PLT (K-12 Study Guide)

Schemas

A child's understanding of the world organized into groups of similar ideas or actions

Instructional goal

A desired long-term outcome of instruction.

Intelligence

Ability to modify and adjust behaviors to accomplish new tasks successfully; involves many different mental processes and may vary in nature depending on one's culture.

Internalized motivation

Adoption of others' priorities and values as one's own.

IRE cycle

Adult-child interaction marked by adult initiation (e.g., a question), child response, and adult evaluation.

Instructional objective

Also a desired outcome of a lesson or unit.

Learner-centered instruction

Approach to teaching in which instructional strategies are chosen largely on the basis of students' existing abilities, predispositions, and needs, as opposed to on the teacher's desires for instruction.

Discontinuous theories

Assume that stages are reached more abruptly, with each stage characterized by qualitative changes in behavior

Sensorimotor

Birth to age 2. Y

Least restrictive environment

Educational setting for special needs child that most closely resembles a regular school program and also meets child's special educational needs.

Cognitive development

Emphasize different approaches to studying a child's patterns of thinking and learning

Intelligence test

General measure of current cognitive functioning, used primarily to predict academic achievement over the short run.

Learned helplessness

General, fairly pervasive belief that one is incapable of accomplishing tasks and has little or no control over the environment.

Jean Piaget, Arnold Gesellschaft, Eric Erikson

Major theorist of cognitive development

Intrinsic motivation

Motivation resulting from personal characteristics/desires or inherent in the task being performed.

Principles of development

Physical, cognitive, and social emotional changes

Intrinsic reinforcer

Reinforcer provided by oneself or inherent in a task being performed.

IQ score

Score on an intelligence test, determined by comparing a student's performance on the test with the performance of others in the same age group. For most tests, it is a standard score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

Continuous theories

See development occurring as a constant and gradual process of building upon earlier skills and abilities

Principles of learning

Short term and long term changes in how information is received and stored

Constructivism

The idea that new knowledge is built on a foundation of what a person already knows

Nature vs Nurture

The issue of whether development is predetermined at birth by heredity and biological factors or whether experience and environmental factors are important