MTLE Pedagogy-Student Development and Learning

Give descriptions and supporting evidence for three out of nine instructional strategies identified by expert Robert Marzano for improving teaching and learning across different grade levels and school subjects.

(1) Objectives and feedback: give student learning direction through setting goals—not overly specific, readily compatible with students' personal goals. Setting each unit's core goal, inviting student personalization identifying areas where they want to know more, helps students consider their own interests and engage actively in goal-setting processes. Define specific student goals and grades they will receive for achieving them through writing contracts. Feedback should be corrective (comparing student achievement to specific knowledge levels as with rubrics), specific, and timely. Invite students to lead feedback sessions. (2) Hypothesis formulation and testing: studies show deductive reasoning from general principles to specific predictions—most effective. Students must explain hypotheses and conclusions, whether deductive or inductive (from specific observations to generalizations). Ask students to predict what might occur if some aspect of government, transportation, or some other familiar system changed. Have students build things using limited resources, generating inquiries and hypotheses about what might or might not work. (3) Help students apply pre-existing knowledge for additional learning using questions, cues, and advance organizers. Studies find these must focus on important content, be highly analytical, and presented before lessons or activities. Pausing briefly after questions increases students' answer depth. Vary advance organizer styles—graphic images, skimming text, telling stories, etc.—for pre"learning" exposure.

Name and define six types of play identified by Mildred Parten (1932), including what Parten and other, later child development experts believe about sequence.

(1) Unoccupied: not truly playing, simply observing anything of interest; a child may travel, stay still, move randomly, follow others, etc. (2) Solitary or independent play: playing alone, unaware or uninterested in others' activities. Two- and 3-year-olds do this more often than older children. (3) Onlooker behavior: observing others playing without participating, also more frequent among younger children. The child may talk about or otherwise interact socially, but not join the activity. (4) Parallel play (also called social coaction or adjacent play): playing near other children, but separately. The child might imitate other children's behaviors. This type is considered transitional from solitary and onlooker play to associative and cooperative play. (5) Associative play: showing interest in and interaction with others playing, but activities are not coordinated or organized. (6) Cooperative play: interested in both play activity and participants. Activities are organized; participants assume or assign roles. Group identification or identity may develop. Requiring greater organizational skills and social maturity, this is more common with children older than preschoolers and kindergarteners. Parten found these play types progressively more socially mature, as child communication skills and interaction opportunities increased. Others generally agree regarding types, but consider them not necessarily sequential and/or influenced by other factors, e.g., how well children know each other, etc.

Identify the steps involved in the research students need to do in school and libraries to write research papers, including ways teachers can instruct students in these steps

(I) Topic: appeal to student curiosity; possible yet somewhat challenging for student skill and learning levels; support grade-level standards so library research matches classwork. Triangulate data, confirming topics in three kinds o available, readable sources; cross-check encyclopedias to broaden or narrow as needed. (2) Subtopics: informed by what students want to know; provide blueprints or outlines for examining topics. Brainstorm for general subtopics, e.g physical characteristics, habitats, diets, enemies, offspring of specific animal species. "Pre-search" specific subtopics in topic-specific book tables of contents and encyclopedia subheadings. Research time management depends on controlling subtopic number (minimum three) and difficulty. (3) Sources: three kinds minimum, print or non-print; text, images, ideas. Consider student age, ability, topic for primary and secondary sources. Require MLA, APA, Turabian, or other accepted styles to prevent plagiarism and cite sources or use Creative Commons. Teach fair use and copyright regulations. Source evaluation offers lifelong skills. (4) Read. think. select: model, discuss, practice critical reading strategies—scanning, skimming, visual clues, chunking; asking what is important identifying information supporting subtopics. (5) Note-taking: using subtopics as titles, pre-sort notes; beginners copy facts, phrases, and keywords, citing sources experienced researchers summarize or paraphrase. (6) Sort notes by subtopic, then into paragraphs. Advanced is logical plan-based, e.g., concepts, timeline, etc. Rereading all notes per section, rearranging into logical order consolidates new information, cementing learning. Number notes consecutively. Write from notes, inserting previous knowledge.

Explain the benefits of using a student growth model to track student progress. Why is a growth model a better measure of classroom success than raw numbers of students who pass a given end of year examination

A number of states use student growth models to track student progress. These models are statistical methods to gauge student progress on standardized tests, typically from the end of one school year to the end of the next school year. Statistical models allow students to be evaluated more appropriately, based on a dynamic growth measure instead of a static placement measure. A number of background factors (e.g., ELL status, learning differences, or student exceptionalities) may have contributed to low-achieving scores. Growth models incentivize BOTH progress toward proficiency in underachieving students and continued improvement in proficient students. Teachers and schools can be graded based, in part, upon success in facilitating student improvement and are not penalized for having students who begin an assessment cycle with low-achieving scores.

Explain some of the fundamental concepts of social learning theory, including modeling and vicarious learning

According to Albert Bandura, who originated social learning theory, students need not experience everything directly and personally to learn. Bandura found that children could observe other children engaging in certain behaviors and receiving desirable rewards (reinforcers) for doing so; they would then imitate the other children's behaviors in the hope of receiving similar rewards. Children not only imitate the actions of peers, but also the actions of adults, as all parents have observed. Bandura referred to these examples of behaviors provided by adults as modeling. He thus extended the behaviorist concept that an individual will emit a behavior to get a reward; once it is rewarded, the individual will repeat the behavior to obtain repeated rewards, by showing that because learners also emit behaviors they have observed others emitting, they can learn to produce behaviors based on their observation of others being rewarded for those behaviors. Bandura refers to this process as observational learning or vicarious learning.

Discuss some differences between internal and external rewards in terms of their characteristics and effects on behavior. Define reinforcement and punishment according to behaviorist theory.

According to behaviorist theories of learning, rewarding specific behaviors reinforces or strengthens the probability of their repetition. Rewards can be internal or external. Internal or intrinsic rewards originate within the individual, e.g., feeling gratification at learning or knowing something for the sake of additional knowledge, feeling self-efficacy for being able perform a given task successfully, feeling general competence or self-esteem for acquiring more knowledge or skills, engaging in behaviors congruent with one's self-image, etc. Both traditional and radical behaviorism ignored internal states as not outwardly observable or measurable, but many related theories, e.g., social learning theory, cognitive-behavioral theory, etc. incorporate sources of motivation and loci of control. External or extrinsic rewards are provided by other people or the environment. Research finds internal rewards more powerful for increasing and especially maintaining behaviors than external rewards. Behaviorism defines reinforcement as any consequence strengthening the probability of repeating a behavior. This can be positive reinforcement, i.e., introducing something desirable; or negative reinforcement, i.e. removing something undesirable. Positive punishment, conversely, is introducing something undesirable or aversive consequently to a behavior, making that behavior less likely to recur. Negative punishment is removing something desirable or removing a reinforcer, also decreasing the probability of behavior repetition.

Identify some key components of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) for kindergarten environments, teaching, and assessment; and a number of effective DAP instructional strategies.

According to early childhood education experts, developmentally appropriate practice must ensure that classrooms, instructional techniques, and assessment methods for young children consider three main aspects: age, individual growth patterns, and cultural influences. Educators can try various strategies, observing which are effective for different situations and learning goals: acknowledge children's actions and words by commenting, giving positive attention, or sometimes simply observing nearby. Encourage effort and perseverance, not only products and accomplishments. Make feedback specific, e.g., "That didn't reach the basket; try throwing it harder." Model show, not just tell, approaches to problems and interpersonal behaviors—e.g., saying you must think about why something didn't work or admitting you missed part of a child's message, requesting repetition. Demonstrate correct physical procedures. Add challenge slightly beyond current skills, e.g., once children count objects after subtracting some, hide subtracted ones, requiring strategies other than counting. Decrease challenge as needed, e.g., guide children to touch objects while counting. Ask questions stimulating thought, e.g., "If you couldn't talk, how would you tell classmates what to do?" Give children hints or cues furthering progress, e.g., supply a word rhyming with a child's name, or ask the child for additional words. Directly provide verbal labels, names, facts, and other information. Accompany demonstrations and modeling with clear verbal directions for behaviors and actions.

Identify three out of nine instructional strategies found by experts to facilitate effective teaching, student learning, and achievement at all grade levels and in all content areas. Explain how or why they are effective, citing supportive general research findings

According to expert Robert Marzano, instructional strategies for effective teaching and learning include: (1) identifying similarities and differences. Students more easily understand, and frequently solve, complex problems through analyzing them more simply by breaking concepts into similar and different characteristics. Teachers may identify these directly and then guide student inquiry and discussion, or have students identify them independently. Research finds the former helps identify specific items, while the latter promotes broader understanding and variation. Venn diagrams and charts are useful visual graphics for showing similarities and dissimilarities. Teachers should also engage student classifications, comparisons, analogies, and metaphors. (2) Summarizing and note-taking. Students comprehend better through analyzing subjects, revealing essential content, and restating it in their own words. Studies find students must be aware of the information's basic structure and delete, retain, and replace some components. Teachers should give students summarizing rules; prepare notes; use consistent note formats, allowing student refinements as needed; have students question, clarify, and predict coming occurrences in texts; and provide time to review and revise notes, often the best test study guides. (3) Reinforcing effort, giving recognition. Connect effort and achievement through success stories and student log-keeping and analysis. Personalize or individualize symbolic, not tangible rewards.

