Ch. 7 Student Development and the Learning Process: Terms to Know Flashcards
Accommodation
Responding to a new event or object by changing an existing scheme or creating a new scheme.
Assimilation
Responding to a new event or object that is consistent with an existing scheme.
Classical Conditioning
Much like Operant Conditioning.
A process of behavior modification by which a person comes to respond in the desired manner to what was once a neutral stimulus. The neutral stimulus has been repeatedly presented along with an unconditioned stimulus that eventually elicits the desired response.
Example: teacher creates a positive, supportive environment that eventually conditions a student with anxiety or fears about speaking in public to find this experience enjoyable.
Conservation
Knowing that a number or amount stays the same even when rearranged or presented in a different shape.
Constructivism
A philosophy of learning based on the premise that people construct their own understanding of the world they live in through reflection on experiences.
Convergent Thinking
A process of gathering several pieces of information together to solve a problem.
Creativity
New and original behavior that creates a culturally appropriate product.
Declarative, Procedural, and Conditioned Knowledge
Declarative (knowledge of what is)
Procedural (knowledge of how to)
Conditional (knowledge of when again)
A teacher can use these types of knowledge to develop lesson plans that explicitly help students know what they are learning (declarative knowledge), how to complete the thinking procedure or to acquire the content (procedural knowledge), and when students can transfer or use this new knowledge in another situation or experience (conditional knowledge).
Discovery Learning
Teaching methods that enable students to discover information by themselves or in groups.
Jerome Bruner
Disequilibrium
One’s inability to explain new events based on existing schemes, which is usually accompanied by discomfort.
Disposition
A person’s natural tendency to approach learning or problem solving in certain ways.
Important to consider when planning or revising lessons to help students succeed in complex or challenging learning tasks.
Distributed Cognition
A process in which two or more learners share their thinking as they work together to solve a problem.
Divergent Thinking
The process of mentally taking a single idea and expanding it in several directions.
Equilibration
Movement from equilibrium to disequilibrium and then back to equilibrium again.
Equilibrium
One’s ability to explain new events based on existing schemes.
Long-Term Memory
The part of memory that holds sills and knowledge for a long time.
Metacognition
A person’s ability to think about his or her own thinking. A student who demonstrates metacognition is able to explain his or her own thinking and describe which strategies he or she uses to read or to solve a problem.
Operant Conditioning
B. F. Skinner
the learner modifies his or her own behavior based on the association of the behavior with a stimulus. For example, when a teacher sets up a system of punishments and reinforcements for classroom behaviors.
Problem Solving
To use existing knowledge or kills to solve problems.
Readiness to Learn
A context within which a student’s more basic needs (such as sleep, safety, and love) are met and the student is cognitively ready for developmentally appropriate problem solving and learning.
Response
a specific behavior that a person demonstrates.
Scaffolding
Instructional supports provided to a student by an adult or a more capable peer in a learning situation. The more capable a student becomes with a certain skill or concept, the less instructional scaffolding the adult or peer needs to provide.
Schema
A concept in the mind about events, scenarios, actions, or objects that have been acquired from past experience. The mind loves organization and must find previous events or experiences with which to associate the information, or the information may not be learned.
Self-Efficacy
a belief that one is capable.
self-regulation
the process of taking control of one’s own earning or behavior.
stimulus (stimuli)
a specific object or event that influences (positively or negatively) a person’s learning or behavior.
transfer
the ability to apply a lesson learned in one situation to a new situation. Positive transfer occurs when something is learned at one point that facilitates learning or performance in another situation. Negative transfer occurs when something learned interferes with the learning or performance in another situation.
working memory
the part of memory that holds and actively processes a limited amount of information for a sort amount of time.
zone of proximal development
Lev Vygotsky
A key concept in Vygotsky’s theory of learning. The zone of proximal development suggests that students learn best in a social context in which a more-able adult or peer teaches the student something he or she could not learn on his or her own.
