LECTURE 12

FACILITATING COMPLEX THINKING

Learning Objectives
1. Understand forms of thinking
2. Measure creativity in classroom
3. Explore the concept of creativity in classroom
4. Select some strategies that can stimulate complex thinking in students
Forms of Thinking
The forms have distinctive educational purposes, even though they sometimes overlap, in
the sense that one form may contribute to success with another form. Consider three somewhat
complex forms of thinking that are commonly pursued in classroom learning:
(1) Critical Thinking,
(2) Creative Thinking,
(3) Problem-solving.
Critical Thinking
• Critical thinking requires skill at analyzing the reliability and validity of information, as
well as the attitude or temperament to do so.
• The skill and attitude may be displayed with regard to a particular subject matter or topic,
but in principle it can occur in any realm of knowledge (Halpern, 2003; Williams, Oliver,
& Stockade, 2004).
• A critical thinker does not necessarily have a negative attitude in the everyday sense of
constantly criticizing someone or something. Instead, he or she can be thought of as
astute (smart, intelligent): the critical thinker asks key questions, evaluates the evidence
for ideas, reasons for problems both logically and objectively, and expresses ideas and
conclusions clearly and precisely. Last (but not least), the critical thinker can apply these
habits of mind in more than one realm of life or knowledge.
Creative Thinking
• Creativity is the ability to make or do something new that is also useful or valued by
others (Gardner, 1993).
• The “something” can be an object (like an essay or painting), a skill (like playing an
instrument), or an action (like using a familiar tool in a new way).
• To be creative, the object, skill, or action cannot simply be strange; it cannot be new
without also being useful or valued, and not simply be the result of accident.
• If a person types letters at random that form a poem by chance, the result may be
beautiful, but it would not be creative by the definition above.
• Viewed this way, creativity includes a wide range of human experience that many people,
if not everyone, have had at some time or other (Kaufman & Baer, 2006). The experience
is not restricted to a few geniuses, nor exclusive to specific fields or activities like art or
the composing of music.
• Especially important for teachers are two facts. The FIRST is that an important form of
creativity is creative thinking, the generation of ideas that are new as well as useful,
productive, and appropriate. The SECOND is that creative thinking can be stimulated by
teachers’ efforts.
• Teachers can, for example, encourage students’ divergent thinking—ideas that are open-
ended and that lead in many directions (Torrance, 1992; Kim, 2006).
 • Divergent thinking is stimulated by open-ended questions—questions with many possible
answers, such as the following:
• How many uses can you think of for a cup?
• Draw a picture that somehow incorporates all of these words: cat, fire engine, and
banana.
• What is the most unusual use you can think of for a shoe?
• Note that answering these questions creatively depends partly on having already acquired
knowledge about the objects to which the questions refer.
• In this sense divergent thinking depends partly on its converse, convergent thinking,
which is focused, logical reasoning about ideas and experiences that lead to specific
answers.
Problem Solving
• Somewhat less open-ended than creative thinking is problem solving, the analysis and
solution of tasks or situations that are complex or ambiguous and that pose difficulties or
obstacles of some kind (Mayer & Wittrock, 2006).
• Problem solving is needed, for example, when a physician analyzes a X-ray: a
photograph of the foot is far from clear and requires skill, experience, and
resourcefulness to decide which foggy-looking blobs to ignore, and which to interpret as
real physical structures (and therefore real medical concerns).
• Problem solving is also needed when a grocery store manager has to decide how to
improve the sales of a product: should she put it on sale at a lower price, or increase
publicity for it, or both? Will these actions actually increase sales enough to pay for their
costs?
Measurement of Creativity
Torrance has developed TWO types of creativity tests: verbal and graphic
• Verbal Test
In verbal tests, a child is asked how, for example, a toy can be changed to make it more
fun to play with or think of many uses of a tin as possible.
• Graphic Test
In the graphic test, a person may be given a number of circles and asked to create a different
drawing from reach circle. The responses are then scored for originality (new responses),
fluency (number opf responses) and flexibility (different responses).
LECTURE 13
FACILITATING COMPLEX THINKING
Learning Objectives
1. Understand forms of thinking
2. Measure creativity in classroom
3. Explore the concept of creativity in classroom
4. Select some strategies that can stimulate complex thinking in students
Creativity in Classroom
• According to social psychologists, creativity is a function of social and psychological
environment. Creativity must be fostered because many social, environmental and
economic problems require creative solutions.
• Teacher can promote creative thinking in their students by creating classroom
environment for creative thinking.
 • Often teachers consciously or unconsciously discourage creative ideas of students
without realizing that they are doing so.
• Teachers are in excellent position to encourage or discourage creativity through
acceptance or rejection of the unusual and the imaginative ideas of students.
