Question No.

1
Explain the responsibilities of teachers in Islamic perspective, how can teachers help in
improving societal values?

Answer:
The first revelation called upon the Prophet (SAW) and humanity was to pursue education and
acquire knowledge in accordance with the Divine guidance of Allah (SWT): “Read and
understand in the Name of the Lord and Cherisher”.1 The Qur’an says, “Allah (SWT) will raise
up to honourable ranks (and degrees) those of you who believe and who have been granted
knowledge.2 Adam (RAA) was raised to the highest rank among beings because of knowledge.
The Prophet (SAW) attained the height of eminence by his perfection; “He dispelled the
darkness (of the World) by his grace; Excellent were all his qualities; Pray for blessings on him
and his descendants.”3 He is asked in the Qur’an to pray for an increase in knowledge. The
Prophet (SAW) also said: “Acquire knowledge from cradle to grave”.5 He further stated that the
acquisition of knowledge is a duty imposed on every Muslim.6 It is inspiring to recall that the
very first word that was revealed to him is Iqra (read). Human beings have many qualities which
are latent or which they may wish to suppress or conceal to their own detriment. The Prophet
(SAW) also said: “Wisdom is the lost property of the Muslim; he recovers it wherever he finds it”.
This is inspiring and indicates that there is no monopoly in matters of knowledge. Among
children of Adam (RAA), those who excel in knowledge and wisdom, are the world leaders and
hold the office of Imam (Spiritual Guide). Knowledge and wisdom protect your ideological
boundaries from evil. The Muslim World, unfortunately, failed to excel in knowledge and
wisdom. Acquiring knowledge and understanding it (research) is left to the others, resulting in
Muslims’ degradation in science and technology as well as in trade and business. The Prophet
(SAW) said that knowledge is a foundation of Islam. Regarding this let us look at the Prophet’s
(SAW) concern, attitude and priority; to educate Muslim children up to reading level, he even
asked the prisoners of Badr, who were the non-believers of Mecca, and considered this as their
compensation. This reflects his concern about the education and treatment of prisoners of war
at a time when Muslims were fighting for their own survival. There is a difference in acquiring
knowledge, understanding knowledge, and education targeting literacy. To increase the rate of
literacy among Muslims, the Prophet (SAW) utilized the services of even the non-believers of
Mecca, i.e., prisoners of Badr. Knowledge must be of truth and reality or of what the Qur’an
calls Haqq (Truth). Unfortunately, the Muslim World has confused knowledge with literacy. The
dilemma is that we are utilizing our resources to increase the rate of literacy rather than
acquiring knowledge, even then we fail in it. There are many other factors contributing to the
degradation of the Muslim World but to be the first and the most important is education. It is
education that transforms a casual person into a responsible, socio-economic developer and
nation builder. It is education that transforms a casual person into a responsible, socio-
economic developer and nation builder. As I have stated above that the education has always
received great importance in Islam. The pivotal ingredient in education is the teacher and
consequently the teacher’s qualities, role and responsibilities. My objective is in this paper is to
investigate our teaching-learning process and provide guidelines for efficient and effective
teaching. May Allah (SWT) bless us to fulfil our duties of acquiring and understanding
knowledge, bring back our virtues and qualities, i.e., competence, energy, initiative,
seriousness, creativity, and wisdom, and enabling us for the world leadership (with justice) and
to hold the office of Imam (Spiritual Guide). We are born to learn.

Question No.2
Critically analyze the quality of teacher education across the country.

