MAHA TET Paper 2 key terms

A school assessment approach that judges learning throughout the year and covers scholastic and co-scholastic areas, using both formative and summative tools rather than a single terminal exam.

Assessment carried out during teaching to gather evidence about learning and adjust instruction. It is diagnostic and feedback-oriented, and its results usually inform teaching decisions rather than final grades.

Assessment conducted at the end of a unit, term or course to judge how much learning has occurred. It is typically graded and reported, and it summarises achievement rather than guiding day-to-day teaching.

Using assessment evidence to help learners improve, through clear goals, feedback and self-assessment. The learner is an active partner, and errors are treated as information for the next teaching step.

Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a learner can do alone and what the learner can do with guidance from a more capable person. Instruction is most effective when aimed within this gap.

Temporary support given by a teacher or peer so a learner can complete a task just beyond independent ability. Support is gradually withdrawn as competence grows, shifting responsibility to the learner.

The view, associated with Vygotsky, that knowledge is built through social interaction, language and cultural tools. Learning is seen as participation in shared activity rather than solitary discovery.

A sequence of four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Each stage is marked by qualitatively different thinking, such as conservation appearing in the concrete operational stage.

The understanding that quantity, mass or volume stays the same when appearance changes but nothing is added or removed. Its absence in preoperational children is shown by classic pouring and spreading tasks.

In Piaget's theory, difficulty in taking another person's viewpoint, seen in young children's speech and reasoning. It is not selfishness but a limitation of perspective-taking that declines with development.

An organised mental structure or pattern of knowledge that helps a learner interpret new experience. New information is assimilated into existing schemas or forces them to be accommodated and reorganised.

Two complementary processes of cognitive adaptation. Assimilation fits new experience into existing mental structures; accommodation changes those structures when new experience does not fit, restoring equilibrium.

A learning theory holding that learners actively build understanding by connecting new information with prior knowledge and experience. Teaching therefore begins from what learners already know and involves activity and reflection.

Intrinsic motivation comes from interest or satisfaction in the activity itself; extrinsic motivation comes from external rewards or pressures. Intrinsic motivation generally supports deeper and more lasting engagement with learning.

In behaviourist theory, any consequence that increases the likelihood of a behaviour recurring. Positive reinforcement adds a pleasant stimulus; negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant one. Neither is the same as punishment.

Skinner's model in which behaviour is shaped by its consequences, through reinforcement and punishment. Consequences increase or decrease the probability of a response appearing again in similar situations.

Pavlov's model in which a neutral stimulus comes to evoke a response after repeated pairing with a stimulus that naturally produces it. It explains learned emotional and reflex-like reactions.

Gardner's proposal that intelligence is not a single general ability but a set of relatively independent capacities, such as linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal.

An approach in which all children, including those with disabilities or from disadvantaged groups, learn together in ordinary classrooms with the support they need. It adapts the school to the learner rather than excluding the learner.

A written plan for a learner with special educational needs, stating present levels, specific goals, support services, accommodations and review dates. It is prepared collaboratively with parents and specialists.

Planning instruction so that content, process or product is varied to match learners' readiness, interests and profiles, while all pursue the same core goals. It is a response to diversity within one classroom.

A sequence of moral reasoning levels: preconventional (reward and punishment), conventional (social approval and law) and postconventional (universal principles). The stages describe reasoning, not the moral quality of behaviour itself.

The developmental period between childhood and adulthood marked by puberty, rapid physical change, identity exploration and growing peer influence. It brings advances in abstract reasoning alongside emotional and social challenges.

A strategy in which a learner helps another with structured guidance, benefiting both tutor and tutee. It supports social learning and is most effective when roles, materials and time are clearly planned.

Systematic inquiry by a teacher into a problem in their own classroom, cycling through planning, acting, observing and reflecting. It aims at local improvement and professional growth rather than generalisable theory.

The habit of examining one's own teaching decisions and their effects, using evidence such as learner work, feedback and observation. It turns classroom experience into deliberate professional learning.

The ability to notice and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words, such as blending or segmenting them. It is an auditory skill that underpins later phonics learning and is taught without printed letters.

