Neurophysiology of Learning

By Farzana Bukhari

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Definition of Neurophysiology and learning
2. Historical background
3. The nerve cell
4. Thy synapse........
All the or none principle..
5. General structure of central nervous system ........
a. Parts of Brain.............................
b. Four lobes of cerebral hemisphere...............
c. Afferent and Efferent nerve tracts...................
6. Level of Arousal and the arousal system...........
7. Delays in nervous system and mediating process.......
8. Fatigue..................................
9. The Autonomic nervous system...............
10. Neurological patents...............................
11. Consolidation of memory traces.............
a. Types of memory with relation to time.........
12. Capacity, practice, motivation, understanding,

transfer of learning and training, forgetting.

NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF LEARNING:

Neuro Physiology.
Neuro means nervous system, physiology means function. So neurophysiology means function of the nervous system.

Learning:
Learning can be defined as any relatively permanent change in behaviour which occurs as a result of practice or experience.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
In early 19th century it was found that when a nerve is stimulated the result is muscle contraction. All this function is carried out by a single basic structural and functional unit of the nervous system called neuron.
Thorndike discovered the relation between behaviour and learning. According to him behaviour is to be considered a result of connections between stimuli and responses. And learning was a matter of developing new stimulus response connection.

The nerve cell:
b. Nerve cell is basic unit of nervous system.
c. It consists of following three parts.
i. Dendrites ii. Axon iii. Cell body
I. Dendrites: It is a root like structure provide connection with the other neuron.
II. Axon: It is that part of neuron which serves the function of transmission of message from neuron to muscle.
III. Cell body: It consists of the protoplasm with a central
nucleus. Which serves the function of control room of neuron.
In all these parts the recovery of damage is possible with dendrites and impossible with Axon and cell body









The synapse:
One nerve cell, does not actually join another nerve cell. The membrance of one nerve cell isolate it from the next. There are, however, places where the axon of one cell comes into contact with the dendrites of another cell or with the other cell body it self. This point of contact is known as a “synapse”.
At this place the axon or branches of the axon grow tiny knobs, which can be seen under high-powered microscopes. It is believed that these knobs play an important role in the transmission of nerve impulses from one cell to another.
Transmission at the synapse may be from the axon of one cell to the dendrites of another, or it may be from the axon of the one cell to the cell body of another.
The process of transmission is very slow and uncertain. And there is possibility that the impulse started in the dendrites may fade out before it reaches the cell body, and hence may fail to fire the cell.
The all or none principle: In the axon of nerve cell, firing takes place on an all-or-none principle. This means that if a nerve impulse is transmitted down the axon, then a full-size impulse is always transmitted. It is impossible to transmit half-size impulses by providing some rather weak stimulus to the nerve cell. This is known as all-or-none principle, which has certain important implications for the way the nerve system operates. If a sense organ is stimulated first with a weak stimulus and then with a strong one, the weak one does not produce the smaller impulse than the stronger one. Both produce nerve impulse of equal size.
However the stronger source of stimulation produces a greater number of impulses per second than does the weaker one. Intensity of stimulation is translated in the nervous system into frequency of nerve impulse. A strong stimulus in contrast to a weak stimulus also has another effect. It may excite more nerve cells and thus produce a greater volley of nerve impulse.
General structure of central nervous system:
Two main parts.
Brain
Spinal Cord
There are three layers in the body.
a. Ectoderm
b. Mesoderm
c. Endoderm.
Brain and spinal cord are Ectodermal derivative:;

PARTS OF BRAIN:
Brain is divided into three parts:
1. Fore Brain: Cerebral hemisphere
Thalamus
Hypothalamus
2. Mid Brain:
Nucli e.g.
Red nucleus
Communicating point between fore brain & hind brain.
3. Hind Brain:
Pons
Cerebellum
Medulla oblongata

Each hemisphere has four lobes. Each lobe is further divided by elevation (gyrus) depresion (Sulcus)
FOUR LOBES:
1. Frontal lobe:
* Thinking
* Behaviour (general)
* Abstract thinking.

2. Parietal lobe:
* Speech
* Hearing
* Skilled movement e.g.
* Writing and Sewing etc.

3. Temporal lobe:
* Behaviour (specific)
* Emotions

4. Occipital lobe
* Vision

Central Salcus – A demarcation point between motor area (efferent) and sensory area (afferent).