Here are some ways to foster creativity in the classroom:
1. Accept and encourage divergent thinking. Expect and demand creativity from students.
For instance, during class discussion, ask, “Can any one suggest a different way of
looking at this problem?” Reward attempts are imperfect.
2. Tolerate disagreement. Ask students to support their dissenting (rebel) option. Make sure
non-conforming students receive equal privileges and rewards. Find out something
positive even in apparently stupid and irrelevant answers. Follow-up bad answers with
questions to help student think through the problem.
3. Encourage students to trust their judgment. If students questions can be answered by
them, rephrase the question and direct it back to the class. Strange and odd questions
from students should not be discouraged.
4. Expose the class to creative models. Model creative thinking and creative problem
solving by suggesting unusual solutions for class problems.
5. Provide opportunities for students to solve problems through brainstorming. The basic
principle of brainstorming is to allow the students to give as many solutions to the
problem as possible. Delay evaluation of those solutions till maximum number of
solutions are given. Separate the processes of creating ideas and evaluating them.
Simultaneous evaluation inhibits creative production.
6. Encourage students to think around the problem and give them time to produce divergent
or lateral thinking solutions.
7. Minimize use of extrinsic rewards and stimulate students to find intrinsic satisfaction in
their efforts.
8. When possible, allow students choices in writing stories, in science projects and other
areas of interest. Use all curriculum areas to encourage creative thinking. Help them not
only in seeking new solutions but also in finding new problems.
Instructional Strategies that Stimulate Complex Thinking
Teacher-directed Instruction
• As the name indicates, teacher-directed instruction includes any strategies initiated and
guided primarily by the teacher.
• A classic example is exposition or lecturing (simply telling or explaining important
information to students) combined with assigning reading from texts.
• But teacher-directed instruction also includes strategies that involve more active response
from students, such as encouraging students to elaborate on new knowledge or to explain
how new information relates to prior knowledge.
Lectures and Readings
• Lectures and readings are traditional staples of educators, particularly with older students
(including university students). At their best, they pre-organize information so that (at
least in theory) the student only has to remember what was said in the lecture or written
in the text in order to begin understanding it (Exley & Dennick, 2004).
• Their limitation is the ambiguity of the responses they require: listening and reading are
by nature quiet and stationary, and do not in themselves indicate whether a student is
comprehending or even attending to the material.
 • Educators sometimes complain that “students are too passive” during lectures or when
reading. But physical quietness is intrinsic to these activities, not to the students who do
them. A book just sits still, after all, unless a student makes an effort to read it, and a
lecture may not be heard unless a student makes the effort to listen to it.
Advance Organizers
• In spite of these problems, there are strategies for making lectures and readings effective.
• A teacher can be especially careful about organizing information for students, and she
can turn part of the mental work over to students themselves.
• An example of the first approach is the use of advance organizers—brief overviews or
introductions to new material before the material itself is presented (Ausubel, 1978).
• Textbook authors often try deliberately to insert periodic advance organizers to introduce
new sections or chapters in the text. When used in a lecture, advance organizers are
usually statements in the form of brief introductory remarks, though sometimes diagrams
showing relationships among key ideas can also serve the same purpose (Robinson, et al.,
2003). Whatever their form, advance organizers partially organize the material on behalf
of the students, so that they know where to put it all, as they learn them in more detail.
Recalling and Relating Prior Knowledge
• Another strategy for improving teacher-directed instruction is to encourage students to
relate the new material to prior familiar knowledge. When one of us (Ali) first learned a
foreign language (in his case French), for example, he often noticed similarities between
French and English vocabulary. A French word for picture, for example, was image,
spelled exactly as it is in English. The French word for splendid was splendide, spelled
almost the same as in English, though not quite. Relating the French vocabulary to
English vocabulary helped in learning and remembering the French.
Elaborating Information
• Elaborating new information means asking questions about the new material, inferring
ideas and relationships among the new concepts.
• Such strategies are closely related to the strategy of recalling prior knowledge as
discussed above: elaboration enriches the new information and connects it to other
knowledge. In this sense elaboration makes the new learning more meaningful and less
arbitrary or random.
Organizing New Information
• There are many ways to organize new information that are especially well-suited to
teacher-directed instruction. A common way is simply to ask students to outline
information read in a text or heard in a lecture.
• Outlining works especially well when the information is already organized somewhat
hierarchically into a series of main topics, each with supporting subtopics or sub points.
• Outlining is basically a form of the more general strategy of taking notes, or writing
down key ideas and terms from a reading or lecture.
Concept Maps
• Graphic depiction of relationships among a set of concepts, terms, or ideas; usually
organized by the student, but not always.
