CDP revision sheet: every theory, term and principle for CTET

This page is for the last three weeks, not the first three. It assumes you have studied each topic properly and now need one place to see the whole syllabus, spot what has slipped and fix it fast. Read it once a day in the final week. Where a line does not ring a bell, click through to the full guide.

The CDP section is 30 questions in both papers: in Paper I it focuses on ages 6–11, in Paper II on 11–14. The syllabus has three blocks: child development, inclusive education and learning and pedagogy. The tables below follow that order.

1. Development

Growth is change in size (quantitative). Development is change in ability and quality (qualitative and quantitative), and continues through life. See growth and development.

Principles of development:

• Continuous, gradual and sequential.
• Cephalocaudal: head to toe. Proximodistal: centre of the body outward.
• General to specific: whole-hand grasp before a pincer grip.
• Predictable in sequence, but the rate differs from child to child.
• Interrelated: physical, cognitive, emotional and social development affect each other.
• Result of heredity and environment interacting. See heredity and environment.

Maturation unfolds from within; learning comes from experience. Readiness depends on both.

Socialisation: primary (family) and secondary (school, peers, media). Baumrind's parenting styles: authoritative (warm and firm, the best outcomes), authoritarian, permissive. Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems: micro, meso, exo, macro, chrono. See socialisation.

2. The big theorists

3. Piaget and Vygotsky side by side

Vygotsky: ZPD is the gap between what a child can do alone and with help. Scaffolding is temporary support, withdrawn as the child gains control. Private speech is the child talking to themselves to guide action; Piaget called similar talk egocentric speech. See Piaget and Vygotsky compared.

4. Kohlberg's moral stages

Kohlberg judged the reasoning, not the yes or no answer. Piaget's moral phases: heteronomous (rules fixed by authority) then autonomous (rules as agreements). See Kohlberg.

5. Intelligence, individual differences, gender

• Binet made the first practical intelligence test. IQ = mental age ÷ chronological age × 100.
• Gardner's eight: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist.
• Emotional intelligence: Salovey and Mayer (1990); popularised by Goleman (1995).
• Convergent thinking seeks one answer; divergent thinking many (Guilford). Creativity: fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration.
• Gender is a social construct; stereotypes are learnt and can be unlearnt. See gender.

6. Learning and pedagogy

• Children are active learners; errors are windows into thinking; alternative conceptions must be surfaced and challenged.
• Constructivist classroom: prior knowledge first, activity, discussion, teacher as facilitator. See constructivism.
• Problem solving: Pólya's four steps (understand, plan, carry out, look back). Revised Bloom: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create.
• Emotion and cognition are intertwined; fear blocks learning; Yerkes–Dodson: moderate arousal is best.
• Maxims of teaching: known to unknown, simple to complex, concrete to abstract, particular to general.
• Factors in learning: personal (health, maturation, motivation, prior knowledge, self-concept) and environmental (home, school climate, methods, peers).

7. Motivation

• Intrinsic motivation lasts longer than extrinsic.
• Maslow: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, self-actualisation.
• Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory: autonomy, competence, relatedness.
• Attribution (Weiner): effort is controllable, so praise effort and strategy.
• Dweck: growth mindset versus fixed mindset. See motivation.

8. Assessment

CCE: continuous (spread through the year) and comprehensive (scholastic and co-scholastic). Tools: portfolios, rubrics, anecdotal records, checklists, observation, self and peer assessment. See assessment.

9. Inclusion and special needs

• Inclusion means the system adapts to the child. Integration means the child is placed in the mainstream and must adapt.
• RPwD Act, 2016 lists 21 disabilities; benchmark disability is at least 40%.
• Dyslexia (reading), dysgraphia (writing), dyscalculia (maths), dyspraxia (motor coordination). ADHD affects attention and impulse control.
• Gifted: Renzulli's three rings (above-average ability, creativity, task commitment); use enrichment, not only acceleration.
• See inclusive education and learning disabilities.

10. Policy in one table

Full detail: RTE, NCF and NEP.

15-question self-test

1. Head-to-toe development is called ______.
2. The stage in which conservation appears: ______.
3. The gap between what a child can do alone and with help: ______.
4. Kohlberg's stage 4 is at which level?
5. Who described the "ethics of care"?
6. How many intelligences did Gardner list?
7. Bobo doll study: ______.
8. Highest level of the revised Bloom's taxonomy: ______.
9. Assessment that uses results to improve teaching: ______.
10. RPwD Act 2016 recognises how many disabilities?
11. Difficulty with numbers and calculation: ______.
12. Which RTE section bars screening at admission?
13. Preparatory stage under NEP 2020 covers which classes?
14. Lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy: ______.
15. Spiral curriculum was proposed by ______.

Answers

1. Cephalocaudal.
2. Concrete operational.
3. Zone of proximal development.
4. Conventional.
5. Carol Gilligan.
6. Eight.
7. Albert Bandura, observational learning.
8. Create.
9. Formative, assessment for learning.
10. 21.
11. Dyscalculia.
12. Section 13.
13. Classes 3–5.
14. Physiological needs.
15. Jerome Bruner.

Final-week routine

• Day 1–2: sections 1–4 of this sheet, then 30 previous-paper CDP questions.
• Day 3–4: sections 5–8, then 30 more.
• Day 5: sections 9–10 and the policy guide.
• Day 6: a full CDP section in 25 minutes; review every wrong answer.
• Day 7: this self-test once more, then rest.