Assessment of adolescence

 Key words;  Assessment of adolescence, Assessment, Definition of Assessment, Types of Assessments, Norm Referenced Assessment, Cognitive development in adolescence

 Introduction:

In the professional life of a teacher there are so many decisions that he or she makes which actually counts on informal class room observation. For example; discussion in the class, and inquiring questions of a student, interest shown in a particular topic or a subject, leads a teacher to make a lot of decisions like; which area of study needs more time, point out the students which need special attention and specifically in which area or which method of instruction will be more appropriate in a particular situation. All such kinds of decisions depend upon the observations which are made during the teaching learning process inside and outside the class room. Such decisions need systematic gathering of data based on careful and continuous observation. Besides this information other supplementary techniques of evaluation and testing are also used to make the related information more complete and authentic.
Other aspects of the current assignment are the adolescence period, if the whole life span of a person is roughly divided into stages we find the following stages:-

1. Infancy
2. Toddler
3. Child hood
4. Adolescence
5. Adulthood

Each of these stages is unique in all respects & needs unique instructions for cognitive social and emotional development. Therefore we must also adopt special assessment procedures to evaluate any particular stage in our discussion I have focused upon adolescence.
I will try my best to explain the problems which are faced while assessing the stage of adolescence.





Objectives:-

1. To explain the concept of assessment & adolescence.
2: To highlight the problems in assessing adolescence.

Assessment:

Assessment refers to the procedures used in apprising student learning. It incorporates both evaluations and measurement and is concerned with the processes involved in describing and reporting on the outcomes of learning and teaching. It can cover a broad range of learning out comes that is cognitive effective and social, from the simplest to the most complex. Assessment is defined as the collection, analysis’s, recording and communicating information about the out comes and learning and teaching (griffin and nix 1991)

Key Terms in Assessment

Definition of Assessment

Gathering, interpreting recording and communicating information about student achievement

Example: Planned observation, description and reporting of a students performance on a set task

Evolution
Making judgments about relative or absolute worth

Example :
Judging the quality (in terms of a standard criteria) of a sculpture submitted as part of final examination in visual arts

Measurement
Testing students performance using numerical values in form of scores

Example:
Counting the number of correct answers given by a student in a test of number fact and assigning a numerical value

Test
An assessment procedure used systematically to measure a sample of behavior

Exmaple:
On Friday students will be required to complete 20 questions based on material covered in this weeks mathematics lessons


Types of Assessments

Since there are different aspects of human personality which can be assessed according to there own specific need. Therefore we have different types of assessment depending upon purpose and function.

1: Norm Referenced Assessment

Used to compare the performance of individuals or groups with the performance of a comparable group on the same task. A norm is the mean or average performance of a group of people.

2: Criterion Referenced Assessment

In this type of assessment the achievements of the students are compared against a specified criterion or standard

3: Curriculum Based Assessment

Here the individual students’ performance is compared with curriculum goals. Curriculum based assessment can be used to diagnose students strength and weaknesses, and to plan for future teaching program. This type of assessment is usually carried out by classroom teacher for the purpose of

· Obtain information about the level of students entry skills so as to decide where to place them with in the curriculum
· Defining and planning appropriate teaching objectives
· Determine the degree to which these objectives are met by monitoring students progress through an instructional sequence
· Evaluating and refining teaching techniques

4: Ipsative Assessment

In this type of assessment an individual current achievements are compared with the pervious achievement of the same individual.



How do we assess?

As mentioned earlier assessment depends upon the purpose and function. Therefore when an assessment programme is designed a teacher has to collect many different types of information regarding the student being assessed. These in formations may range from very informal observations to highly structured and formal achievements or aptitude tests. The following major steps are undertaken while designing an assessment programme:-

1. Gathering information.
2. Technical interpretation of information.
3. Recording and reporting assessment results.


· Gathering information:-

For any assessment model information about the students are collected from various aspects including observation recording learning directly and mapping progress through students work products that contain examples of the student’s work.
In formations are collected by various means like:-

· Direct observation.
· Portfolios
· Anecdotal records
· Checklists
· Interviews
· Sociograms

1. Direct Observations:-
Direct observation is a practical way to collect information about student’s behavior in natural settings. Information derived from direct observation can be recorded in the form of anecdotal records, diaries & checklists. This technique is used to understand what is happening in the class room focused in individual students, on a small group of students or on a specific aspect on a class room activity. When direct observation is used as part of an assessment process, is usually more structured and purposeful and any behavior observed more systematically.

