ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

Name:

Amina

Class:

M.A (Education)

Course Name:

Foundation of Education

Semester:

SPRING 2022

Course Code:

6500

Student Id:

0000282473

Assignment no: 02
 Assignment no 2

Q1 Define "Reconstructionism". Explain its main factors as an emerging movement in

philosophy?

The Reconstructionist education movement is a continuation of the progressivism movement.

It is one of the last emerging trends. The philosophy on which the current is based is
“pragmatism”. John Dewey, Isaac Bergson, T. Brameld are representatives.

The economic crisis, social depressions and technological developments in the United States,
which have become threatening to human existence, have led to the understanding of
progressivism as aimless or unable to function, and as a reaction to it, it has prepared the
formation of the re-constructionist movement.

According to reconstructionism, in order to keep up with the constantly existing

developments and changes, a new one should be built instead of the old and destroyed values
by making a choice in the struggle for existence.Although the common goal of all thoughts is
the happiness of humanity, there is a conflict between these thoughts on the ways to be
followed and adhered to in reaching the goal. Especially in the philosophy of the state and
society, the theological and political ideas that are very different from each other and working
on what kind of administration and who should govern the state. available.

John Dewey is one of the most important representatives of reconstructionism.

Among these conflicting values, one does not know which one to adhere to. In this case, a
free environment is required where all these ideas can be defended on a legal basis. This
environment is only possible with democracy.

For this reason, civilizations should adopt democracy, which is a form of government based
on the ideas that pluralist participation will generally be more accurate, know and apply
better, and that the minority can defend their views and counter-criticize, and that the
government can be determined by elections. This is something that can only be achieved
through education. Because education is a tool of change and balance. Since reality shows a
relativity depending on change, education is a tool that can keep up with this relativity and re-
establish values that are destroyed or obsolete at any moment. In this context, the aim of
education is to realize change on the way to a world civilization, by ensuring the happiness of
people and an environment of peace and tranquility.
Since reality is not only specific to the moment, but also covers the future, education has to
consider not only the present but also the future. In other words, education is the process of
preparing for the future by using the past as a tool between the past and the future. In this
context, the courses should have a scientific character that is open to change if the content is
future-oriented.

The school should be the responsible organizer of social change and restructuring of society,
starting from individual individuals to society. Because goals are so important, lessons,
content, and topics should be structured according to goals, as tools for re-establishment.

According to the understanding of reconstructionism, the school should be responsible for a

social change starting from individual individuals and towards society.

Educational situations should be arranged in line with this purpose, and all kinds of materials
and teaching methods and strategies that will work towards reaching the goal should be used,
and new ones should be developed when necessary.

Within the framework of the principle of benefit in terms of purpose, which is legitized by
the goals, democratic classroom environments should be organized in which all kinds of ideas
and thoughts can be freely discussed and criticized, and where the individuals decide which
one to decide on, and where the teacher is guided.

Classroom discussions should be held to solve social and natural problems related to the
future. In educational activities, practical rather than theoretical; Experiences that will
develop individuals’ own competencies and reveal their latent powers should be preferred.
The main purpose of all these ideas is to describe how education should be as a tool that will
enable the re-establishment of the basic dynamics of the society depending on the changing
conditions in the struggle for preparation for the future and existence.

PURPOSE OF EDUCATION FOR RECONSTRUCTION?

For Reconstructionism, the aim of education is considered to be to reorganize society and to

establish real democracy in society. Education is one of the important tools in developing a
clear social reform movement. Education should attempt to create a new social order. The
main responsibility for social change lies in schools. The main power in this job is in the
teachers. The school should be future-oriented in a way that allows for a new social
development. The important feature of this movement is the belief that education will rebuild
society based on the findings of behavioral sciences. This movement, like progressivism, is a
philosophy based on pragmatism. In fact, progressivism is seen as a continuation of the
philosophy of education. According to Dewey, education is a social process and an effective
tool for the restructuring of society. For this reason, the school should not only be an
institution that transmits cultural heritage, but also an institution that produces solutions to
political and social problems.

