not quite within the
pupils’ comfort zone, technically known as the zone of proximal

4. 4
development. For example, they will ask the pupils not just to
program a turtle to move from point A to point B, but to build in code
to deal with an unexpected event during its journey.
● They set up activities which have an interesting context, and
preferably with some potential real-world application.
● They know enough to be able to answer pupils’ questions, at least
when it comes to matters of fact. If a pupil says “How can I set up a
series of ‘IF’ statements in a spreadsheet in a more efficient way?”,
the teacher should be able to give a proper, i.e., practically useful,
answer.
● They will pair up pupils in such a way that an expert in one thing will
help the non-expert – and change the groupings for concepts/areas
in which the expert and non-expert roles are different, perhaps even
reversed.
● Will ask difficult questions of the pupils, to move them on to the next
level. For example, if a pupil has written a brilliant program, a good
teacher will ask her how the interface could be made more
user-friendly for use by non-programmers, or she will ask if the
program can handle particular types of user error.
● They will be highly critical, in a positive way of course, and not
accept any old output.
● They have a bank of resources the pupils can refer to if they need to.
● They actually teach the class for at least some parts of at least some
lessons.

5. 5
● They set appropriate out-of-school work.
● They assess what the pupils have done, not just rely on
self-assessment or peer-assessment.
● They understand how people learn.
● They enthuse and motivate pupils to learn more and achieve higher.
That’s an active process, it’s not something that can be achieved by
merely ‘facilitating’.
● A good teacher, of computer science, will know how to pace the
lesson, when to intervene if someone needs help, how to stop some
pupils disrupting the lesson -- in other words, a good teacher will be
able to manage a class of 30 kids doing several different activities.