Course: Elementary Education (826)
Semester: Spring, 2022
Assignment No. 01
Q.1 Discuss elementary education in Pakistan and compare it with elementary education in India and Bangladesh.
Education is believed to be an important condition for development. The difference between developed and under developed countries is of education. According to the declaration of 1990; education for all, education is a fundamental right for all people, women and men, of all ages, throughout the world. Education is the most powerful tool to help improve the quality of life and eradicate poverty. Elementary education, in Pakistan is considered from pre-school level to grade 8th. Elementary education is the most important tier in the educational system which provides base for the next or future education. This stage of education has always been given the prime importance and that the reason this has been given the priority in all the educational conferences and policies. It was set as a target in millennium development goals to be completed in 2015 which unfortunately could not be achieved due to flaws of administrative nature. Elementary education in Pakistan still demands a very serious effort to reach at the desired level of performance compatible to the competitive level in the world. Therefore, re-formulation of objectives, policies, curriculum, infrastructure, teacher training, and implementation system is of paramount importance and need to be handled at the top most priority to pace with the world. There has been much talk and debate regarding quality education in Pakistan. Ironically, they all revolve around mostly the types, sources and content of education instead of stages, particularly the most crucial and decisive stage i.e., elementary education. There has been little progress in recent years in developing new and existing programmes for adolescent learners in government schools at elementary level.
Q.2 Explain information process model with reference to cognitive development in elementary school years.
The Information Processing model is another way of examining and understanding how children develop cognitively. This model, developed in the 1960’s and 1970’s, conceptualizes children’s mental processes through the metaphor of a computer processing, encoding, storing, and decoding data. By ages 2 to 5 years, most children have developed the skills to focus attention for extended periods, recognize previously encountered information, recall old information, and reconstruct it in the present. For example, a 4-year-old can remember what she did at Christmas and tell her friend about it when she returns to preschool after the holiday. Between the ages of 2 and 5, long-term memory also begins to form, which is why most people cannot remember anything in their childhood prior to age 2 or 3.
Part of long-term memory involves storing information about the sequence of events during familiar situations as “scripts”. Scripts help children understand, interpret, and predict what will happen in future scenarios. For example, children understand that a visit to the grocery store involves a specific sequences of steps: Dad walks into the store, gets a grocery cart, selects items from the shelves, waits in the check-out line, pays for the groceries, and then loads them into the car. Children ages 2 through 5 also start to recognize that are often multiple ways to solve a problem and can brainstorm different (though sometimes primitive) solutions.
Q.3 Elaborate the theories of personality development by focusing on the role of family in the personality development of a child.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
A developmental stage theory was created by the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). It is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence and deals with the nature of knowledge and how humans acquire, construct, and use this knowledge. Piaget believed that, cognitive development was an organization of mental processes that result from biological maturation and environmental experience. Children develop an understanding of the world around them, experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment and then adjust their ideas accordingly. He claimed that cognitive development is at the center of the human organism, and language is contingent on knowledge and understanding acquired through cognitive development. Piaget develop four important stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2), preoperational stage (age 2 to 7), concrete-operational stage (ages 7 to 12), and formal-operational stage (ages 11 to 12, and thereafter). Child-centered classrooms and “open education” are direct applications of Piaget’s theory.
Q.4 Explain the concept of physical fitness, also state the purpose of physical and health education. Suggest ways to integrate health education with other subjects.
An individual’s physical and mental well-being is the concern of two similar areas of education: health education and physical education. Both deal with habits of exercise, sleep, rest, and recreation. Since physical well-being is only one aspect of a person’s overall health, physical education is often thought of as a part of health education.
Health education is an activity aimed at the improvement of health-related knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. It is used in schools to help students make intelligent decisions about health-related issues. There are many ways to teach health in schools. Usually instructors create and facilitate learning experiences that develop the student’s decision-making skills. Above all, teachers provide health information and a concern for factors that influence the quality of life.
Health behavior plays a major part in a person’s overall well-being. Since health-related behaviors are both learned and amenable to change, formal health education usually begins when a child is most flexible—in primary school. This is also when a child is more apt to accept positive health behaviors. It is in these early years that the negative effects of a lifetime of health abuse can be prevented. Many health problems are known to be linked to smoking, poor nutrition, obesity, lack of exercise, stress, and abuse of drugs and alcohol (see alcohol; drugs; exercise; habit and addiction; stress; weight control).
Q.5 Discuss the techniques of questioning for the development of higher mental process from teacher’s as well as pupils’ point of view.
As an educator, teachers are constantly engaged with students in teaching and learning activities while teaching a subject in the classroom. One of the most important sessions conducted by a teacher in the teaching and learning process is the question-and-answer session. Questioning is an important activity in teaching. Questioning can be used to test the knowledge of the past, with questions requiring factual answers by asking who, what, where, and when. Designing is also aimed at stimulating student thinking. These kinds of questions need to be carefully considered as they relate to more serious matters such as consequences and to use questions of how and reason.
One of the key components to creating effective teaching and learning processes is the method of questioning or questioning techniques used by teachers. Questioning by teachers in the teaching and learning process is one of the many interactions that occur in the classroom. Questioning techniques are one of the tools for achieving goals and stimulating students’ mental activity. Questioning techniques is important because it can stimulate learning, develop the potential of students to think, drive to clear ideas, stir the imagination, and incentive to act. It is also one of the ways teachers help students develop their knowledge more effectively