Attention/concentration of motivation are specified function of cerebral hemisphere.
· Each cerebral hemisphere has lobes, with specific function

AFFERENT AND EFFERENT NERVE TRACTS
Afferent nerves are those nerves which carry the sensory information from the sense organ like eye, ears, skin, nose and vision to the primary sensory areas in the brain, which is located posterior to the central sulcus.
Efferent are those tracts which starts from the motor areas in the brain to the sense organs. These tracts transmit information from the brain to the rest of the body.
LEVEL OF AROUSAL AND THE AROUSAL SYSTEM
Arousal system operates on at the following three sites.
1) Cerebral hemispheres.
2) Thalamus
3) Reticular activating system (RAS)

Common observation indicates that a person varies from time to time is likelihood of producing a response. When one is waiting for a visitor, the slightest sound of footsteps on the sidewalk outside the house will alert him in readiness to greet the visitor, but when one is relaxing on Sunday afternoon, similar sounds may go unnoticed. In the one case the nervous system is in a higher state of arousal than in the other. During sleep, the arousal level is at a minimum.
One must suppose that built into the brain is some system which can initiate and maintain arousal. One possible system would be a circular activity between the cortex of the brain and some of the lower centers. If this were so, then the lower centers could stimulate the cortex, and the cortex could in turn stimulate the lower centers. The arousal system may be to some extent dependent on external stimulation for its activity, but it must have some capacity for initiating activity; otherwise arousal would stop as soon as stimulation stopped, and the individual would fall asleep. Clearly this is not so, for we may remain a high level of arousal even when outside stimulation falls to a very low level.
Berger discovered that when an individual is in a waking state but relaxed and not attending to anything in particular, his brain produces changes in electrical potential at about the rate of ten cycles persecond. This rhythm, which rapidly disappears when he becomes active and starts to solve a problem, is known as the “alpha rhythm,” and its presence or absence is of considerable importance in the diagnosis of brain disorders.
When the person ceases to be passive but, say, is asked to solve some simple arithmetical problem, the rhythm tends to disappear In technical terms it can be said that the higher the state of arousal of the individual, the less marked is the alpha rhythm. In its place there appears a new, but less marked, rhythm with faster frequencies, known as the “beta rhythm.
What this means in behavioral terms is that when the brain is relatively inactive, insofar as the production of behavior is concerned, the cells work together synchronously In contrast, during activity they tend work on an individual basis and to fire a synchronously that is, groups of cells containing considerable numbers cease to he active together.
Bindra (1959) proposes two generalizations which summarize much that is known about the operation of the arousal system in relation to learning. His first generalization is as follows.
1. There is an optimum range of level of arousal within which a given measure of performance will reach its highest (or lowest) value; the greater the deviation in either direction from the optimum arousal level, the greater will be the decrease (or increase) in the performance measure.
2. With increased practice at performing an activity or task (i.e., with increased habit strength of a response), there is an increase in the range of the optimal level of arousal, as well as the range within which the activity occurs at all.

DELAYS IN NERVOUS SYSTEM AND MEDIATING PROCESSES
When the professor asks the student, “What is the numerical value of sine 45°?” the student pauses and then, after a few seconds’ delay, gives his answer. Thinking processes produce delays, and we may well ask what kind of neural processes could account for such delays. It is clear that some kind of processes must occur between the afferent inputs into the central nervous system and the occurrence of the different outputs, and these processes are known as “mediating” processes
· First there is the fact that different nerve fibers conduct impulses at different speed.
· Second, some delay occurs each time an impulse traveling down one nerve cell arrives at a synapse and activates another nerve cell.
· Since impulses travel at a high speed it is probable that the impulse would return to the point from which it started before that section of the loop and had time to recover and transmit the impulse again around the loop. If at that point a second loop were available the impulse might then travel around this second loop.