Describe some strategies for supporting cognitive development during early childhood.

Adults help children focus attention by preventing interruptions and distractions. Show interest in children's activities, and offer observations and reflections about what they believe children are trying to achieve. learning materials in new ways piques curiosity: spread green "grass" cloth over blocks, making a hill; arrange toy farm animals on it; arrange dolls "reading" books in classroom reading or library corners. Observe nearby objects and events, inviting children to go see what they are. Support mastery motivation with materials sufficiently challenging for interest without being impossible, express interest, encourage children, and share their joy when they show what they accomplished. Offering multisensory exploration modes, e.g., scent bottles, water, sand, cornstarch, etc., supports sensorimotor learning. Encourage object permanence by playing peek-a-boo reading stories with flaps hiding pictures, and about people leaving and returning. Toys reacting differentially to actions, e.g., push lights, busy boxes balls, etc., teach cause-and-effect. Stacking rings or cups, tunnels, toy houses, etc. promote spatial understanding. Play tools, phones, keys, paint, water, markers, etc. promote tool use comprehension. Scaffold play to the next level; supply materials, ideas, and language slightly increasing complexity and elaborating play. Discuss time concepts like now and later, before and after, today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc. Use language and toys introducing shape awareness, one-on-one correspondence, amounts, size comparisons, and numbers.

Give some general examples for adults to facilitate young children's learning through play activities.

Adults often observe young children talking about what to play. They should assist this planning by discussing with children who they will be, what will happen, etc.; and encourage children to plan together. If play breaks down, e.g., children wrangle over a toy or object, adults can intervene, pretending to knock on a door, asking if this is a good time to visit—redirecting their attention from distractions, refocusing and extending play time. To engage children in establishing safe environments for play, adults can do more than simply providing them with age-appropriate play materials by involving children in actively developing play rules to help them avoid sustaining or causing injuries and keep them safer. Young children have strong capacities for imitation, imagination, and creativity. Adults should encourage the latter, replacing the former. When children imitate violent or foolish behaviors they have observed, adults can refocus their play on other skills, problem solutions, and roles for accomplishing equal results than derivative actions with narrower scope. Storytelling and painting for younger children, and writing for older elementary-age children, are more controllable ways to work through issues impeding creativity and imagination to access and exercise them.

Define what Bandura means by reciprocal determinism in his social learning theory and explain how this relates to the overall orientation and emphasis of the theory. Identify the conditions Bandura found necessary for modeling, observational, or vicarious learning.

Albert Bandura concurred with many concepts found in behaviorist learning theory, e.g., that individuals emit responses to environmental stimuli; that desirable consequences immediately following a behavior reinforce or strengthen the probability that an individual will repeat the behavior; and the deterministic nature of behaviorism in its attribution of behaviors to environmental causes. However, whereas behaviorism is sometimes called "learning theory," Bandura calls his theory "social learning theory." This name emphasizes a key difference in his theory: his orientation to the social contexts wherein learning occurs. Unlike behaviorists, Bandura finds social interactions vital to learning. This relates to Bandura's concept of reciprocal determinism. By this he means learning is a process involving the individual, the environment, and the behavior. The environment includes other people as well as physical surroundings and stimuli. The individual includes personality; cognitive factors; past experiences with reinforced behaviors; and psychological processes like beliefs, thoughts, expectations, etc. The environment and behavior mutually influence one another. Individual, personal characteristics and social factors reciprocally influence and are influenced by individual behaviors. Bandura identified the conditions of attention (observation), retention (remembering), reproduction (imitating or copying), and motivation (a good reason—past, promised, and/or vicarious rewards) for an individual to learn from a model's behavior.

Identify and define or explain some of the major ideas and discoveries contributed by Albert Bandura to education.

Albert Bandura's social learning theory emphasized the importance of social interaction in learning. Bandura accepted principles of behaviorist learning theories like antecedent stimuli, behaviors, and consequent stimuli that punished or rewarded (reinforced) behaviors. However, internal cognitive processes, and social contexts of learning, became more central in Bandura's theory. Also, he believes learning does not necessarily change behavior. Bandura discovered children learned indirectly by watching others—i.e., vicarious or observational learning: seeing others receiving rewards for certain behaviors, they imitated those actions to obtain similar rewards. This discovery contradicted the empiricist claim that learning requires direct experience. Bandura also discovered children witnessing violent actions by living persons (cf. his Bobo doll experiments) or by people they saw in video recordings would then display more aggressive behaviors imitating what they observed. This influenced education and parenting: adults, realizing children's behavior was influenced not just directly by experiencing violence but also indirectly by observing it, became more concerned about controlling what children observed. Bandura identified attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation as conditions necessary to modeling and observational learning. Bandura's concept of reciprocal determinism states individuals and environments mutually influence each other. His concept of self-efficacy identifies belief in one's individual competence to perform specific tasks and skills.

Comment generally on considerations for judging typical vs. atypical child development. Give some examples of atypical motor and language development

Although the majority of children develop skills in each domain at similar ages and in similar patterns, individual differences dictate normal variance in each. Each child's personal history, characteristics, family history, and environment influence the rates and patterns of their development. This is why experts commonly indicate not exact ages, but ranges for normal developmental signs. Also, slowly emerging skills more often indicate delays; skills differing in form, function, and quality more often indicate disorders. While most children with typical motor development sit up unassisted at around 6 months, some take longer; if a child cannot maintain a sitting position by 10 months, this could indicate a movement or motor delay disorder. An infant whose legs stiffen whenever s/he attempts to roll over could also have a motor disorder. Older children who cannot dress or undress, eat with utensils, draw with crayons, or cut with scissors may have atypical motor development. Two-year-olds having vocabularies of below 50 words and using no or few two- or three-word combinations are considered "late talkers," who may have speech or language delays. Also, some children excel in receptive understanding of spoken language, yet have expressive verbal difficulties.

Explain some salient characteristics of cognitive information processing theory, and define cognitive mapping.

As computers were developed to function analogously to the human brain in many aspects of receiving, encoding, storing, and retrieving information, so in turn computers were used as concrete models for information processing theory to describe how humans execute and sequence cognitive activities. Information processing theories characterize how people attend to environmental events, encode new information and relate it to existing knowledge, store new information in memory, and retrieve information as needed from storage. According to the computer metaphor, people receive sensory input in the sensory register or sensory memory; attend to it through the process of attention; "chunk" and rehearse it temporarily via working memory in short-term memory; encode it for transferring to long-term memory, where it may be stored indefinitely; and then retrieve it as needed, transferring selected data via working memory from long-term to short-term memory. Encoding includes grouping data into categories, outlining, establishing hierarchies, and developing concept trees as organizational mechanisms. It also uses imagery and mnemonics. Retrieval includes recalling information from memory independently, and recognizing provided information matching remembered information. Cognitive mapping (Tolman, 1948) mentally represents the literal physical and metaphorical environment according to relative importance of features for the individual, enhancing navigation, learning, and recall.

Identify four elements of classroom instruction that teachers can differentiate among students. Give five examples of how a teacher can differentiate one of these elements.

Based on each student's learning profile, interests, readiness, and learning levels, teachers can differentiate classroom instruction. Four elements for differentiating instruction are: (1) content to learn; (2) the process students use to master content; (3) products students will produce, requiring practice, application, and extension and elaboration of what they learn in a unit; and (4) learning environment, i.e., how the classroom functions and how students experience it. Some examples of differentiating processes include: (I) set up interest centers where students can explore subcategories of class subjects they find most interesting. (2) Assign tiered activities with different levels of complexity, challenge, or support for acquiring the same skills and understanding. (3) Provide hands-on supports, like manipulatives, for students needing these. (4) Combine work commonly assigned to the entire class with individualized work for specific students into lists of tasks, making personal agendas to complete during designated and/or spare time. (5) Differentiate durations students take to finish tasks, allowing advanced students to examine topics in-depth and enable added support for struggling students.

Give some examples illustrating how behaviorist and social learning theories explain aspects of human development.

Because psychoanalytic theories of human development, e.g., Freud's psychosexual and Erikson's psychosocial theories, made claims about internal processes that could not always be substantiated by empirical evidence, behaviorist learning theorists sought in response to restrict their examinations to outwardly demonstrated behaviors they could observe, quantify, and measure. As an example, a child who falls and feels some pain will initially cry as a natural reaction. However, when adults respond to the fall by rushing to help the child and expressing concern, this attention reinforces the crying behavior—not the fall, because the child associates the consequence immediately following with the most recent preceding event. The reinforcement of attention increases the probability the child will cry again next time s/he falls, whether it hurts or not, to reduplicate the attention. This is an example of what Skinner termed operant conditioning. In a related example illustrating Bandura's social learning theory, we have all witnessed a child falling, not feeling significant pain, and looking around at adults to gauge whether to cry or not. Bandura found children can learn by observing others' actions and their consequences (rewards and punishments), and can imitate others' behaviors that they observe.

Explain some of the benefits of learning theory to education. Give some examples of how teachers can apply learning theory to resolve different classroom problems.

