BPSC Special Teacher key terms

A teaching approach in which children with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups learn in the same regular classroom as their peers, with the school adjusting curriculum, materials, and assessment so that every learner can take part.

A planning framework that builds multiple ways of presenting content, accepting student responses, and sustaining motivation into a lesson from the start, so that varied learners succeed without later patchwork accommodations.

A written document prepared for a child with a disability that records present levels of performance, measurable annual goals, the services to be provided, and the method of monitoring progress, reviewed with parents at fixed intervals.

A specially trained teacher who supports children with special needs by withdrawing them for short periods or by working alongside the regular class teacher, advising on materials, adaptations, and assessment concessions.

A persistent difficulty in reading, writing, spelling, or arithmetic that is not explained by low intelligence, poor teaching, or sensory loss, and which shows a marked gap between the child's apparent ability and actual achievement.

A specific learning disability affecting accurate and fluent word reading and spelling, so a child may read slowly, reverse or omit letters, and struggle to decode unfamiliar words despite normal intelligence and adequate instruction.

A specific learning disability in mathematics in which a child has unusual difficulty understanding number magnitude, place value, and arithmetic facts, often counting on fingers long after peers have moved to mental calculation.

Planned extra instruction given to a learner who has fallen behind, targeting the exact skill gap through small steps, concrete examples, frequent practice, and immediate corrective feedback rather than repeating the whole syllabus.

The removal of physical and attitudinal obstacles in a school, such as steps, narrow doorways, unusable toilets, and lack of Braille or sign support, so that children with disabilities can enter and use all facilities independently.

A school assessment scheme that spreads evaluation across the year and covers scholastic as well as co-scholastic areas like attitudes, values, and participation, using multiple tools instead of relying on a single terminal examination.

Assessment carried out during teaching to reveal what learners have understood and where they are stuck, so the teacher can adjust the next lesson; its results inform learning rather than being used mainly for grading.

Assessment conducted at the end of a unit, term, or course to judge how much learning has been achieved against expected outcomes, typically reported as marks or grades and used for certification or promotion decisions.

The range of tasks a learner can complete with guidance from a more capable person but not yet alone; teaching aimed at this range, with temporary support that is gradually withdrawn, produces the most growth.

Temporary structured support, such as worked examples, prompts, or partially completed steps, that a teacher provides so a learner can attempt a difficult task, with the support reduced as competence grows.

A theory holding that learners build knowledge by connecting new experience to what they already know, so teaching should start from prior ideas and involve active exploration, questioning, and discussion rather than pure transmission.

An approach in which students investigate a problem or set of examples and infer the underlying rule or concept themselves, with the teacher designing materials and guiding without stating the conclusion in advance.

The drive to engage in an activity because it is interesting or satisfying in itself, without external reward; it is sustained by choice, appropriate challenge, and a sense of growing competence.

The drive to act in order to obtain an external outcome such as marks, praise, prizes, or to avoid punishment; it can raise short-term effort but may fade once the reward is withdrawn.

A model arranging human needs from basic physiological and safety needs upward through belonging and esteem to self-actualization, implying that a hungry, fearful, or socially excluded child is unlikely to focus on learning.

Learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to trigger a response after being repeatedly paired with a stimulus that already produces it, as when a child learns to fear the examination room associated with scolding.

Learning in which the consequences of a behaviour change how often it recurs: reinforcement increases it and punishment decreases it, whether the consequence is added or removed.

Strengthening a desired behaviour by adding a pleasant consequence immediately after it, such as specific praise or a privilege, which is generally more effective for classroom behaviour than punishment.

Deliberately varying content, process, product, or learning environment to match learners' readiness, interests, and profiles within one classroom, while keeping the same core learning goal for all.

Instruction organised around student questions and investigation, in which the teacher poses a problem, supplies resources and guidance, and students gather evidence and construct explanations rather than memorising conclusions.

A supervised training technique in which a trainee teaches a short lesson to a small group, focusing on one skill such as questioning or reinforcement, then reviews it using feedback before reteaching.

A written outline of a single lesson stating objectives in observable terms, prior knowledge, teaching aids, step-by-step activities, likely difficulties, and a closing check of whether the objectives were met.

A teacher's habit of systematically examining their own lessons, decisions, and student responses, often through a written journal or peer discussion, in order to identify what to keep and what to change.

Small-scale, systematic inquiry by a teacher into a problem in their own classroom, cycling through identifying the issue, trying a change, collecting evidence, and revising practice.

The ability to notice and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words, such as blending or deleting sounds, and a strong early predictor of success in learning to read an alphabetic script.

Teaching reading by making explicit the relationships between letters or letter groups and the sounds they represent, so that learners can decode unfamiliar printed words rather than guess from pictures.

An approach in which the goal of language lessons is real communication, so activities centre on meaningful information exchange, pair and group interaction, and fluency before fine error correction.

A method where learners use the target language to complete a meaningful task with a clear outcome, and language focus and correction follow the task rather than preceding it.

A proposed innate capacity in children that enables them to acquire the grammar of any language from the speech around them, offered as an explanation for rapid first-language learning without explicit instruction.

The condition of using two languages in everyday life with varying proficiency across domains, which research generally associates with cognitive flexibility rather than with confusion or academic harm.

Basic freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Indian Constitution, enforceable in court, including equality, freedom of speech, life and personal liberty, and the right to education for children aged six to fourteen.

Guidelines in Part IV of the Indian Constitution that direct governments to promote welfare, such as free and compulsory education and raising nutrition levels, but are not directly enforceable in courts.

The 2009 Indian law making free and compulsory education a fundamental right for children aged six to fourteen, setting norms for pupil-teacher ratio, no detention, no capitation fees, and prohibition of physical punishment.

The three-tier system of rural local self-government in India, with elected bodies at village, block, and district levels, responsible for local planning and delivery of services including school infrastructure.

A seasonal reversal of prevailing winds that brings heavy rainfall to the Indian subcontinent, driving agriculture and water supply; the southwest monsoon arrives in June and withdraws by September.

The regular rise and fall of sea level caused mainly by the gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun on the Earth's water, occurring roughly twice a day and used to predict coastal conditions.

The process by which green plants use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to make glucose and release oxygen, with chlorophyll in chloroplasts capturing the light energy needed for the reaction.

A ratio compares two quantities of the same kind by division, while a proportion states that two ratios are equal; the cross-product rule then allows an unknown term to be found.

A fraction expressed with denominator one hundred, used to compare quantities on a common scale; converting between fractions, decimals, and percentages is a basic skill tested in arithmetic problems.

An approach that starts from the child's interests, pace, and experience, giving learners choice and active roles in activities, with the teacher as facilitator rather than sole source of information.