2. Portfolios:-
A portfolio is a collection of samples of a student’s work that can be used to assess student’s progress over a term or year by comparing after the fact, samples of work taken from different stages throughout the given period. They are often used for self assessment, parent teacher conferences & parent teacher child conferences.

Student’s performance:-
The progress of a student engaged in complex tasks like music, drama, physical education & design cannot be assessed through traditional methods. These areas of student’s performance can only be assessed through performance assessment involving on the spot evaluation of student’s demonstrating their mastery of a task.

3. Anecdotal records:-
Anecdotal records are objective description of behavior at a particular time & place recorded as soon as possible after the behavior has occurred. Teachers often find it helpful to keep brief notes about any unusual or significant occurrence during the school day. Such notes can be useful in documenting the actions of a particular child whose behavior is causing concern, intervention, report writing or discussion with parents.
Anecdotal records are most often used in early childhood settings & in situations involving children who are having social emotional or behavioral problems.

4. Checklists:-
Checklists are often used by teachers to collect information about easily observed behavior such as motor skills. Checklist comprises a list of description of specific behavior that can be systematically identified and tailed by observers as they occur during a specified time period.

Rating scale:-
Rating scales are similar to checklists but they have the added advantage of including a quantitative component in the resulting judgment. Instead of simply recording the occurrence of specified behavior (yes/ no), a value judgment is also made about the behavior as the record is compiled usually on a scale of 1-10.



5. Interviews:-
An interview is a form of observational assessment. Interviews maybe formal or informal, structured or unstructured. A formal or a structured interview using a defined procedure and a prepared set of questions is used in many intelligence tests where respondents are given precise instructions about the procedure to be followed. An informal or unstructured interview has no set procedures or questions and the interviewer is free to interact with the interviewee in a natural, conversational way. Informal interview technique is used to collect information about the way people think and solve problems.

6. Sociograms:-
Sociograms are used by teachers to assess a class group’s social structure. It is a graphical depiction of the pattern of interactions among group members. For example; children can be asked to write down the name of their best friends or the child they would like to sit next to, work with, play with or asked to a birthday party. These choices can be depicted graphically in the form of sociograms.


· Technical interpretation of information:-

In this step of the assessment design it is important to know that the type of assessment to be used and the way in which data is collected, one needs to be aware of the technical aspects of the assessment model which is applied. One needs to ensure that the procedure used should be reliable valid and fair.

Reliability:-
Reliability refers to the consistency of measurement that is how consistent test scores or other assessment results are from one measurement to another. Reliability can be defined as “as the extent to which a test or measuring device obtains the same result when used on successive occasions.”
Reliability refers to the results obtained with an evaluation instrument and not to the instrument itself. Any particular instrument may have a number of different reliabilities depending upon the group involved and the situation in which it is used. Thus it is more appropriate to speak of the reliability of the “test scores” then of the “test or instrument”.


Validity:-
Validity refers to the appropriateness of the interpretations made from test scores and other evaluation results with regard to a particular use. Validity is always concerned with the specific use of the results and the soundness of our proposed interpretations. Validity can e defined as “the extent to which a test or measurement device measures what is intends to measure”. For example if a test is used to describe a pupil achievement we should like to be able to interpret the scores as a relevant and representative sample of the achievement domain to be measured. If the results are to be used to predict pupil’s success in some future activity, we should like put interpretations to be based on as accurate an estimate of future success as possible.


· Recording and reporting assessment results:-

Having decided what should be assessed and how this information will be collected, the next step is to decide how the results of assessments should be recorded and then reported to students, parents and other interested stake holders. This step involves two activities:-

1. Recording
2. Reporting.

1. Recording:-
Once data on the student’s performance have been collected, decision must be made about the way in which this information is recorded so it can be easily retrieved and used at a later date.
The type of information collected for assessment purposes maybe statistical. For example marks, grades, records of attendance & standardized test scores etc. Informal notes, other information including reports from previous teachers, students self assessment. The different types of information is collected at different time of the school year so a time table may be setup for the completion of specific tasks, so decisions have to be made about who will complete which task and how data will be recorded. Relevant material maybe assembled in a portfolio or a record of achievement can be created containing detailed information about all aspects of student’s life at school.