Behaviorism, or learning theory, has given educators a wealth of tools because it is practical, not only theoretical; applies to all organisms including humans, regardless of cognitive or intellectual level; gives clear procedures and steps to follow; deals only with observable, measurable behaviors, eliminating much ambiguity; follows logical sequences; can change behaviors much faster than other methods; and has undergone much research, yielding specific information about reinforcement schedules and corresponding response rates, effective and ineffective techniques, etc. For example, for students with cognitive or intellectual disabilities (ID) who have difficulty understanding or remembering complex tasks with multiple steps, task analysis derives from behaviorism in its principle of breaking tasks down into smaller, more manageable steps, teaching them separately until mastered, and then connecting them one more at a time. Students with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) as well as IDs can have horrible trouble making transitions between activities. Behaviorist shaping, via reinforcing successive approximations toward an ultimate target behavior; and chaining, similar to the step-connecting portion of task analysis; are both highly valuable. Students with communication deficits might scream in class to get teacher attention; differential reinforcement of another behavior (DRO) or differential reinforcement of an incompatible behavior (DRI), e.g., raising a hand, waving, touching the teacher's arm, or operating a signal button or switch teaches more acceptable replacement behaviors.

Name the levels of Bloom's taxonomy and define by giving examples of verbs associated with things a learner must be able to do at each level.

Bloom organized learning into a hierarchy of six cognitive levels, from simplest to most challenging. 1. Remembering involves retaining, recalling, retrieving, recognizing, reproducing, or repeating names, facts, lists, and other pieces of information. 2. Understanding requires also being able to find, identify, select, describe, explain, discuss, review, restate, and/or translate information, rather than only remembering it. 3. Applying requires learners to interpret information they understand; to use it appropriately, e.g., for solving problems; to illustrate, demonstrate, or dramatize it; write about it, etc. 4. Analyzing means that learners must be able not only to remember, understand, and apply information, but moreover to break it down into component parts; assign information to different categories; make comparisons and contrasts between and among pieces or sets of information; use information to make calculations; differentiate and discriminate among different information; examine information; question its truth, accuracy, or credibility; experiment with it; test its veracity; and criticize information. 5. Evaluating demands the learner assess and appraise information, make estimates and/or predictions based on it, rate it, judge it, and defend it. 6. Creating, the highest level, involves proposing, developing, planning, designing, formulating, preparing, collecting, composing, organizing, and managing information, including both original ideas and/or original uses of existing information.

Explain some of the most important concepts and principles that Jerome Bruner contributed to the education field.

Bruner, like Piaget and many others, embraces constructivist philosopher, i.e., by interacting with their environments, children actively construct their learning, knowledge, and realities. His emphasis on discovery learning is based on constructivism. He defined learning as not only remembering existing, culturally imparted or acquired ideas and actions, but moreover inventing or creating these on one's own. Bruner feels "culturally invented technologies" amplify human abilities, rather than providing all knowledge. He influenced education by advising that its goal should be producing autonomous learners. Bruner posited three modes of representation in child cognitive development. 1) Enactive representation: action-based information based on motor responses, retained in muscle memory, emerging in infancy. 2) Iconic representation: visual image-based information, emerging around 1-6 years of age. 3) Symbolic representation: coded or symbolic storage of information, emerging c. 7 years and older. For example, the category "dogs" symbolically represents all dog breeds, types, and individuals. We remember information symbolically in words, numbers, etc. Bruner's concept of the spiral curriculum enabled teaching complex ideas to all ages by initially structuring them simply and increasing difficulty gradually. Bruner (with Wood and Ross) originated the concept scaffolding—temporary, gradually withdrawn support matching student needs.

Explain some general ways wherein younger students, including those with exceptional needs, develop their skills and make sense of the world through play.

Children and all humans learn through adaptation to the environment, as Piaget described it. Humans and other beings or organisms naturally seek to establish and maintain equilibrium, or balance. Adaptation seeks equilibrium, encompassing processes of assimilation and accommodation. If a young child can fit a new concept or experience into an existing schema—e.g., things I can eat, throw, or stack; people I know and trust, etc.—s/he assimilates it. If new information is radically different from any existing schema, the child accommodates to it by either altering the existing scheme or creating a new one—e.g., gum is something I chew but do not eat or swallow. Piaget also said children learn by interacting with and acting upon their environments. In play, children interact with the world at much earlier ages than academic activities. They learn physical concepts through their visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory senses. They learn and develop concepts—spatial, like under, over, through, etc.; temporal, like before and after, etc.; numerical and serial; sharing, taking turns, compromising, negotiating, and leading others, developing social skills; gross and fine motor skills through movement; language and literacy skills, including phonological awareness and conversation skills; self-esteem through demonstrating skills, accomplishments, and peer comparisons; and thinking, decision-making, independence, and cooperation and collaboration, including with diverse others, to prepare for adulthood and master life.

Discuss some examples of how community, home, and school factors affect teaching and learning.

Community: socioeconomic factors affect learning. For example, students living in more affluent communities have more educational resources and supports like after-school activities, learning and tutoring centers, and educational product stores. Affluent neighborhoods are also populated with more highly educated residents: students are expected to pursue post-secondary educations. In low-income neighborhoods, economic survival often takes precedence over education, or high school diplomas are primarily for obtaining after-graduation employment. Home: parents with higher incomes can access more educational resources. Frequently more educated, they regard education more highly, have higher educational expectations and goals for children, serve as their role models, and either directly or indirectly educate them. Doctors, lawyers, educators, etc. are more likely have children pursuing similar educations and careers. Conversely, some children with less educated parents have been motivated to become first in their families to attend college. School: urban schools where riots occur make school unsafe. Students cannot concentrate, so they stop attending. Less dramatic but equally important is classroom environment. Consider true stories of a speech language pathologist (SLP) required to conduct therapy between library shelf "stacks," and a teacher's aide instructing ELL students in school hallways. Such uncomfortable, distracting, and/or noisy settings interfere with teaching and learning

Generally define constructivism. Explain how learning as experience and problem-based learning are components of constructivist theories. Define the related terms zone of proximal development (ZPD), scaffolding, and inquiry or discovery learning.

Constructivist philosophy and psychology view learning as a process whereby the learner actively constructs or builds his/her own knowledge and understanding of the world. Cognitive developmental theorist Jean Piaget was a constructivist. He proposed that children learned by interacting with and acting upon their environments. He likened them to "little scientists" who gathered information about the world, experimented with aspects of the environment by interacting with it, and drew progressively more informed conclusions about the world from observing their results. On the basis of this approach, children need experiences interacting with the environment to learn. Consistently with Piaget's characterization of young learners as scientists, problem based learning is important to constructivist approaches: like scientists who conduct experiments to answer questions and solve problems, children develop higher cognitive capacities and learn more when they experiment with the environment and learn better trying to solve problems than only for obtaining external rewards or avoiding external punishments. Inquiry and discovery learning involves such active student questioning and inquiry and discovering answers or solutions. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is the area between where a learner can accomplish something independently vs. with assistance, guidance, or encouragement, illustrating how more knowledgeable others (MKOs) enhance learning. Scaffolding is temporary needed support, gradually withdrawn as learners gain proficiency.

Identify and give examples of several different models of developmentally appropriate instruction related to literacy development for early childhood and early elementary school grades.

Direct or explicit instruction: whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one learning. A teacher shows a class of 4-year-olds how to hold a book; points the cover picture, inviting brainstorming about the book's subject; points to and reads aloud each title word; then reads them the book. Centers: individually-themed classroom areas for student selection, including computers, arts and crafts, gross and fine motor skills, etc. to enable meaningful, self-initiated, self-directed activity at students' own paces, stimulating language development and social interaction. Free play: student: explore the physical environment, pretend, converse; pursue curiosity; and practice gross and fine motor skills and oral language skills. Students might construct buildings, make cookies, walk balance beams, paint, dress in costumes, etc. Letting students choose play areas facilitates self-exploration and using real-life manipulatives, informing all literacy instruction areas. Students develop learning styles and sense of the world. Small-group instruction: teacher modeling print reading; discussion of story events per page; problem-solving or predicting story endings and reasons; open-ended learning opportunities, meaningful to each group, focusing on each student's needs. Guided reading: teacher and students read text fluently in unison with expression and connotation; then discuss the story, including teacher observations, reteaching; enrichment; self-monitoring; enabling analytical and critical reading patterns, enhancing phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, fluency, and reading confidence.

Give summaries of some salient linguistic, affective, and moral characteristics of children in early childhood, middle and late childhood, and adolescence with typical development

Early Childhood: linguistic - greater sensitivity to spoken phonological features; linguistic rule systems understanding; learning and applying syntactic rules to speech; dramatic vocabulary development; changing speech "registers" and styles based on situation, improving conversational skills. Affective: by 4-5 years, self-awareness; self-conscious emotions like guilt and pride; understanding of and ability to discuss both personal and others' emotions, causes and results, increase. Moral: most are at Kohlberg's level one of preconventional reasoning with external punishments and rewards until c. 9 years. Middle and late Childhood: linguistic - understanding the alphabetic principle; categorizing; whereas younger children respond sentence-sequentially, e.g., prompted "dog" and saying "barks"; or "eat" and "lunch"; older children respond with like parts of speech, saying "cat" or "horse" to "dog," and "drink" to "eat." From age 6-11, vocabulary grows from c. 14,000-40,000 words. Complex grammar comprehension develops, and metalinguistic awareness, knowing, and thinking about language. Affective: more varied coping strategies. Self-regulation and self-efficacy influence achievement. Moral: many are at Kohlberg's level two conventional reasoning, stage 3, "good boy-good girl", adopting parental morality. Adolescence: linguistic - skills advance, including complex spoken and written sentences; writing stories following Story grammar rules; consistently accurate inferences from text; understanding figurative language, idioms, and metaphors. Moral: Kohlberg's postconventional reasoning is possible recognizing alternatives, social contracts, and developing universal moral standards transcending laws.