Q.2 Analyze the role of family, religion, school and teacher in the social development of
an individual?

The concept of social development lies in the concept of socialization. It involves learning
the values, knowledge, and skills that enable children to relate to others effectively and to
contribute in positive ways to family, school and the community. To understand that, we have
to understand socialization at the time of his birth, a child is very selfish.Social scientific
notions of the disappearance or vestigialization of religion and family are deeply rooted in
our theoretical conceptions of the social processes that created the modern world and that
now are transforming that modernity into postindustrial, postmodern society. Theories of
modernization envision social change as entailing the rationalization of all spheres of
existence. In a statement characterizing the classic modernization approach, Moore (1963, p.
79) says, "A major feature of the modern world . . . is that the rational orientation is pervasive
and a major basis for deliberate change in virtually every aspect of man's concerns." There is
little room for the seemingly irrational and unscientific impulses of religion, primary
emotions, and familial concerns.

With this approach, the secularization of religion is a given. Moore (1963, p. 80) states,
"Even with regard to the role of religion in human affairs, the 'rational spirit' takes the form of
secularization, the substitution of nonreligious beliefs and practices for religious ones."
Though religion survives, it addresses "personal misfortune and bereavement" above all else
in modern society (Moore 1963, p. 104).

Furthermore, "economic modernization" tends to have "negative consequences for extended

kinship systems" and leads to "extensive 'family disorganization"' accompanying the
"breakdown of traditional patterns and the incomplete establishment of new institutions"
(Moore 1963, p. 102). For modernization theorists, although families remain significant as
consumption units, the "decline" of the family (Popenoe 1988) is, at minimum, a metaphor
for its consignment to a peripheral societal role. The analogue of the notion of linear
secularization of religion is the idea of the loss of family functions (Vago 1989, pp. 150–157).
Shaped in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, modernization views have continued to
dominate public opinion and much of social scientific discourse. In general, according to
modernization theories, both family and religion are relegated to the "private" sphere, set
apart from the broader social processes and, thus, less significant than those broader
processes.Despite this widespread orientation, a revolution in the social sciences has been
gaining momentum over the last twenty years or so. The message of this revolution is that the
modernization perspective is no longer an adequate vision for understanding the dynamics of
modernity or the potentials of postmodernity for religion and family. In the sociology of
religion, the paradigm shift moves social science away from a focus on religion as a
disconnected phenomenon to a much more complex view of the nature of religious
interinstitutional relations. Reflecting this shift, numerous scholars have begun to examine
religion as an influence on and as an effect of varied social, political, and economic variables
(e.g., Carter 1996; Cousineau 1998; Hammond 1985; Misztal and Shupe 1992; Roberts 1995;
Rubenstein 1987; Shupe and Misztal 1998; Swatos 1992; Witte 1993). A market model of
religion, based in rational choice propositions, has become the most strongly debated version
of the new way of looking at the religious institution (Hadden 1995; Warner 1993; Young
1997).

Similarly for the family, there are many who now argue that, in spite of its changing forms
and functions, the family as an institution remains crucially central to social processes and to
the patterns of change determining the future of human societies (cf. Cherlin 1996). If not
taken into consideration, family processes themselves are liable to torpedo efforts at planned
social change and to deflect the vectors of unplanned change in unexpected directions (Settles
1996).

Social development most often refers to how a child develops friendships and other
relationships, as well how a child handles conflict with peers.

Role of the Teacher in Social Development

The role of the teacher is very important in the social development of the child. His role
begins when the child enters the school. The following points highlight his role or
educational implications of this topic:
Practice What You Preach

Teachers should practice what they preach. Things go wrong when they say one thing and do
another.

Consistent Behavior

Teachers should be consistent in their social behavior towards children. Inconsistency creates
problems for them.

Opportunities

In schools and colleges, there should be maximum opportunities for giving and take, for
“hitting and being hit.” Let there be maximum outings, camps, trips. It socializes the child.
The teacher should be liberal in it.

