Child Development and Pedagogy PYQs

Educational reform is a phenomenon whereby several plans and movements are executed in order to bring major improvements in the existing education system.

• The main parties contributing to the success of educational reforms are first of all the local communities, including parents, school head,s, and teachers.

Decentralization of education reforms is possible by:-

• Involvement of cluster and block resources for developing the infrastructure and basic needs.
• Local resource person helps in generating the funds.
• Resource and reference material are useful for teachers for creating an effective lesson plan and teach in the best possible way.

Hence, it becomes clear that for educational reforms, effective decentralization is possible by all the given points.

Sensation: It refers to the process that enables the brain to perceive information through the five senses as senses are the organism's physiological capacity to perceive, recognize, feel, and understand something.

• Calling someone by his name is an auditory sensation. Because he is hearing something, so it is a sensation of sound. Main sensations of the human body are as follows

Hence, if a student is reading, someone called him by name, ​Auditory sensation will be responsible.

Key Points

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development:

• Jean Piaget observed his children and their process of making sense of the world around them and developed a model of how the mind processes new information encountered.
• According to him, cognitive structures are the basic mental pattern people use to process any information.

Piaget explained that children progress through four stages. The Four Stages of Cognitive Development are as follows:-

Hence, from the above diagram, it becomes clear that the age of the preoperational stage in Piaget's theory is two to seven years.

Development is a process by which an individual grows and changes throughout the life cycle. The term development applies to the changes that have a direction and hold a definite relationship with what precedes it.

Later childhood is the time period from the age of 'seven to twelve years'. The signs of puberty usually begin to appear in this stage. It is also known as troublesome age, gang age, play age, etc.

Characteristics of the intellectual development of later childhood:

• Use of analogies in explanation.
• High Interest in science fiction.
• End of imaginary fears.
• Increased logical power.
• Development of problem-solving skills.
• Powers of perception and observation become keen.
• Ability to exercise their own power of memory and imagination.
• Ability to perform a variety of mental operations and thoughts using concrete concepts.

Hint

• Operational planning of career is a characteristic of adolescence, in which career choices and interests become broader as teens think about the future more rationally and comprehensively.

Hence, the operational planning of a career is not the characteristic of the intellectual development of later childhood.

Additional Information

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Noam Chomsky, known as the father of modern linguistics, has made a crucial contribution in the field of linguistics.

Key Points

Let's understand the Chomsky's view about language in brief:

• Innate ability: He strongly believes that children born with an innate knowledge of grammar that serves as the basis for all language acquisition.
• Generative grammar: According to Chomsky it refers to a finite set of rules to generate sentences and can be used to produce more sentences in that language.
• Universal grammar: Chomsky's universal grammar suggests that all children have innate ability to acquire, understand and develop grammar.
• Language Acquisition Device: Chomsky proposed that humans are equipped with a language acquisition device which enables a child to acquire and produce language.

Additional Information

A brief description of other psychologists:

 

Hence, Noam Chomsky is associated with ‘language development'.

E. L. Thorndike, an American psychologist, is known as the founder of modern educational psychology.

Key Points

• He propounded 'Trial and Error Theory' which represents that learning is the result of associations forming between stimulus and responses.
• "Mistakes teach individual" statement is based on 'Trial and Error Theory'.

Important Points

Based on Trial and Error Learning Theory, Thorndike gave certain laws of Learning:

• Law of Readiness: It implies that if one is not ready to learn something, then one cannot learn effectively. Readiness comes from interest, maturity, need previous experiences, etc.
• Law of Exercise: Repeated learning leads to effective learning however, the knowledge of results is an essential condition for it.
• Law of Effect: It is one’s natural tendency to learn things that give happiness and satisfaction and avoid others.

Experiment:

• Thorndike formulated his theory, based on his experiments conducted on his cat in the puzzle box.
• The door of the box could be opened by pulling the strings inside the box. A fish was kept outside.
• The cat was tried to come out of the box by squeezing, jumping, biting, etc.
• As the experiment was repeated several times the wrong movements decreased and in the end, the cat was able to open the door in a single trail.

Hence, it becomes clear that Thorndike proved his theory titled trial and error learning.

The development process passes through different stages.

Each stage of development has certain distinct and specific characteristics.

The Stages of Development:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Key Points

Gang age:-

• Gang age is the period of '8 to 10 years' termed as later childhood.
• At this age, Children feel good to be around their friends and live an organized group life.
• They develop a strong sense of loyalty to the gang. Childhood gangs help children to be socialized by making them learn to behave in a way that is socially acceptable with age peers.
• At this age, children learn appropriate social attitudes such as how to like and enjoy social life and group activities.

Some ways in which Gang belonging leads to Improve Socialization:

• Learn to play games and sports
• Learn to accept and carry out responsibilities
• Learn to compete with others
• Learn to be loyal in the group

Hence, Gang age is associated to 8-10 year age group and delayed development is associated to socialization.

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development:

• Jean Piaget observed his children and their process of making sense of the world around them and developed a model of how the mind processes new information encountered.
• According to him, cognitive structures are the basic mental pattern people use to process any information.