Summarize some physical and cognitive characteristics of typically developing children in early childhood, middle and late childhood, and adolescence.

Early Childhood: physically, children gain c. 2.5 inches and 5-7 pounds, decreasing yearly. Preschoolers become taller and slimmer, losing baby fat. Preschooler heads are less oversized for bodies than top-heavier toddlers', but still somewhat large. Cognitively, continuing brain maturation plus wider life experiences enable significant progress in attention, planning, and language. Reasoning develops from 4-7 years, but is not logical. By 5 years, gross motor skills gain automaticity, and fine motor skills improve significantly. Middle and late childhood: physically, growth is slow and consistent—2-3 inches and 5-7 pounds annually. Heads and waists become smaller proportionately to height. Bones and muscle tissue strengthen. Motor skills gain coordination and smoothness. By 10-12 years, fine motor coordination and manipulative skills approximate adults'. Cognitively, brain circuitry continues developing, especially in the prefrontal cortex, improving cognitive control, attention, and reasoning. In Piaget's concrete operations stage, children can reason logically and reverse mental operations, but need physical objects, events, or examples for reference. Adolescence: puberty combines physical and sexual maturation with hormonal changes. Cognitively, structural changes improve information-processing, reasoning, decision-making, and self-control. However, though the emotion-related amygdala matures earlier, the prefrontal cortex controlling emotions only matures by 18-25 years. Adolescents reach Piaget's formal operations, understanding abstract concepts and performing and manipulating entirely mental operations.

Explain why elementary school teachers need to use instructional methods that reflect individual student differences and developmental levels. Describe some examples of instructional techniques teachers can use to address varying student learning characteristics and needs.

Elementary grade students include wide ranges of individual differences. Teachers must pay attention to and address these differences to maximize the potential of each individual student. Many educational theorists and research studies show that when students receive instruction that responds to their developmental levels, as well as their learning profiles and personal interests, they find school more satisfying and achieve more success in said school. Teachers who differentiate instruction according to variable individual student learning needs are also recognized as more professional, competent, and creative educators. For example, elementary school teachers can vary instructional content by providing students with materials at different reading levels. They can record or procure some texts on tape for students with visual weaknesses and auditory strengths. They can make different vocabulary and/or spelling lists according to differing student readiness levels. They can present concepts in both visual and auditory modalities. They can assign reading buddies to students who are struggling readers—and/or to all students to enhance their reading skills. They can assign small groups for re-teaching skills or concepts to struggling learners, and for enriching the skills or thought processes of advanced students.

Identify some main principles of Erik Erikson's theory of human development as they relate to the years of early childhood and elementary school.

Erikson took major influences from Freud's theory in also viewing major life events, e.g., nursing during infancy; toilet-training during toddlerhood; exploration during preschool years; and school during school years as central to each developmental stage. But his orientation was psychosocial, not psychosexual: rather than Freud's focus on physical erogenous zones and parent-child relationships, Erikson focused on personal self-images and social interactions. In each of Erikson's stages, a nuclear conflict must be resolved. Toddlers (c. two to three years) confronting toilet-training experience autonomy vs. shame and doubt. In learning physical control, successful children develop independence; failing children develop self-doubt and shame. According to Erikson, preschoolers (c. three to five years) encounter the nuclear conflict of initiative vs. guilt. At these ages, they are exploring their environments and need to experiment with exercising personal control over their surroundings. Children who succeed in interacting with and manipulating their environments develop a sense of purpose. Children who fail in this endeavor by exerting excessive power, and/or by receiving disapproval from their parents for their efforts, develop guilt feelings. School-age (c. 6-11 years) children face industry vs. inferiority. Successful coping with new social and academic requirements develops feelings of competence; failure develops feelings of inadequacy.

Identify a number of characteristics that educational experts have found are commonly shared by all learning groups teachers assign that effectively promote true learning.

Experts find all kinds of effective learning groups share certain common characteristics. For example, their teachers are always involved actively as guides, coaches, questioners, evaluators, and resource people in student group learning processes. Groups are given work to do that is meaningful to students and challenges them. Teachers ensure students clearly understand learning objectives and schedules, and teachers monitor these. Cooperating is more important than competing. All students in each group are actively involved; groups are heterogeneous. Learning group processes enable students to feel comfortable with asking questions and discussing topics and issues. Students in learning groups experience the sense that they are able to achieve more by learning with each other than they could by learning individually. Although learning groups demand adequate social skills and interpersonal interactions, grouping is not primarily for social purposes. Group time is not considered 'Tree time" for either students or teachers. With effective learning groups, teachers can evaluate individual student members, whole groups, or a combination of both. Teachers are able to assess group work through multiple instruments, e.g., presentations, interviews, portfolios, rubrics, quizzes, etc

Cite some examples of expert recommendations for teachers to interact differently with students whose behaviors they find problematic.

Experts observe we must change our own behavior to change others' behavior. Educational researchers have found teacher expectations and resulting behaviors subtly yet powerfully influence student behavior. There are several suggestions for teacher behaviors to influence student behaviors. For instance, observe how every student engages, interacts, and what s/he likes doing to comprehend their capabilities. Listen to students, try to understand their goals and motivations, and note their perceptions of classmates, yourself, and assignments you give. Engage with students: ask about and listen to their individual interests without offering opinions or advice. Experiment with different responses to challenging behaviors. Instead of your first impulse, stop and consider the behavior's motivation or function, which could be to connect with you. If or when time permits, interact with students in nonacademic games or activities of their choice; observe student strengths and interests. Assign projects wherein students use preferred media to express, individually and in groups, their extracurricular interests. Consider school through students' eyes. Reflect on your own worst and best teachers, supervisors, and bosses. List five words describing how you felt when interacting with them, and what they did or said specifically to evoke those feelings. List how your students might describe you. Consider parallels between your beliefs and their responses, and how your expectations shape their perceptions of you.

Summarize some major concepts of Sigmund Freud's theory of human development as they relate to the early childhood and elementary years.

Freud proposed each psychosexual development stage revolves around the erogenous zone where pleasure focuses at the time. Freud divided the personality into three structures: the id, ego, and superego. During toddlerhood's (c. 1-3 years) anal stage, the ego emerges, providing a sense of self and reality, regulating id impulses unmediated during infancy's oral stage. Toilet-training is an important life event. If parents reward toilet use excessively, children may become possessive of bowel movements, deriving excessive pleasure from them. Overly strict toilet training can cause anal fixation, manifested as either an anal-retentive (compulsively neat, overly structured, rigid, righteous, and stubborn) or anal-expulsive (sloppy, defiant of authority, and irresponsible) personality. Preschoolers (c. 3-5 years) are in Freud's phallic stage. The superego or conscience emerges, providing a moral compass, further governing the ego and id. Children discover their genitals, which become this stage's erogenous zone. In Freud's Oedipus complex during this stage, boys unconsciously desire their mothers, wishing to destroy their fathers as rivals. They fear paternal retribution, i.e., castration anxiety. They resolve the conflict through identification with the aggressor— emulating fathers. Freud saw elementary years as the latency period, wherein sexual impulses are suppressed in favor of developing social skills and relationships.

Describe Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences.

Gardner outlines eight distinct intelligences that people use in problem solving: namely, linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal, with a possible ninth: existential. Schools traditionally emphasize linguistic and logical-mathematical. Gardner placed emphasis upon learning skills in context, such as apprenticeships, rather than solely by textbooks. Traditional subjects, like English and math, should be taught in ways that appeal to all the multiple intelligences. History, for example, could be taught through dramatic reenactments, biographies, and architecture. He also thought that assessments should be tailored to different abilities and that student choice with assessments would ensure that the students were completing the task to the best of their abilities and utilizing the intelligence in which they were most skilled.

Identify some examples of activities teachers can give students in grades K-6 to help them develop and demonstrate self-awareness, self-management, self-esteem, peer interaction, and goal-setting skills that will enable them to achieve their academic and personal goals.

Grades K-2: explain different examples of school success. Realize the relation between what you want to achieve and goal-setting. Describe a behavior you want to change. Give examples of academic and personal goals to set. Divide a goal into manageable steps. Grades 1-3: identify a situation you want to change. Explain how becoming what you want and school success are related. Identify progress you have made toward your goal. Explain how to improve your classroom behavior, e.g., paying attention, finishing assignments, raising your hand more, etc. Make a plan for improving your work in a certain school subject. Make a plan for a personal goal. Reward yourself for achievements using self-talk. Teachers can use puppet shows wherein puppets apply planning and goal-setting skills. Grades 3-4: explain how literary characters, people studied in social sciences, friends, and you have overcome goal obstacles. Identify people and conditions contributing to your goal achievement. Name steps for doing homework, studying for tests, organizing materials and spaces, etc. Name things interfering with goal achievement you could not change. Evaluate what you could have done differently to achieve a goal better. Grades 4-6: develop friendship and academic goals with action steps and dates, monitor progress, analyze step delays or changes, and evaluate your goal achievement level.

