WGU Principles of Psychology, D167

situated learning

The concept that knowledge is closely linked to the environment in which it is acquired. The more true to life the task is, the more meaningful the learning will be.

Self-regulation

The consistent and appropriate application of self-control skills to new situations. These individuals set their own performance standards, evaluate the quality of their performance, and reinforce themselves when their performance meets or exceeds their internal standards.

socioeconomic status

It is determined by such factors as annual income, occupation, amount of education, place of residence, types of organizations to which family members belong, manner of dress, and material possessions.

Token economy

Rewarding behavior with something that has little or no inherent value but that can be used to "purchase" things that do have inherent value.

The four most commonly given reasons for task failure

"I just have a poor head for numbers." (lack of ability) "I didn't really study for the exam." (lack of effort) "That test was the toughest I've ever taken." (task difficulty) "I guessed wrong about which sections of the book to study." (luck)

Mental Self-Government Styles

13 styles which fall into one of five categories: functions, forms, levels, scope, and leaning. Within these categories, there are legislative, executive, and judicial functions; monarchic, hierarchic, oligarchic, and anarchic forms; global and local levels; internal and external scopes; and liberal and conservative leanings. Most individuals have a preference for one style within each category.

Learning style

A consistent preference over time and subject matter for perceiving, thinking about, and organizing information in a particular way.

intellectual disability

A disability characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills. This is determined by examining both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior in three areas: conceptual skills, social skills, and practical, everyday living skills.

Operant Conditioning

A learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reinforcement or punishment. Voluntary responses are strengthened or weakened as a result of their consequences. Strengthening a behavior by providing a positive stimulus or removing a negative stimulus immediately after the behavior has occurred.

spontaneously recovery

A phenomenon of learning and memory which refers to the re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a delay.

Zero transfer

A situation in which prior learning has no effect on new learning. Learning to conjugate Latin verbs, for example, is not likely to have any effect on learning how to find the area of a rectangle.

humanistic approach

A teaching philosophy which assumes students will be highly motivated to learn when the learning material is personally meaningful, when they understand the reasons for their own behavior, and when they believe that the classroom environment supports their efforts to learn, even if they struggle.

Culture

A term that describes how a group of people perceives the world; formulates beliefs; evaluates objects, ideas, and experiences; and behaves. The concept typically includes ethnic group but can also encompass religious beliefs and socioeconomic status.

individualized education program (IEP)

A written statement that describes the educational program that has been designed to meet the child's unique needs.

Premack principle

AKA grandma's rule, requires work first, then chosen reward. E.g. eat your vegetables and then you can have dessert.

Response to Intervention (RTI)

An additional method of identifying students with learning problems (rather than a discrepancy between a student's IQ and her or his achievement). A way to determine how much students benefit from—or are responsive to—the instructional interventions they experience in the classroom. A second purpose was to help teachers document each instructional intervention with a student and how well that student responded to each intervention.

expectancy-value theory

An individual's level of motivation for a particular task is governed by that person's expectation of success and the value placed on that success.

Taxonomy

Categories arranged in hierarchical order. E.g. Domain, kingdom, phylum, class , order , family , genus and species .

Cultural pluralism

As opposed to the idea of a melting pot, this view assumes that societies should maintain different cultures, that every culture within a society should be respected, and that individuals have the right to participate in society without giving up cultural identity

Skinner's approach to instruction

Be clear about what is to be taught. Teach first things first. Present subsequent material in small, logical steps. Allow students to learn at their own rate.

Triadic reciprocal causation model

Behavior is the result of interactions among personal characteristics, behavior, and environmental factors.

gifted and talented children and youth

Children and youth who give evidence of high performance capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop such capabilities.

Well-structured problems

Clearly stated, known solution procedures; known evaluation standards. Math problems are good examples.

problem-based or project-based learning

Computer programs which typically provide students with story problems, laboratory problems, or investigation problems.

affective domain

Concentrates on attitudes and values. It consists of six hierarchically ordered levels. Receiving (attending). Willingness to receive or attend. Responding. Active participation indicating positive response or acceptance of an idea or policy. Valuing. Expressing a belief or attitude about the value or worth of something. Organization. Organizing various values into an internalized system. Characterization by a value or value complex. The value system becomes a way of life.

Attribution theory

Concerned with how and why ordinary people explain events as they do. Heider (1958) believed that people are naive psychologists trying to make sense of the social world. People tend to see cause and effect relationships, even where there is none!

shaping

Consists of the reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of desired responses. Actions that move progressively closer to the desired end behavior are reinforced. Actions that do not represent closer approximations of the end behavior are ignored. It is key to train animals to do tricks.

