PPR Flash Cards

A ninth-grade social studies teacher is planning an instructional unit on the separation of powers in the United States government. With the different levels of cognitive development in a ninth-grade class, what is the teacher's best strategy to convey the instruction?

Use hands-on activities with examples from the students' lives to convey the abstract concept.

A teacher plays an excerpt from an audiobook for her English Language Arts class. The excerpt begins with the following: "The trees were swinging uncontrollably outside Ben's window as he lay in bed. He was just about to close his eyes when a bolt of light lit up the sky." In order to implicitly understand that a thunderstorm is keeping Ben awake, an English-language learner should have at least which of the following listening proficiency levels?

Advanced

Which of the following would most help students maintain organization through a long research project?

Allow students to create and have access to a computer folder to store and maintain their research notes and outlines.

Mr. Jones assigns a new project to his students. After reviewing the project requirements, he hands out the grading rubric and explains what is expected from each project activity and how they will be graded. The use of the rubric best reflects which educational principle?

Assessments should be objective.

Which of the following is the best strategy for a teacher to develop positive relationships with the students' parents/guardians?

Clearly outline the expectations and requirements for the teacher, the student, and the parent/guardian at the beginning of the year.

A government teacher is concerned that several seniors are not completing their homework assignments or performing well on assessments. In the teacher's conference with Paul about his grades, Paul explains that he works two part-time jobs to help support his recently-unemployed mother and his siblings. Because he is taking a full course load in order to graduate, he has no time during the school day to complete his assignments. Which of the following ideas does this situation present for the teacher?

Complex home and community factors may have a negative effect on students' learning.

At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Gladwell is informed she will have three English language learners in her class. She is excited about the opportunity and wants to help them acquire the English language by creating a productive linguistic environment in the class. Which of the following would be the best strategy for creating and promoting a productive linguistic environment?

Create oral activities that allow students and the teacher to become more familiar with each other's background.

Mrs. Fields wants her kindergarten class to engage independently in educational activities. Mrs. Fields can best achieve this goal by which of the following approaches?

Designate a time each day for students to work independently in free-choice activities, while she ensures that the most common materials are available to all students.

Mrs. Brooks notices that many of her students are not applying a recently-taught process during their homework assignments. To ensure the students understand the process, Mrs. Brooks decides to reteach the process first thing in the morning. Which of the following instructional strategies should Mrs. Brooks implement in the reteaching of the concept?

Discuss and demonstrate how the process applies to the principles of the concept.

Mr. Brown's economics students often reply to his questions with short answers that do not demonstrate higher-order thinking skills. In evaluating the students' responses, which of the following questions should Mr. Brown first ask himself?

Do my questions ask for factual information that does not require the use of higher-order thinking?

Johnny is a first-grade student who is frequently in physical altercations with other students and has difficulty maintaining attention during classroom activities. Which of the following actions by Johnny's teacher would be the most appropriate first response to Johnny's behavior?

Document Johnny's behavior and contact Johnny's parents to set up a parent-teacher conference to discuss Johnny's behavior in the classroom and at home.

To support an instructional unit in mathematics, a second-grade teacher plans to set up activity centers with manipulatives in the classroom. What is the main consideration of the teacher in setting up the centers?

Each activity center should support a specific skill or set of objectives related to the unit.

Which of the following is the most important reason for a third-grade teacher to incorporate group activities into classroom instruction?

Group activities develop a cooperative learning environment and encourage students to develop responsible, positive attitudes towards working with peers.

Maria, an English language learner, tells the teacher she is concerned the class will not understand her presentation because of her inability to pronounce words perfectly. Which of the following would be the most appropriate recommendation for the teacher to make?

Have Maria write out notes that indicate the correct pronunciation of the words.

Many of Mr. Sims's senior government class students walk into the classroom debating the merits of a new piece of legislation passed by Congress. Mr. Sims had planned to discuss the powers of Congress granted by the Constitution. With the students' current focus, which of the following is the best response of Mr. Sims?

Have the class debate on whether Congress has the power to pass the legislation under the Constitution.

A sixth-grade mathematics teacher has created a math module where students listen to auditory prompts and work out the mathematical solutions. One of the students is hearing-impaired and the teacher schedules a meeting with the special education teacher to discuss how the student can participate. What would be the most appropriate request for the mathematics teacher to make of the special education teacher?