• A concept map or conceptual diagram is a diagram that depicts suggested relationships
between concepts. It is a graphical tool that instructional designers, engineers, technical
writers, and others use to organize and structure knowledge.
 Benefits of Concept Maps
• Aids in Creating a Presentation
• Concept mapping can help someone creating a presentation to organize it in a logical
format.
• Allows for Quick Interpretation
• With a concept map, people can often grasp ideas much more quickly than by reading
them in an article or book
• Illustrates the Hierarchy of Ideas
• A concept map helps people to understand the hierarchy of ideas, understanding how
each component relates to the others.
• Aides in Visualizing Outcomes
• It can also help people to understand the possible indirect results of an action or
program.
Definitions of Terms

LECTURE 14
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Learning Objectives
  After taking this lecture students will be able to:
 Study characteristics of students with mental retardation and techniques of teaching them.
 Describe characteristics and classification of students with emotional disturbance.
 Summarize techniques of teaching aggressive and withdrawn children.
 Explore factors leading to the disadvantaged status of students. Give suggestions to teach
them
 Discuss students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the ways to help them
learn.
 Discuss the characteristics of students with learning disabilities and techniques of
teaching them.
 Describe ways to identify gifted children and methods of teaching them.
 Explain how computer can help teaching the exceptional child.
DEFINITION OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
According to the dictionary of education
 Individual differences stand for the variation or deviations among individuals in regard to
a single characteristic or number of characteristics.
 It is stand for those differences which in their totality distinguish one individual from
another.
So, we can say that individual differences is the differences among humans that
distinguish or separate them from one another and makes one as a single unique
individual.
TYPES OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Following are the types of individual differences
 Differences in Interest
Interest may refer as a motivating force that compels us to attend to a person, a thing, or
an activity. So in educational field differences in interest means you observe some
students like a particular subject, teacher, hobby or profession than other.
 Difference in Attitude
Difference in attitude is psyche related to some thing. Few learners have positive attitude
towards a specific topic, subject, and profession than other. The role of education in
society is to develop positive attitude.
 Difference in Values
Values are the things that are given importance by an individual. Some learners value
materialist life style other moral or religious life style etc. So education must mould the
mind of young generation to have a balance values between materialism and spiritualism.
 Study Habits
It is clearly observable that some students markedly differ from other students in study
habits. Some students are studious and study all the subjects with interest but other may
not. Some study in isolation and some in group.
 Difference in Psychomotor Skills
Psychomotor Skill is related to some skill acquisition. Some students differ in this area
also. Some students like football, other cricket, etc. Some students easily learn operating
a machine and some may not. A wise teacher should diagnose students’ psychomotor
skills abilities and encourage them in that direction.
 Difference in Self Concept
 Difference in self-concept is the totality of attitudes, judgment, and values of an
individual relating to his behavior, abilities, and qualities. So some students have positive
self-concept than boost their confidence level and perform better against those who have
negative self-image.
CAUSES OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
The followings are the main causes of individual differences:
1. Hereditary (Nature)
 Individuals have various abilities, and capacities provided by hereditary. Which decide
the path of progress and development of an individual.
 Hereditary also put limits upon individuals’ growth and development in various
dimensions.
 Hereditary also contributes to both genders, intelligence, and other specific abilities.
2. Environment (Nurture)
 Environment also plays key role in individual differences. No person from birth to death
gets the same environment. Individual differences occur on the basis of simulation
received by individual from his or her internal and external environment. This may
include family set up, peer group, economic statues, education etc.
 It is debatable that whether nature or nurture play vital or stronger role in development of
an individual in specific direction. Both are strong contenders in order to distinguish one
individual from other.
TYPES OF EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN
The U.S. Federal Department of Health and Education has following types of children in the list of
handicapped children:
(1) Deafness
(2) Hardness of hearing
(3) Blindness
(4) Visual impairments
(5) Speech impairments
(6) Physical and health impairments
(7) Mental retardation
(8) Learning disabilities
(9)Emotional disturbance
GIFTED AND TALENTED STUDENTS
According to a recent definition, gifted and talented children and youth give evidence of high
performance capability in such areas as intellectual, creative, artistic or leadership capacity or in specific
academic fields who require services or activities not provided by the school; in order to fully develop
their capabilities.
Gallagher defined such individuals as those who possess the ability to absorb abstract concepts, to
organize them more effectively and to apply them more appropriately than the average youngster.

IDENTIFYING THE GIFTED

Previously, IQ score of 140 and above was used to identify the gifted. But as traditional
intelligence tests do not measure divergent or creative thinking, besides IQ, such
characteristics as superior performance on achievement and aptitude tests, high level of
motivation and evidence of creativity as measured by creativity tests and leadership
ability as evidenced by observation are also used for identification purposes.
