Test: Teaching Practices (Miscellaneous Topics) - Software Development MCQ

“Learning is a relatively permanent change in personality (including cognitive, affective, attitudinal, motivational, behavioral, and experiential) and reflects a change in performance usually brought about by practice although it may arise from insight or other factors, including memory.”

Key Points

The characteristics of the learning process are:

• Learning is goal-directed: Every human being aspires to achieve some goals in his/her life. These goals may be achieved through learning. If there is no goal to achieve, then there would be no necessity of learning.
• Learning is intentional: Since an individual sets a goal to achieve, he/she has to deliberately do some activity to attain the goal. If he/she does not have any intention to reach the goal or is quite casual about it, then it is difficult to reach the goal and in that sense, learning is weak or may not take place at all.
• Learning is an active process: One has to perform some activity, may be physical or mental, or both to learn something. The mind has to remain active to acquire new experiences; otherwise, no learning can take place.
• Learning is individualistic: You might have observed that in a class there are some students who learn more quickly while others learn slowly. In fact, the pace of learning differs from person to person.
• Learning is the outcome of the interaction of the individual with the environment: As a teacher, you have to organize the environment carefully to motivate the students so as to interact with you, peer students, and teaching-learning materials.
• Learning is a continuous process: From childhood every human being tries to change his/her behavior, thinking, attitude, interest, etc. continuously to fit himself/ herself to the ever-changing conditions of life.
• Learning is transferable: Learning in one situation can be used to solve problems in another situation. Learning of mathematics, science, social science and language help the child to perform different activities in their real life.

Hence, we conclude that Learning is a passive process is not a characteristic of the learning process.

When a child comes to school, she brings along with her, her whole world, which includes her feelings, experiences, habits, ways in which she relates with others, and numerous other facets. Therefore, in order to gain an understanding of a child, one has to also understand the social, emotional, and moral aspects of her development along with the physical and cognitive dimensions of growth.

Important Points 

• Social development refers to the way a child learns to interact with others and develop social relationships with others.
• It is the trust the child develops through early experiences at home and the independence that developed in exploring things around that impacts the social development of a child.
• The social development of a child involves the interpersonal relationships of an individual, her acquired social skills, values, and the ways in which an individual adjusts with society.
• Through social development, the child learns to accept others' points of view and also to work in a group. Further, learning such qualities as sharing, cooperation, waiting for one’s turn, respecting other people and things, and so on, forms a part of the social development process.

Key Points ​The process of social development of a child will slow down if:

• The child is not allowed to go in his neighborhood because he will learn evils from there: It is important for the child to interact well in his neighborhood so that he can learn many things and develop socially. If the child is not allowed to go, he will not be able to develop socially.
• Due to language barriers, the child is unable to communicate with others: If the child has a language barrier in his communication then his social development will slow down as he will not be able to communicate with others.
• The child is handicapped and is hated by others: It is important to treat every child properly, it is wrong to neglect the child because of his handicapped personality as it will slow down their social development.

Thus, it is concluded that all the above activities will slow down the process of social development.

The literal meaning of philosophy is the love of wisdom which is derived from the Greek word "Philos" (Love) and Sophia (Wisdom). Wisdom does not merely mean knowledge. It is a continuous seeking of insight into basic realities - the physical world, life, mind, society, knowledge, and values. Key Points

• Idealism is the oldest system of philosophy known to man. Its origin goes back to ancient India in the East and to Plato in the West. Generally, idealists believe that ideas are the true reality. 
•  According to them, the human spirit is the most important element in life. All of reality is reducible to one fundamental substance-spirit.
• The universe is viewed as essentially non-material in its ultimate nature. The matter is not real, rather it is a notion, an abstraction of the mind.
• It is only the mind that is real. Therefore, all material things that seem to be real are reducible to mind or spirit.  

Important Points

• ​ The purpose of education according to idealism is the development of the mind and self of the pupil or the full development of powers inherent in personality.
• They like to educate the child for mainly two reasons: Firstly, education is a spiritual necessity and secondly education is also a social necessity.
• So the school should emphasize intellectual activities, moral judgment, aesthetic judgment, self-realization, individual freedom, individual responsibility, and self-control in order to achieve this development.

Thus, it is concluded that according to idealism, the aim of education is the full development of powers inherent in personality.

Motives are the focus on psychological and social (as well as environmental) factors and how they interact with each other to produce motivation. For example, the need for achievement, affiliation, power, curiosity and exploration, and self-actualization motives.

Key Points

Motives can be classified into -  Biological, Social and Personal Motives. 

 
Important Points 

Hence, we can conclude that achievement is a secondary motive.

Phonology is related to the system of sounds that constitute the fundamental concepts of language.

Key Points

• Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and work with sounds in spoken language.
• Phonological awareness refers to the science of phonemes and the ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of sentences and words.
• Phonological awareness is an important skill to develop in children.

Thus, Phonological awareness refers to the ability to reflect and manipulate the structure.

Task-based language teaching (TBLT), also known as task-based instruction (TBI), focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students to do meaningful tasks using the target language.

