PS TET Paper 2: Child Development and Pedagogy Test - 6 (Social Science) - PS TET MCQ

Cognitive abilities are brain-based skills we need to carry out any task from the simplest to the most complex. They have more to do with the mechanisms of how we learn, remember, problem-solve, reason out, and pay attention rather than with any actual knowledge.

An inclusive classroom includes each and every category of children in the educational system, regardless of their differences and disabilities. In an inclusive classroom, all creative, gifted, intelligent, backward, mentally retarded children study together.

• Creativity is a cognitive ability to produce something original by offering a fresh perspective. It is the ability possessed by people who are creative, persistent, and imaginative.

Children are divided into different categories based on their interests, behavior, nature, I.Q level, understanding, grasping abilities, etc. Children live through critical phases of development, which influence their behavior.

• Most children learn to adapt well to this changing nature of skill demand, but some of these children find it difficult to do so.
• Further, much problematic behaviour which goes unnoticed or even tolerated in a home setting becomes more conspicuous in the school environment due to competition and frequent evaluation.
• Common problematic behaviours are attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, learning disability, bullying, and delinquent behaviour.

Problematic children are particularly those who are difficult to teach, due to a lack of self-control and disruptive and antisocial behavior. 
Making an effort to bring change in a child's environment and attitude will be the best way for bringing change in the behavior of a problematic child as: 

• A good learning environment helps in building a culture of mutual trust and respect that engages the learners meaningfully in the task of learning.
• Besides that, it also supports a relationship between teaching and learning that helps in improving childhood mental health and academic performance. 
• By bringing a change in attitude child's thinking, feeling and behavior could be influenced towards a place, people, or situation.

So, it could be concluded that making effort to bring change in a child's environment and attitude will be the best way for bringing change in the behavior of a problematic child.

Mastery learning is a term, formulated by John B.Carrol (1971) and Benjamin Bloom (1971). It provides a compact and interesting way of increasing the likelihood that more students will attain a satisfactory level of performance in school subjects. First, all students are taught together in the same way and the method of teaching is equal for all the learners. Then, a mastery test is given to check, if students have mastered the subject. Those students are separated who could not master the subject, and diagnose their difficulty and divide them into various groups according to their problems. They are given mastery learning according to their difficulty requirements and then again they are checked by mastery test.

The concept of Zone of Proximal Development is given by  Lev Vygotsky. Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD is the set of skills a child can't do on his own but can do with the help of guidance of a more knowledgeable other. 

• Individuals who have the ability to understand the motives, feelings and behaviours of others to bond with them are high on interpersonal Intelligence in Howard Gardner’s theory.
• Interpersonal intelligence: In this type of intelligence people have the ability to understand others' feelings, wishes, expectations, and needs & others' behavior.
• These people have better social communication skills and have the ability to relate well with others and manage relationships.

Thus, people having interpersonal intelligence have the ability to interact with others in society.

A slow learner is a child whose IQ is low enough to cause considerable difficulty in keeping up in the classroom. An average IQ is 100. Slow learners score between 70 and 90 on IQ tests. Less than 70 is considered mentally retarded.

Kohlberg Theory: The theory focuses mainly on the development of moral reasoning and morality among children and has given 6 stages for the same. The theory also suggests that moral logic is primarily focused on seeking and maintaining justice.

Curiosity and Creative ideas are considered a sign of being gifted. Fighting is a confrontation in which two or more people compete for dominance and respect to satisfy their own egos. Thus, it cannot be regarded as a sign of being gifted. Curiosity is a valuable agent in education when it is rightly valued and employed. Curiosity is highly important because it is a starting point of interest. Creative ideas are concerned with a holistic approach to education, focusing upon the learner becoming part of a professional community, involving the dimensions of knowledge, performance and identity formation.

Age is a personal matter. It doesn't reflect environment, cognition or society. So, option (2) is the correct answer.

Lawrence Kohlberg, an American psychologist, has propounded the 'Theory of Moral Development'. He has made a systematic study of moral development in his theory that is categorised into 3 levels and 6 stages.

Fear is an emotion that creates high levels of anxiety in a person and causes the loss of courage in a person.

• Fear of failure makes a person scared of failing. It commonly happens to the students. The reason for such fear is due to peer pressure, focusing on the outcome rather than concentrating on the learning.
• It even damages the mental and emotional state. Sometimes the fear overpowers the students in such a manner that they even commit drastic measures.
• Children should be counseled and should be made to understand that failure and errors are natural in the process of learning and they should not focus on failure or success, rather they should put effort into developing their concepts.
• Understanding of errors is necessary in the learning process to give insight into children's thinking. It helps the teacher to be aware of learners' learning styles, to cater to them according to their needs.