Such a system of loop is known cell assembly.
Hebb (1949) also relates the theory of the cell assembly to the process of learning in another way. He suggests that the establishment of the cell assemblies corresponds to the early learning process. The difficulty of the blind adult who gains vision for the first time is that he has no cell assemblies related to visual perception which enable him to interpret his percepts. His first task in learning to use visual cues involves the establishment of cell assemblies which permit him to recognize elements in his visual field.
Hebb suggests that the establishment of these assemblies is a very slow process, which accounts for the fact that early learning takes place at such a slow speed. However, once the assemblies have been established, learning of complex functions dependent upon them moves ahead at a rapid pace. These more advanced, or late, learning activities involve the development of connections between assemblies so that, a whole series of assemblies may become activated in sequence. While this theory has considerable elegance and fits the facts quite well, the evidence which supports it is indirect.
FATIGUE:
In order to obtain a partial understanding the student must first become familiar with certain related facts.
· First, nerves do not become fatigued through prolonged and repeated stimulation. Each time a nerve is stimulated and transmits impulse, there is a very brief period which follows, known as the refractory period, during which another impulse cannot be transmitted. At the end of this very short period recovery is complete, and the nerve ready to transmit another impulse. Repeated stimulation does not produce a state of fatigue in which the nerve .is unable to transmit an impulse for several second, minutes or hours. Nervous fatigue, as a condition depressed nervous activity resulting from excessive activity and the accumulation of by-products, does not occur).
· Second’, muscles can show fatigue. After a muscle has been frequently and strongly stimulated through the nerve, a time will come when further stimulation shows a very weak level of activity. Try doing push-ups, and the time will soon come when we cannot raise ourselves off the floor. In such a situation we would commonly say that our muscles were tired. Actually the difficulty is not muscular fatigue, but fatigue at the point where the nerve joins the muscle. Nervous impulses become blocked at that point and fail to activate the muscle).
· Third, inhibitory processes in the nervous system tend to set in after a given activity has been pursued for a time. After a person has studied a book, say on history, for a long period of time, the point is reached where a chance of activity is so that. It is larger for this reason that vacations are taken, to break the monotony of the daily routine.

THE AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM:
It is a system of fight and flight. It is an automatic system which is not under the control of will.
There are two components:
* Sympathetic nervous system
* Para-sympathetic nervous system.

Structurally it consists of:
* Hypothalamus and
* Ganglia

Features of sympathetic nervous system: It is characterized by the following features.
It rises blood pressure.
It causes stimulation of the heart rate.
Decrease peristalsis
Pupilary dilation.
Hyper tention.
Features of parasympathetic
Decreased heart rate.
Hypotention (low blood pressure).
Miosis (Pupilary constriction)
Palmar Sweating (sweating of hands).
NEUROLOGICAL PATIENT:
When a person under goes a surgical operation for epileptic focus in the temporal lobe then after surgery the patient has retrograde amnesia (loss of memory). All this memory process is controlled by a structure called hippo-campus. The amnesia is temporary and complete recovery is possible.
CONSOLIDATION OF MEMORY TRACES:
Leaning is the product of activity. The more you perform an action, the more you learn about that. While memory is a quality of the brain which is related with the hippocampus area. The loss of memory is called amnesia. While the disturbance of memory is called dementia.
The learning / activity is controlled by the parietal lobe of the brain. Similarly the memory center is located in the hippocampal area of the temporal lobe.
TYPES OF MEMORY WITH RELATION TO TIME:
Recent memory: It is also called the immediate memory related with the present circumstances. And it is usually detected by objective finding disturbance and forget fullness for recent events.
Remote memory: This type of memory is determined by looking into the events performed / experienced in the past.Some of the abnormal mental conditions like psychosis, Chischizophernia, sever depression, catatonia can be treated / controlled with external cerebral stimulation (ECT). In this procedure the memory is disturbed so the primary problem is forgotten and the behavioural therapy can be administered with better results. Duncan (1949), had done experiments or rats. In this experiment ECT given to a rat soon after a learning trial interferes with its performance of the appropriate habit when it is tested the next day after recovery from the short lived convulsion

CAPACITY AND PRACTICE:
After knowing about the structure and functions of brain and role of nerves. We can say that human has a great power of brain which enable him to learn more and more but it depends upon his environment, that what kind of stimuli is present in it.
Example:
Teaching skills, classroom environment and presence of physical facilities in classroom of private schools and public schools.
In both schools students have same neurophysiology but it depends upon stimuli which are provided to them.