Help arrange resources in the classroom prior to the module to maximize participation for the hearing-impaired student.

With direct teaching and guidelines on the group process, the fourth-grade students are divided into groups to write a story about an experience of a frightening storm. Each student is assigned a part of the narrative to write within their group, after the group agrees on the type of storm they will write about. They later share the group stories with their classmates. The teacher encountered one stubborn student and several challenges with the group progress, but all of the groups completed the task successfully with teacher facilitation. In order to improve future small group activities, what teacher strategy should be used?

Help the students evaluate their group's performance and generate guidelines for future group work.

A math teacher wants to introduce a lesson on the use of decimals and fractions. Which of the following strategies is most likely to increase the students' understanding of the concepts?

Highlight examples of decimal and fraction use from the students' lives.

Maria is a kindergarten student who likes to sit next to other students and perform similar activities. The teacher wants to help Maria transition into the next stage of play development. Which of the following would be the best strategy to facilitate the transition?

Introduce an activity that incorporates all students, but does not require them to work or collaborate.

After completing the classroom constitution, Ms. Gray sends a copy home to the parents or guardians of each student. Why does she do this?

It allows teachers and families to be consistent and work together to promote positive behaviors.

Maria, a third-grade student, is making a picture book in Word to illustrate a reading project. The student asks the teacher if she can take pictures from the Internet and put them in her book. The teacher agrees, but only if the student will identify the website from which the pictures came. Of the following, which is the most important reason to ask the student to do this?

It communicates to the student the importance of proper citation for the sources of the student's work.

A mentor advised a beginning teacher to plan an entire unit before the beginning of instruction. The unit plan includes objectives, activities, modifications, and assessments. What is the best instructional reason for this advice?

It ensures that the content and learning activities are sequenced in a logical and coherent manner.

Ms. Smith is a reading specialist for Hendricks Middle School. During the first week of school, she is assigned thirteen students who need assistance with their literacy development. Which of the following would be the best first step in developing a positive relationship with the students?

Meet with the students to introduce herself and discuss, in an informal manner, their perceptions towards school and reading.

Some schools assign a new teacher with a mentor teacher for the first year at the school. Which of the following is not a responsibility of this mentor teacher?

Mentor teachers will create lessons for the new teacher to use in the classroom.

Ms. Drew is a math teacher in Houston. She is made aware that during the recent STAAR math testing examinations that another teacher allowed bulletin board material about types of shapes to remain visible during the examination. What is the most appropriate course of action for Ms. Drew to take?

Notify the campus administrator and the campus testing coordinator regarding the situation.

Miss Brown knows that being organized is not necessarily one of the attributes of many sixth-grade students. She hopes to help her students become more organized than her past students were. Which of the following would be the best strategy for helping her students plan for organization this coming year?

Plan with team members for unified instruction and the use of a rubric concerning what it means to be organized in a classroom setting. This will provide a rationale for both students and parents on the required supplies and how they will be used.

Which of the following would be the most appropriate adjustment to make for a test given to an English language learner?

Provide a glossary of terms found on the test.

A science teacher plans to assign his class of students with varying academic needs a major research project. He wants the project to be a positive experience for all students, especially the lower achieving students. Which of the following approaches would be most beneficial for the students?

Provide assistance to the students in planning the project and breaking the project into smaller sub-tasks to help the students manage and accomplish each task.

Mrs. Hansard is a science teacher who wants to recognize student performance and participation in the science fair. One of the ways she wishes to accomplish this is by posting pictures of the students next to their projects on the school website. Which of the following would be the most appropriate way for Mrs. Hansard to proceed?

Review the school district's acceptable use policy.

Ms. Jay is a 6th-grade science teacher. She is teaching her students about animal habitats. They are observing images of different habitats and discussing the different components of a habitat when she notices that a few students in the back of the classroom are distracted by something outside the window. Ms. Jay looks out the window and finds that they are watching three squirrels chase one another around the schoolyard. Veering from her planned lesson, Ms. Jay instructs the class to close their notebooks and follow her outside. She proceeds to the schoolyard, where she leads students in a hunt to find the squirrel's habitat, a leaf nest that she had seen weeks ago up in the tree. This prompts many questions related to squirrels and their characteristics. What does Ms. Jay do to effectively handle the distracted students?

