Child Development and Pedagogy: Development, Learning, Inclusion and Assessment
Child Development and Pedagogy is the largest single block of Paper 3 (30 of 150 questions). It tests whether you can explain why a Class I–V child behaves as she does, and turn that explanation into a teaching or assessment decision.
Development
- Piaget: sensorimotor (0–2), preoperational (2–7, egocentrism, animism, no conservation), concrete operational (7–11, conservation, classification, seriation), formal operational (11+).
- Vygotsky: ZPD, scaffolding, More Knowledgeable Other, private speech becoming inner speech.
- Kohlberg: pre-conventional (reward/punishment), conventional (social approval, law and order), post-conventional (universal principles).
Learning
Behaviourism (Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike's laws), Gestalt insight (Köhler), constructivism, and Bandura's observational learning all appear as applied items - the stem usually describes a classroom and asks which principle it illustrates.
Inclusion and assessment
- RPwD Act 2016 recognises 21 disabilities; RTE 2009 bars screening procedures and capitation fees.
- CCE: formative (ongoing, feedback, portfolio, checklist, anecdotal record, rubric) versus summative (terminal, grading).
Worked example
Stem: a Class 2 child insists the taller, narrower glass holds more water after the same water is poured from a short wide glass. Reasoning: this is a lack of conservation, a preoperational trait, not carelessness. The correct teacher response is to let the child pour the water back and forth (cognitive conflict with concrete material), not to correct verbally or punish. If the child could conserve, the item instead tests concrete-operational thought.
Traps that cost marks
Mixing ZPD with the MKO; calling all group work "cooperative learning"; treating formative assessment as a monthly test; labelling a slow learner as disabled; assuming Piaget's ages are rigid cut-offs.