Self Government

In school will not only socialize the child but also make him responsible.

Avoid Harsh Discipline.

Control will breed scandals. Under-stand it.

Mass Media

(Newspapers, magazines) which have bad influence (like some film magazines) on the
development of child intellectually and result in stunted Social growth be not allowed to
influence them. Direct the child along healthy lines.

Q.3 What are the psychological consideration for the teacher and the taught in the
education system? Elaborate in the light of teaching strategies and learning experiences.

Importance of Educational Psychology for Teachers

Teacher is like a philosopher who guides his student. He is responsible to be aware about
growth and development of the students. It is educational psychology which enables the
teacher to use various techniques. The importance of educational psychology and teachers
has the following points:

Educational Psychology helps teacher to know that how learning takes place.
It enables a teacher that how learning process should be initiated, how to motivate, how to
memorize or learn.

It helps teachers to guide the students in right direction in order to canalized student’s
abilities in right direction.

It informs a teacher, about the nature of the learners and his potentialities.

It helps a teacher to develop a student personality because the whole educational process is
for student’s personality development.

It helps a teacher to adjust his methodologies of learning to the nature / demand of the learner.

It enables a teacher to know the problems of individual differences and treat every student on
his / her merit.

It helps a teacher that how to solve the learning problems of a student.

It helps a teacher that how to evaluate a students that whether the purpose of teaching &
learning has been achieved.

Importance of Educational Psychology in Education

Following are the points which show the importance of education psychology in education. It
also show how educational psychology and education have importance for another another.

1. Learner

Educational Psychology studies various factors which have impacts upon students, which
may include home environment, social groupings, peer groups, his / her emotional sentiments,
and mental hygiene etc. Various methods are used in order to get the desired data about the
learner in order to know about him / her mentality and behavior and its manifestations.

2. The Learning Process

Here educational psychology investigates that how information and knowledge be transferred
and what kinds of methodologies should be used for that purpose.
3. Learning Situation

Educational Psychology studies the factors which are situational in nature that how
environment like of classroom be managed and how discipline be maintained. Besides it, it
studies various Audio Video Aids & its role in facilitating the teaching learning process.

4. Curriculum Development

Educational psychology helps curriculum developers that what kind of curriculum should be
made and what kinds of content be given to teachers to transfer to the next generation.

5. Evaluation Techniques

Educational psychology helps educators that what kinds of evaluation techniques should be
used to test the learner that to what extend information and concept have been transferred.

Q.4 Discuss the concept of economics of education. What are the model of financial
decision making and how financing is done is education?

In the 1999 through 2000 school year, spending for all levels of education amounted to
$646.8 billion. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, of this total, $389
billion was spent for K–12 education and the remaining $257.8 billion was expended by
postsecondary institutions. Despite the substantial financial commitment to education, the
impact of economics on the way educational institutions allocate and use their resources has
been remarkably limited. Economics is concerned with obtaining the best possible outcome
from a limited budget, and thus seems an ideal approach for dealing with how to allocate
resources within schools. Although economists are beginning to analyze educational
problems in increasing numbers, they have yet to make major inroads in improving
educational productivity. This article describes ways in which economic analysis could be
used to improve decision-making in educational institutions, and to inform the allocation and
use of educational resources.

Even though virtually all educators believe that additional resources will lead to higher
student performance, it remains unclear how best to spend dollars to achieve that goal. As a
result, demands for more money, absent a well-reasoned description of how the money will
be used, does not build confidence that money–by itself–will make a difference.
Researchers have used production functions–a statistical approach linking outcomes with
specific inputs–to understand how money matters. To date, this research has been
inconclusive with some arguing that money matters and others suggesting a systematic link
between higher levels of resources and more money does not appear to exist. This stems in
part from disagreement over the proper outcome of schooling.