Constructivism

Creating a personal interpretation of external ideas and experiences. Humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas; when they construct an interpretation of how and why things are—by filtering new ideas and experiences through existing knowledge structures.

Learning disability

Disorders in basic processes (memory, auditory perception, and visual perception) that lead to learning problems (deficits in perception, attention, memory encoding and storage, and metacognition) not due to other causes such as visual or hearing impairments, motor disabilities, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, or economic, environmental, or cultural disadvantage.

social constructivism

Emphasizes the development of meaningful learning by focusing on cultural and social interactions. IOW, meaningful learning occurs when people are explicitly taught how to use the psychological tools of their culture (such as language, mathematics, and approaches to problem solving) and are then given the opportunity to use these tools in authentic, real-life activities to create a common, or shared, understanding of some phenomenon.

cognitive constructivism

Emphasizes the development of meaningful learning by focusing on the cognitive processes that take place within individuals. IOW, an individual's conception of the truth of some matter (for example, that both birds and airplanes can fly because they use the same aeronautical principles) is based on her ability, with guidance, to assimilate information effectively into existing schemes and develop new schemes and operations (the process Piaget called accommodation) in response to novel or discrepant ideas.

critical constructivism

Emphasizes the effects of teachers' assumptions about students from various racial, ethnic and SES backgrounds on students' knowledge construction. With the teacher's help, learners select and transform information, construct hypotheses, and make decisions.

psychomotor domain

Focuses on physical abilities and skills. 1.0 Perception. Using sense organs to obtain cues needed to guide motor activity. 2.0 Set. Being ready to perform a particular action. 3.0 Guided response. Performing under the guidance of a model. 4.0 Mechanism. Being able to perform a task habitually with some degree of confidence and proficiency. For example, demonstrating the ability to get the first serve in the service area 70 percent of the time. 5.0 Complex or overt response. Performing a task with a high degree of proficiency and skill. For example, typing all kinds of business letters and forms quickly with no errors. 6.0 Adaptation. Using previously learned skills to perform new but related tasks. For example, using skills developed while using a word processor to do desktop publishing. 7.0 Origination. Creating new performances after having developed skills. For example, creating a new form of modern dance.

High-road transfer

Formulate a rule from one task and apply to a related task.

extinction

Gradual weakening and disappearance of a response tendency because the response is no longer followed by reinforcement. To weaken a target behavior by ignoring it. I.e., a child crying, parents just let child cry and cry, eventually the crying will taper off.

Self-efficacy

How capable or prepared we believe we are for handling particular kinds of tasks.

Issues

Ill-structured problems that arouse strong feelings. These problems tend to divide people into opposing camps because of the emotions they arouse. And the primary goal, at least initially, is not to determine a course of action but to identify the most reasonable position. Examples are capital punishment, gun control, and nondenominational prayer in classrooms.

two-way bilingual programs

In this program, subject-matter instruction is provided in two languages to all students. This approach is typically used when English is the primary language of about half the students in a school and the other language (usually Spanish) is the primary language of the other half of the students.

negative reinforcement

Increasing the probability that a particular behavior will be repeated by removing an unwanted and aversive stimulus whenever a target behavior is exhibited. E.g. a driver uses a seat belt to stop the annoying sound.

inclusion

Keeping special education students in regular classrooms and bringing support services to the children rather than the other way around.

emotional disturbance (AKA behavior disorder)

Marked by poor relationships, inappropriate behavior, depression, fears. A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child's educational performance: An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers; Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

meaningful learning

Occurs when a learner encounters clear, logically organized material and consciously tries to relate the new material to ideas and experiences stored in long-term memory.

Self-regulated learning

Occurs when a person generates and controls thoughts, feelings, and actions in an effort to achieve a learning goal.

Externalizing students

Often aggressive, uncooperative, restless, and negativistic. They tend to lie and steal, defy teachers, and be hostile to authority figures. Sometimes they are cruel and malicious.

Robert Sternberg's Triarchic View: The Theory of Successful Intelligence

Practical ability involves applying knowledge to everyday situations, using knowledge and tools, and seeking relevance. Creative ability involves inventing, discovering, imagining, and supposing. Analytical ability involves breaking ideas and products into their component parts, making judgments, evaluating, comparing and contrasting, and critiquing. Intelligence should be viewed as a broad characteristic of people that is evidenced not only by how well they answer a particular set of test questions but also by how well they function in different settings.

Negative transfer

Previous learning interferes with later learning. I've learned to downhill ski, where one leans forward, but when learning to water ski, one leans backward.