Discuss some salient characteristics of learning activities that promote both critical thinking skills and ownership of learning in students.

In Democracy and Education (1916), John Dewey wrote that true student involvement is stimulated by activities that "give pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results." Thus the same learning activities that promote higher-order thinking, including critical thinking and organizational and time-management skills, also promote student ownership of learning. While interests in community issues fluctuate, students regularly find school-based issues important. Issues—curricular, extracurricular, or leadership-related—must also be relevant, reflecting student identities, interests, and passions; and student roles meaningful, enabling their design, implementation, and evaluative participation for improving student learning and schools. Schools can involve students as planners in designing new buildings, developing classroom behavior guidelines, selecting textbooks, researching careers and planning coursework accordingly, participating in principal or administrator hiring, etc. Students as teachers learn about all curriculum subjects in exchange for instructing teachers how to use technology, enhancing ownership and meaningful involvement. Students as professional development partners collect and analyze data and participate in team development as learning community members. Students as decision-makers in student government influence school climate, policy, and curriculum.

Discuss some findings about how teacher expectation: influence teacher behaviors with students and hence influence student performance, and which of two approaches with teachers is more effective to change their interactions with students.

In an experiment, Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal (1964) told teachers a standardized IQ test was a "special" test predicting dramatic IQ growth, identifying randomly selected students as about to make significant intellectual gains. In the following two years, teacher expectations became self-fulfilling prophecies: those students' IQs actually did increase. Rosenthal's additional research identified myriad, nearly imperceptible ways teacher expectations influence interactions with students. They consistently smile, nod at, and touch; give more approval; offer more specific feedback; and allow more time for answering questions to students they expect to succeed. Exemplary teachers strive to motivate all of their students to achieve more than they thought they could through high expectations. Dean of University of Virginia's Curry School of Education and researcher Robert Pianta (c. 2012) compared two approaches to changing teacher expectations: talking to convince teachers via information that their beliefs are incorrect, vs. intensive training in new teacher behaviors. The latter shifted teacher beliefs more than the former. For example, a teacher believing boys are disruptive quashes a boys loud, effusive response, emotionally disengaging and frustrating the student. Contrastingly, a teacher without that belief encourages the student to continue, but while sitting quietly. Different beliefs prompt different interpretations of the same behavior.

Explain some of the fundamental concepts of cognitive theory, including equilibrium, adaptation, assimilation, accommodation, and schemata, including schema formation and modification.

In cognitive theories, e.g., Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the individual seeks to establish and maintain equilibrium or balance to keep things the same, i.e., homeostasis. When unexpected events occur and/or the individual encounters novel environmental stimuli, these disrupt equilibrium. To restore balance, the individual must adapt. The process of adaptation consists of assimilation and accommodation. In learning to understand the world, Piaget said children form schemata. A scheme is a mental construct about some aspect of the environment— people, things, events, and/or categories of these. A baby might form schemata for "things I can suck on," "things I can shake that make noise," and "people I know," for example. When a child encounters a new stimulus, s/he either assimilates it—fitting it into his/her existing schema for similar things; or accommodates to it—modifying an existing schema to accommodate some different characteristics of the new stimulus; or forming a new schema for it. Thus the process of learning, especially for children, involves frequently forming new schemata and changing existing schemata by adding to, subtracting from, or modifying the characteristics they include as experience and interaction with the environment progress.

Discuss some general ways in which students acquire skills

In early childhood, children acquire motor, cognitive, language, emotional, social and other skills through playing. Learners of all ages acquire skills through direct instruction from educators. Students in public schools learn academic content in required courses, and may also enroll in elective or outside courses to learn other desired specific skills. Students also learn by doing. Many skills, e.g., riding a bicycle, driving a car, dancing, all PE skills, art skills, etc. require hands-on learning and practice. Students may read books about a specific skill or skill set—not only required class textbooks, but on their own; not only to learn in more depth, breadth, and specificity about a school subject, but also learn other subjects. For example, a high school student interested in becoming a photographer might find his/her school offers art classes in drawing, painting, and sculpture but nothing in photography; and then enrolls in an outside course, and/or reads books on photography. Today, students have access to a plethora of YouTube video tutorials covering a diverse range of subjects. They can search a topic to find videos teaching specific skills. Internet searches also yield more information to read about skills. Apprenticeships and internships combine instruction, observation, imitation, and hands-on experience and practice.

Discuss which roles teachers and students primarily play in different instructional models, and how these affect the way students learn and perform

In traditional teacher-centered instructional models, the teacher plays the most active role, delivering instruction through lectures and lessons; assigning homework; and creating, administering and grading tests while the students play more passive roles of attending to, absorbing, retaining, and repeating information. In more progressive student-centered instructional models, if the model espouses inquiry and discovery learning, for example, students play more active roles as teachers encourage and guide them to ask their own questions, form their own hypotheses, investigate and test these, and draw their own conclusions. When teachers differentiate instruction for students with diverse needs, teachers may play varying roles of part-time individual tutor; part-time whole-class instructor; and, when teachers include small-group cooperative learning, part-time group facilitator and guide. Teachers providing one-on-one intensive training to students with profound disabilities play highly directive, active roles. At the other end of the spectrum, when students conduct independent projects, teachers may serve only as consultants or occasional advisors until they grade the projects. While some students need explicit instruction, research also finds that while rote memorization works with factual information, active student participation and teaching learning or thinking skills, not just information, produces more original thinkers and lifelong learners.

Differentially define and give examples of classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

Ivan Pavlov discovered and described classical conditioning. Experimenting with dogs, he placed meat powder on their tongues, causing them to salivate. At the same time he rang a bell. After repeatedly pairing the bell and meat powder, Pavlov found he could ring the bell alone without meat powder and the dogs still salivated by association. Classical conditioning involves evoking a reflexive response to a stimulus that did not originally evoke it through associating it with another stimulus that does trigger the response. Applying this to humans, if someone shines a bright light in your eyes, your pupils will reflexively contract. If someone says the word "contract" along with the light, after enough repetitions the person can say "contract" without shining the light and your pupils will contract. Based on Thorndike's Law of Effect, B. F. Skinner coined the term operant conditioning, differentiating it as "operant behaviors" from classical conditioning, which he called "respondent behaviors" (i.e., reflexive). Operant conditioning involves choice. Thorndike's law says actions followed by desirable consequences are likely to be repeated, while those followed by undesirable consequences are less likely to be repeated. Skinner found behaviors could be increased, decreased, or otherwise shaped through manipulating rewards and punishments.

Discuss how knowledge is constructed, including four learning processes whereby learners engage with new knowledge and their respective outcomes.

Knowledge is constructed via a dynamic process wherein learners assimilate new information into existing mental schemes or concepts; modify existing schemes to accommodate radically different or new ideas; reorganize ideas to connect them into coherent patterns; and draw on existing knowledge to make sense of new information, actively interpreting it based on established insights, attitudes, and beliefs. Four iterative learning processes (Timperley et al, 2007), one or more of which are involved in cycles for developing new skills and understandings, are: (I) cueing or retrieving previous knowledge; the outcome is an examination and/or consolidation of existing knowledge. (2) Integrating new skills and information into current belief and value systems; the outcome is an adoption or adaptation of new knowledge. (3) Creating cognitive dissonance with an existing belief, value, or position; the outcome is the rejection or acceptance resolving dissonance; reconstruction or repositioning of current belief and value system. (4) Developing self-regulated learning related to testing instructional effectiveness; the outcome is the monitoring of student proficiency; adjustment of teaching practices to maximize efficacy. Cycle(1) prepares the way for cycles (2) and (3).

Identify some elements of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development.

Kohlberg based his theory on Piaget's two stages of moral development, heteronomous (other-directed) morality and autonomous (selfdirected) morality; but Kohlberg extended these to three distinct levels and six stages, with each level encompassing two stages. Similarly to Erikson's belief regarding psychosocial development, Kohlberg believed moral development continued throughout life. Kohlberg's level one is preconventional morality. In stage one, obedience and punishment, young children (and some adults) view rules as absolute and fixed; obedience averts punishment. In stage two, individualism and exchange, children judge actions by whether they meet one's own interests or needs. They can understand and appreciate reciprocity, but only if it also is in one's best interests. At level two, conventional morality, stage three involves interpersonal relationships, nicknamed "good boy-good girl." Conforming to meet social roles and expectations, concern for how choices affect relationships, and being "nice" predominate. Stage four, maintaining social order, focuses on respecting authority, doing one's duty, following rules, maintaining law and order, and considering overall society. Level three is post-conventional morality. In stage five, social contract and individual rights, people still find laws and rules important, but only with individual members' agreement. By stage six, universal ethical principles, individuals apply internalized justice principles, regardless whether they conflict with rules and laws.

Summarize some of the ideas that Lev Vygotsky proposed that importantly inform teaching practices today.