Piaget explained that children progress through four stages. The Four Stages of Cognitive Development are as follows:-

Hence, the third stage of cognitive development according to Piaget is the Concrete operational stage.

Psychological factors are the elements of one's personality that limit or enhance the ways that one learns and thinks.

Key Points

Some Psychological actors that Contribute to Learning:

• Readiness and willingness
• Positive Atmospheric conditions
• Motivation and Interest
• Learning desire
• Physical health
• Ability and Maturation

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

 

Note: The nature of content also influences learning but it is not among the psychological factors that contribute to learning. 

Hence, it becomes clear that the nature of the content is not included in psychological factors that contribute to learning.

Social values are an important part of the culture of the society for the stability of social order and provide the general guidelines for social conduct.

Key Points

Some social values are written below:

• Altruism
• Patriotism
• Sacrifice
• Honesty
• Discipline
• Rationality
• Cooperation
• Decency
• Civilization
• Respect for human dignity, etc.

These social values guide our behavior and make us socially acceptable.

NOTE: Primary goal, instinct, and aggression need do not come under social values.

Hence, it becomes clear that Altruism is a social value.

Bureau of Psychology situated is situated at Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. 

It was established:

• by the U.P. Government  in 1947.
• on the recommendations of the Acharya Narendra Deo Committee.
• with an motive to provide educational guidance to school-going children.

Hence, it coul be concluded that Bureau of Psychology situated is situated at Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.

Kohler’s Insightful Theory of Learning: It says that the solution to a problem arrives ‘all of a sudden’ flash of insight when a person is struggling. For this, Kohler demonstrated the following experiment:

• He kept chimpanzees in a closed room where food was kept out of their reach, and items like boxes, stick was there.
• The chimpanzee would roam inside the room to reach the food.
• They would ‘suddenly’ stand on a box and use the stick to bring food close to them.
• It should be noted that it was not the result of trial and error instead, the chimpanzee suddenly came up with the idea to use boxes and stick.

Hence, we conclude that the relation which Skinner has with rats and Thorndike has with cats, the same relation Kohler has with ​chimpanzees.

‘Plateaus’ are often seen in the pattern of development, indicating periods of no apparent improvement. Learning plateau is arrested growth in learning as it is a long flat and horizontal stretch in the learning curve which:

• represents a stationary stage, where apparently no progress in learning is recorded.
• represents a period in the learning process where no improvement occurs even with any number of practices.

Stages of Learning 

• Stage 1: In this stage, the learner slowly increasing speed to understanding the concept in learning. This is the beginning stage of learning, in which learner is motivated to gain new information.
• Stage 2: In this stage, the learner steeps accelerating in learning the concepts. After some time the learner gains a total understanding of the concept and reaches the boom stage of learning.
• Stage 3: In this stage the learning plateau occurs, after gaining the mastery on the concept, the learner feels bore and want to learn new thing. So the teacher should always introduce the same concept with the innovative methods, this will overcome the boredom.

Ways of Eliminating Learning Plateau

• Provide proper rest
• Use appropriate audio-visual aids
• Adopt efficient methods of teaching
• Provide incentives to arouse interest

Hence, it could be concluded that learning plateau is arrested growth in learning.

B.F. Skinner is considered as the most influential psychologist advocating the role of operant conditioning in learning. He developed an experimental chamber (called Skinner Box) to study the learning process in rats. The book "The Behaviour of Organisms" was launched by BF Skinner in 1938 in which he explained that behaviour changes lifetime. Also, he wrote about the basic unit of behaviour i.e. operant which is explained below.

Operant Conditioning: Modification of Behaviour through Reinforcement

• If a child completes the homework she is praised (rewarded) by the parents and the child learns to perform the task.
• If the child breaks a plate, he/she is scolded (punished) and she will learn not to repeat the behaviour. This is called Operant Conditioning or instrumental conditioning.
• In other words, we learn to perform behaviours that produce positive outcomes and avoid behaviours that yield negative outcomes.

Hence, we conclude that the writer of the book "The Behaviour of Organisms" is ​Skinner.

Albert Bandura proposed 'Social Learning Theory' which states the fact that learning takes place by observing behaviours and imitating what others do. His theory was based on observation of other’s behaviour to situations and then using them as a guide by the learner.

• His theory also explains that human behaviour is an interaction that is continuous and reciprocal with the influences through cognitive, behavioural, and environmental sources.
• Bandura emphasized that Observation and Modeling of other human behaviour, emotions, and attitudes helps a lot in learning. There are many ‘models’ one can observe. For example, behaving in a good manner before students.

The following are the Modeling Processes:

• Attention: When a child urges to learn something, he pays attention to the model to observe or to imitate.
• Retention: It is the process of recalling the learned activity for later use.
• Reproduction: As the name suggests, reproduction is the process of reproducing the action that is learned.
• Motivation: If the action succeeds, the child is motivated to do the action again.

Hence, we conclude that by presenting the right behaviour is the most important for the training of right behaviour in students.