2. Reporting:-
How assessment information is reported is influenced by the reports purpose and the audience. The main consumer of information about students achievements are teachers, parents, students and administration. The New South Wales department of school education “identified three ways reporting” as a useful strategy for reviewing student achievement. Such reporting maybe in the form of student’s take home examples of their work that has already been assessed and commented on by the teacher and student. Parent can then respond in turn with their own comments on the child’s work.

Adolescence
The word adolescence comes from the Latin word “adolescere”meaning to grow up or to grow into maturity.
(Muuss, 1982, page 4)
As it is generally used today adolescence refers to the period of life between child hood and adulthood, roughly corresponding to the teen age years. However the meaning of adolescence and the age at which it begins and ends differ from one part of the world to another.

Beginning of adolescence tends to be defined primarily, by the individual’s biological age. Secondly the ending of adolescence is most readily defined by the person’s social age. (Schlegel & Barry, 191, page 10)

Beginning of the adolescence:
The indicator used to determine the beginning of adolescence is the “biological age” which is measured by biological science like skeletal maturity development of pubic hair, breast development or genital growth which are closely related to hormonal changes or more accurate markers of beginning of adolescence.

Ending of adolescence:
The indicator used to determine the ending of adolescence is the “social age” which is measured by social indicators such as “right to vote” & “be tried as an adult for criminal offence.” This indicator represents the beginning of adulthood and end of adolescence.
The concept of adolescence can be easily understood through the idea of “transition” during the human life span. In the most general sense, the concept of transition refers to a period of change, growth and disequilibrium that serves as a kind of bridge between one relatively stable point in life and another relatively stable, but different point. In that sense adolescence represents the transition between the physical, social and sexual immaturity of childhood to the physical, social and sexual maturity of adult hood. Thus adolescence is a period of change growth and disequilibrium in terms of physical social and sexual maturity. In addition, the concept of transition implies that the period of life is defined in the culture as an in between period: one is not a child, but is also not an adult. But a “marginal” person “they are people who belong neither here nor there standing between the groups” (Kurt Lewin, 1948, page 179)

Another additional distinction between these transitions is “on time and off time transitions”. All types of physical changes can occur either on time or off time but their effects will be different depending upon their occurrence on time or off time.

Specific tasks of adolescence:
Each individual has to perform a series of developmental tasks at various points in the life cycle. These tasks might be related to specific knowledge, skills, attitudes or functions that individuals are expected to acquire at a particular age. Education plays a very important role in helping a person to achieve these tasks. Most significantly at the “teachable moment” when the person is developmentally ready for the task. It is argued that each task needed to be accomplished in sequence and so each task depends on the successful achievement of the earlier tasks. If a task is not achieved at the appropriate time it maybe difficult or impossible to master it later or to progress on successfully to subsequent tasks.
(Havighurst, 1972, page 45-75)

Specified eight tasks during adolescent period:

1. Achieving new and more mature relations with age mates of both sexes
2. Achieving a masculine or feminine social role.
3. Accepting ones physique
4. Achieving emotional independence
5. Preparing for marriage and family life
6. Preparing for an economic career.
7. Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behavior ( developing and ideology)
8. Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior.


Cognitive development in adolescence:
Major characteristics that mark the difference between the thinking of adolescents and younger children are:-

1. Thinking about possibilities.
2. Thinking through hypothesis.
3. Thinking ahead.
4. Thinking about thoughts.
5. Thinking beyond old limits.
6. Thinking based on experience.

1. Thinking about possibilities:
The adolescents are able to think about ideas and things that are not concretely present, can form connections between various possible alternatives and can even think about the impossible. Thus reality becomes only one example of all possible situations. Examples of such thinking might include; in physics a particle that has infinite mass and no size “a black hole”, in mathematics square root of minus 1 “ an imaginary number i”, in philosophy the concept that consciousness precedes self consciousness & in psychology the idea that an individual’s personality can have many facets. Of course adolescents do not always think abstractly, the point is that adolescents are able to think about possibilities in a way that younger children typically do not. This ability to think about possibilities affect many areas of the adolescents life like thinking about ones self, one’s sense of identity, political ideas and moral issues. It also affects relation with parents, peers ad vocational choice.