​Thus, it is concluded that the 'fear of failure' needs to be discouraged in children within a classroom because failure and errors are a natural part of children's learning.

Frobel's most important contribution to education was his development of the kindergarten. Frobel's method inspired and informed the work of Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner and others, who adopted his ideas and adapted his materials according to their own work.

According to Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development, assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium are the ways through which children integrate new experiences into already existing cognition structures (schema). 

The child learns language on the basis of the principle of imitation.
Psychologists such as Chapini, Shirley, and Valentine have studied language learning through simulation. They had opinion that children learn by following the language of their family and peers, that is, children learn the language in the same society or family in which the language is spoken.

The RTE Act provides for The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education till completion of elementary education in a neighbourhood school. It clarifies that 'compulsory education' means obligation of the appropriate government to provide free elementary education and ensure compulsory admission, attendance and completion of elementary education to every child in the six to fourteen age group. 'Free' means that no child shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education. It makes provisions for a non-admitted child to be admitted to an age appropriate class.

Thinking is a higher cognitive process. In the literature, it has been defined primarily in two ways; one category of definition considers thinking as a problem-solving activity. While the other class of definition considers it as a mechanism of an internal representation of the external world.

Individual difference: Every child is unique and different from others. It should be kept in mind that learners possess different abilities, and personalities, and belong to different backgrounds. The stimulus needs of every learner will be different. Teaching has to be done keeping in mind the individual differences and problems arising out of it.
The teacher should take care of the below points:

• As per the need of the students, the teaching method can vary.
• Generally confused with discrimination, ability grouping is a measure in which students of similar traits are grouped so that the teacher can choose a compatible teaching method.
• Keeping in mind the child-centered education as proposed by the NCF, adjusting the curriculum is no exception because it is the child who has the freedom to choose what he wants to learn.
• The pace of learning should not be a matter of concern for a teacher as every child has his pace and more than results, the attempt to learn is important.

It should be noted that, though self-study improves knowledge, it should not be done simultaneously when the teacher’s responsibility is to teach children.
So, we conclude that for a teacher, leaving children for self-study is not recommended

Extinction (psychology) is observed in both operantly conditioned and classically conditioned behaviours. When operant behaviour that has been previously reinforced no longer produces reinforcing consequences, the behaviour gradually stops occurring.
A partial reinforcement will continue to produce reinforcing consequences and therefore, making it difficult to stop a behaviour from re-occurring.

Lev Vygotsky is a Russian Psychologist who proposed the theory of Socio-cultural development.

Adoptation is not the stage of learning.
‘Learning’ means a relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience with the environment.

• For example, a child touches a hot pan placed near the gas stove in the kitchen because he is unaware that it can burn his fingers.
• Once he has had such an experience, he becomes careful in the future. He has ‘learned’ that hot objects can burn his fingers.

'Prediction' is the characteristic of aptitude. 'Aptitude' means 'a natural ability to do something'.

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

A conative domain is not among the three domains of behavior that are covered by the evaluation. 
The cognitive domain is focused on intellectual skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and creating a knowledge base. For evaluating cognitive development oral, written, essay type, objective type questions examinations are used.
The affective domain includes the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes. For evaluating affective domain interest inventory, practical examinations, and observation techniques are used.
For evaluating psychomotor domain performance tests, practical examination, and observation techniques are used.

Systematic presentation of concepts may be related to 'Development proceeds from heteronomy to autonomy'. Heteronomy means dependence on others, while autonomy means self reliance. Young children are dependent on others for their care and welfare, but adolescents are capable of taking care of themselves. This shows the movement from heteronomy to autonomy.

ICT stands for Information Communication Technology which plays a major role in the field of education. ICTs offer a great potential to support lifelong learning for all groups of students, including those who have special needs. 

The young child learns to speak single, discrete words in the beginning. Later, he can join together these sentences in the form of language. This is Development leads to the integration principle of development.
Development leads to integration: Once the child learns specific or differentiated responses, then, as development continues, she can synthesise or integrate these specific responses to form a whole. For example, the young child learns to speak single, discrete words in the beginning. Later, he can join together these sentences in the form of language. Similarly, a young child may have a specific concept of a car. Later, as she grows, her concept expands as she is able to synthesise new aspects into it.

Discussion is that students have considerable agency in the construction of knowledge, understanding, or interpretation. Students have fair chance to put their different ideas in front of everyone.

Jean Piaget, a swiss psychologist, is famous for his work on child development. He made a systematic study of cognitive development in his theory that is categorized in four stages.

“A creative child is not an adventurer” The statement about the creative child is not correct.
Creative children express opinions and constantly ask many questions. So curiosity is the main aspect of creativity. Creative children are ambitious, courageous, and persistent and extrovert, but the level of creativity differs from person to person.