Answer:
Education is the compilation and product of many and varied resources. Among these, teachers
stand out as a key to realizing the high standards that are increasingly emphasized in schools
and school systems across the country. Despite general agreement about the importance of
high-quality teachers, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the public have been unable
to reach a consensus about what specific qualities and characteristics make a good teacher.
Even more concerning is the array of policy statements regarding teacher preparation that have
been set forth in the face of volumes of inconclusive and inconsistent evidence about what
teacher attributes really contribute to desired educational outcomes. Policymakers are left with
questions surrounding what counts as quality teacher information that could be valuable in
guiding policies regarding whom to hire, whom to reward, and how best to distribute teachers
across schools and classrooms. Answers to these questions have potentially important
implications for the efficiency and equity of public education. Teacher education has become an
area of considerable interest among policymakers in many countries over recent years. This
interest reflects a growing body of research on the central importance that teacher knowledge
and skills hold for quality learning opportunities for students. It also reflects the need to recruit
and prepare a new generation of teachers as large numbers of current teachers to reach
retirement age. TEDS-M provided policymakers in the study’s participating countries with a
valuable opportunity to conduct research on their own teacher education systems and to learn
from approaches used in other countries. The study also provided participating countries with
valuable comparative data with which to examine the impact of current policies on teacher
education practices and the quality of graduates from teacher education programs. Further, the
enhancement of teacher quality is likely to be quite costly. Increases in teacher salaries,
incentives such as loan-forgiveness programs, heightened teacher preparation requirements,
and other efforts to prepare, recruit and retain high-quality teachers are all associated with
substantial costs. These costs could be managed by targeting specific areas of need where
teacher shortages are most pronounced, such as particular subject areas (e.g., mathematics
and science), types of classrooms (e.g., special education), and geographic areas (e.g., urban
settings). Nevertheless, a clear sense of which teacher attributes really lead to improved
educational outcomes should guide these important investment decisions, particularly given the
many competing policy options to enhance teacher quality, as well as other attractive education
policy proposals. In a context of limited resources, difficult policy choices must be made, and
solid evidence should be used to guide those decisions. The willingness of policymakers and
taxpayers to devote such a large proportion of education dollars to teachers highlights the
undisputed importance of teachers in realizing educational goals. A number of researchers have
argued that teacher quality is a powerful predictor of student performance. In her analysis of
teacher preparation and student achievement across states, Darling-Hammond (2000) reports
that “measures of teacher preparation and certification are by far the strongest correlates of
student achievement in reading and mathematics, both before and after controlling for student
poverty and language status.” She contends that measures of teacher quality are more strongly
related to student achievement than other kinds of educational investments such as reduced
class size, overall spending on education, and teacher salaries. Education, in general, is not
static but a dynamic process. Teacher education in particular and its dynamism are influenced
by changes in society which tend to create new demands. Additionally, the main function of the
school is to improve the quality of student learning. Hence the most critical factor within the
school in facilitating student learning is the teacher and the ability of those in leadership
positions to shape a collaborative, motivated, and effective teaching and learning community. It
is the leadership of the head that sets the tone of the school climate for learning, the level of
professionalism and morale of teachers, and the degree of concern of what students may or
may not become.

Question No.3
Discuss the application of computer assisted instruction in teacher training internationally and
nationally.

Answer:
Computer-assisted instruction is a new type of educational model that integrates with modern
technology and pedagogy. This paper, aiming at the application of this model, devises a
constructivism-based platform on the premise of investigations on the constructivism theory and
the integrable are idea, using comparative analysis, case analysis, for example, the Computer
Graphics, and literature investigation, etc. It is proved after each module is designed and
implemented on the platform that this instruction platform is more effective in the application. It
has filled in the gap of current computer-assisted instruction system in poor universality, etc.,
better serves the computer-assisted instruction, thus greatly propel the development of current
education causes. As computers and the Internet grow in popularity, Computer Assisted
Instruction (CAI), as an educational technology integrating many disciplines such as computer
science, pedagogy, and psychology, has gradually become an essential method for modern
instruction. CAI’s theoretical basis has undergone three evolution processes, i.e. behaviorism,
cognitivism, and constructivism, since its inception, among which, the development of
constructivism learning and instructional theory has ushered in new opportunities for computer-
assisted instruction, and spur it on to move toward maturity. How to accelerate self-learning
environment construction based on constructivist learning theory will be a great challenge in the
future development of computer-assisted instruction. In 1958, the United States was the first
country to study computer-assisted instruction. In 1963, there was a computer-assisted
instruction system developed for university education, which surfed the worldwide study of this
topic. As early as the 1970s, the British government attached great importance to the
development of computer-assisted instruction and took various measures for relevant
researches and training, so that they have made remarkable achievements that amazed the
world, followed by Canada, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand which also greatly concern the
computer-assisted instruction, and have formed their own unique styles of education in many
ways. Since the 1980s, the minority of people have been engaged to study computer-assisted
instruction in our country, but it never aroused a wide concern of all walks of life until the 1990s.
Since then, universities and companies have started work on the development and
generalization of computer-assisted instruction software and achieved some results to meet the
needs of educators and learners. As above, what we can learn from these historical data is that
the study and the application of computer-assisted instruction in various countries in the world
have made tremendous development in the past 50 years, while a comparative analysis shows
that there is still a wide gap in this field due to the poor universality of relevant software which
has restricted its widespread application in the education industry, as well as the
disengagement between the content of curses and the reality since these curriculums were
designed merely based on cognitivism and behaviorism, and etc. To better solve the above
problems and drive the development of computer-assisted instruction, this paper develops a
constructivism-based computer-assisted instruction platform based on the integrable are idea,
which has been proven by a study case, i.e. the Computer Graphics, to have a good application
value and better serve the computer-assisted instruction. This paper includes four parts around
the application and investigation of computer-assisted instruction system: Part 1 describes the
development and enumerates existing problems of computer-assisted instruction at home and
abroad, and comes up with the key idea; Part 2 describes the constructivist theory and the
integrable are ideas required for the construction of the constructivism-based computer-assisted
instruction system platform, which provides a theoretical basis for architecture and
implementation of this platform. Part 3 compounds in detail the overall architecture of a
computer-assisted instruction platform based on constructivism theory and the detailed design
and the implementation of each module by a study case, for example, the Computer Graphics,
in order to verify the application value of the platform.