2. Thinking through hypothesis:
Closely related to thinking about possibilities is the ability to develop hypothesis and to test them. However hypothesis is possibilities that may turn out to be impossibilities. Testing hypothesis is the basis of scientific method. To conduct an experiment one must hypothesize not only what will confirm one’s predictions but also what will disconfirm them & then design an experiment to test the predictions. This cognitive skill involves discarding hypothesis that turn out to be incorrect, accepting hypothesis, that are confirm, and developing additional hypothesis to be tested. It provides adolescents with the ability to make predictions act on those predictions and modify their expectations based on empirical evidence. Of course this does not imply that adolescents actually do function this way but the point is that their cognitive abilities allow them the possibility of applying these skills in a wide variety of areas in their lives.

3. Thinking ahead:
Children begin tasks without first considering what the out come will be and without systematically developing a strategy for achieving the tasks successfully. Planning involves the cognitive ability to think about all of the steps that are required in sequence in the abstract before beginning the task. This ability to plan is important to understand a wide range of adolescent behavior.

4. Thinking about thoughts:
The abiltity to think about thinking also characterizes adolescent cognitive skills. For example “introspection” is frequently noted among adolescents. Activities such as keeping a diary, writing poetry, spending time alone thinking about one’s self and “long deep” discussions with friends all indicate the fascination that adolescents find in thinking about thoughts. Another aspect of this ability to think about thoughts is the adolescents growing skill in finding ways to improve study skills, memory & problem solving ability. This Meta cognition or the ability to think about cognition and awareness of knowledge, increases with age during adolescence and becomes more sophisticated.
Piaget defined this stage of cognitive development as the ability to perform operations on operations. This process involves using logic to analyze logic, formulating rules about rules, and comparing and contrasting ideas using more abstract, higher order ideas.

5. Thinking beyond old limits:
Once the adolescent thinking ability is free from concrete reality and able to consider all manner of abstract possibilities, its scope increases greatly in the breadth of topics that are thought about. Adolescent can question reality and the way social physical and emotional issues have been seen before. Thus political questions religious beliefs moral issues and personal relationships maybe evaluated, questioned and debated. The act of challenging old ideas can be stimulating and occasionally enjoyed for the newness of the skill itself. This ability may provide an important source of intellectual ferment and even political change as young people think about important social issues.

6. Thinking based on experience:
As a result of greater experience and skill in selected domains, adolescents are able to solve problems similar to those they have dealt with in these domains previously. Consider also the cognitive skill of mapping that involves recognizing a relation ship between objects or events for example children are cable of inference but not of mapping until about the fourth grade. The ability to perform higher order mapping that involves recognizing a functional relationship between a relationship and an object or event is the characteristic of an adolescent.

Now at this stage of our discussion when we have build some idea about the assessment procedures the difference among assessment evaluation and measurement and understanding of the unique nature of the adolescence period we come to the problems associated with the assessment of this unique life stage; “the adolescence”.

Problems in assessing adolescence:
Basically there are three main problems:
1. Procedural problems
2. Age related problems
3. Adaptation problems of assessment procedures in adolescence period

Procedural problems:
While assessing the adolescents teachers face the following procedural problems:
1. Concept clarification problems
2. Model selection problems
3. Data collection problems
4. Problems involving technical interpretation
5. Recording and reporting problems
6. Implementation problems

Age related problems:
1. Special needs of adolescents
2. Social sphere related problems
3. Behavioral problems
4. Problems related to cognition in adolescents
5. Maturity problems


Adaptation problems of assessment procedures in adolescence period:

1. Lack of specialized teachers.
2. Selection of more appropriate selection model
3. Modifications in the selected model to meet the special needs
4. Misunderstanding the adolescent

Purpose of Administration

By Sultan Muhammad

Administration is derived from Latin word ministiare which mean to serve, so administration mean to serve. In broad view it mean to support the people in an organisation to help them to achieve there goals. In other words it is the art of managing organisation resources and provides support to those who needed to achieve the aims and objective of organisation.

s with stafIn organisation Administration is not the end, but it is to help the organization in implementation the plan to achieve the goals. With out good administration an excellent plan could end in Garbage, so as the money. As in the example of Pakistan, we can see that in planning and formulating the plan. And we produce excellent plans but we have not the skill or the will to implement them with the right sprit. While in the other hand other countries like Korea opt for our plans and they implemented with right sprit today they are role model in 3^rd world countries even for us.