The following nine statements serve a useful guide to identify the characteristics of gifted
children:
 1. Who learn easily and rapidly.
2. Who use a lot of common sense and practical knowledge.
3. Who retain easily what has been heard.
4. Who know more about many things than other children.
5. Who use a large number of words easily and accurately.
6. Who recognize relationships and meanings.
7. Who are alert, keen observers and respond quickly.
8. Who are persistent and highly motivated on some tasks.
9. Who are creative, have often-unusual ideas or make interesting connections.
TEACHING GIFTED STUDENTS
1. Some educators believe that gifted students should be given accelerated promotions —
A. First form of acceleration is to move quickly through the classes or particular subjects.
Class skipping (skipping one or more classes) in more often used. The
B. second form of acceleration is curriculum compression, allowing the gifted students to
complete the work for more than one class during the regular school year.
C. The third way of acceleration is extending school year by the use of summer sessions.
The fourth way is to allow the gifted to take college courses while still in high school.
2. Another method is providing enrichment, instead of acceleration.
 Enrichment means giving them additional, more sophisticated and more thought-
provoking work while keeping them with their age fellows.
 Enrichment can be horizontal (giving more material at the same level of difficulty) or
vertical (giving more advanced work of the same general type).
3. Encourage capable students to spend extra time in reading and writing, for example,
writing book reviews with personal reactions, not a summary of the studied book reading
biographies and autobiographies may also inspire these students to emulate great leaders.
STUDENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION
 The American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD) has defined mental
retardation "as significantly below average intellectual functioning existing concurrently
with defects in adaptive behavior, manifested during development period".
 Retardation was further divided into mild, moderate, severe and profound levels on the
basis of IQ measurement.
 But, now, the classification of mental retardation is based on level of support needed by
the mentally, retarded person.
 The levels in the increasing order of support are intermittent (short-term, low or high
intensity support during life span transitions but not always required), limited (intense,
consistent, over time support but not of intermittent nature), extensive (daily long-term
support at least in some environments such as work or home) and pervasive (constant,
intense support required in all environments).
CAUSES OF MENTAL RETARDATION
 The causes of mental retardation are physical (organic) or environmental.
 Fifty percent of all the cases of mental retardation can be prevented by better parental
Care, improved nutrition, disease prevention for mothers and children and improved
educational environment.
CHARACTERISTICS:

The children with mild mental retardation have the following common developmental characteristics:
1. They follow the same general pattern of development like normal children but differ in the rate
and degree of development. Accordingly, they appear immature as compared to their age fellows.
2. They tend to oversimplify concepts.
3. They are unable to generalize from one situation to the other.
4. They have short memory and short attention span.
5. They have delayed language development.
6. They are inclined to concentrate on one aspect of learning institution and ignore nonessentials.
7. They tend to classify things on the basics of single feature only.
8. The mentally retarded adolescents may deal with concrete situations but may not be able to grasp
abstract ideas, state and test hypothesis. In other words, they may go maximally upto the concrete
operations stage of cognitive development.
9. They are more likely to experience frustration when they want to do but can't do the things their
peer can do.
10. They tend to devaluate themselves, doubt their abilities and suffer from lack of confidence and
low self-esteem.
LEARNING GOALS:
The, learning goals for students with mild mental retardation may be restricted to learning
of 3Rs' (reading, writing and arithmetic) during elementary stage and-equipping them with
useful vocational and domestic skills, literacy for living, health, self care and citizenship
skills at secondary stage. The overall aim of educating them' should be to enable them live
independently as a productive, self supporting members of society.
TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING:
The following guidelines for teaching are applicable to all those students, including the
mentally retarded, who learn less rapidly than most of their classmates:
1. Determine the readiness for learning, no matter how little the child may previously know.
The learner should be ready to learn the next step. Prepare the learner for new learning.
2. State and present the learning objective in simple words.
3. Base the specific learning objective on an analysis of the child's strengths and
weaknesses.
4. Present the new learning material in small steps and provide the learner with enough
practice in that step before moving to the next step. Make drill and practice as interesting
and enjoyable as possible.
5. Do not skip steps. These children can't form conceptual bridge from one step to the other.
They can't make connections between steps on their own. Make connections between
steps explicit.
6. Present the same idea in many different ways.
7. Go back to simpler level if you see the student does not seem to follow, the next step.
8. As these students have short memory span, build over-learning into lessons. Periodically
review the previously taught lesson.
9. As these children have small attention spans, deliver brief presentations.
10. Give them brief assignments that can be completed in short periods.
11. Present learning tasks with smaller number of elements, at least some of which are
familiar to them.