She adapts instruction to meet student interest.

In an attempt to keep parents abreast of student participation and the responsible use of time, grades, discipline concerns, etc., a new teacher, Mrs. Parker, plans to communicate with timely reports. Which of the following would be the most effective way of accomplishing this goal?

She emails individual grade reports addressing these categories for each student halfway through the required grading and communication period.

A high school Spanish teacher is planning a research activity to support learning about the Spanish culture. The activity requires students to collect various types of information from the Internet and other electronic sources in order to create multimedia presentations for their classmates. Although the classroom has limited technology available and some students have a limited access to technology, what is the best way for the teacher to address these needs?

Structure small groups to give all students access to technology and to collaborate on tasks in the process.

An English teacher is assessing the effectiveness of a class discussion on a recent reading topic. Of the following features, which should be cause for the most concern?

Students were not responding to other students' comments but rather repeating their own.

Mr. Sandberg's students are frustrated because they all performed well on the homework assignments, but the large majority of them failed the most recent exam. In reviewing the test questions, the students noticed they were much more complex than the homework questions. The students approach Mr. Sandberg with their concern that the test has questions they were not prepared to answer. Which of the following best describes the students' concern about the assessment?

The assessment does not have content validity.

The physical development of a child can be affected by many factors. Which of the descriptions below can best be explained by poor nutrition?

The child is small for her age and is picked on regularly.

Which of the following factors is likely to have the most positive effect on student learning in a middle school classroom?

The methods in which the teacher demonstrates investment in students' learning and growth.

During the units and most of the lessons, a teacher provides students the time to reflect on and assess what they have learned. What is the best reason for this instructional strategy?

The students' learning is reinforced, and teachers receive information on student learning.

Effective teachers constantly strive for quality communication with both students and their parent(s) or guardian(s). An eighth-grade science teacher, Mrs. Davis, would like to have a positive educational partnership with the families of each of her students. Which of the following would best encourage the parents to enter into such a partnership at the beginning of the school year?

The teacher sends home her expectations, discipline and homework policies, and project requirements for the first six weeks.

In explaining a group problem-solving task, the teacher should always be sure to motivate and encourage students to be risk takers and use their creative thinking abilities. Which of the following lesson elements would be the most effective in achieving this goal?

The teacher states that in this scenario, there may be many good answers. There would not be one specific correct answer, but each group's creative response to the scenario must be grounded in facts as well as evaluated with the rubric by the whole team.

Which of the following is a skill only possible during Piaget's formal operations phase?

Think abstractly and use deductive logic.

A teacher wants to ensure the upcoming instructional unit she has planned will be meaningful and engaging for the students. Which of the following strategies would be most effective in achieving this goal?

Work with students to create questions to help guide their exploration during the unit.

If a teacher notices symptoms of drug abuse by a student, what is the best approach to the situation?

Work with the school counselor and other appropriate school staff to help the student identify the problem and help create solutions to address the issue.

Ms. Peterson is a middle school English teacher who uses an online interactive reading log with her students. In each log entry, students record how many pages they have read as well as their thoughts on the novel they are reading. At the end of the week, each student posts an entry on the class website to share with other students and receive feedback in the comment section. Ms. Peterson hopes the class website serves as a way to connect her students to each other digitally even when they are not at school. Ms. Peterson has learned three of her students do not have computers with Internet at home, making it impossible for them to complete their daily interactive reading logs. In order to provide this group of students with the same learning opportunities as the others in the class, Ms. Peterson should:

allow time in the schedule for each of these students to use the classroom computers.

Which of the following capabilities best describes a child's cognitive development at the beginning of the concrete operational stage?

can logically think through a series of actions

Mrs. Billups' first-grade class uses the computer lab twice a week. The most important educational principle to be followed in computer skills instruction is that:

computer skills should be taught in the context of the current instructional concepts.

Mr. Lancaster's sixth-grade classroom includes students with disabilities who have to spend time in the school's resource room. In planning instruction for his class, it is important for Mr. Lancaster to ensure that the students with disabilities:f

do not feel as though they are being separated from their classroom peers.