A good administration means the skill to implement the laws of the organisation in a way that it helps the organisation to achieve the goals. Good administration require in time decision making skill, so the operation go smooth. The other factor which are very necessary for good administration, The Administrator. How administrator run his day to day activities, how he deal, does he have the communication skills and nerves to deal in complex situations?

Today we have different types of administration in different filed. All differ from filed to field. Every organisation have their own way of administration to reach their goals by supporting there professional staff and to communicate the line agencies.

In educational administration the aim of the organisation is to organise the administration at different level of organisation to help the staff to achieve their aims which lead to the goal of organisation to facilitate the educational institutions to provide better education.

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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.

Theory of Functionalism In Education Psychology

by Sultan Muhammad

Functionalism is a theory of mind in contemporary philosophy, developed largely as an alternative to both the identity theory of mind and behaviourism. Its core idea is that mental states (beliefs, desires, being in pain, etc.) are constituted solely by their functional role — that is, they are causal relations to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs. Since mental states are identified by a functional role, they are said to be realized on multiple levels; in other words, they are able to be manifested in various systems, even perhaps computers, so long as the system performs the appropriate functions. While functionalism has its advantages, there have been several arguments against it, claiming that it is an insufficient account of the mind.

Functionalism formed as a reaction to Titchener theory of structuralism.
Titchener argue that such a functionalist analysis is incomplete without a Thorough investigation of the mental structure and functions, Titchener arguments formulate a coherent goal and helped functionalist due to which psychologist became interested in the function of mind.

Titchener was against functionalism but during describing his theory of structuralism, he explains in detail functionalism too. Before him functionalism was loosely formulated between empiricism and the common–sense Mentalism of the Layman.

Functionalism was heavily influenced by the work of William James and titchener



Functionalism’s Roots

Functionalism was rooted in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolution is based on individual differences and the survival of adaptive features.
“Adaptation” becomes a popular approach to measuring intelligence. “Individual differences” become a valued part of mental research.
Functionalists sought to explain the mental processes in a more systematic and accurate manner, Rather than focusing on the elements of consciousness. Functionalists focused on the purpose of consciousness and behaviour.
Functionalism also emphasized individual differences, which had a profound impact on education.

Mind
Mind is a complex processes like a computer, function of memory, judgment, acquire, retain, process and organize. Functionalists were interested in the “function”, the mental abilities of adapting to an environment

William James

William James commonly considered the father of U.S. psychology, Contributed to the foundation of functional psychology in the US, but he did not develop his own ideas into an independent “school” of study.

Principle of functionalism in psychology

• Functionalist oppose the search for the elements of consciousness as futile
• Functionalist believed that the mind has the function of helping us to adapt to the environment. They want to understand the function of the mind, the way it helps us to adapt
• Functionalist wants psychology to be practical, not pure science.
• They want psychology to be broadened to include research on animals, children, and atypical humans
• Functionalist believed that the needs and motivations of the organism should be understood if some one wants to understand behaviour
• Functionalist are more interested in what makes people different from each other than in what makes them similar
• They are willing to use a wide variety of methods of study

In 1906, Mary Whiton Calkins published an article in Psychological Review asking for reconciliation between these two schools of thoughts, she thinks Structuralism and functionalism were not so different, she argued, since both are principally concerned with the conscious of self.

Adaptation of organism

Functionalist approach adaptation of organism to environment is deep rooted in the Charles Darwin theory of natural selection which explain the origin of species by organic evolution



Charles Darwin theory of mental selection
1. Variation: Biological, social and mental variation among the species
Struggle for existence: Every specie on the face of this planet struggle for their existence
3. Nature selection: it is the adaptation to natural selection; to adapt to a certain environment for the survival of the self.

Major Functionalist Thinkers

• William James
• John Dewey
• Harvey Carr
• John Angell

Strengths of Functionalism

• Functionalism Influenced behaviourism and applied psychology.
• Functionalism influenced the educational system, especially with regards to John Dewey’s belief that children should learn at the level for which they are mentally prepared.