12. Teach them practical concepts and skills which the students will need during adult life.
13. Be especially careful to motivate and maintain the attention of these students.
14. Focus on a few target behaviours and skills so that students have a chance to succeed.
15. Do everything possible to encourage a sense of self-esteem in these children.
 16. Do not expect and demand less. Ask them questions, give them sufficient wait-time for
answers, repeat questions, give clue and ask the same question in different ways.
17. Since these children are easily frustrated, avoid placing them in situations leading to
frustration. When they seem to be close to their frustration limits, encourage them to
participate in relaxing, change-of-pace pursuits or in physical activities.
18. Pay close attention to social relations so that they are accepted and can make and keep
friends.
STUDENTS WITH PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENTS
Students with physical impairments may have deformities in bones and muscles who have to use such
devices as special shoes, wheelchairs or crutches in order to participate in normal school programme. If
the school building does not have such structural features which create difficulties for these children,
there is no_ need to change the usual school activities for them.
Students with Hearing Impairments
The students with hearing problems show such symptoms as turning one ear toward the speaker,
misunderstanding conversation especially when speaker's face can't be seen, inability to follow directions,
looking confused or distracted at times, frequently asking for repetition, mispronouncing new words,
complaining frequent earaches etc. There are two approaches, namely, the oral approach and the manual
approach to help these children in communication and learning. Oral approach involves speech reading
(lip reading) and training these students to use their limited hearing effectively. Manual approach includes
sign language and finger spelling. Both approaches should be used in combination.
Students with Vision Impairment
The students with vision impairment show following signs:
They hold books either very close or very away from their eyes. They may roll their eyes frequently or
complain eye burning or itching. Their eyes may be swollen or red. They may misread the board writing,
describe their vision as blurred, may be sensitive to light or hold their heads at an odd angle. Any of these
symptoms may be reported to the eye-specialist. Mild vision problems can be overcome with lenses.
Students with low vision must use hearing and touch as predominant learning channels. For students with
visual problems, the quality of print is often more important than size of the print.
Students with Speech Impairment
These students cannot produce sounds -for effective speech. Two common speech impairments
are articulation disorders and stuttering.
Articulation disorders include substituting one so\und for another (thunthirie for sunshine)
distorting a sound (shoup for soup) and adding a sound (idea of idea). Most children successfully
pronounce sound when they are six to eight years old. Stuttering appears by age three and four. Stuttering
may lead to embarrassment and anxiety for the victim. In about 50% of cases, it disappears by
adolescence. If it continues for longer than a year, speech therapist may be consulted. The earlier the
treatment, the better.
LECTURE 15
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Students with Emotional Impairments
Children with emotional disturbance are also termed as children with social
maladjustment and children with behaviour disorders. These terms are interchangeably used.
Definition and characteristics:
Only children of serious emotional disorders have been defined in American Public Law (PL
94-142) for Handicapped children who possess one of the following characteristics:
1. Inability to learn is not due to mental retardation, visual and speech impairments and
health problems.
2. Inability to build or maintain satisfactory relationships with peers and teachers.
 3. A general mood of unhappiness or depression.
4. Inappropriate types of feelings and behaviours under normal conditions.
5. Tendency to develop fears about personal and school problems. In other words, serious
emotional disturbance is characterized by learning difficulties, poor social relations,
depression, fears and inappropriate behaviours.
Classification:
 There are many classifications of emotionally disturbed children but the most popular one
involves two basic patterns: aggressive behaviour and withdrawn behaviour.
 Aggressive students are often restless, uncooperative, negativistic and disobedient,
sometimes cruel and full of hatred.
 Withdrawn students, by contrast, are generally shy, timid, anxious, often depressed,
lack self-confidence, are more likely to develop various serious emotional problems like
schizophrenia (being cut off from reality), depression and suicidal attempts during
adolescence. Teachers are mostly unaware of withdrawn students because their
behaviour, unlike the aggressive behaviour, does not force teachers' attention. If the
emotionally disturbed pupil behviour becomes very severe, placement in separate, special
class or special school might be seriously considered. Children with mild emotional
disturbance may attend regular classes but regular teachers must know how to deal with
and teach these children.
Techniques of Teaching:
The techniques of teaching each of the two types of children with behaviour disorders are
suggested separately:
1. Teaching the Aggressive Students
2. Teaching the withdrawn students
1. Teaching the Aggressive Students
 Shape the classroom environment in order to reduce the chances of aggressive, disruptive
or antisocial behaviour of the emotionally disturbed child. The best way is to nip the evil
in the bud.
 In creating the appropriate environment for learning, seat the students who get along well
with aggressive student close to him in the class and seat the students who do not get
along with the aggressive student away from him. Formulate class rules and penalties for
breaking the rules with student input and apply the rules consistently.