Like theorists after him, e.g., Erikson, Bruner, Bandura, and others, Vygotsky, who lived during the Russian Revolution, stressed the importance of social interaction to learning. He differed from his contemporary Piaget's belief in invariant stages of cognitive development, believing instead that it varied among societies because culture heavily influenced it. Two of the most influential concepts in Vygotsky's theories were the more knowledgeable other (MI<O), i.e., a person (or a computer, software program, etc. can be included) with a higher level of skill or understanding—whether peer, older child, or adult—than a given student; and the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which interact with one another. The ZPD is the distance between two levels of cognitive development: (1) the level of actual development, where a student can accomplish something independently; and (2) the level of potential development, where a student can accomplish something with guidance or assistance from an MKO. Vygotsky emphasized ability and potential above knowledge: what one could learn was more important than what one already knew. He also was first to prove that self-talk or inner speech (whose existence others agreed to, but not its cognitive value) was important to activity self-regulation, social competence, and learning.

Describe three instructional strategies among nine identified by education and research expert Robert Marzano as effective for improving teaching quality and student achievement, including general research findings that support their effectiveness

Marzano's strategies include: (I) homework and practice. Students extend learning beyond classrooms. Studies find homework amounts should vary by grade levels, parents should be minimally involved, students should adapt skills as they learn them, and the primary indices of practice effectiveness are speed and accuracy. Teachers should explain homework purposes to students and parents; try to give students feedback on every assignment; vary feedback delivery to maximize effectiveness; inform students whether homework is practice or to prepare for coming units; establish homework policies, advising students to maintain consistent settings, time limits, and schedules; assign timed quiz homework, having students report speed and accuracy; allocate practice time, focusing on difficult concepts. (2) Visual or nonlinguistic representations: studies show knowledge is stored in linguistic and visual forms, and students achieve more using both. Visual representation both stimulates and increases brain activity. Represent information with physical models and movements, relationships with symbolic images and words. (3) Cooperative learning: applied consistently and systematically not overused—with small groups, cooperative activities enhance learning. Group students by multiple criteria, e.g., common interests or experiences; vary objectives and group sizes; and design projects around core components of individual and group accountability, face-to-face interaction, group processing, appropriate social skills, and positive interdependence.

Define and give brief examples of the terms metacognition, schema, transfer, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the zone of proximal development (ZPD).

Metacognition: thinking about thinking and understanding one's thought processes. Example: a student observes, "I learn better from a picture of something than words about it." Schema: coined by Piaget; a mental construct or representation of a concept. Example: a toddler has a schema for cows. Seeing a large, brown dog, she says "moo"—it fits her cow schema. Told this is a dog, she forms a new "dog" schema. Transfer: applying a learned skill to another activity or setting. Example: a child learns to make a clay pot in art class, then makes clay pots at home. Self-efficacy: coined by Bandura; a sense of competence for specific tasks. Example: based on experience, a student has high self-efficacy for getting an A grade in AP English, but low self-efficacy for passing calculus. Self-regulation: the ability to monitor, control, and adjust one's behaviors. Example: a high school student's grades are not high enough for his preferred college admissions; he watches less TV nightly and studies more. ZPD: coined by Vygotsky; the difference between what one can do unassisted vs. with what s/he can do with help or guidance. Example: a 4-year-old who can read a few words acquires more phonics rules and vocabulary from reading with her 6-year-old brother.

Comment on a number of aspects of the importance of play to early childhood development and learning.

Middle and high school teachers find many students very concerned with wearing certain clothes, eating and drinking certain foods or drinks, listening to certain music, and doing many things simply because "everybody" is doing them. "Everybody" can be everyone in a class, a school, a certain grade or age group, a circle of friends, etc. Adolescents develop exaggerated self-consciousness and hypersensitivity, leading to preoccupation with others' opinions and fear of standing out, seeming different, and not fitting into a group. As teens are also working to define their individual identities, teachers can appeal to adolescent investment in this process by reinforcing their independent choices, individual decisions, and affirming their uniqueness as persons. They can support teens in resisting peer pressure, whereby adolescents take advantage of others' social vulnerability by attempting to control them to conform by asking them what is right for them, not others; and expressing and demonstrating their approval and pride in students' asserting and being themselves. Teachers can also exploit peer-related issues by assigning cooperative learning projects; encouraging and rewarding academic club participation; and emphasizing other learning experiences involving positive social interactions, whereby group identification and interdependence promote collective and individual learning.

Describe some key characteristics of student transitions from elementary to middle school, and some implications for commensurate classroom practices

Middle school students contend not only with pubertal changes in their bodies and feelings, but also changes from elementary to middle school, e.g., differences in location, learning environments, scheduling, activities, classmates, etc. While early teens become preoccupied and anxious about their appearances, behaviors, and peers' perceptions, they also become more independent, expressing more of their own personalities and interests and making more autonomous choices in friends, school, studying, sports, appearance, etc. Adults must realize this independence prompts greater privacy needs, as well as withdrawing from parents, seeking friends and other adults as role models, identifying their own peer groups, finding groups and friends more important, and experiencing peer pressure. Students' emotional and social development changes their self-perceptions, and educators should adjust instruction accordingly. The adolescent's "imaginary audience" causes self-centered hypersensitivity to others' perceptions; the "personal fable" is the belief their experiences and feelings are unique, and that nobody understands (Elkind). Educators should avoid overreactive discipline interfering with student self-regulation, overwhelming teens; establish safe classroom environments, discussing issues and emotions. Teachers can issue each student a (counterfeit-detecting designed) "leave me alone" pass not applicable on test or quiz days—to excuse active participation or interaction during class on some days, promoting student empowerment, control, and stress management

Describe some of the impacts of student substance use and abuse on development and learning

Not only are the physical and neurological development of younger children incomplete, even adolescents have yet to undergo full brain development. Therefore, using alcohol and other drugs can cause damage to their central nervous systems and other body systems and organs. Damage can be temporary or permanent, reversible or irreversible. In addition to interfering with attention in school, substance use can interfere with myelination, whereby brain and nerve cells develop coating sheaths, both protecting them and facilitating impulse and signal transmission. This process continues into young adulthood. The heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, other organs and systems are still developing and can be damaged, sometimes irreparably, at early ages. Substance use also undermines motivation to learn and achieve. Under the influence, students attend to the effects they experience, not acquiring new information or getting anything done. When use becomes abuse, addiction causes focus only on getting more of the needed substance to relieve withdrawal symptoms and reproduce the original high—which latter is impossible and leads to ingesting increasing amounts. Students neglect hygiene and schoolwork, attendance and grades fall, and dropouts become more common. Substance use and abuse triggers or exacerbates anxiety, depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other mental disorders.

Summarize the concepts of classical and operant conditioning, including their essential difference and how these contribute to behaviorism.

Pavlov discovered and described classical conditioning when he found he could condition dogs to respond reflexively to a secondary, previously unrelated stimulus by repeatedly pairing it with the stimulus originally producing the reflex. Ringing a bell every time he gave them meat powder, causing them to salivate, eventually enabled the bell alone to stimulate salivation without the meat. Skinner later described what he named operant conditioning. Based on Thorndike's law of effect that a desirable consequence increased the probability of repeating a behavior while an undesirable one decreased that probability, Skinner found through experiments that new behaviors could be established, existing behaviors made much more frequent, and other behaviors less frequent or extinguished through controlling the antecedents (events or stimuli immediately before) and consequences (events or stimuli immediately after) each behavior. The key difference between classical and operant conditioning is that classical conditioning manipulates reflexive or involuntary behaviors, whereas operant conditioning manipulates conscious or voluntary behaviors. Both contribute to the behaviorist proposition that behaviors can be established, increased, decreased, eliminated, connected, and shaped through manipulating related environmental stimuli. Skinner called classical conditioning "respondent" to differentiate it from operant conditioning, which involves choice.

Identify some developmental milestones in physical, cognitive, and linguistic domains of 2- to 6-month olds.

Physically, 2-month-olds can hold up their heads, start pushing up from stomach-lying, and their limb movements become smoother. Cognitively, they track moving objects visually, recognize people from distances, attend to faces, and fuss or cry showing boredom when activities do not change. Linguistically, they coo, gurgle, and turn heads toward sounds. Four-month-olds can hold heads steadily unsupported; may roll over stomach-to-back; bring hands to mouths; swing at hanging toys, or hold and shake toys; push down with legs when feet touch hard surfaces; and push up from stomach on elbows. They express happiness and sadness, respond to affection, reach for things they see, reach one handed, track moving objects laterally, recognize familiar people and objects from distances, and closely observe faces. They start babbling, with expression; imitate heard sounds; and differentiate crying to express hunger, fatigue, or pain. Six-month-olds roll over front-to-back and back-to-front, begin sitting unsupported, support standing weight on legs, bounce, rock, and crawl backward and forward. They look at nearby objects, bring objects to mouth, display curiosity and try to obtain out-of-reach objects, and start passing objects hand-to-hand. They respond to sounds with vocalization, enjoy taking turns with parents making sounds, babble vowel strings, start including consonants, respond to their names, and vocalize pleasure and displeasure.

Explain how Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development informs educational practices.