Positive transfer

Previous learning makes later learning easier. I've learned to speak Spanish, so French should be easier to learn.

Far transfer

Previously learned knowledge and skills used much later on dissimilar tasks and under different conditions.

Near transfer

Previously learned knowledge and skills used relatively soon on highly similar task.

Low-road transfer

Previously learned skill automatically applied to similar current task. For example, a student who has mastered the skill of two-column addition and correctly completes three-column and four-column addition problems with no prompting or instruction.

maintenance programs

Programs in this approach try to maintain or improve students' native-language skills. Instruction in the students' native language continues for a significant time before transitioning to English.

transitional programs

Programs that this approach teach students wholly (in the case of non-English-proficient students) or partly (in the case of limited-English-proficient students) in their native language so as not to impede their academic progress, but only until they can function adequately in English. At that point, they are placed in regular classes, in which all of the instruction is in English.

General approach to problem-solving

Realize that a problem exists. Understand the nature of the problem. Compile relevant information. Formulate and carry out a solution. Evaluate the solution.

within-class ability grouping.

Refers to a teacher's practice of forming groups of students of similar ability within an individual class.

Variable ratio reinforcement schedule

Reinforcement after a different number of responses from one time to the next, according to a predetermined average. Because the occurrence of reinforcement is so unpredictable, learners tend to respond fairly rapidly for long periods of time. If you need proof, just watch people play the slot machines in gambling casinos.

Contingency contracting

Reinforcement supplied after student completes mutually agreed-on assignments. A more formal method of specifying desirable behaviors and consequent reinforcement.

Reflectivity and Impulsivity

Some students seem to be characteristically impulsive, whereas others are characteristically reflective. In problem-solving situations, the impulsive student collects less information, does so less systematically, and gives less thought to various solutions than do more reflective students. Reflective students, in contrast, prefer to spend more time collecting information (which means searching one's memory as well as external sources) and analyzing its relevance to the solution before offering a response.

cognitive domain

Stresses knowledge and intellectual skills. It consists of six hierarchically ordered levels of instructional outcomes: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

individualistic structures

Structures characterized by students working alone and earning rewards solely on the quality of their own efforts. The success or failure of other students is irrelevant. All that matters is whether the student meets the standards for a particular task.

competitive structures

Structures in which one's grade is determined by how well everyone else in the group performs. E.g. grading on the curve.

flipped classroom

Students do their basic reading and practice exercises at home and use class time to discuss concepts, solve problems, or work on projects.

Memory. Language use.

Tests that females generally score higher on than males.

Visual-spatial ability. Mathematical operations. College entrance.

Tests that males generally score higher on than females.

Self-control

The ability to control one's actions in the absence of external reinforcement of punishment. Or, behaving in ways that lead to the accomplishment of desirable goals and suppressing behaviors that are detrimental when no one is looking.

Raymond Nickerson's definition of intelligence

The ability to learn, to reason well, to solve novel problems, and to deal effectively with the challenges—often unpredictable—that confront one in daily life.

meaningful learning

The active creating of knowledge structures from personal experience.

Need for achievement

The desire to attain goals that require skilled performance. Individuals with high degrees of this quality have a stronger expectation of success than they do a fear of failure for most tasks and therefore anticipate a feeling of pride in accomplishment. They also prefer moderately challenging tasks. Individuals with a low degree of this quality avoid such tasks because their fear of failure greatly outweighs their expectation of success, and they therefore anticipate feelings of shame.

Field Dependence and Field Independence

The extent to which a person's perception and thinking about a particular piece of information are influenced by the surrounding context. Field dependent learners' perception is strongly influenced by such contextual factors as additional information and other people's behavior. Field independent learners are more successful in isolating target information despite the fact that it is embedded within a larger and more complex context. They're more influenced by their own knowledge base than by other people's behavior or the presence of other information.

Independent practice

The fifth component of direct instruction. When students can correctly solve at least 85 percent of the problems given to them during guided practice, they are deemed ready for this phase.

orientation

The first component of direct instruction. The teacher provides an overview of the lesson, explains why students need to learn the upcoming material, relates the new subject either to material learned during earlier lessons or to their life experience, and tells students what they will need to do to learn the material and what level of performance they will be expected to exhibit.

guided practice

The fourth component of direct instruction. Students work at their own desks on problems of the type explained and demonstrated by the teacher. The teacher circulates among the students, checking for and correcting any errors.

David Wechsler's Global Capacity View of Intelligence

The global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment. (Note that it is not just a measure of academic performance in academics).

Problem solving

The identification and application of knowledge and skills that result in goal attainment.

curiosity and dissatisfaction.

