Kamran Akhtar Siddiqui

Student Name: Kamran Akhtar

Teacher Name: Sir Riffat Abbas Khan

Course Name: Educational Psychology

12 March 2016

Q. 1. “The knowledge of Educational psychology helps in dealing with the learner and the

learning process effectively.” Justify

Educational psychology is that branch of psychology which deals with study of human behavior

in educational setting. Educational psychology has been described as ‘the scientific study of

psychology in education’(Smith and Pourchot 2013).

Educational psychology can help us in many ways. It tells us about the behavior of the students

which is most important and most complicated thing to understand. It gives us the theories,

processes and approaches that deal with the mental, physical and emotional development of

child. These development processes affect the human behavior which we have to deal with in our

institutions.

At first, the purpose of education was believed to be the transfer of knowledge. But the purpose

is manifold. Education philosophy explains it explicitly. Thorndike argued that one of

schooling’s most important tasks is to hone children’s reasoning skills, and he excelled at doing

exacting scientific studies of teaching and learning (Arends 2014).

Besides, educational psychology helps us identify the problem areas in a child’s learning

process. So we can mould our teaching in a way that suits that particular child without separating
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him/her from mainstream classroom learning. An easy example can be of the individual

differences that children have in our classes. Their learning styles are different from one another.

Some are visual learners, some auditory and some kinesthetic learners. Effective teachers cannot

apply “one-method-fits-all” strategy because of individual differences of learners. Teachers must

be an expert in strategies and be flexible in their use. So by the help of educational psychology

we come to know this and we amend our plans and teaching styles.

Educational psychology suggests the ways in which human behavior can be controlled or guided.

With the help of educational psychology we can do proper counselling of a child as regards his

poor behavior in the class with peers or teachers. So counselling becomes meaningful and brings

positive results.

It can also help us make people of a kind that we want in our society. For example, as John

Watson, an American psychologist says, “Give me a dozen infants….and I’ll guarantee to take

any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer,

artist, merchant-chief and yes, even beggar and thief—regardless of his talents…”.

Moreover, it helps us know the children’s social contexts and how do those social interactions

actually affect a child’s behavior generally and in educational setting particularly.

So, educational psychology is an effective means to learner’s development and learning process.

Q.2. How does the knowledge of Piaget’s theory help in nurturing optimal cognitive

development of children? Illustrate with examples

According to Piaget, child comes into interaction with his environment and conceptualizes the

things according to his own understanding. This results in cognitive development. This happens

because of the schemes that a human child possesses since birth. These schemes are called
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reflexes. When he uses that reflexes to adapt to the environment the reflexes are replaced with

constructed schemas (Huitt and Hummel 2003). As these constructed schemes, which are termed

structures, become complex they are organized in an hierarchical manner (Huitt and Hummel

2003).

Piaget says that a man uses the processes of assimilation and accommodation to add new

knowledge to schemas. As the schemas become complex they turn into structures. It happens

with the physical and mental development of child along with the interaction with the

environment (Huitt and Hummel 2003).

The stages that Piaget puts down give us a clear way to make learning processes specific. If we

are dealing with the infants we should focus on the sensorimotor skills because these children

learn through trial and error method.

For example, there is a child and we want to teach him how to hold a pen or pencil and use it.

We should give him that thing and let him use it himself. He will put it into mouth and will try to

use it somehow if he has seen somebody to use it for writing. Once, twice, thrice he will make

mistake in using it but finally he will pretend or imitate how to hold it and use it. This will enable

him to make physical movement in a synchronized way. Piaget describes in great detail how the

newborn baby's reflexes adapt to external objects and become sensory-motor schemes, or action

patterns, through which the baby comes to recognize objects (Kamii 1970).

Apart from this making students work in groups using variety of techniques to learn help a child

achieve optimal development. It happens because of the experience that a child has in that group

because he sees others doing things in different ways. It is because in the preoperational stage,

the concentration is on experiences that the children are able to repeat and therefore learn at their
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own pace with guidance (Piaget 2008). Besides, the classrooms with the younger students will be

more experientially based with much physical activity (Piaget 2008).

Moreover, the theory of Piaget has been used by different countries to make their curriculum in

its light. Besides the theory is applied in the classrooms to get optimal cognitive development of

the child. It benefits teachers and learners in several ways. It enables the teachers develop a

better understanding of their students’ thinking. They can also make changes in their teaching

strategies and styles to suit to their students’ cognitive level. It paves way for the students to

construct knowledge. Teachers develop a better understanding of their students’ thinking. They

can also align their teaching strategies with their students’ cognitive level (e.g. motivational set,

modeling, and assignments) (Piaget 2008).

Q3. Which theory of learning is more suitable for secondary classes? Discuss the classroom

implications, with suitable examples, of Behaviorist, Cognitive, information processing

Model, Socio-cognitive and Constructivist learning theories

Behaviorist theories cannot be applied to teach secondary classes because it emphasizes on

repetition and drilling method. Teacher gives students a structure and asks them to memorize that

structure, repeat it unless it is mastered. If the response from the students is positive, they are

rewarded. Thus learning depends on stimuli (Munoz).

Besides, the students are passive and what goes on in the minds of students is of no or very little

importance. Since students of secondary classes are of an age when their cognitive ability is

higher than cramming things, they should be dealt in a different way. The behaviorists see the

mind as a black box in a sense that a response to a stimulus can be observed quantitatively,

thereby ignoring the thought processes occurring in the mind (Ally 2004).
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But if we take the point of reward, Skinner’s experiment of making a pigeon dance in the

laboratory proves that it can be applied to all kinds of learning. So it can slightly be used for

reinforcement.