MOTIVATION:
There is a mechanism in human’s brain which is performs function in different situations of revard punishment and at Atousal level. Motivation has a greater role in teaching learning process.
According to neurophysiology stimuli motivate and stimulate an organism to behave and respond.
Example:
In classroom situation:
When a student shows good performance in classroom e.g., during teaching learning process, behave good, actively communicate with teacher and group fellows. The teacher will appreciate him and this appreciation will motivate him for more better performance.
A student who show low performance in classroom will punished by teacher. And this punishment will motivate him to improve his or her self.
During teaching learning process when teacher ask the questions and invites the students to participates and communicate. So he arouses the students and motivate them for learning.
UNDERSTANDING:
The role of understanding is minimized, not because it is undemonstrable, but because it grown out of earlier habits. The best way to get understanding is to build a body of connections appropriate to that understanding. When situations are understood at once, it is matter of transfer or assimilation, that is, there are enough elements in common with old situations to permit old habits to be used appropriately.
TRANSFER OF LEARNING AND TRAINING:
Transfer of training was defined through a statement from McGeogh and Irion, which follows: “Transfer of training occuts when ever the existence of a previously established habit has an influence upon the acquisition, performance, or relearning of a second habit”.
As for as neurophysiology of learning is concern we can say that human learn through stimulated response connection and after cell assembly he is able to respond better towards different and difficult stimuli.
For example:
Teacher is teaching maths at secondary level.:
He: Explain formula No – 1 (a+b)2
(a+b) 2 = a2 + b2 + 2ab.
1. Transfer of learning: (x+y)2
=(7+3) 2
=(2s+9b) 2
2. Transfer of training:
=(a – b) 2
= a2 – 2ab + b2
Or
(a+b+c) 2
= a2 +b2 + c2 – ab – bc - ca

FORGETTING:
Forgetting as a fading process.
Forgetting as a repression process
Forgetting as an interference
Forgetting as an extinction process.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Hilgard R.Ernest Theories of Learning
Morgan, King, Robinson, 6th Edition Introduction to psychology
Travers M.W. Robert Essentials of Learning.

Gifted Children

BY Jehangir Shah

1. Introduction.

The term gifted has been used traditionally to refer to people with intellectual gifts. Each culture defines giftedness in its own context. Ancient Greece honored the orators; Romans value the engineers and soldiers. In the united stated the early definition of giftedness was related to performance on the Stanford bidet intelligence scale. It was developed shortly after world war-I by Terman. According to him gifted children are those who are I.Q are 130 or 140. They would represent 2 or 3 % of the age group population. Stanford and other intelligence test showed that gifted children were developing more rapidly than their age mates.
A child playing chess in not important but his playing chess seriously at age 5 is the matter of importance. Early rapid development is one of the clear indicators of high intellectual ability.
One popular definition was proposed by the former U.S commissioner of education Sidney Marland in 1972, gifted and talented children are those identified by professionally qualified person who by virtues of out standing abilities, are capable of high performance and services beyond those normally provided by the regular programmer in order to realize their contribution of self and society.
Children capable of high performance include those with demonstrated achievement in any of the following areas.
General intellectual abilities.
Specific academic aptitude.
Creative or productive thieving.
Leadership ability.
Visual and performing arts.
Children who are highly creative consistently generate innovative solution to problems or create unique products on their own institutive. When this creation is verbal, we expect performance in the intellectual field. When creativity is a non verbal area (art, mastic) we expect similar excellence with in the symbol system (musical notes, scale).

CHARACTERISTICS
It is very difficult to draw a demarcation line for gifted children, so they will be identified on the basis of their certain characteristic given under. These characteristics are divided in to two main groups.

I. POSITIVE. ii. NEGATIVE.
2. Positive characteristics.

LEARNING CHARACHTERISTICS
(a) They learn new ideas easily and quickly.
(b) They remember the things they learn without
Difficulty, hard work and exercise.
(c) They have advance vocabulary for age or grade level, use different terms in meaningful way.

CREATIVITY. Characteristics.
(a) They display a great deal of curiosity about many things. They want to know if a thing is so why it is so.

(b) They want to know the actual cause of the happenings.
(c) The aspects of reality are very obvious in their thinking.
(d) They have the ability to give many answers to a given question.(fluency)
(e) They give different responses or to shift from one response to another.(Flexibility)
(f) They give unique yet appropriate answer to a question.(originality)
(g) They have good sense of humor in situations that may not appear to be humorous to others.
(h) They draw common results from the happenings

LEADERSHIP CHARACTERSITICS
(a) They are self confident with children of their age and also with adults.
(b) They make friendship with old than themselves.
(c) They have greatest desire to exceed others.
(d) They tend to dominate others when they are around.

MOTIVATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
(a) They are keen and alert observer, usually sees more or gets more out of a story, poem etc than others.
(b) They try their level best towards perfection, self critical and do not satisfied easily with their own speed or product.
(c) Such children are quite concerned with right or wrong, good or bad often evaluate and pass judgment on events, people and things.

VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS CHARACTERISTICS

(a) They are adept in role playing, show acting out of different situations on the spot (dramatic).
(b) Observe fine differences in musical tone pitch, loudness, duration.

(NEGATIVE CHARACTERISTICS)

1. The have anxiety in their nature.
2. They ignore others and do not pay attention towards them.
3. They are in the habit of making others worried.
4. They are weak in spelling.
5. Such children are careless in writing.
6. They show poor performance in the arithmetic and accounts.
7. They have no command on rot memorization.
8. They take interest in uninterested activities of the class room.
9. They are very critical about themselves and others.

There are no hard and fast rules for the identification of gifted children. However the teacher tries to identify them on the basis of the above mentioned positive and negative activities. In fact it is the power of identification of the teacher who points out them quickly. Apart from these they are being observed during work with other students in the class room. Different kinds of intelligence test make their identification easy for such children.
Some modern techniques are much helpful for the identification of such children such as noticing mature view point, logical thinking, cheating power and creative thinking.

3. EDUCATION

Gifted children are different from other common children. Therefore they need special educational approach. It should be remembered that gifted children are the invaluable asset of a nation. In future such children are becoming scientists, engineers and experts and take the nation to the paragon of success.

It is the responsibility of the administrator to arrange for their special education after their identification. In the past wise people were always searching the gifted children.200 years back in the old Greece, Plato pleaded for the due attention to be paid for the education of the gifted children. According to him such children must be identified in the field of science, philosophy and physics. Plato felt that the existence of the democracy of Greece is by dent of such people in the society. Such people have the quality of leadership and have the caliber to occupy responsible positions of leadership. In sixteen century in Turkey Sultan Suliman had tried his level best to search out such children and train them in Islamic belief, in the art of fighting, science and philosophy. So he came out with flying colours by educating and training a big group of gifted children and that is why, after one generation Sultanat-e-Usmania emerged as the biggest power in Art, Science and Culture and in the skills of fighting and occupied most of the Europe.

The direction in which gifts and talents emerged, depend on several factors: such as experience, motivation, interest, parental urging and even chance. Many intellectual gifted individual might also have been successful in other areas if their interests and training had been focused on that direction.

Special changes needed to be brought for the education of gifted children, in the educational programme of the school. Such changes must be in harmony with the needs of the gifted students. For such a change the spirit and qualification of the teaching count a lot. The management of such a programme will be easy if the number of gifted students is enough for such programme. This will be effective enough if certain changes were brought in the curriculum.

The following measures are of the great concern in this connection.
1.Gifted students will be provided an opportunity to interact with one another, to learn and be stimulated by their intellectual peers.
2.Relevant material will be provided to the teacher to make his job of instruction easy.
3.Place gifted students with an instructor who has special expertise in working with gifted students.
4.Changes in the learning environment for gifted students are necessary to meet the instructional goals of special skills.
5.Gallagher, Weiss, Oglesby and Thomas (1983) describe seven methods for changing the learning environment.

Enrichment class room

The classroom teacher conducts a differentiated programme of the study without the help of outside personnel.

* Consultant Teacher:

A programme of differentiated instruction is conducted in the regular class room with the assistance of a specially trained consultant.

* Resource room:
Gifted students leave the class room for short period of time to receive instruction from a specially trained teacher.

* Community mentor:
Gifted students interact with an adult from the community who has special knowledge in the area of interest.

* Independent study:
Students select projects and work on them independently under the supervision of a qualified teacher.

* Special class:
Gifted students are grouped together during most of the class time and are instructed by a specially trained teacher.

* Special school:
Gifted students receive differentiated instruction at special school with trained staff.

STUDENTS ACCELERATION

The process of acceleration means passing students through education system as quickly as possible (1979).

Stanley suggests many different ways by which acceleration can be accomplished.