 To minimize frustration of the aggressive student with learning, use the same techniques
of learning as those for children with mild retardation. Valuable materials be kept away,
from the reach of aggressive child when these are not needed for use.
 Reinforce appropriate behaviour and, if necessary, punish undesirable behaviour.
Reinforcement serves the dual purpose of teaching the aggressive child appropriate
behaviour and reducing the frequency of inappropriate behaviour when it is replaced by
desired behaviour.
 Even after rewarding the desired behaviour, disruptive behaviour may still occur. In that
case, punishment in the forms of time-out; response cost and extinction are effective for
suppressing inappropriate behaviour. In time-out, the aggressive student is made to sit
alone for some time soon after aggression.
 In response-cost, a certain amount (say 5%) of previously earned tokens for appropriate
behaviours are withdrawn (the punishment technique of response cost is used long with
the reinforcement technique of token economy. In token economy, students earn prize
 tokens for appropriate behaviours to encash or exchange them later for some preferred
object or activity).
 Use group contingency management techniques also in addition to the methods of dealing
directly with the aggressive students. Through group management, teacher may want to
reward the entire class when the aggressive student behaves. Such rewards may be free
time, special classroom events or certain privileges that tend to make the aggressive
student class 'hero' and foster good class relationships with the child.
2. Teaching the Withdrawn Students
 Design the classroom environment and plan lessons that encourage social interaction and
cooperation between socially withdrawn child and his class fellows. Withdrawn child
may stay away from others because he finds social contacts threatening or because he
thinks others stay away from him due to his poor social skills. Whatever may be the
reason, teachers should get the shy children closer to others.
 For example, preschool: and primary class teachers should urge the child to cooperative
play instead of isolated play. Elementary class teachers should emphasize organized plays
sports, games and team oriented learning activities like Team Accelerated Instruction..
The first step, for instance, in maths instruction is to form student groups of four or five
members with varying ability levels and social backgrounds. Each group works
individually on problems at their own level of understanding. Tearnmates then check
each others' work against correct answer sheets. Team scores are calculated on the basis
of units successfully completed by the team members each week. The teams may be
rewarded by the amount and quality of work completed by each team cooperative
learning is also useful for normal children.
 Prompt and positively reinforce- social interactions. A prompt is a stimulus that draws a
desired response. Positive reinforcement involves giving the student something that
student wants after the desired response.
 The aim of prompting and positive reinforcement is to get the child behave that way
again. The positive reinforces can be verbal praise, stickers like gold stars or smiley faces
and small prizes like pencils, exercise books etc. To illustrate this suggestion, a
cooperative tasks may be assigned to a student who is good in interaction skills to help
two other withdrawn students paint a scenery for the classroom. The teacher can assign
painting of trees in the scenery to one child, painting of grass to the second and painting
people to the third: After sometime, the teacher may say something like this "that is good
work. I am really pleased to see you all working well together." Similar comments can be
made at intervals till completion of task.
 Train other students to initiate social interactions. Since it is difficult for the teacher
himself to interact with a withdrawn child due to many other class responsibilities, it is
better to train such children who are good at social interactions. Explain to the helping
student the goal of working with the withdrawn child, prepare the helping child to expect
initial rejection by the withdrawn child and emphasize the importance of making periodic
attempts at interaction. Instruct the helping child to suggest games and activities that are
appealing to withdrawn child and the helper's attempts to interact with the withdrawn
child must be reinforced.
Student with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
 Some students have short attention span and are excessively restless whose main problem
is directing and maintaining their restlessness and physical activity. The American
 Psychological Association has lately established this category called `attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorders' (ADHD) to identify these children.. These children are
mostly boys than girls whose disorder may even persist in adulthood. In our environment,
children with ADHD are branded as naughty, non-serious and destructive. Due to this
condition, despite -being intelligent, they have difficulty responding appropriately and
working steadily towards even their own goals. They may not even be able to control
their behaviour when ordered to do so, even for a brief period.
 Today, there is much reliance on drug therapy. Ritaline and Dexedrine have positive
short-tern effects. There is improvement in such social behaviours of these children as
attention, cooperation and compliance. Besides negative side effects on some children,
the drug therapy does not seem to cure the problem permanently. The child still needs
special help in learning because the drugs have not shown any improvement in academic
and social learning of these children. These two areas are the great problem areas for
these children. In addition to medication, they require special help in learning through
behaviour modification techniques based upon behvioural and cognitive principles of
learning. One promising approach to help these children combines instruction in learning
and memory strategies with motivational training. The goal is to give these students the
'skill' as well as the 'will' to improve their achievement. These students should learn- how
and when to apply learning aria study skills. They must also encouraged to be persistent
and see themselves as able to control their behaviour.