The cognitive view of learning, like the behaviorist view, sees knowledge as given and absolute.

The founder and exponent of this theory, Jean Piaget says that cognitive development occurs in

an individual when he adapts to his environment and assimilates or accommodates new

information. This theory can be applied to the secondary classes because according to Piaget’s

formal operational stage i.e. From 12 years old and so on, learners are able enough to think about

abstract relationships (as in algebra), understand methodology, formulate hypotheses, and think

about possibilities and abstractions like justice. So these students can be made to think and write

creatively. Cognitive psychology claims that learning involves memory, motivation, and thinking

and that reflection plays an important part in learning (Ally 2004). That is why this learning

theory is crucial in developing critical thinking and making students think about the world

around them and reflect not only their doings but also of the people.

Unlike cognitivist theory, Constructivism sees knowledge as a constructed entity. It means that

individuals make sense of their experiences. The construction of knowledge includes both

physical and intellectual learning activities (Ally 2004). The crucial action of constructing

meaning is mental: it happens in the mind. Physical actions, hands-on experience may be

necessary for learning, especially for children, but it is not sufficient; we need to provide

activities which engage the mind as well as the hands (Dewey called this reflective activity)

(Hein 1991). Besides, according this theory, the role of the teacher is that of a facilitator because

it focuses on the discovery and problem solving methods.

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In fact it should be preferred to other learning theories because it gives students a way to open

their minds and construct a meaning of their own about things. The students learn from their

peers or friends and not in isolation. Learning is a social activity: our learning is intimately

associated with our connection with other human beings, our teachers, our peers, our family as

well as casual acquaintances (Hein 1991).

Keeping in view the above mentioned things about constructivism, it is said that implementation

of constructivism theory can be very effective in the class.

So concluding the argument, it is said that there are some points on which all these learning

theories overlap each other but al large they are quite different from one another. Talking about

an edge of one theory over there, constructivism outshines others. Constructivism is the theory

that should be used to teach secondary classes. It is learner centered and enables the learners to

learn from their own experiences through discovery and problem solving.

Q4. How to distinguish the students with learning disabilities from the students with low

achievement and the students with mild mental retardation. How is it possible to have

learning disability and being genius? Discuss with examples.

Firstly it is said that it is very difficult to find out the students’ learning disability. It is not so

easy because they learn and work like normal learners. Before we mention the characteristics of

students with learning abilities, it should be made clear that term “disability” does not mean or

imply inability. Children with learning disabilities are as smart as or smarter than their peers. But

they may have difficulty reading, writing, spelling, and reasoning, recalling and/or organizing

information if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways. Learning

disabilities arise from neurological differences in brain structure and function and affect a
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person’s ability to receive, store, process, retrieve or communicate information.(Cortiella and

Horowitz 2014). Besides, the educators believe that all children can achieve their full potential if

they are provided with appropriate opportunities, instructional methods, resources, and a

supportive environment. So today they choose to speak of “children with disabilities” or

“children with exceptionalities.

Following are some of their characteristics.

 They are normal or above normal intelligence.

 They face a particular difficulty in an academic area.

 Difficulties are not attributed to a diagnosed problem or disorder.

 The most common learning disability is difficulty with reading.

 They often experience difficulties with handwriting, spelling, composition, and

mathematics.

These students with learning disabilities can be distinguished from low achievement students on

the basis of performance. Students with learning disabilities, as mentioned above, are difficult to

find because they work and perform normally. Whereas the low achievement students mostly

perform poorly. Or their academic achievement is unexpectedly low or at times average to

above-average achievement attained only at the expense of unrealistically high levels of effort

and/or educational support. But they are not diagnosed with problem or disability and need more

attention like exceptional students.

Apart from this, students with learning disabilities can be distinguished from mentally retarded in

many ways. Mild mentally retarded students suffer from Dyslexia or they might suffer from

Dyscalculia. Dyslexia is a severe impairment of the ability to read and spell and Dyscalculia

which is an impairment of the ability to pick appropriate strategies for mathematics. Students
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with mental retardation have difficulty remembering information. As would be expected, the

more severe the cognitive impairment, the greater the deficits in memory. In particular, research

has found that students with mental retardation have trouble retaining information in short-term

memory (Heward 2006). Besides, the rate at which individuals with mental retardation acquire

new knowledge and skills is well below that of typically developing children and Students with

mental retardation often have trouble attending to relevant features of a learning task and instead

may focus on distracting irrelevant stimuli (Heward 2006).

REFERENCES

Ally, M. (2004). "Foundations of educational theory for online learning." Theory and practice of

online learning 2: 15-44.

Arends, R. (2014). Learning to teach, McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Cortiella, C. and S. H. Horowitz (2014). "The state of learning disabilities: Facts, trends and

emerging issues." New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities.

Hein, G. (1991). "Constructivist learning theory." Institute for Inquiry. Available at:/http://www.

exploratorium. edu/ifi/resources/constructivistlearning. htmlS.

Heward, W. (2006). Characteristics of children with mental retardation.

Huitt, W. and J. Hummel (2003). "Piaget's theory of cognitive development." Educational

psychology interactive 3(2).

Kamii, C. (1970). "An Application of Piaget's Theory to the Conceptualization of a Preschool

Curriculum."
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Munoz, L. "Behaviorist Learning Theory."

Piaget, J. (2008). "Developmental psychology: Incorporating Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories in

classrooms."

Smith, M. C. and T. Pourchot (2013). Adult learning and development: Perspectives from

educational psychology, Routledge.