John Dewey as Functionalist

• Progressive education: founded experimental Elementary school in his university for the development of education
• the duty of school to give children, not only an insight into the social importance of such activities, but also the opportunities to practice in real life in the form of games or any other activity base task, which leads naturally into the problem solving
• Dewey emphasized on child interest and his motivation to solve the problems
• Functionalism emphasized on individual Differences (capacity) in mental abilities (Darwin theory of variation)
• Francis Galton and james Cattel functional psychologist work on mental abilities and how to measure with mental tests
• It starts a movement of mental testing on the school level and classifying children in different intellectual groupings

Functionalism in sociology

• Functionalism: Functionalists see society, as being structured like a human body with many interrelated parts that functions together to maintain a healthy whole. So as body has a heart, lungs, liver etc.... Society has Education, the Family and the Economy etc.
• Therefore, to understand the education system we must consider how it functions to contribute to the healthy maintenance of the whole social system.
• The originator of the functionalist perspective, Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) argued that the main function of education is the transmission of society's norms and values in three mains areas:

1. Social Solidarity: For example, the teaching of history provides social continuity

2. Social Rules: At school, we learn to co-operate with strangers and to be self-disciplined.

3. Division of Labour -Education teaches individual skills necessary for future occupations. This is a most important function in advanced industrial society with its complex division of labour.

Angell defence of functionalism
· How, Why and what mental operations also called input-output psychology
· Functionalism is the psychology of adjustment of the organism to its environment (to solve the problem)
· Functionalism is interested in mind-in-body and interested in the physiological level of mental events
· American empirical psychology: Empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from experience

Strategies of Functionalism for psychological research

• Tolerant and critical and enjoy freedom: a functionalist researcher is critical in thinking and tolerant in nature. He is ready to accept any information obtained by introspection or by objective observation from either source mental test or case study. he is tolerant to Method and Content

• Functionalist is an experimentalist: in today world functionalist is an experimentalist. Today functionalism is dedicated to the experimental method.



Melton (1950)Dashiell’s Diagramof problem solving



• (1) How problem arise block by (2)
• (3) solve the problem through varied Behaviour
• (4) proceeds on his way to (5)
• If the process repeated again the (4) response recurs in Less time

Thus the learning process is the discovery of the adequate response to a problem situation and the fixation of the satisfying situation-response relationship (Melton)
· Motivation
· Initial discovery of the adequate response
· Fixation and elimination
· Transfer of training and retention


Capacity

• Functionalism particularly emphasized on individual Differences (capacity) and mental abilities of the individual (Darwin theory of variation)
• Dewey emphasised on individual differences and established an experimental school for this purpose to confirm his viewpoint.
• Children with Different mental level, learn with different pace.
• Robinson Recognized individual differences in his law of Individual differences and composition
• McGeoch and irion also agree with him
• With increase in age = increase in learning abilities due to organic maturation and second changing in psychological conditions (transfer and motivation)


Capacity and Class Room

• Functionalist suggest different method of teaching, because some children will easily learn from one method and some from other method
• Functionalist also emphasised Teaching according to the pace and capacity of the students

Practice

• Long term Retain happen when the bond is stronger between two elements, which are associated with each other. Functionalists discourage rote memorisation.
• Practice help in the class room environment to strong this bond of association between elements etc




Class Room and practice
• Show the picture of cat to students and repeat again and again so the students associate them with each other, meaning full material memorise easily as illustrate in the above example

Motivation
• Woodworth emphasised on the motivation and give core importance to it in learning by using different means to motivate the students
• Reward is a very good motive for students in class, it not only encourages the students who get the reward but also encourage the fellow students in the class
• Interest and Activity base teaching also motivate the student in learning process

Understanding
• Functionalist emphasis on meaningful material in learning process because meaningful material is easily learned than meaningless material
• Use Visual aid for better understanding of learning material

Transfer
• The effect (use) of old learning in new situation is called transfer of training; Insight is the extreme case of transfer of training according to McGeoch & Irion 1952.






Forgetting

Forgetting Forgetting

Maximum Minimum Medium
Similarity Similarity Similarity



• Theory of forgetting interference theory
• Association between two elements etc words, ideas, situational see the above graph
• Forgetting accord according to functionalist, due to weak bond between two element, one cant recall the original one, instead he remember other things which is identical to the old one and when the bond is stronger again between these two elements, one could recall it easily.






BIBLIOGRAPHY

• James, W. (1904) The Chicago school. Psychological Bulletin. 1, 1-5.
• L. Gordon, (1990) Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era
• P. A. Graham, (1967) Progressive Education from Arcady to Academe