 Even if 'the medication improves the behaviour of these children, they still need to learn
academic and social skills to show better academic performance.
Disadvantaged or Culturally Different Students
Those students in the classroom who come from poor cultural background are not
properly equipped with experiences which are necessary to perform well in school. Let us
review a few factors leading to disadvantaged status of the child. It will then be possible
to derive general guidelines for teaching such pupils:
1. Many poor children are disadvantaged due to Untreated illnesses they bring with them to
the. classroom. .These diseases may be due to inadequate prenatal care and absence of
treatment facilities during postnatal period.
2. These children may belong to poor social and psychological. environment. Most lower-
class parents use ways of child care that work against their success in school. For
instance, mothers are inattentive and unresponsive to the child who use poor language
when interacting with the child. Consequently, his language and intellectual development
is inferior to other children of their age.
3. Children from poor families are not exposed to wide variety of experiences. Their parents
do not tutor them, talk less and do not answer their questions. Due to lack of resources,
they can't afford to provide them with educational toys and other reading material. They
take them less on trips. Therefore, these children remain at a disadvantage in the
competitive school environment.
4. These pupils may not be -strongly motivated to do well in school. They may not know
the techniques of becoming successful in school. As their parents have not been
successful as students, they might have developed negative attitude, toward school. The
parents, therefore, are unable to motivate and inspire them for learning.
5. Lower class children generally have low career aspirations who expect petty jobs after
schooling. Due to a history of failures, these children do not have challenging, long-term
 education plans. Nor do their parents encourage them to pursue higher education due to
their own past negative experiences of having been dropped out of school.
6. The adolescents from poor homes tend to have to low need for achievement and role
confusion of and negative self-concept. After obtaining a certificate or without it, when
they experience unemployment, they are more likely to have low self-esteem which may
contribute to role confusion and a tendency to form a negative identity leading to
antisocial activities.
Suggestions for Teaching
 Avoid labeling the child. Instead of thinking that a disadvantaged child is beyond help,
teacher might ask herself what kinds of disadvantages of the child are needed to be
overcome, what kinds of strengths the child possesses. Concentrate on individuals in
order to overcome the dangers of stereotyping or labeling. Once Samuel Jahnson was
asked, "Are men more intelligent than women" He replied, "Which man? Which
Women?” Thinking in this way helps avoid the error of assigning to individuals
characteristics attributed to a group.
 Allow for the possibility that disadvantaged child may have inadequate diet and
insufficient medical care. These causes might be creating learning difficulties for him. If
so, search be made to contact philanthropic individuals or agencies for securing the
necessary financial aid.
 Try to supply the experiences the disadvantaged students have missed. These children
may not have the experience of every day objects and situations assumed in the textbook
and instructional material. The urban child may not comprehend a simple rural scene and
vice versa. This lack of experience can be met through a film or a field trip. Try to supply
familiarity directly or in pictorial form, where necessary.
 Use all possible means to motivate the disadvantaged child. Lack of ability might not
always be the cause of 'learning difficulties but lack of interest may be the reason. As
already mentioned, a number of circumstances are, considered to prevent lower-class
students from acquiring a desire to do well in school: lack of encouragement from
parents, absence of models, low level of aspiration, low need for achievement.
 Teach these children learning and test taking skills. To earn good grades consistently, all
students, irrespective of their background, must develop specialized learning skills. This
will create and maintain a strong desire to achieve in school. Teacher must, therefore,
give students many practice exams for answering questions. After each test, their
satisfactory and unsatisfactory answers must be discussed. They may be given specific
tips for writing good answers.
 Give them specific assignments, arrange, abundant practice, supply immediate feedback
and emphasize over-learning. The disadvantaged students require direct and close
supervision while they work individually or in small groups on specific assignments.
Teachers should ask them specific questions that have specific answers and make all the
decisions about what will be learnt. Over teach the disadvantaged and ask them to
overlearn. First, have them study the material under your close supervision and then in
small groups. Just before- exams, have them study in small groups.
Students with Learning Disabilities
 How will we explain what is wrong with a student who is not mentally retarded and
educationally deprived, who has normal vision, hearing and language capabilities but
who still can't learn to read, write and compute? One possible explanation would be that
 he has learning disability (he is learning disabled). This category is again relatively new
as well as controversial. There is no common1:- and fully agreed upon definition. There
are many definitions (about 40). One widely used definition is as follows: -
 "Learning disabilities is a generic (general) term that refers to a heterogeneous group of
disorders manifested by significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening,
speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, and mathematical abilities. These disorders are
intrinsic to the individual and presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction.
Even though a learning disability may occur concomitantly with other handicapping
conditions and environmental influences, it is not the direct result)of these conditions or
influences."