Traditional allocation tools like cost–benefit analysis are infrequently applied in educational
settings due largely to the difficulty of placing a monetary value on the outcomes or benefits
of education. Henry M. Levin and Patrick McEwan suggest that linking costs to some
measure of performance, or effectiveness, is a better approach for education. Under this
model, the cost per unit gain of achievement is estimated so that programs that are more
efficient, or cost effective, can be identified and chosen.

Eric Hanushek argues that the proper incentives for better performance and efficient use of
educational resources are not in place, and that holding schools accountable for student
performance is essential to use more effectively existing and new money. Improvement of
student performance, with or without new funds, requires improved decisionmaking in the
following four areas.

Reallocation of existing resources

Incentives for improved performance

Development of the concept of venture capital for schools and school systems

A more market-based budgeting environment

Reallocation of Existing Resources

Regardless of what impact additional funds might have, it is important that existing resources
be used as efficiently as possible. In many districts it may be possible to reduce class size
through different assignments of teachers throughout the district. To the extent that smaller
class size improves student performance, these changes would offer an improvement in
student performance at little or no cost.

Before seeking additional funds, schools may investigate other ways to restructure what is
done with current funds. Allan Odden and Carolyn Busch argue that schools can find
additional resources through a combination of creative use of categorical funds, elimination
of classroom aides, and reallocation of resources, such as the elimination of one or two
teaching positions. Although some of these options may result in larger classes, or fewer
teachers, the more intensive use of staff and greater professional development activities
available have resulted in improved student performance in many of the schools that have
adopted this approach.

Incentives

The use of incentives to encourage schools or school districts to allocate resources in ways
that lead to improved student performance is not a new idea. Unfortunately, the incentives
that seem to have the most success have been sanctions. Schools faced with threats of
intervention often act quickly to improve performance rather than risk the stigma of a
sanction. Conversely, many positive incentives have been less successful. For example, high-
performing schools are often granted waivers from state regulation in exchange for success.
In this case, the regulatory system loosened constraints that may have made the organization
successful. Perhaps the more appropriate incentive would be to provide such waivers to
under-performing schools with the hope that increased flexibility would lead to
improvements.

Hanushek argues that the incentives currently in place in schools do not encourage teachers to
work towards improving student performance and therefore need to be changed. He suggests
that there is not sufficient awareness of positive performance incentives, and that more
experimentation and research is needed.

Venture Capital (Equity)

One problem of education in the early twenty-first century is that once funds are appropriated
to a school or program, they become the possession of that entity. In a study of the costs of
implementing California's "Caught in the Middle" reforms for middle schools, published in
1992, David Marsh and Jennifer Sevilla found that the annual costs of restructuring schools
to meet the requirements of this program were between 3 and 6 percent higher than current
average expenditures per pupil in California schools. However, they also concluded that the
first year start-up costs amounted to approximately 25 percent of annual costs. The problem
schools face is finding those start-up funds. Often such funds are not available for all schools
in a district, and schools receiving such funds treat them as a continuous source of revenue.
Yet if such funds were rotated among schools, it would be possible to institute new programs
in all schools over a few years.

Related to the concept of venture capital is the concept of revolving funds. This notion offers
a way for school districts to deal with large purchases, like computers, that occur on a regular
but nonannual basis. Budget procedures in school districts do not reward schools for saving
resources in one year to make large purchases the next year. A school that receives a sum of
discretionary money in one year is likely to lose any of the funds it has not expended by the
end of the fiscal year. As a result, schools are often unable to make a large coordinated
purchase.

A solution to this would be a revolving fund in the district to pay for such purchases. Schools
would receive large appropriations of funds for such purchases once every few years. Finding
a way to use the money in a revolving fashion would facilitate continued improvements in
educational programs. The major problem is determining who gets the venture capital funds
first and who has to wait. In many large districts, the superintendent publishes lists of the
best- and worst-performing schools, and such lists could be used to prioritize the allocation of
these funds. Another issue is the equity of the distribution. Although some schools will get
more funds one year than others, over the established time period, all schools will receive an
equal amount–one simply has to accept the idea that equity is measured over some time
frame, and not on an annual basis.