Teaching the relationships between letters or letter groups and the sounds they represent, so learners can decode unfamiliar printed words. It is most useful when combined with meaningful reading and language experience.

Reading accurately, at a reasonable pace and with appropriate expression, so attention is free for meaning. Fluency develops through repeated reading of familiar texts and grows with vocabulary and decoding skill.

Constructing meaning from text by linking what is read with prior knowledge, inferring, and monitoring understanding. It includes literal, inferential and evaluative levels and is the goal of reading instruction.

Two fast-reading techniques. Skimming gives a quick overall impression of a text; scanning locates specific information such as a date or name. Both are purposeful and differ from detailed reading.

An approach that develops the ability to use language for real purposes, emphasising interaction, meaningful tasks and fluency alongside accuracy. Grammar and vocabulary are learned largely in context of use.

A method in which learners complete meaningful tasks, such as planning a trip or solving a problem, using the target language. Language focus follows the task and addresses difficulties that arose during it.

Acquisition is the natural, subconscious development of a language through exposure and use; learning is conscious study of rules. The distinction, from Krashen, explains why classroom drills alone rarely produce fluency.

Spoken or written language slightly beyond a learner's current level but made understandable through context, gestures or simplification. It is held to drive language development when the learner attends to meaning.

Condensing a text to its main ideas in one's own words, without copying or adding opinion. It tests comprehension of structure and gist and requires selection, generalisation and concise expression.

Expressive devices such as simile, metaphor, personification and hyperbole that go beyond literal meaning. Recognising them supports literary appreciation and precise interpretation of poetry and prose.

A flexible understanding of numbers, their magnitudes, relationships and effects of operations, used to judge whether results are reasonable. It supports mental computation and estimation rather than rote procedure.

The principle that a digit's value depends on its position in a numeral, with each place worth ten times the one to its right. It underlies algorithms for the four operations with multi-digit numbers.

A finite, step-by-step procedure that always yields a result when followed correctly, such as long division. Understanding why each step works is distinct from merely performing the steps.

The ability to carry out mathematical procedures accurately, efficiently and flexibly, and to choose suitable methods. It complements conceptual understanding rather than replacing it.

Grasping the ideas and relationships behind mathematical procedures, so a learner can explain why a method works and connect it to other ideas. It supports transfer to unfamiliar problems.

Applying mathematics to unfamiliar situations by interpreting the problem, choosing a strategy, carrying it out and checking the result. It is a process goal of mathematics teaching, not a separate topic.

Finding an approximate answer or size by rounding and reasoning, then judging whether a calculated result is reasonable. It develops number sense and is a practical skill in measurement and computation.

A disciplined cycle of observing, forming a testable hypothesis, experimenting with controlled variables, recording data and drawing conclusions. Conclusions are provisional and revised in light of further evidence.

A testable, falsifiable statement predicting a relationship between variables, framed before data collection. It guides observation and experiment and may be supported or rejected by the evidence obtained.

A factor in an experiment that can change or be changed. The independent variable is manipulated, the dependent variable is measured, and controlled variables are kept constant to make comparison fair.

Teaching science through learner-generated questions, investigation and evidence-based explanation rather than prior exposition of facts. The teacher guides process skills while learners construct and justify claims.

Primary sources are first-hand evidence from the period studied, such as inscriptions, coins or contemporary letters. Secondary sources interpret such evidence later, for example textbooks and later histories.

The arrangement of events in the order they occurred, using dates, periods and timelines. It helps learners see sequence, cause and change, and is a basic tool of historical reasoning.

The study of how history is written, including the sources, methods and assumptions historians use. It explains why accounts of the same event may differ and teaches learners to evaluate interpretations.

Explaining historical change through multiple, interacting causes and consequences, distinguishing short-term triggers from long-term conditions. It discourages single-cause explanations and encourages reasoned argument from evidence.

A slant in a source, account or question that favours one viewpoint by selection, omission or wording. Detecting bias requires asking who produced the evidence, for whom and for what purpose.

The ability to use scale, direction, symbols, keys and grid references to interpret maps. These skills connect location and physical features with human activity in geography and history.