• TBLT is not a new approach to language teaching. For example, Prabhu used a task-based approach in secondary classrooms in India as early as 1979.
• TBLT emerged as a result of applied linguists’ and language teachers’ dissatisfaction with traditional methods in which language was predominantly taught explicitly and decontextualized as a system of rules and elements such as grammar and vocabulary. There were concerns that these approaches were inconsistent with how people really learn a language.
• Learners were exposed to uncommon language examples and were expected to produce error-free language at a very early stage. Traditional methods of teaching often resulted in learners’ knowing the rules but not knowing when or how to apply them in context.
• In natural processes of language learning, such as children learning their first language or adult immigrants learning a second language outside of school, individuals do not, for the most part, learn language rules. Instead, they learn how to use the language to communicate their intended message and to exchange and understand ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
• Task-Based Language Teaching is primarily a student-centred approach. It originated from the Communicative Approach but has since developed its own distinct principles.
• It seeks to develop student's interlanguage through providing a task and then using language to solve it.

Hence, we conclude that TBLT stands for ​Task-Based Language Teaching.

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

Key Points

• According to Chomsky, an innate capacity to acquire language is the result of our uniquely human biological inheritance which is called 'Language Acquisition Device'.

Language acquisition device is a hypothetical tool in a child's brain that makes learners able to:

• acquire and produce language.

• learn and assimilate language easily.

• analyze language and extract basic rules.

• encode the grammatical structure of language.

Hence, it could be included that language acquisition device is correct and relevant in the context.

Additional Information

Other important concepts given by Noam Chomsky:

• 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 an innate ability to acquire, understand, and develop grammar.

Working toward a career involves a process. It is like taking a journey to a certain destination. You just don’t arrive at a destination automatically. It takes planning and time before you get there. It takes planning, time, and effort to make proper educational and vocational planning. Counseling plays a crucial role to help you make appropriate educational choices keeping in mind your abilities and interests and arriving at a suitable career choice.

• Counseling refers to specialized assistance provided to the students in the area of educational and vocational counseling. It is a continuous and comprehensive process of helping students to become more efficient, adjusted, and realize their true potential

Key Points

Vocational counseling: The choice of a vocation is one of the crucial decisions in one’s life. It determines the type of people one would work with, the nature of the environment in which one would work and the type of work one is going to do. All these should be commensurate with the type of person one is, i.e., the abilities, interests, aspirations, attitudes, and values one has and the particular situation and family environment one has.

• Vocational counseling aims at helping the person select a proper vocation and prepare for it. Deciding on a career/vocation is crucial as it involves lots of time, effort, and money.
• Entering into a career that turns out to be inappropriate for the person will lead to job dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and maladjustment in work life. All these will affect negatively the personal life of the individual. Hence deciding on a vocation is a very important task.
• Vocational counseling should be an integral part of the total educational process. Vocational counseling facilitates this decision by providing appropriate counseling to the individual. Placement counseling is an important part of vocational counseling.
• The counselor makes the individual aware of his abilities, aptitude, attitude, and interests; and helps him in a proper placement suitable to his abilities and from which he derives job satisfaction.
• Vocational counseling is provided by school counselors, educational counselors, vocational counselors, and career counselors. They provide individuals and groups with career, personal, social, and educational counseling. The counselor needs to take into account the personal social aspect of the individual in order to provide vocational counseling.

Thus, it is concluded that Vocation is the focal point of vocational counseling.

Development can be defined as a broad term that includes a series of qualitative and progressive changes. The development of human beings is divided into different stages such as Infancy, Early Childhood, Late Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood.

Key Points

• The process of socialization is life long process that begins from birth and ends with death and is said to occur in two phases such as primary and secondary.
•  The primary stage denotes the socialization in infancy and childhood during which period a child acquires the most intense form of cultural learning.
• Secondary socialization maps the period in later childhood and adolescence when the child receives training in institutional or formal settings such as school. This level runs parallel to primary socialization.

Important Points

• ​ Socialization of children from infancy to adolescence occurs at a very rapid rate with family and peers exerting greatest influence at the initial stage of infancy.
• Adolescence is a period of change. Adolescence is a phase of life between 12-19 years of age characterized by physical growth, emotional, psychosocial, mental, and behavioral changes, and socialization that happen rapidly.
• Adolescents need to find their place in society and gain a sense of fitting in it. This is a process of socialization involving an adolescent’s integration with society. This process of socialization enhances the sense of personal identity, and the development of personal identity helps the adolescent to deal with society’s expectations and standards, and norms. 

Hence, it is concluded that during adolescence rapid and significant socialization occurs in humans.

Hint

•  Childhood: It extends from 2 to 12 years and is generally divided into early and late childhood.
  •  Early childhood is also called the pre-school stage. The young child is eager to gain control over knowledge about the environment.
  • The period of late childhood ranges from 6 years to the attainment of sexual maturity, around 12- 13 years. During this stage, children develop marked negativism and because of their desire for independence seldom obey their parents.
• Adulthood: It is the stage where growth is complete and the person assumes various responsibilities. Starting around 18 years it extends till middle age which is around 45 years.

The word gender gives the meaning not only to show the difference in body structure or other physical structure but also the different responsibilities they have in the society, etc.

Gender refers to the socially constructed differences between men and women. It refers to the masculine and feminine qualities, behaviour, roles, and responsibilities that society upholds. Gender can be changed / re-oriented.

• Gender is such a familiar part of life that it usually takes a deliberate disruption of our expectations of how women and men are supposed to act to pay attention to how it is produced.
• Transvestites and transsexuals construct their gender status of dressing, speaking, walking, gesturing in the way of prescribed for women or men whichever they want to be taken for and so does any normal person.
• Gendering is legitimated by religion law, science, and the society’s entire set of values. 

Hence, from the above-mentioned points, it becomes clear that Gender is a social construct.