1. Early School Admission:
As soon as the child detected to be intellectually and socially mature, he/she should be admitted in kindergarten at an early than normal age.
If the normal age for admission is 6 years, gifted children may be admitted at the age of 5 years so that they may start take interest in constructive and educational activities from the very beginning. If such children had to wait for six years then their attention and interest diverts from educational towards other unimportant and useless activities for the society.

2. Double Promotion:
Another way of acceleration of a child is double promotion for the rapid development of gifted children. It is not popular as it creates temporary adjustment problems for the gifted students.

3. Class Grade:
Sometimes instead of double promotion triple promotion is also advisable. According to Terman and other researchers such gifted children who have got triple promotion had been proved excellent than the students of that new class.

4. Telescoping Grade:
The child covers standard material in less time: such as a junior grade three years programme will be taught in two years.

5. Advance Placement:
During school time students take college course, shortening college programme.

6. Early College Admission:
An outstanding child may enter college at 13, 14 or 15 years of age. Stanely (1979) found that acceleration, particularly early admission to college is most effective for the students who are outstanding in mathematics.
Teacher should pay more attention and should also hand over more study work to the gifted children.

7. Special Teacher:
Special teachers may be assigned the task of gifted children. Such teachers have to shoulder the responsibilities of:

1. Identification of gifted children
2. The collection of educational courses for the children.
3. Counseling of gifted children.
4. Arrangement of special classes or seminar for gifted students.

8. Productive Skills:
All educators, who work with gifted students, would agree that the productive skill would be increased by giving a task of problem solving.

9. Creativity:
More attention has been paid to creativity in the education of gifted students. They are being expected to produce better solution for problems that no one has been able to solve.
So, one strategy for instruction is to polish intellectual capabilities that seem particularly important to creative production. Creative production depends on emotional climate so favorable emotional climate may be improved. Performance of such activities will be easier with a homogenous group of gifted children.

10. Brain Storming:
It is another “Pranes (1996)” practice for enhancing intellectual fluency. In this activity the whole class discussion a particular problem, for example, how to overcome the price hike at present .Telling they try to suggest as many answers as possible.
We can stimulate creativity by providing such a class room situation which encourages self-confidence, self expression. For such the following suggestions will be fruitful.

11. Provision of non threatening atmosphere:
The class room environment may be constituted in such a way that student's ideas and opinion are respected and questions are encouraged.

12. Do not judge the product in the class room:
Non judgmental attitude of the teacher provides freedom for divergent thinking and the students can think more freely.
13. Provision of Stimuli:
In the presence of a variety of stimuli encourage students to view a problem from different perspective.

14. Psychological Freedom:
It is another important factor responsible for creativity for gifted children.

15. Content Acceleration:
It means to go through the traditional curriculum at faster rate. It allows the students to get more complex sets of ideas. For example if a student learns calculus in ninth grade, he has to start physics and chemistry as calculus has provided foundation for it.

16. Content Enrichment:
By expanding the material understudy a student has the opportunity to explore more by using scientific illustration for example, a student reads the diaries of civil war soldiers on both the sides enrich his perspective on the war.

17. Content Sophistication:
t compels the gifted students for higher level of thinking to understand the idea which is different for the average students to understand important abstractions, scientific law or general principles to be applied in many circumstances.

18. Content Novelty:
There may be the introduction of material which is not found in the general curriculum because of time constrain and abstract nature. Its purpose is to help gifted students to master important ideas. A teacher could create one or two examples of abstract nature and students have to workup others for example the impact of technological advancement (auto mobiles, television) on society. The students may be taken into account that has some positive results on the society. Such things have greater effect on the gifted students. It is possible that in future, when they are grown up, they made new discoveries.

SUMMARY
1. Gifted children show outstanding performance in different area; such as: intellect, academic, aptitude, creative thinking, and leadership qualities.
2. They show excellent performance in social and personality characteristics.
3. Girls reflects social attitude which is acceptable for them. They show less aptitude in maths and science.
4. The under achievers gifted can be modified by careful educational program.
5. Those gifted children who are coming from culturally different sub group are ignored or undiscovered which a great loss to the society.
6. Some of the handicaps children are gifted but the educators do not expect them to be gifted and their talents remain undiscovered.
7. Although heredity plays important role in intellectual giftedness yet environment determines the level to which the ability is developed.
8. The gifted children have been usually identified through different intelligence tests, review of school record, from peer and teacher evaluation.
9. For the education of gifted children procedures like resource room-pullout programme, are suggested by the educators for elementary schools and advanced placement classes in specific content are favoured for secondary level.
10. The educators also put stress on stimulating productive thinking skills as part of special education for gifted children. These programmes focus on improving problem-solving, problem finding, and creative skills.