A virus is most likely to enter the school's network through a(n)

email attachment.

Two social studies teachers are working together to create unit tests. To be successful, they must ensure that their tests:

include identified learning goals and critical thinking skills which students have previously been taught.

Which of the following is not a useful method for motivating students?

offering intrinsic rewards for completing work

How can the teacher best adjust the instruction to meet the needs of the English-language learners (ELLs) at the beginning level of proficiency who are in the class?

pre-define and label the parts of the room and unfamiliar vocabulary

A teacher has introduced a research project. One resource the teacher will require the students to use is a website. Which of the following activities would best help students differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information?

reading, identifying, and highlighting information in articles that contain pertinent information to the subject being researched

Emerson Elementary is having all parents of third-grade students schedule a parent-teacher conference to discuss their students' results in a recent statewide assessment. During the conferences, the primary goal of each teacher should be:

to explain each student's assessment results and in which areas the student demonstrates strengths and which areas the student demonstrates a weakness.

To best meet the students' needs and drive instruction, what should the teacher do to start the lesson?

use an anticipation guide to activate prior knowledge

Students in Mr. Blake's social studies class are finishing their final project with an oral presentation to their classmates. Which of the following would result in the most objective and reliable assessment of the students' presentations?

using a pre-established rubric to assess the students' presentations

Mrs. Holm, an eleventh-grade math teacher, has students in her class who vary in their previous experience with the subject matter and current level of knowledge in mathematics. The teacher can best create a positive learning environment for each student by using assessments:

where progress from assessment to assessment is taken into account in the calculation of the grades.

A science class has just completed an instructional unit about the immune system and how it fights off infection and disease. Which of the following student activities would demonstrate the highest level of critical thinking?

writing a short story about the typical day of a white blood cell from the perspective of a white blood cell

What is the greatest benefit of teachers collaborating to share various instructional strategies that have been demonstrated to be effective for various learning styles and abilities?

It provides teachers with additional instructional strategies to accommodate for different learning styles.

Mr. Oden wants to establish and successfully implement classroom behavioral standards to create a positive classroom environment. Which of the following guidelines would be the best way for Mr. Oden to accomplish this goal?

Limit the number of standards to no more than five that focus on creating a positive classroom environment.

Through a district's data management system, a high school math department has received aggregated and disaggregated state, local, group, and individual data from the previous year's statewide assessment in eighth-grade mathematics. An algebra teacher is concerned that his assigned upcoming students did not perform well as a whole. What is the best strategy for this teacher?

Plan to use additional assessments to determine which students and groups of students need additional instruction in specific skills.

The teacher and students work together to make a plan regarding the areas for improvement, agreeing to hold another class discussion in two weeks to determine if they have made any progress. At the end of the first grading period, the class continues to struggle in the current learning environment. Which of the following plans of action should the teacher implement to support this class going forward?

Provide direct instruction regarding how to participate in a collaborative group, and structure collaborative activities to require specific contributions from each member of the group.

Which of the following statements correctly describes how social development can impact learning?

Students who learn appropriate social skills tend to have great academic success and graduate from college at a higher rate.

An art teacher will have three students with severe disabilities joining his seventh-grade art class. The three students will be accompanied by an instructional aide during each class period. The best way to prepare new students to join the class is to:

collaborate with the instructional aide to determine any adjustments that may be needed in order for students to complete the current art project.

An elementary teacher is beginning a unit on citizenship and democratic responsibility. In order to promote successful learning, the teacher should begin with a lesson that:

connects previously learned concepts to the new material.

Ms. Peterson is a middle school English teacher who uses an online interactive reading log with her students. In each log entry, students record how many pages they have read as well as their thoughts on the novel they are reading. At the end of the week, each student posts an entry on the class website to share with other students and receive feedback in the comment section. Ms. Peterson hopes the class website serves as a way to connect her students to each other digitally even when they are not at school. Ms. Peterson is introducing the online interactive reading log assignment to her students for the first time. She wants to make sure students have a thorough understanding of how to complete the log entries. After giving a general introduction to the assignment, Ms. Peterson should take which of the following steps?

Use her computer projector to show the website and model how to complete an entry.