Market Approaches

Many reformers call for market-based changes in the organization of schools. There are many
ways to introduce the market into the educational arena, but most of these fall under the
heading of school choice. Public school choice can be considered as either an intra district or
inter district choice, and these can be broken down further into the various types of programs
in each category. Two other types of choice involve the blurring of the line between public
and private education: private school vouchers and privatization of former public schools.

Intra district choice programs, by definition confined to one school district, grew largely out
of an attempt to desegregate schools, rather than to provide competition or parent choice. The
first of these programs is called controlled choice, where districts created models for
assigning students to schools outside of the traditional neighborhood school model as a way
of reducing segregation. A second type of intra district choice program is the magnet school.
Magnet schools were designed to attract white students to schools with high minority
populations, often located in heavily minority communities.

The newest model of intradistrict choice is the charter school. With the development of the
charter school, the purpose of the choice models shifted away from desegregation to a focus
on providing parents with the choice to send their children to schools that may be less
regulated than their traditional neighborhood school. These schools operate under a charter
between those who organize the school (typically teachers and parents) and a sponsor
(typically the local school board or state board of education).

Interdistrict choice programs allow the transfer of students between school districts. Although
interdistrict choice programs also grew out of attempts to desegregate, they always had the
goal of increasing parental choice as well. Many states allow interdistrict choice through open
enrollment policies, which vary from state to state; some states mandate that all districts have
open enrollment while others allow districts to choose whether they wish to be open or closed.

Perhaps the most talked-about form of choice program is the voucher program. Voucher
programs can be organized in different ways, but the basic idea is to give some children
access to private schools by issuing vouchers to their families, which the families then give to
the school in lieu of a tuition payment. Often these programs have the intention of allowing
low-income students to go to schools they could not otherwise afford to attend, although
vouchers are not necessarily limited to those in poverty.

A final market-based approach is the privatization of schools that were formerly public. This
is also a relatively new approach, and one that arose largely out of a demand for strategies
that could save failing schools. The argument is that if public education functions like a
monopoly (a firm that has control over its price and product) because it is not subject to
competition, it has little incentive to function efficiently. By introducing some competition
through privatization, schools would be forced to provide higher-quality education at a lower
price.

Recent efforts to collect resource data at the school site and even student level may lead to
enhanced knowledge of how resources impact student outcomes. To the extent that such
knowledge is applied to decisions about how schools are operated, the long-term impact may
be improved educational productivity through enhanced and informed decision-making.
Q.5 Elaborate the procedure of scientific method, the steps involved and its limitations?

scientists follow the scientific method exactly? No. Some areas of science can be more easily
tested than others. For example, scientists studying how stars change as they age or how
dinosaurs digested their food cannot fast-forward a star's life by a million years or run
medical exams on feeding dinosaurs to test their hypotheses. When direct experimentation is
not possible, scientists modify the scientific method. But even when modified, the goal (and
many of the steps) remains the same: to discover cause and effect relationships by asking
questions, carefully gathering and examining the evidence, and seeing if all the available
information can be combined into a logical answer. New information or thinking might also
cause a scientist to back up and repeat steps at any point during the process. Understanding
the steps of the scientific method will help you focus your scientific question and work
through your observations and data to answer the question as well as possible.

The interactive diagram below may help you understand the scientific method and how it is
applied to an experiment. You can click on parts of the diagram to learn more. Use the
"return to top" button depiction of the return to top button to return to the diagram for more
exploration.

The scientific method has a number of limitations including:

Constrained by the extent of existing knowledge - Developing a hypothesis and designing an
experiment is based on current human knowledge. However, until viruses were discovered
many diseases could not be explained e.g. smallpox.

Design of experiment is limited to observation method and instrument - e.g. discovery of

viruses depended on the discovery of the electron microscope.

Human error - e.g. mistakes can occur in recording observations or inaccurate use of
measuring instrument.