References:
1. Educating Exceptional children .Fifth Edition, Kirk Gallagher
2. General Educational Psychology. Second Edition, E.GARRETT
3. Allied Material of Educational Psychology Course code 840,Dr Muhammad Rashid
4. Educational Psychology & Curriculum. Code 518
5. Advanced Educational Psychology. Fifth Revised Edition, S.S.Chauhan. Ex. Prof Dean Faculty of Education University Of Himmachal Pradesh Shimla 5.

Relationship between Education & Psychology

by Sultan Muhammad

Introduction

Meaning and Historical background of Psychology:

The word ‘Psychology’ is derived from Greek word Psycho and logos. Psycho’ means ‘Soul’ and ‘logos’ means ‘Science’, The Science of Soul.
Psychology acquired separate status very recently. Formerly it was studied as a sub-branch of philosophy. Later on philosophers give another definition of psychology; the ‘science of mind’. All these definitions were given by philosophers-psychologists prior to the beginning of experimental psychology.

Psychology as ‘Science of Behavior’

Today psychology is scientific methods of collecting data about individuals and groups to analyze and predict their behavior.

Roots of Psychology

The roots of Psychology could be traced back in philosophy and science. When physiologists of the late nineteenth century began to use scientific methods to study mind, later on Psychology became an independent scientific discipline.

Scientific Roots of Psychology

By nineteenth century, psychologists were progressing than philosophers in answering questions about the nature of psychological processes.

Education and psychology

Education is a process which enables the individual to distinguish between true and false, good and bad, right and wrong (Imam Ghazali)

Stephen, “Educational Psychology is the systematic study of the educational growth and development of a child".

Some psychologists called psychology as a branch of education, as James Mill implied in the early nineteenth century. However, some other psychologist Disagree with them, who were familiar with the history of psychology and continuing, links between psychology and education. They defend it with the comparison of historical and contemporary relationship between education and psychology.

One question, which is frequently asked that a field like psychology, which is divided within self, could be used and applied constructively to a practical field like education. It is the fact that we are dealing with two different fields; one is concerned with human ends and the means of promoting them, the other with understanding and knowledge of human experience and actions. Today it is acknowledged widely that psychology has influenced education in the past.

Why We Study Psychology In Education

It is very essential for a teacher to teach his students according to their mental abilities. Educational psychology helps the teacher in doing so. It enables the teacher to teach where and how? It helps us in the following ways.

Relationship between education and psychology

Education and psychology are interdependent. One psychologist said that I did not understand how a teacher could teach with out the knowledge of education Psychology. Psychology had changed the spirit of education and it gives new meaning to learning in classroom.
Psychology also changed the old concept of education where only upper class had the ability and right to learn. Psychology gives education the theory of individual differences that every child has different mental ability and learns with different pace.
Today in modern era, education psychology is the foundation of education. Psychology effect education in every filed of teaching learning process.

· Psychologist suggest use of different methods in teaching learning process to achieve better result
· Psychologist emphasis on Motivation and readiness in class room
· Psychology introduce new theories of learning in education
· Psychology emphasis on activity base teaching learning process
· Use of Visual Aid in teaching learning process
· Psychology is the study of human behavior while Education is the process of modifying human behavior so both deal with human behavior in different ways.
· Educational psychology deals with educational problems
· General psychology deals with different problems other then education

Psychology and teacher

• Psychology enhance the vision of teacher to understand the mental status of his students
• Psychology help teacher to evaluate his student, to measure his achievements
• With the help of psychology teacher understand the weakness of his students and with the help of psychology he find solution for that problem
• Psychology bring change in the attitude of the teacher toward his students
• Psychology introduce new mental test through which teacher evaluate the students
• Psychology produce new theories of learning for better education
• With the help of psychology teacher learn to modify the behavior of a students
• Psychology teach teacher why a Child behaves in a certain situation differently than other
• What teacher need to do to change a negative behavior to a positive one

Untrained Teacher

• Without proper training, a teacher could not understand the psychology of the child and his problems, what the possibilities are and why the child is not learning. A train teacher could understand the problem and eradicate it.