The keys to problem recognition, or problem finding as it is sometimes called, are:

Variable interval reinforcement schedule

The length of time between reinforcements is essentially random but averages out to a predetermined interval. Teachers who give surprise quizzes or call on students to answer oral questions on the average of once every third day are invoking a variable interval schedule.

Full inclusion

The practice of eliminating all pullout programs and special education teachers and of providing regular classroom teachers with training in teaching special-needs students so that they can teach these students in the regular classroom.

presentation

The second component of direct instruction. This phase initially involves explaining, illustrating, and demonstrating the new material. The last step of the presentation phase is to evaluate students' understanding. This is typically done through a question-and-answer session in which the questions call for specific answers, as well as explanations of how students formulated their answers.

generalization

The tendency for a learned behavior to occur in situations different from the one in which the behavior was learned. When an individual learns to make a particular response to a particular stimulus and then makes the same or a similar response in a slightly different situation.

discrimination

The tendency for a learned behavior to occur in situations that closely resemble the one in which the behavior was learned but not in situations that differ from it. When an individual begins to recognize the unique aspects of seemingly similar situations and thus responds differently.

structured practice

The third component of direct instruction. The teacher leads the entire class through each step in a problem or lesson so as to minimize incorrect responses.

Robert Sternberg's definition of wisdom

The use of one's abilities for the benefit of oneself and others by either adapting to one's environment, shaping it to better suit one's needs, or selecting a more compatible environment in which to function.

Ability grouping

The use of standardized mental ability or achievement tests to create groups of students who were considered very similar to each other in learning ability. At the middle and high school levels, the term tracking is typically used.

information-processing theory

Theory which seeks to explain how humans attend to, recognize, transform, store, and retrieve information; how people acquire new information, create and store mental representations of information, recall it from memory, and how what they already know guides and determines what and how they will learn.

Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory

There are multiple intelligences including logical-mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal (understanding of others), intrapersonal (understanding of self), and naturalist (the ability to notice the characteristics that distinguish one plant, mineral, or animal from another and to create useful classification schemes called taxonomies).

psychometric perspective

This approach views intelligence as the use of broad mental abilities to successfully respond to various types of test items.

Joplin Plan

This grouping plan assigns students to heterogeneous classes for most of the day but regroups them across grade levels for reading instruction.

concept mapping

This technique involves specifying the ideas that make up a topic and indicating with lines how they relate to one another. E.g. a flowchart.

Type I punishment (presentation punishment)

To weaken a behavior by presenting an averse stimulus after the behavior has occurred; when a negative contingency follows a behavior. E.g. spanking.

Type II punishment (time-out or removal punishment)

To weaken a behavior by removing a positive stimulus after the behavior has occurred; when a positive contingency is removed. E.g. an athlete is suspended from competition for an infraction.

Internalizing students

Typically shy, timid, anxious, and fearful. They are often depressed and lack self-confidence.

regrouping

Under this grouping plan, students are assigned to heterogeneous homeroom classes for most of the day, but are regrouped according to achievement level for one or more subjects.

Ill-structured problems

Vaguely stated, unclear solution procedures; vague evaluation standards. Examples are how to identify and reward good teachers, how to improve access to public buildings and facilities for persons with physical disabilities, and how to increase voter turnout for elections.

guided learning environments

Virtual environments where teachers help students set goals, ask questions, encourage discussions, and provide models of problem-solving processes.

between-class ability grouping.

When a school or teacher groups students "based on their ability or achievement," the school is practicing this type of ability grouping. The goal of type of grouping is for each class to be made up of students who are homogeneous in standardized intelligence or achievement test scores.

Response cost

With this procedure, a certain amount of positive reinforcement (for example, 5 percent of previously earned tokens) is withdrawn every time a child makes an undesired response.

Fixed ratio reinforcement schedule

Within this schedule, reinforcement is provided whenever a predetermined number of responses are made. These schedules tend to produce high response rates because the faster the learner responds, the sooner the reinforcement is delivered.

Fixed interval reinforcement schedule

occur in education when teachers schedule exams or projects at regular intervals. The grade or score is considered to be a reinforcer. As you are certainly aware, it is not unusual to see little studying or progress occur during the early part of the interval. However, several days before an exam or due date, the pace quickens considerably.

positive reinforcement

presenting a stimulus (called a positive reinforcer) immediately after the behavior has occurred. Praise, recognition, and the opportunity for free play are positive reinforcers for many (but not all) students.

Key concepts of constructivism

prior knowledge, multiple perspectives, self-regulation, and authentic learning.

Time out

weaken a target behavior by temporarily removing a positive reinforcer after the behavior occurs