Ms. Nicholson is a new middle school language arts teacher who has received an email from a parent after the parent received their child's report card for the second grading period. Her son, a student with dyslexia and 504 accommodations, failed language arts. The student's grades have been consistently updated in the online gradebook, but the parents were surprised by their student's failing average and were unaware that he had been struggling. They have concerns about the implementation of his 504 accommodations and have requested a conference that includes both of the parents, the son, and the teacher. Noting the parent's frustration, Ms. Nichoslon meets with her mentor teacher to discuss the situation and ask for guidance on how to prepare for this upcoming meeting. As the teacher plans for the upcoming parent conference, she primarily focuses on a plan of action for the student in the upcoming unit as well as a plan for more frequent communication between herself and the student's parents. Which of the following should not be included in the meeting?

an explanation that the teacher does not generally contact parents about failing grades because the grades are accessible to parents through the online gradebook

Mrs. Murray, a seventh-grade English teacher, begins a writing lesson by asking her class, "Why is learning how to write important?" Students pair up and discuss the importance together. By beginning the assignment this way, it promotes participation of the students and reduces anxiety, primarily because:

an open-ended question allows students to discuss and have opinions, without the social pressure of being incorrect.

During a science lab, students are misusing materials. To determine if the behavior is content-related, the teacher should:

ask the students questions to connect the lab to concepts taught in class.

Ms. Nicholson is a new middle school language arts teacher who has received an email from a parent after the parent received their child's report card for the second grading period. Her son, a student with dyslexia and 504 accommodations, failed language arts. The student's grades have been consistently updated in the online gradebook, but the parents were surprised by their student's failing average and were unaware that he had been struggling. They have concerns about the implementation of his 504 accommodations and have requested a conference that includes both of the parents, the son, and the teacher. Noting the parent's frustration, Ms. Nichoslon meets with her mentor teacher to discuss the situation and ask for guidance on how to prepare for this upcoming meeting. Based on the description of the email from the parent, what preemptive action should the teacher have taken to avoid this issue?

contacting the parent directly by phone or email prior to the end of the grading period to provide information on the student's progress

A middle school science teacher has assigned students a project in which they will create a molecular model out of foam balls and long toothpicks. Which of the following steps should the teacher take in order to ensure student success on the project?

create a model as a class on a different molecule than the one covered in the project

Ms. Peterson is a middle school English teacher who uses an online interactive reading log with her students. In each log entry, students record how many pages they have read as well as their thoughts on the novel they are reading. At the end of the week, each student posts an entry on the class website to share with other students and receive feedback in the comment section. Ms. Peterson hopes the class website serves as a way to connect her students to each other digitally even when they are not at school. Ms. Peterson would like to increase student engagement with the interactive reading log. In order to encourage students to visit and interact with the site, she should:

create a section for students to post video commentary about their novels.

Mr. Omar wants to create a class-wide research project for his third-grade class about the school's water usage and how the school can conserve their resources. As he discusses the project, the students become excited about being able to research various aspects of the school. Mr. Omar decides to split the class into small groups, with each group coming up with ideas to implement the research. After the students organize their thoughts, Mr. Omar asks each group to consider how this project might help the school conserve energy and what benefits it might have on the community. Framing the research project around the issue of how it affects the students and their community is most likely to help them:

develop a sense of ownership and involvement in the local community and allow them to see how their efforts can benefit those around them.

A senior high school teacher notices a student's grades are falling. The teacher pulls the student aside after class to address the issue. The student informs the teacher that he plays in a band that performs at local restaurants, he has not had time to study, and he even might drop out of school because he is making a significant amount of money. The teacher is best able to discuss the situation if he realizes many high school students:

do not think about the long-term consequences of their actions.

Mr. Anderson notices two of his students are repeatedly arguing at lunch and in the hallway. He asks the two students to stay after school to discuss their conflict with each other. Mr. Anderson's primary priority should be to:

encourage the two students to find common ground and work together to settle their differences.

An elementary school teacher is preparing for an end of school year ceremony for his classroom. As part of the ceremony, each student will receive an award with a handwritten note from the teacher that describes one of the student's greatest achievements (academically, extra curricular, or socially) this school year. What is the main purpose for including this in the ceremony?

engaging all students in learning and development

The elementary and middle school English teachers in a school district meet at the beginning of the year to review the scope and sequence of English content being taught at each grade. The greatest benefit to this practice is that it:

ensures continuity of content between grade levels.