Piaget, like Bruner and others, believed in constructivism, i.e., children were not passive learners but actively constructed their own learning, knowledge, and worlds through interacting with their environments. He observed children as being "little scientists" from birth who experimented with and acted upon the environment to learn about it. Piaget formulated four stages of cognitive development. I) Sensorimotor: infants respond to sensory input with motor responses. 2) Preoperational: wherein young children are egocentric, unable to see others' physical or mental perspectives. They think intuitively, not logically, unable to focus on more than one physical attribute of an object at a time (centration), categorize and classify, or follow structures and sequences of reasoning. They see things animistically, by attributing human qualities and behaviors to inanimate objects; and magically, by attributing events and others' actions to their own thoughts or words. 3) Concrete operations: school-age children can classify, perform other logical mental operations, and reverse them as long as they have concrete objects or events for reference. 4) Formal operations: preadolescents and adolescents develop the ability to perform abstract mental operations without concrete support, understanding and manipulating abstract concepts in math, philosophy, law, politics, etc. Piaget's theory influenced education, guiding educators not to present content to children who are not cognitively ready or able to understand; and introducing concepts and material appropriately to cognitive levels.

Discuss some of the many contributions to education of John Dewey.

Psychologist, philosopher, educator, and social activist John Dewey was a prominent member of the Progressive social reform movement, a president of the American Psychological Association, a functional psychology pioneer, a Pragmatist and Instrumentalist philosopher, and the foremost theorist in modern American education. Like Rousseau and Froebel, he believed in experiential "learning by doing." He shifted schools from authoritarian and teacher-centered, rote-learning methods to democratic classrooms, relevant curricula, and participatory activities. He emphasized the social, interactive nature of the learning and educational processes. Dewey believed education not only conferred knowledge, but moreover taught children how to live. His humanist psychology and instrumental philosophy informed his opinions that education should enable children to realize their full potential, and to apply those abilities toward the greater good. He also viewed education as an important force for social reform and change. He believed education should not concentrate exclusively on being either child-centered or curriculum content-centered, but balance the two. Like Bruner, he believed education should prepare autonomous learners— who were also ethical and reflective. He also professionalized the role of teachers as social service providers producing higher character and community intelligence standards, not merely vocational trainers preparing students for work with limited job skills and information.

Describe some ways in which teachers can help students learn age-appropriate study skills, including summarizing, note-taking, outlining, and using graphic organizers.

Research finds when students must analyze information to identify its most important aspects and then express it in their own terms, they need to know how the information is basically organized, and be able to remove, replace, and preserve elements of it. Thereby they understand it better. These learning processes are included in note-taking and summarizing. Teachers can provide students with rules for summarizing; prepare their own notes for students; and adhere to regular note-taking formats, including necessary student refinements. When teachers prepare their lecture or lesson notes in outline form, students can more easily take notes in outline form. Having students question text, clarify as needed, and make predictions improves their summarizing skills. Allotting time and encouraging students to review and revise their notes frequently enables them to study for tests at their highest potential. Advance organizers help students activate and build on their prior knowledge to learn further. Teachers should introduce analytical advance organizers concentrating on essential subject matter before learning experiences and vary their style, e.g., skim text, tell stories, produce graphic images, etc.

Describe some developmental milestones in the social and affective domains for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds.

Socially and affectively, 3-year-olds typically show affection for others spontaneously; imitate adults and peers; show concern for crying friends; take turns during games and activities; display wide ranges of emotions; and understand the meanings of mine, yours, his, and hers. They easily separate from parents, can dress and undress themselves, and may become upset over major changes in daily routines. Four-year-olds pretend-play at being parents, become progressively more creative when playing make-believe, like new activities, prefer playing with other children to playing alone, cooperate with peers, frequently cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, and enjoy talking about their preferences and interests. Five-year-olds are more likely to follow rules than younger children. They want to be like their friends and want to please them. They typically enjoy acting, singing, and dancing. They demonstrate sympathy and concern for other people. They have developed awareness of gender. Unlike 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds typically can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. They demonstrate more independence, e.g., going on their own to visit a neighbor, though adults still need to supervise them. They are likely to alternate between being very cooperative and being very demanding.

Describe some findings regarding home and community cultural influences on elementary school student achievement.

Some research into high-ability or gifted talent development in bilingual Hispanic elementary school students has concluded that influential home factors include family values like respect, education, career, and family; maternal roles; extended family role models; emotional support; Spanish-language maintenance; trips to parental native countries; and Hispanic legacies. School factors include safe school environments, flexible grouping, and English-language support (when necessary). Research also finds teachers of high-ability or gifted Hispanic students frequently know little or nothing about home language spoken. They tend to assume if a student is not in ESL classes or programs, s/he is not bilingual; but in fact, many are both bilingual and biliterate. Teachers also demonstrate limited understanding of multicultural meanings and practices. Educational investigators advise, standards for assessing Hispanic students should reflect their cultural and ethnic backgrounds to be accurate and relevant. They state the need for establishing direct communication between Hispanic parents and schools, including information about gifted program identification procedures and home methods parents can use to help their children educationally. Another need is professional development to help faculty and staff understand differences in student cultural, language, and learning styles. Also, access for classroom teachers to information about Hispanic students' linguistic histories and present Spanish usage is advised.

Identify several sources of academic difficulty for ELL students, including those with special needs. Summarize several factors found crucial to ELL student success.

Some school difficulties for ELL students are directly attributable to teaching and learning environment deficits. These include lack of student access to effective ESL or bilingual instruction, mismatches between middle-class-oriented instruction and low socioeconomic student backgrounds, cultural and linguistic differences that create communication gaps between learners and teachers, etc. Other ELL students may additionally have specific learning disabilities, which require specialized instructional methods to enable successful learning. Experts believe many educators lack expertise to differentiate limited English-language proficiency from true learning disabilities as sources of school failure, evidenced by overrepresentation of ELL students in special education classes. Additional problems include shortages of both assessment instruments and trained assessors that are appropriate and linguistically and culturally relevant, and in special educators trained in concurrently addressing linguistically related as well as disability-related student needs. Factors necessary to ELL success include recognizing the importance of student L1S, collaborative community and school relationships, shared educator knowledge bases of effective instructional methods for ELLS, effective teaching, and academically rich programs that integrate instruction in basic and higher-order cognitive skills in both L1S and English.

Offer some examples of how teachers can incorporate different learning modalities into their instructional practices to optimize individual student learning.

Students need not have sensory or cognitive processing disabilities to learn better through one sensory modality than another. All students have learning styles. Teachers can optimize classroom learning by including multiple and alternative modalities in lessons. For example, some students are auditory learners: they have greater sensitivity, attention, comprehension, and retention for what they hear than what they see or touch. Teachers can provide audiobooks and earphones along with books during reading times. This strategy also benefits students who do have visual impairments. Other students are visual learners: they attend, understand, and remember what they see better than what they hear or touch. Pairing visuals with sounds enhances thei learning and other experiences. For example, Walt Disney's classic film Fantasia provides visually rich animated sequences accompanying classical music by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Mussorgsky, etc. Students with haptic learning styles respond to tactile stimuli. Teachers can give younger students materials with varied textures to accompany story reading, assigning older students projects to interpret literature, science lessons, etc. by constructing collages, models, or displays with different textures. Students with kinesthetic styles learn through physical movement. Teachers can let them dance to music and apply exercise and sports movements to physics, mathematical, and other principles, etc.

Relate several steps for adults to follow in teaching children goal-setting skills.

Teach students how to talk about goals to understand and set them. For example, they must define what they want to accomplish, by when, and which related skills they already know. Children of any age may conceive unrealistic goals. For example, a child who has not learned how to ice skate may decide s/he wants to place ice hockey. Rather than squelching aspirations by telling the child this will be impossible or too difficult, help the child refine the goal into smaller associated goals as steps to the ultimate goal. For example, suggest setting the preliminary goal of learning ice skating. This generalizes to all goals: they are not accomplished all in one attempt, but rather involve series of many steps. Assist children with task analysis, breaking a goal down into its smaller component steps or skills. They can make each skill or step into a smaller or shorter-term goal toward the main goal. Help students make visual reminders, e.g., a worksheet with a drawing of a ladder, to list steps toward a goal on the rungs; a goal board with a drawing of a soccer goal, etc. Also help students track and mark their progress, and celebrate success.

Describe a contemporary model of the whole child approach. Identify an associated initiative and online needs assessment tool for school improvement for educators.

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have collaborated to produce the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model to coordinate public health, school health, and educational processes, policies, and practices to improve health and learning, which are interrelated. They say a whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community involvement means each child deserves to be safe, healthy, supported, engaged, and challenged. Related to this model, ASCD's Whole Child Initiative aims to help educators, policymakers, families, and community members realize a vision of educating the whole child through collaborative, sustainable action. ASCD's School Improvement Tool is a totally online needs assessment that educators in schools and districts worldwide can use to determine what practices to implement or improve to realize the wholechild education vision. The tool enables educators to survey, numerically score, and color-code schools regarding key criteria, e.g., all students enter school healthy, and learn about and practice healthy lifestyles; learn in physically and emotionally safe environments; are actively engaged in learning, connected to school and community, and supported by caring, qualified adults; have access to personalized learning; are challenged academically, prepared for college or employment success; and school whole-child approaches are sustainable.

Describe the Response to Intervention (Rtl) model. What are its three tiers? How do educator collaborations affect the implementations of the Rtl model?

