PSTET Paper 2 key terms

An assessment approach that judges learning regularly throughout the year rather than only at term end, and covers scholastic plus co-scholastic areas such as attitudes, values and skills. It uses both formative and summative tools to reduce exam stress.

Assessment carried out during teaching to gather evidence about what learners understand so instruction can be adjusted immediately. It is diagnostic and low-stakes, and feedback to the learner matters more than the score awarded.

Assessment conducted at the end of a unit, term or course to certify how much learning has occurred. It is typically graded and reported, and is used for promotion or placement decisions rather than for immediate teaching adjustment.

A scoring guide that lists the criteria for a task and describes levels of quality for each criterion. Sharing it beforehand makes expectations transparent and helps learners self-assess their own work against stated standards.

Systematic collection of a learner's work over time, chosen to show progress, effort and achievement. It supports reflection when learners select entries and explain why each piece was included, making growth visible rather than only final products.

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. Teaching is most effective when aimed at tasks inside this gap.

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 Support is gradually withdrawn as competence grows, shifting responsibility to the learner.

A view of learning holding that learners actively build knowledge by connecting new experience to existing ideas, rather than receiving information passively. Teaching therefore begins with learners' prior conceptions and provides activities for exploration and restructuring.

The branch of constructivism emphasising that knowledge is built through interaction with others, language and cultural tools. Collaborative tasks, discussion and teacher mediation are central, following Vygotsky's emphasis on social origins of thinking.

An organised mental framework built from past experience that guides how a person interprets new information. Learning often involves revising existing schemas, and misconceptions arise when an inadequate schema is applied to new material.

Piaget's pair of processes for adapting to new experience. Assimilation fits new information into an existing schema; accommodation changes the schema when it no longer fits. Balance between them produces cognitive equilibrium.

Four sequential stages described by Piaget: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Each has characteristic thinking limits, such as egocentrism or difficulty with abstraction, which shape what teaching a child can profit from.

The understanding that quantity, mass or number stays the same when appearance changes but nothing is added or removed. It typically appears in the concrete operational stage and is tested with tasks such as pouring liquid between containers.

A sequence of moral reasoning levels moving from obedience to avoid punishment, through conformity to social approval and law, to reasoning from universal ethical principles. Kohlberg stressed the reasoning used, not the answer chosen.

Eight life stages, each posing a crisis between two opposing outcomes, such as industry versus inferiority in middle childhood. Successful resolution builds a virtue; unresolved crises can reappear later, so teachers support the stage-appropriate task.

The set of beliefs a person holds about their own abilities, traits and worth. It forms largely through feedback and comparison with others, and strongly influences effort, persistence and willingness to attempt difficult learning tasks.

A person's belief that they can successfully perform a specific task. High self-efficacy raises effort and persistence after failure; it grows from mastery experiences, modelling by similar others, encouragement and interpretation of emotional arousal.

Intrinsic motivation arises from interest, curiosity or satisfaction in the activity itself; extrinsic motivation comes from external rewards or pressures such as marks, prizes or fear of punishment. Intrinsic motivation generally sustains learning longer.

Any consequence that increases the likelihood of a behaviour recurring. Positive reinforcement adds a pleasant stimulus; negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant one. Both strengthen behaviour, unlike punishment, which aims to weaken it.

Two behaviourist learning models. Classical conditioning pairs a neutral stimulus with one that already elicits a response until the neutral stimulus alone triggers it; operant conditioning shapes voluntary behaviour through consequences such as reinforcement and punishment.

The explanations learners give for their successes and failures, for example ability, effort, task difficulty or luck. Attributing failure to insufficient effort supports persistence, while attributing it to fixed low ability encourages helplessness.

An approach in which all children, including those with disabilities or from marginalised groups, learn together in regular classrooms with support adapted to their needs. It removes barriers in curriculum, environment and assessment rather than excluding learners.

Planned adjustment of content, process, product or environment so learners at different readiness levels can work toward the same essential goals. It may vary task difficulty, grouping, pace or mode of expression within one classroom.

A written plan for a learner with special educational needs, stating present levels, measurable goals, services, accommodations and review dates. It is prepared with parents and specialists and guides day-to-day teaching decisions.

A persistent difficulty in acquiring specific academic skills such as reading, writing or arithmetic, despite adequate intelligence and opportunity, and not caused primarily by sensory, motor or emotional impairment. It requires targeted remedial teaching.

A specific learning disability affecting accurate and fluent word reading and spelling, typically linked to phonological processing difficulties. It is not a sign of low intelligence, and learners benefit from structured, multisensory phonics instruction.

The lifelong process through which individuals acquire the norms, values, language and roles of their society. Family, school, peers and media act as agencies of socialisation, shaping personality and social participation.

