Mix Questions

Ever since 1986 when the National Policy on Education was approved by Parliament, efforts to redesign the curriculum have been focused on the creation of a national system of education.

National Curriculum Framework (NCF):

• NPE proposed a national framework for curriculum as a means of evolving a national system of education capable of responding to India’s diversity of geographical and cultural milieus while ensuring a common core of values along with academic components.
• The NPE (1986) entrusted NCERT with the responsibility of developing the National Curriculum Framework and reviewing the framework at frequent intervals.
• The National Curriculum Framework 2005 is an official document laying down the needs of the school system of India envisioning the Constitution of India upholding all its tenets.
• The main purpose was to reduce the curriculum load, remove the anomalies in the system and to create a consensus with the help of new syllabi in the form of a thematically organized body of knowledge. 

Hence, it is clear that the National Curriculum Framework was developed by the NCERT.

The Five Basic Tenets of the NCF 2005:

• Connecting knowledge to life outside the school.
• Ensuring that learning shifts away from rote methods.
• Enriching the curriculum so that it goes beyond textbooks.
• Making examinations more flexible and integrating them with classroom life, and
• Nurturing an overriding identity informed by caring concerns within the democratic polity of the country.

• University Grants Commission (UGC): It came into existence on 28th December 1953 and became a statutory Organization of the Government of India by an Act of Parliament in 1956, for the coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of teaching, examination and research in university education.
• National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE): The NCTE, as a statutory body came into existence in pursuance of the National Council for Teacher Education Act on the 17th August 1995. The main objective of the NCTE is to achieve planned and coordinated development of the teacher education system throughout the country.
• Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE): It was reconstituted in the year 1962. The main objectives were to serve the educational institutions more effectively, to be responsive to the educational needs of those students whose parents were employed in the Central Government and had frequently transferable jobs.

The Montessori method is propounded by ‘Maria Montessori’, an Italian physician and naturalist. This method lays emphasis on student's all-round development which includes personal, social, moral, emotional, and cognitive development of the child.

The Montessori system of teaching is focused on the child as it ensures student's all-round development by:

• making learning fun and burden-free by including self-directed activity, hands-on learning to reach full potential in all areas of life.
• providing many practical exercises in her school to enable the child to learn good habits of cleanliness and order.
• making students learn the lesson of the dignity of labour and self-reliability by attending to their needs themselves.
• introducing concepts such as ‘Learning through living’, ‘Sense training’, ‘individual teaching’.

Hence, it could be concluded that the Montessori system of teaching is focused on the child.

• Cognitive domains: In this domain, a child deals with knowledge and hence, learns to create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, remember.

• Affective domains: When it comes to growth in emotional areas, this domain comes into play. It includes receiving, responding, valuing, organizing, and characterising.
• Psychomotor domains: These domains are nothing but manual or physical skills. It deals with physical coordination, movements, and motor skills. It includes imitation, manipulation, precision, articulation, and naturalization.

Hence, we conclude that 'characterising' is not the part of cognitive domain but affective domain.

The Right to Education Act commonly known as RTE Act was enacted in August 2009 by the Indian government.

It is an act which aims to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the age of 6 to 14 years in India under the Article 21A of the Indian Constitution.

Objectives of RTE Act 2009:

• Appoint trained teachers for better educational outcomes.
• Improve school infrastructure(if needed) in every three years.
• Prohibit private tuition by teachers to equalize educational opportunities to all.
• Reserve 25% seats for children belonging to economically weaker sections in private schools.
• Not to deploy teachers in non-academic work except for census, population elections, and disaster relief duties.
• Establish primary and upper primary schools within the distance of 1km and 3kms respectively from the child's house.

Hence, it could be concluded that the Government of India enacted the Right of  Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in the year 2009.

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.

Key Points

Piaget used 'Schemas' for 'Organised packets of information stored in long term memory' as according to Piaget:

• Schemas are mental representations of how information is organized and interpreted.
• schemas refer to a small packet of information that is used to organize and store information.
• Schemas are specific psychological structures, constructed in organized ways to make sense of experience.

Hence, it could be concluded that Piaget used 'Schemas' for 'Organised packets of information stored in long term memory'.

Additional Information 

Other key Concepts of Piaget Theory:

• Accommodation: It is the modification of an existing schema to suit the new experience.

• Assimilation: It is the addition of a new concept or experience into an already existing schema.
• Equilibration: It refers to the process to find a balance between existing schemas and new information.

Mind-mapping: A mind map is a graphical way to represent non-linear ideas and concepts.

• It is a visual thinking tool that helps to structure information, helping you to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall, and generate new ideas. Just as in every great idea, its power lies in its simplicity.

Key Points

‘Mind mapping’ refers to a technique to enhance comprehension as:

• It involves putting brainstormed ideas in the form of a visual map or picture that shows the relationships among these ideas.
• One starts with a central idea or topic, then draws branches of the main topic which represent different parts or aspects of the main topic. 