Mrs. White asks three students to stay after class to discuss their academic performance. The teacher begins by letting each student know they are not performing as well as in previous years and asks them to explain their current lack of effort in the class. However, when she asks the students why their work has suffered, each student only shrugs and mumbles a response. To end the meeting, she expresses her disappointment before dismissing the group. The teacher's handling of the situation is most likely to promote:

feelings of bitterness and resentment toward the teacher by the students.

Mrs. Garcia is a mathematics teacher at Lyndon Johnson Elementary. She makes an effort to be enthusiastic during class while giving clear, quick directions to students before and during the activities. This behavior most likely results in the students:

having high interest and motivation during class activities.

Ms. Newman, an eighth-grade teacher, has high expectations for her students' performance and hopes to increase their intrinsic motivation. Which of the following should Ms. Newman emphasize when setting expectations for her students?

helping students to recognize their strengths and find strategies to improve areas of difficulty

A third-grade teacher has identified the following learning objectives for her upcoming social studies unit: Objective 1: Students will remember the definition of different climates. Objective 2: Students will recognize and recall the names of common landforms. Objective 3: Students will recall examples of how humans modify the environment. Viewing the listed objectives collectively, what adjustments should be made to the plans for the unit?

include higher-order thinking skills

Students in a middle school class are completing a research paper. The teacher has allowed students to select topics of their choice and has given students dedicated class days to conduct research in the school library. After students completed their research, the teacher broke the students into two groups so that one half of the class would go to the computer lab with an instructional aide to type their papers while the other half received instruction in class. On the final day, the teacher accompanied small groups of students to the computer lab so that they had an opportunity to receive feedback on their drafts before submitting the assignment. What is the benefit of organizing the completion of the research paper in this manner?

recognizing students' differences in access to technology

Ms. Nicholson is a new middle school language arts teacher who has received an email from a parent after the parent received their child's report card for the second grading period. Her son, a student with dyslexia and 504 accommodations, failed language arts. The student's grades have been consistently updated in the online gradebook, but the parents were surprised by their student's failing average and were unaware that he had been struggling. They have concerns about the implementation of his 504 accommodations and have requested a conference that includes both of the parents, the son, and the teacher. Noting the parent's frustration, Ms. Nichoslon meets with her mentor teacher to discuss the situation and ask for guidance on how to prepare for this upcoming meeting. The parents have requested a meeting to include the parents, the student, and the teacher. Which of the following would be a reasonable adjustment for the people attending this meeting, based on the student's dyslexia diagnosis and use of a 504 plan?

include the 504 coordinator

The teacher and students work together to make a plan regarding the areas for improvement, agreeing to hold another class discussion in two weeks to determine if they have made any progress. Ms. Linder's response to the problems in her class best aligns with which behavior management theory?

interactionists

A 5th-grade science class is learning about inherited and learned traits. The teacher prepares an experiment in which students will observe mealworms and earthworms to determine what traits are inherited and what traits are learned. As part of the experiment, students will be divided into groups, given mealworms and earthworms and asked to make observations about their behaviors in response to different variables such as light, moisture, foods, change in temperature, etc. The students will use their observations to compare mealworms and earthworms and discuss which behaviors are instinctual. What type of learner would the described lesson most appeal to?

kinesthetic

Mr. Grant is a high school social studies teacher. A student's parent contacts him regarding the amount of homework Mr. Grant assigns. The parent feels the homework is too much and would like to schedule a parent-teacher conference to discuss the matter further. The best strategy for Mr. Grant to use at the beginning of the conference would be to:

listen to the parent's concern.

A sixth-grade student was very frustrated when he came into his math class. His math teacher asked what was wrong, and the student explained that during his first period art class, his teacher Mrs. O'Rourke had embarrassed him in front of his friends. What is the most appropriate way to respond to this situation?

listen to the student's side of the story without judgment and help him to look at the situation from Mrs. O'Rourke's perspective as well

The teacher and students work together to make a plan regarding the areas for improvement, agreeing to hold another class discussion in two weeks to determine if they have made any progress. In order to support the students who are not participating or interacting with their other group members, the teacher plans a variety of icebreaker activities, games that facilitate teamwork, and low-pressure sharing opportunities. Based on these plans, which level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs does the teacher believe is not being met for some students in her class?

love/belonging

For homework, the teacher asks students to measure a room in their home and calculate the cost of painting and carpeting it. By connecting the lesson content to real-life, the teacher best demonstrates an understanding of how to:

motivate students to be more engaged in the learning process.

