Which of the following is/are features of a project work? (a) They provide…

The project method (rooted in Dewey's learning-by-doing philosophy and developed by W.H. Kilpatrick) is a child-centred, experiential teaching strategy in which learners plan, execute, and evaluate a purposeful, real-life task — usually working in a group — as an integrated part of classroom learning, under the teacher's continued guidance. Its defining features are that it takes learning beyond the prescribed textbook into real contexts, keeps the teacher involved as a facilitator rather than treating the task as work to be handed off outside school hours, and builds collaborative and social skills alongside the specific content.

1. Statement (a) matches this idea directly: a project task, by design, sends students to explore material and sources beyond the prescribed textbook.

2. Statement (b) contradicts this idea: the method depends on the teacher staying involved as a facilitator throughout, so prescribing that the task "should ideally" move entirely to the student's home merely to free up class time for other teaching misrepresents how the method works.

3. Statement (c) matches this idea directly: carrying out the task in a group requires students to plan roles, divide work, and coordinate with peers — the very process through which collaborative skill develops.

• "Only (a)" keeps the beyond-textbook statement but drops the equally valid collaboration-linked statement (c).

• "(a) and (b)" keeps (a) but pairs it with the home-study claim (b), which does not hold for a method built on teacher-guided, in-class facilitation.

• "(b) and (c)" keeps the valid collaboration-linked statement (c) but pairs it with the home-study claim (b), and drops the valid beyond-textbook statement (a).

Since statements (a) and (c) alone hold, the combination "(a) and (c)" is the correct choice, consistent with the CTET January 2024 Paper 2 official answer key.