Important points in the above definition of learning disabilities are repeated
below:
1. Learning disability is a heterogeneous group of disorders. It includes many kinds of
problems.
2. The disorders are intrinsic, that is, the disorders are due to internal and not external
factors like environment or educational system.
3. The learning disability is believed to be due to biological malfunctioning in central
nervous system.
4. The learning disability may exist along with other disabilities like mental retardation,
emotional disturbance and external factors like poor teaching but these conditions don't
seem to be the causes of learning disability. What are then the causes of mental
disability? Psychologists do not agree on it.
Some educators were critical of this category who hold that it is rather an overused or misused
label. These students, actually, are slow learners.
Characteristics
As with all categories of special children, all the learning disabled are not alike. The most
common characteristics are:
1. Specific difficulties is one or more subjects. They are underachievers only in a few
subjects.
2. Poor eye-hand coordination.
3. Problem in paying attention.
4. Hyperactivity in the form of excessive restlessness and., inattentiveness.
5. Impulsively, that is, working very quickly and incorrectly.
6. Problem in organizing and interpreting information.
7. Disorders in—hearing, speech, memory and thinking.
8. Difficulty in making and keeping friends.
Many normal children may have some . of the above characteristics. Not all the students with
learning disabilities will have these characteristics. Some of them, however, may have all the
above characteristics.
Difficulties
 Most of the learning disabled children have difficulties in reading and mathematics. They
have difficulty in reading because they can't relate sounds to letters that make up words,
thus learning spelling is hard as well. Math (both computation and reasoning) is the
second most common area of difficulty.
 The writing of some learning disabled is virtually unreadable.
 Their spoken language can be halting and disorganized.
 Many researchers trace these problems to using ineffective learning skills such as:
 Lacking effective ways to approach academic tasks that is, they do not know how to
focus on relevant information, get organized change a learning approach when it is not
working or evaluate their learning.
 Being passive learners due to being unaware of knowing; how to learn.
 Inability to work independently, resulting in poor class work and homework. .
 Early diagnosis and help of these children is necessary so that they may not fall victim to
'learnt helplessness' out of frustration and discouragement. Learnt helplessness is a very
powerful belief- of the students that they can't learn despite hard work.
Causes of Learning Disability
 There are three deficits, causing difficulty in learning:
 Attention Deficits. They have difficulty in attending to relevant information and getting
distracted by irrelevant information.
 Perceptual Deficits. There is no difficulty in seeing and. hearing but in interpreting what
is seen and heard and lack of eye-hand coordination.
 Rehearsal and Metacognitive Deficits. They do not understand that actually trying to
learn increases learning. They do not rehearse the material and do not possess
metacognitive skills to monitor and improve their learning.
Teaching Techniques
1. As it is often difficult to find whether the learning problem is due to mild retardation or
learning difficulty, use many of the techniques useful for mentally retarded children.
They may experience more frustration and lack of self-esteem than mentally retarded
children due to lagging behind. others in some area only. Therefore, they need learning
tasks within their capability to experience success. Teach them lessons of short duration
with immediate feedback as a tangible evidence of their progress.
2. Find out ways to help them compensate for their weakness in psychological processes, as
they improve achievement in specific subject areas. Arrange classroom environment to
facilitate learning. Help them learn to reduce distractions, give attention and form right
perceptions.
I. To increase their attention, classrooms be equipped with opaque or translucent windows,
carpeting, soundproofing. In ordinary classrooms, reduce distracting sounds and sights with
front side closed. When preparing written material for the' student, highlight relevant stimuli
and eliminate competing irrelevant stimuli, use capital letters, underline in a different colour.
In lessons, highlight important information and eliminate unnecessary talk. Tell them while
you are giving important information, repeat information, stress importance, explain how the
information relates to 'other aspects of the lesson and to what they already know. Suggest use
of marker under each line while reading so that they evaluate one sentence at a time.
II. To those students who have short attention span, give short assignments and divide complex
material into small segments.
III. For those students who have difficulty in writing legibly, use cut-out stencils so that students
trace the form of a letter. Then ask the student to write the letter without stencil.
3. To overcome the deficiencies in specific areas, use direct instruction. For instance, if the
student has difficulty in reading printed words, teach him how the read printed word. This
method emphasizes mastery of specific skills and follow highly structured format. Teachers use
Detailed written script of step-by-step instruction that emphasizes repetition student
participation, and teacher feedback without correcting underlying cognitive deficits.
4. Teach them study skills, methods of processing information and principles of cognitive
learning to improve their attention and memory. In fact, teaching learning disabled students, like
all exceptional children, does not require a unique set of skills. It is combination of good
teaching practices and sensitivity to all students.