Mrs. Johnson notices one of her students, Bobby, is routinely absent from school and she is concerned because Bobby is falling behind in his coursework. One day after class, Mrs. Johnson asks Bobby to stay and discuss her concerns. As Bobby sits down, she notices he grimaces and shifts his weight. She also notices bruises on his wrist. When Mrs. Johnson questions Bobby about the bruises, he does not respond. At this time, another teacher interrupts to let Bobby know his father is in the office, ready to take him home. Bobby becomes visibly upset and begins to cry. According to Texas law, Mrs. Johnson must:

notify Child Protective Services and file a report about the incident.

A 5th-grade science class is learning about inherited and learned traits. The teacher prepares an experiment in which students will observe mealworms and earthworms to determine what traits are inherited and what traits are learned. As part of the experiment, students will be divided into groups, given mealworms and earthworms and asked to make observations about their behaviors in response to different variables such as light, moisture, foods, change in temperature, etc. The students will use their observations to compare mealworms and earthworms and discuss which behaviors are instinctual. Which of the following is an appropriate informal assessment that the teacher could fit into the lesson to ensure the students understand the concepts being tested in the experiment?

observing students and noting if they are experiencing any difficulty following the experiment procedures

A third-grade teacher sends a monthly newsletter and includes a note that students' reading benchmark data reports are now available and will be sent home the following week in students' folders. One of the parents replies and asks if they can be sent an electronic copy instead. What is the best way for the teacher to respond?

password protecting an electronic version of the student's report and sending it via email

During the first few weeks of school, Mrs. Hanson, a high school science teacher, works to ensure all the students know and follow the classroom rules, procedures, and routines. The most significant advantage to this practice is that it:

promotes the best use and efficiency of classroom time.

A fourth-grade teacher is introducing a new option for book reports. Students may write an email to the author detailing favorite aspects of the book and asking follow-up questions about the story line. The email must be sent from the school account for the student to receive credit. Which of the following goals is met through this use of technology?

providing an authentic context for developing written communication skills

In an elementary school classroom, which of the following routines for asking questions during individual work time is the most effective classroom management method that also promotes students' independence?

providing each student with a card on their desk that they can flip over to "red" to indicate that they need help but reminding them to keep working until the teacher checks in

A teacher can best help English language learners build their reading skills by using which of the following techniques?

providing students with appropriately leveled texts

A teacher asks several students to stay after class to discuss their academic performance. The teacher begins by letting each student know they are not performing as well as years past and she details the extent of the decline in their grades. She asks them to explain their current lack of effort in the class and why their work has suffered. Each student is reluctant to answer, so she states that she is disappointed with them and ends the meeting. During the meeting, the teacher acted inappropriately by:

revealing each student's grades to the group, violating the confidentiality between a student and the teacher.

The fourth grade team would like to plan an interdisciplinary unit themed around urban areas. Which of the following would be the most appropriate first step in planning?

reviewing relevant content standards for each subject area

A beginning teacher is struggling with classroom management. A few students consistently disrupt the learning process. What should the teacher do first?

seek advice from a mentor teacher

Mr. Branson, a sixth-grade science teacher, is planning an instructional unit on parts of the cell. He would like all of his students to be able to view multiple cell structures and observe the differences. The science lab is equipped with four microscopes and a few slides for the cells. Instead of taking his students to the science lab, Mr. Branson prepares a multimedia presentation and includes various pictures of the cell as seen under a microscope. Mr. Branson's multimedia presentation best demonstrates his understanding that:

teachers should make the most efficient use of classroom time and available resources.

A fourth-grade class is writing a compare/contrast essay on two unique animals of the students' choosing. Which of the following sources would be best for researching the assigned animals?

the National Geographic website

Which of the following developmental milestones is achieved during the late elementary years?

the ability to follow 3-to-5-step directions