The RtI model is a framework for providing high-quality instruction for all K-12 learners. RtI's three tiers are: 1) research-based core classroom instruction, 2) targeted instruction for students in need of additional challenge or support, and 3) intensive instruction for students whose needs are not accommodated by the first two tiers. The needs of all learners are addressed through the RtI framework with research-based instructional practices, curriculum adaptations responsive to students' individual backgrounds, and appropriate interventions including the extension of the standard curriculum toward greater rigor. The RtI model is data driven. Analysis of student data guides instructional decisions. RtI instructional decisions are made via collaborations of teachers and administrators. No one individual teacher or administrator is capable of implementing RtI. The best interests of the students are served by teachers and administrators teaming to interpret data and decide whether students are in need of additional tiers of (targeted or intensive) instruction

Explain some ways in which educators can address peer-related issues by both mitigating and exploiting these to facilitate teaching and promote learning.

The UN High Commission for Human Rights declares play every child's right. Pediatric research finds playing essential for healthy brain development. Playing develops physical strength, dexterity, cognitive and emotional strength, imagination, and early engagement and interaction with the environment. While exposure to letters and numbers promotes literacy, children learn about what people do, how they behave, and what they are thinking from playing, not from letters or numbers. By playing, children create and explore worlds they can master, enabling their overcoming fears and practicing adult roles. This helps them develop new skills, increasing their self-confidence and developing resiliency, which they will need for future challenges. Children learn sharing, group cooperation, conflict resolution, negotiation, self-advocacy, and leadership skills through unstructured play. Through child-driven play, they progress at their own paces, practice decision-making skills, and discover and pursue their own interests. Playing involves more healthful physical activity than passively watching TV, playing video games, etc. When young children's physical development precedes verbal development, they can express frustrations, experiences, and viewpoints through play better than language. Emotional-social development should be integrated with cognitive and academic learning. Research finds play enhances learning readiness, learning behaviors, problem-solving skills, and school adjustment.

Give an example of an aspect of human development that has impact on behaviorist learning theories by not being sufficiently explained by them

The behaviorist approach to learning theory is justified in limiting its principles and practices to observable, measurable behaviors in that change cannot be proven nor accurately quantified unless existing behaviors can first be observed and measured to establish baseline rates; and subsequent behaviors following intervention can be measured again for comparison to assess changes from baselines. However, a primary limitation of this approach is that it fails to account for or explain maturational, hormonal, and other changes occurring throughout the human lifespan. For example, puberty, the major experience during adolescence, typically has many outward physical, social, and behavioral manifestations as well as many inward physical, cognitive, and emotional changes. These changes are primarily driven by hormones (though of course societal roles and expectations interact). This internal biological mechanism is not addressed by theories that behaviors are responses to external environmental stimuli. Hence human development has impact on learning theory: finding this theory incomplete, development demands explanation informed by additional biological, psychological, and sociological knowledge about how hormonal maturation, emotions, thinking, and social interactions are interrelated and interdependent, and how they ultimately combine to affect human behavior.

Discuss some educator considerations related to children's school readiness and learning readiness and associated instructional decision-making implications.

The majority of children may enter school ready to learn, but not optimally; and have a range of cultural, environmental, and educational background experiences. Readiness works two ways: preparing children for school, and preparing schools for children. For educators to promote all children's learning, they must offer school environments recognizing background diversity, enabling comfortable transitions to successive learning levels, and supplying community supports as needed. School readiness is divided into readiness for school and readiness to learn. former involves specific motor, cognitive, linguistic, and social skills enabling children to absorb school curriculum; the latter involves the developmental level where children are capable of learning specific materials. Educators differentiate traditional ideas of readiness placing responsibility on children vs. giving schools the responsibility to provide necessary services in the least restrictive environment to enable children to reach their full potentials. Also, readiness assessment criteria can have inappropriate expectations, not recognizing normal variations in individual development and learning natures and rates. Experts find three factors critical: recognizing and supporting individual cultural, linguistic, and other differences; addressing early life experience inequities to ensure that all children have access to opportunities promoting school success; and appropriate and reasonable expectations of children entering school.

Discuss some of the conditions leading to gang involvement, and how it and related risky behaviors have impacts on student learning and development.

The organizational structures and activities of gangs are extremely complex social phenomena. In low socioeconomic urban neighborhoods, gangs often develop in part to protect members against violence from adult criminals and other gangs. This positive motivation and protective benefit are still accompanied by undesirable effects. Gang involvement more likely during adolescence, when students search to form personal identities. Many economically disadvantaged urban youth lack adult supervision, mentoring, and role models. Gang membership fills needs for group affiliation, belonging, identity, rules, and behavioral direction (even if behaviors are undesirable). Youth struggling to reconcile newly discovered abstractions and complexities find security in adversarial relationships among gangs, defining "us vs. them" mentalities that are less equivocal or contradictory. These enmities also provide concrete foes for youth feeling helpless to control or combat larger, seemingly unassailable foes of social ills like poverty, illiteracy, crime, discrimination, lack of opportunity, etc. Even in affluent communities, gangs may form to fulfill the same needs for social acceptance, allegiance, group identity, rules, etc.—sometimes particularly with inadequate parental or adult involvement, communication, and role modeling. Youth with unformed or unstable identities, vulnerable to peer pressure, are at higher risk for committing criminal acts as gang members. This can curtail their education, work, freedom, and life.

Name four elements of classroom instruction that teachers can differentiate. Offer several examples of ways they can differentiate two of these elements for elementary school classes.

To address the needs of individual students in a class, teachers can differentiate things like (1) content; (2) processes and activities whereby students learn content; (3) products students create by applying and demonstrating what they learned; and (4) learning environment, i.e., how spare time. (5) Differentiate durations students take to finish tasks, allowing advanced students to examine topics in-depth and enable added support for struggling students.students perceive the classroom and how it functions. Some examples of differentiating products for elementary school students include: (1) design rubrics matching and extending various student skill levels. (2) Offer choices to students in how to demonstrate learning, like between writing a letter, creating a labeled art mural, or producing a puppet show. (3) Invite students to design their own product assignments, providing they include necessary components. (4) Give students options to work on projects in small groups or individually. Some examples of differentiating an elementary school learning environment include: (1) furnish materials reflecting diverse home and cultural backgrounds. (2) Establish clear guidelines matching individual student needs for independent work. (3) Ensure the classroom contains both areas for collaboration and areas for undistracted quiet work. (4) Help students realize some classmates need to sit quietly, while others must move about. (5) Develop routines enabling students to get help when teachers are temporarily busy with others.

Discuss some ways in which student development in physical, cognitive, linguistic, social, affective and moral domains can respectively interact with and affect development in the other domains.

When a student's cognitive development is ahead of his/her physical development, the child is likely to become frustrated when s/he can conceive of many things mentally, but cannot execute them physically. This is especially of younger children still having more physical development to achieve. Conversely, when a student's physical development is ahead of his/her cognitive development, young children are apt inadvertently to damage property and/or harm peers, younger children, or pets. Linguistic development affects social development in that more advanced language levels often facilitate social communication—but not always: some children show advanced language skills development, yet lack commensurate social skills. In another way, some less linguistically advanced students are skilled at using nonverbal communication skills to support social interactions. Some young students also have superior emotional intelligence (EQ) without necessarily having equally high academic or linguistic skills. More advanced affective development in elementary-age children can influence their moral development: the more children are able to share, take others' perspectives, empathize, and engage in prosocial behaviors, the more able they are to understand and internalize less rigid, more mutual, and socially-oriented morality.

Describe some ways of detecting atypical and typical cognitive, social, emotional, and moral development in children.

With intellectual development, the common standard for suspecting atypical or delayed development is an IQ score two standard deviations or more below the average for a standardized test. With adaptive development, age range-appropriate criteria are used; for example, a normal 3-year-old is expected to toilet independently, but not to tie shoes until about 5-6 years. Parents do not expect 6-year-olds to cook or sew. Typical adaptive development is often gauged through comparison to age peers. However, not all children lagging behind peers have developmental disorders or delays: considerable individual variance is normal. Parents can assess children's social skills development by downloading informal checklists, many available online, indicating social skills according to age levels. Innate temperament is one factor in emotional development: some children jump fearfully at unexpected noises, others laugh; some get angry, others cry at the same stimulus. Cognitive and emotional development interact, as evidenced in toddlers: most 3-year-olds begin developing self-control of their emotions via growing cognitive development. This progresses from initially separate cognitive and emotional processes—e.g., a child is immersed in stacking blocks until another child takes a block; emotion overwhelms the first child. Eventually, toddlers learn and remember other ways to respond than screaming or hitting.

Explain how teaching decision-making and goal setting skills can help students develop self-direction in learning. Provide several guidelines for adults to help students begin the process of setting goals

Young people are able to develop some independence and recognize they have some control over their lives by learning to set goals. First they must decide what they want to accomplish. This decision-making helps motivate children to achieve things, not for external rewards or to please other people, but for their own satisfaction. This helps them develop internal locus of control and intrinsic motivation. One step adults can help with is first defining what a goal is. They might use the analogy of a hockey or soccer goal. Explain that winning a goal is the enc product of much hard work; setting a goal is describing what you want to get done or the place you want to get to, and that involves planning for something you want to understand or do better. Another step for adults to help children determine their priorities is by listening more than talking. Observing some strengths and needs is acceptable, but encourage children to talk about themselves. For example, observe a child has learned something, and ask what s/he next wants to do with this skill. Ask if a child is worried about anything in school that will be difficult.