Educational Psychology and Curriculum

A good curriculum is that, which stimulate the constructive potentialities of the students and which is prepared according to their needs. The curriculum should be according to the mental level of the students;
• What to teach and how to teach?
• Prepare the curriculum according to the needs of the students and society
• Preparing curriculum from easy to difficult approach
• Psychology stress on individual difference, therefore curriculum should be flexible for all the learner in the class room

Education Psychology and Evaluation

Educational psychology has introduced different types of tests and examinations and derived scientific measurement for intelligence, Personality education etc these tests disclose the weak points of aptitude of the students and for this purpose help from statistical principles has been taken. Psychology bring new methods of Evaluation in education;

• Evaluation of child IQ (* Intelligence test )
• Evaluate the factor of slow learning in the class room situation
• Personality test
• Attitude and interest Test
• The Stanford-binet scale of intelligence test
The Stanford-Binet intelligence scale is a standardized test that assesses intelligence and cognitive abilities in children and adults aged two to twenty three years, determining the presence of a learning disability or a developmental delay.

Educational Psychology and Method of Teaching:

If the teacher teaches his students according to the interest and mental development of the students, they will like it and will learn it easily. The teacher should teach according to their mental level. Audio visual aids in the educational Processes are also the result of educational psychology. Education process is also the result of educational psychology.

Education Psychology and Guidance and Counseling

Many students have many problems in education, society and emotions, which have to be guided. Psychologist provide guidance in such conditions and for this purpose child guidance clinics have been opened in school in developed countries

What are the duties of Guidance Counselor?

• Psychologist emphasis that every schools should have a guidance counselor
• To evaluate problematic child and rectify his problem
• To prepare reports on the mental state of such students
• To provide help to the teacher to understand students behavior
• One psychologist says I don't understand how a teacher could teach without the knowledge of education psychology

Educational Psychology and Different Stages of Growth

According to growth, the personality and mental ability of an individual can be divided into different stages i.e. child hood and adult hood etc. during these stages the mental maturity is at different stages. Psychologists consider that if the reaching process is according to these different stages it will be easily learnt. Different methods of teaching are used at different stages. This is impossible without proper knowledge of psychology.

Educational Psychology and Development of Personality

To build up the personality of an individual is the aim of education. To study the stimuli and responses of personality demerits and their causes in personality and reforms of personality is impossible without proper knowledge of psychology.

Educational Psychology and Social Adjustment

Educational psychology has shown factors effect in social adjustment and indorsed principles which lead a man to adjustment of the society.

Educational Psychology and Learning
Learning is the basic topic of educational psychology. From the meaning of learning, up to the laws of learning. Different topics have been highlighted by psychology, which have made the process of education very easy, interesting and pleasant.

Educational Psychology and Mental Health

Educational psychology has pointed out the factors affecting mental health of the Students. If these principles are not regulated the students can not adjust themselves in the society. Mental retardation is created due to bad environment, improper food, and emotional and social needs. To produce hygienic mental conditions is the work of only a psychologist.

Educational Psychology and Children of Special Attention

Physically disable students have many educational, emotional and social problems. To lead them to a successful life and eradicate their psychological problems, Psychologist helps them to become a useful part of the society.

Educational Psychology and School Organization

According to psychologist a school must have, democratic environment to help the students to develop balanced personalities. The social environment in school can be an effective tool to allow the students to develop a number of qualities such as self confidence, leadership, cooperation and healthy competition, decision making, problem solving and good citizenship.

In the school, students can face a number of problems related to their social, emotional or Physical development. Educational psychology also has a great role in helping the students through various types of guidance and counseling.

Educational psychology is also helpful by supporting the curricular as well as co-curricular and extracurricular activities in schools.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Numan, D. Foundation of education. Peshawar
• L. Gordon, (1990) Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era
• Muhammad Iqbal, D. Reconstruction of religious thoughts in Islam
• P. A. Graham, (1967) Progressive Education from Arcady to Academe
• James, W. (1904) The Chicago school. Psychological Bulletin. 1, 1-5.