The principle that a digit's value depends on its position in a numeral, with each place representing a power of ten. It underpins regrouping, algorithms for the four operations, and decimal notation.

A fixed sequence of steps that reliably produces an answer, such as column addition with carrying. Algorithms are efficient but must be built on understanding of place value and operations, otherwise learners misapply rules.

Conceptual knowledge is understanding why and how ideas connect, such as why a fraction rule works; procedural knowledge is knowing the steps to carry out a skill fluently. Strong learning links the two rather than drilling procedures alone.

A stable but incorrect idea a learner holds, often a reasonable generalisation overextended, such as treating multiplication as always making numbers larger. It must be surfaced and challenged, since it resists simple correction by stating the right rule.

A visual model showing numbers as positions on a line, supporting comparison, ordering, addition, subtraction and later fractions and integers. Lengths along the line represent differences, making operations and magnitude relationships visible.

Any way of expressing a mathematical idea, such as concrete objects, pictures, number lines, tables, symbols or graphs. Moving between representations deepens understanding and helps learners connect informal reasoning to formal notation.

A cycle of asking a testable question, forming a hypothesis, designing a fair test, collecting and analysing data, and drawing conclusions. Conclusions are provisional and open to revision with new evidence.

A proposed, testable explanation for an observation, stated so that evidence could support or contradict it. It guides what data to collect and is never proved once and for all, only supported or rejected.

A quantity or condition that can change in an investigation. The independent variable is deliberately changed, the dependent variable is measured, and controlled variables are kept constant to make comparison fair.

Primary sources are first-hand evidence produced at the time, such as inscriptions, coins, letters or artefacts; secondary sources interpret such evidence later, such as textbooks. Historians weigh both for bias and reliability.

An explanation of past events built by selecting and connecting evidence from a particular standpoint. Interpretations differ because evidence is incomplete and historians ask different questions, so comparing accounts is central to studying history.

Bias is a slant that favours one side; reliability concerns whether a source can be trusted for a given question. Judgements depend on who made the source, when, for whom, and whether other evidence corroborates it.

Imaginary lines on the globe: latitude measures distance north or south of the equator in degrees, longitude measures distance east or west of the prime meridian. Together they locate any point precisely.

Scale expresses the ratio between map distance and ground distance; symbols are conventional signs representing features such as rivers, roads or boundaries. Both are explained in the map key and are needed to read maps accurately.

A form of government in which authority derives from the consent of the people, exercised through elections, rule of law and protection of rights including those of minorities. Accountability of rulers and peaceful transfer of power are essential features.

A system in which power is constitutionally divided between a central government and constituent units, each supreme in its own sphere. Disputes over jurisdiction are settled by courts or constitutional provisions.

Basic freedoms guaranteed by a constitution that the state cannot ordinarily take away, such as equality, speech, life and education. They are enforceable through courts, which can issue remedies when they are violated.

Awareness of the sound structure of spoken language, including syllables, rhymes and individual phonemes. It predicts early reading success and is developed through listening and oral activities before and alongside written work.

Teaching that links letters and letter groups to the sounds they represent so learners can decode unfamiliar words. Systematic phonics builds word recognition, which frees attention for meaning-making during reading.

The ability to read text accurately, at a reasonable pace and with appropriate expression. Fluent reading requires automatic word recognition so that mental effort can be devoted to comprehension rather than decoding.

Deliberate techniques readers use to construct meaning, such as predicting, activating prior knowledge, questioning, visualising, summarising and monitoring understanding. Explicit teaching of these strategies improves comprehension of both literary and informational texts.

Two rapid reading techniques: skimming moves quickly through text for the gist or general idea, while scanning searches for specific details such as a date or name. Both differ from intensive reading for full understanding.

An approach in which the goal of instruction is real communication, so learners use the target language in meaningful tasks and interaction. Accuracy matters but fluency and communicative purpose drive classroom activity design.

A method where learners complete meaningful tasks, such as planning a trip or solving a problem, using the target language, with language focus drawn from task needs. Meaningful use precedes explicit grammar explanation.

Receptive skills are listening and reading, where meaning is received and decoded; productive skills are speaking and writing, where meaning is created. Balanced language programmes develop all four with attention to their different demands.

Influence of the learner's first language on the second, producing transfer that may help or cause errors in pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary. Contrasting the two systems helps teachers anticipate predictable difficulties.

An error reflects a gap in the learner's current language system and is systematic; a mistake is a slip the learner can self-correct. Errors are informative evidence of development and are treated differently from careless mistakes.

The learner's own rule-governed language system, developing between the first language and the target language. It changes as new rules are acquired and explains errors that neither language alone would predict.