Concept of 'Goal gradient' Hypothesis in problem solving was prposed by the behaviorist Clark Hull in 1932. It is a measure of advancement towards the accomplishment of a goal.

'Goal gradient' Hypothesis states that:

• the tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal.
• perception of progress intrinsically motivated individuals to reach the ultimate target.
• steeper goal gradient has been generated by an increased drive (e.g., hunger) to attain the reward.
• Eg: Rats in a straight alley ran progressively faster as they proceeded from the starting box to the food.

Hence, it could be concluded that 'Goal gradient' concept in problem solving was prposed by Clark Hull.

NOTE:

The idea of Microteaching originated for the first time at Stanford University in the USA, when an Experimental Project on the identification of teaching skills was in progress under the guidance and supervision of the faculty members (Bush, Allen, McDonald Acheson and many others).

According to Allen, Microteaching is a laboratory situation training procedure aimed at simplifying the complexities of the regular teaching-learning process. The learner is engaged in a scaled-down and focused situation, scaled-down in terms class size and lesson length, and focused on certain teaching tasks such as practice and mastering of specific skills such as lecturing, questioning, probing, leading a discussion, managing classroom, etc.

Bush (1968) described micro teaching as a teacher education device of imparting training to the inexperienced or experienced teachers for learning the art of teaching by practising specific teaching skills reducing the complexities of class teaching in terms of the size of the class, time and content.

The micro-teaching cycle includes Planning, Teaching, Feedback, Re-Planning, Re-Teaching,  Re-Feedback. In this:

• The teacher reviews a recording of a teaching session, to get constructive feedback.
• The teacher observes the real classroom teaching program and notes the feedbacks.
• It is a short duration program which basically aims to bring the student to the topic.
• It is a scaled-down process in terms of class size, length of the lesson, teaching duration and teaching complexity and at the same time receiving effective feedback.
• In this technique, the student-teacher is required to teach a small group of students for up to 15-20 minutes, focusing on a particular aspect of teaching. E.g. Skill of set induction, Skill of Questioning, Skill of Blackboard Writing, etc.
• It directs what has worked and what improvements can be made to their teaching technique.

Hence, we conclude that David Hume is not related to micro-teaching.

Teaching takes place at three levels progressively- memory level of teaching, understanding level of teaching, and reflective level of teaching. Teachers must keep in mind the developmental stage of the learners so that desired educational objectives can be achieved.

Key Points

Three Levels of Teaching includes:

1. Memory Level: ​It involves memorizing factual information and it is the least thoughtful method since it encourages rote memorization. It is mostly employed by the teachers at the primary classes to teach basic skills such as rules of grammar, arithmetic, spelling, etc.
2. Understanding Level: ​This level focuses on comprehension and understanding of the meaning of the topic being studied. It involves breaking down complex topics into a logical sequence of steps.
3. Reflective Level: It implies the highest level of thoughtfulness on the part of the learners. It involves the method of the scientific method of understanding a problem. It makes use of the ‘problem-solving approach’ to find a solution to a difficult problem. This level of teaching is usually employed at the college/university level.

Hence, it could be concluded that ‘distance’ is not the level of teaching-learning.

Promoting a Democratic Environment in school: The school should emphasize the need to establish a democratic school environment. It states that the children should have the opportunity to express their views and they should be given due weight. Teachers have to contribute to a democratic atmosphere and to welcome pupil participation in classroom processes. The following are a few strategies to make a class democratic:

• Project Method: It was jointly contributed by John Dewey and W.H. Kilpatrick. It is a method which promotes voluntary participation of students by working in a group, personal experiences of students as the basis of knowledge, application of practical knowledge to complete a specific project, the transmission of practical knowledge to the students for quality experiences, active learning by association and mutual co-operation of a group of peers.
• Brainstorming Method: Proposed by Alex Osborn, it is named so since it refers to the idea that problems are to be attacked by storms of ideas. It is a creative technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific task by gathering a list of ideas before starting the task.

Every participant puts forward any idea which comes to his/her mind.

No member of the group is allowed to discuss the merits or demerits, practicability or impracticability of a particular idea put forward by another member.

• Heuristic Method: Discovered by H. E. Armstrong, this method of teaching involves placing students as far as possible in the altitude of the discoverer. This method can also be named as the 'discovery method'. It involves finding out instead of being merely told about things.

Hence, we conclude that Lecture is not a democratic strategy in classroom teaching.

Inclusive education: It refers to an education system that accommodates all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other conditions.

Inclusive Education:

• acknowledges that all children can learn (does not merely focus on students with special needs).
• acknowledges and respects differences in children: age, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, HIV and TB status etc.
• enables education structures, systems, and methodologies to meet the needs of all children.
• is part of a wider strategy to promote an inclusive society.
• is a dynamic process that is constantly evolving.
• seeks to maximize the potential of all students.
• is a continuous process, not an achieved state or product.
• is the shift in service from the care of disabled children to their education and personal development.

Hence, we conclude that inclusive education does not merely enhance learning only for students with special needs.