TEACHERS' BELIEFS AND PRACTICES IN NEW - AGE TEACHING- A CONCEPTUAL STUDY

Abstract: This paper focused on teacher’s beliefs and practices in a view to understand new age teaching practices. a Teachers’ beliefs are thought to have a great influence on their classroom practices. Due to the great influence, teachers’ beliefs and practices in teaching reading have been recently gaining increased research momentum. The beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning which are need of the hour include “direct transmission beliefs about learning and instruction” and “constructivist beliefs about learning and instruction”. As the focus of attention in research on teaching shifted from teacher behaviors to teacher cognition, beliefs and knowledge have become the two most important factors in the explanations of teacher practices and in considerations of teacher change. It is interesting to observe how the methodologies of delivery of knowledge and teaching, have undergone such drastic changes in different era. We are familiar of Gurukul traditions of teaching and learning, wherein the disciple/learner had to stay in the austere habitats owned by the Guru. The commoner and royalty were treated alike by the Guru and his household, and they would spend formative years of their life in pursuit of knowledge on a model that was based upon the dictum- “serve and learn”. Interestingly, this model of education was complete and holistic, and covered practically every aspect of human growth, including knowledge, skills, sports, fine arts, warfare and everything that had contemporary flavor