Additional Information

Mind mapping in education is perfect for:

• Visualizing concepts
• Brainstorming sessions
• Improving critical thinking
• Outlining written documents
• Storyboarding presentations
• Improving reading and writing skills
• Advanced research papers or graduate projects

Hence, it could be concluded that ‘Mind mapping’ refers to a technique to enhance comprehension.

Personality refers to the different aspects of a person's character such as his/her interest, behavior, cognition, etc. A detailed information about the individual’s ancestry is collected when the 'Case History' method is used to measure personality.

• Case history refers to a research approach to investigate and analyze an individual, group, community, or phenomenon to explore the causes of basic principles. t is a method of qualitative research.

Key Points

Case History Method:

• A case history is a deep, detailed, and intensive study of a social unit.
• It preserves wholeness of the units i.e. it is an approach that views any social unit as a whole. 
• It helps to collect detailed information about the unit of study and gives clues to new ideas and further research.
• As a tool of analysis, it helps to ascertain a number and variety of traits, qualities, and habits confined to a particular instance.
• The case history method shows the way to deepen our perception and sharpen insights to understand biographies.

• It is based on reality. Some of these studies have been conducted in the school environment, which has mostly centered on the behavioral problems of children.
• One thing we must remember about the case history is that it must provide valid and reliable results for the development of future research.

Hence, it could be concluded that detailed information about the individual’s ancestry is collected when the 'Case History' method is used to measure personality.

Additional Information

Mistakes and Errors:

• When a learner can’t master a topic, he/she is vulnerable to make errors. Errors are nothing but incorrectness made by a child during learning. 
• It also takes place due to the mismatch in previously assimilated and newly accommodated knowledge. 

Key Points

Children’s Errors and Mistakes:

• are a window into how they think and learn. 
• are a significant step in the teaching-learning process. 
• are necessary in the learning process to give insight into children's thinking.
• help the teacher to be aware of learners' learning styles, to cater to them according to their needs.
• are considered as a part of the teaching-learning process as it helps to understand the child.

Hence, we conclude that errors of learners often indicate how they learn.

Additional Information 

Teacher’s Approach on Learner’s Error:

• The teacher should assess the types of errors made by the learners.
• Teachers should emphasize more on correcting errors affecting a large percentage of their students.
• The teacher should look upon the errors as a feedback.
• Remedial teaching should be done to overcome the errors made by learners.

Socialization is the process through which communities transact or educate their members about the norms and values of society to be socially acceptable.

• It simply refers to acquire the socially approved ways of behavior and to take ideal expectations seriously.
• Socialization is the continuous process of negotiating identities and shaping one’s concept of self, identity, various attitudes, and behaviors. 
• Socialization has 4 major agents namely family, school, peers, and mass media. 

Key Points 

Types of Socialization:

• Primary Socialization: 
• It happens during infancy and childhood. It refers to the process where the child becomes socialized through the family in the early childhood years. 
  • This highlights that the key agent in the process of primary socialization is the family.
  • For example, a very young child in a family has little knowledge of his culture. It is through the family that the child gets to know what is accepted and what is not in a particular society.
• Secondary Socialization: 
• It occurs once the infant passes into the childhood phase and continues into maturity. It refers to the process that begins in the later years through agencies such as school and peer groups. 
  • During this phase more than the family, some other agents of socialization like the school and peers’ group begin to play a role in socializing the child.
  • For example, Schools help children in learning the importance of social cohesion and unity and inculcating the informal cues about social roles through interaction.

Hence, it could be concluded that the statement 'School is a secondary socialization agent and family is a primary socialization agent' is correct in the context of socialization of children.

Development refers to an increase in structure for better and enhanced functioning of organs. It is a complex and continuous process, thus there are some principles that need to be followed for a better understanding of the concept.

Key PointsPrinciples of development include:

Development is Life-Long​/Principle of continuity:

• This principle defines that development is a life-long process as it does not stop at maturation and continues gradually until reaching its maximum growth. 

Development is modifiable​: 

• Development may be explained as the series of overall changes in an individual due to the emergence of modified structures and functions that are the outcome of the interactions and exchanges between the organism and its environment. 

Development follows a pattern:

•  Prenatal (before birth) and postnatal (after birth) development of human beings follow a pattern or a predictable sequence. Physical development, motor or language development and intellectual development take place in definite sequences.

Product of hereditary and environment:

• Hereditary and environment play a vital role in determining the development of an individual as:
  • all the mental and social traits depend on the environment.
  • all the inborn traits, instincts, potentials, and I. Q. depends on heredity.
• Development = Heredity * Environment 

Hence, it could be concluded that development is governed and determined by culture alone is not a principle of development.