Deliberately falsifying results - i.e. scientific fraud.

Bias - prior confidence in the hypothesis being true/false can affect accuracy of observation
and interpretation of results.

Data interpretation - research findings are limited by human ability to interpret the results.
Wrong interpretations can lead to wrong conclusions e.g. thalidomide was used to treat
morning sickness in human pregnancy in 1950s. It was safely tested on many animals and
then wrongly interpreted as safe for humans. However, the drug was not tested on embryo in
womb. This caused limb deformities in babies. The drug was later withdrawn in 1961.

Is limited to the present - what is true now may not have been true in the past or in the future
e.g. penicillin used to be effective against many bacteria but new strains have evolved that are
resistant to penicillin. As changes occur, scientific theories may require updating or revision.

Ethical and legal responsibilities - Ethics refers to whether issues are right or wrong e.g. use
of captive animals in experiments, origin of life, whether or not evolution took place, the way
in which evolution may have taken place, contraception, abortion, assisted fertilisation,
GMOs, cloning animals, freezing human sperm and embryos, the use of stem cells from
embryos to form new tissues/organs, organ transplants e.g. from animals to humans.

Accidental discoveries have contributed significantly to the development of scientific

thinking - e.g. the discovery of antibiotic penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming
carelessly left a dish of bacteria uncovered and it became contaminated by a fungus. He
noticed that the bacteria were killed in areas around the fungus. The fungus produced
penicillin which killed the bacteria.

Steps of the Scientific Method

1. Ask a Question

The scientific method starts when you ask a question about something that you observe: How,
What, When, Who, Which, Why, or Where?

For a science fair project some teachers require that the question be something you can
measure, preferably with a number.

For detailed help with this step, use these resources:

Your Question

Laboratory Notebook

2. Do Background Research

Rather than starting from scratch in putting together a plan for answering your question, you
want to be a savvy scientist using library and Internet research to help you find the best way
to do things and ensure that you don't repeat mistakes from the past.

For detailed help with this step, use these resources:

Background Research Plan

Finding Information

How to Write a Bibliography in APA and MLA styles With Examples

Research Paper

3. Construct a Hypothesis

A hypothesis is an educated guess about how things work. It is an attempt to answer your
question with an explanation that can be tested. A good hypothesis allows you to then make a
prediction:

"If _____[I do this] _____, then _____[this]_____ will happen."

State both your hypothesis and the resulting prediction you will be testing. Predictions must
be easy to measure.

For detailed help with this step, use these resources:

Variables

Variables for Beginners

Writing a Hypothesis for Your Science Fair Project

4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment

Your experiment tests whether your prediction is accurate and thus your hypothesis is
supported or not. It is important for your experiment to be a fair test. You conduct a fair test
by making sure that you change only one factor at a time while keeping all other conditions
the same.

You should also repeat your experiments several times to make sure that the first results
weren't just an accident.

For detailed help with this step, use these resources:

Experimental Procedure

Materials List

Conducting an Experiment

5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion

Once your experiment is complete, you collect your measurements and analyze them to see if
they support your hypothesis or not.

Scientists often find that their predictions were not accurate and their hypothesis was not
supported, and in such cases they will communicate the results of their experiment and then
go back and construct a new hypothesis and prediction based on the information they learned
during their experiment. This starts much of the process of the scientific method over again.
Even if they find that their hypothesis was supported, they may want to test it again in a new
way.

For detailed help with this step, use these resources:

Data Analysis & Graphs

Conclusions
6. Communicate Your Results

To complete your science fair project you will communicate your results to others in a final
report and/or a display board. Professional scientists do almost exactly the same thing by
publishing their final report in a scientific journal or by presenting their results on a poster or
during a talk at a scientific meeting. In a science fair, judges are interested in your findings
regardless of whether or not they support your original hypothesis.

For detailed help with this step, use these resources:

Final Report

Abstract

Display Board

Science Fair Judging