Satiation:
Requiring a person to repeat problem behaviour
past the point of interest or motivation.
Scaffolding:
Support for learning
and problem solving. The support could be clues, reminders, encouragement, breaking
the problem down into steps, providing an example, or anything else that allows
the student to grow in independence as a learner.
Schema-Driven Problem Solving:
Recognizing a problem as a "disguised" version of an old problem for which one
already has a solution.
Schema(s):
A basic structure for organizing information;
concept.
Schemes:
Mental systems or categories of perception and experience.
Scoring Rubrics:
Rules that are used to determine the quality of a student performance.
Script:
Schema or expected plan for the sequence of steps in a common event
such as buying groceries or ordering take-out pizza.
Scripted Cooperation:
A
learning strategy in which two students take turns summarizing material and
criticizing the summaries.
Seatwork:
Independent classroom work.
Self-Actualization:
Fulfilling one's potential.
Self-Concept:
Our perceptions about ourselves.
Self-Determination:
The need to experience choice and control in what we do and how we do it.
Self-Efficacy:
A person's sense of being able to deal effectively with a particular task.
Self-Esteem:
The value each of us places on our own characteristics, abilities, and behaviour.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
A groundless expectation that is confirmed because
it has been expected.
Self-Instruction:
Talking oneself through the steps of
a task.
Self-Management:
Use of behavioural learning principles to change your
own behaviour.
Self-Regulated Learners:
Learners who have a combination of academic
learning skills and self-control that makes learning easier; they have the skill
and the will to learn.
Self-Reinforcement:
Providing yourself with positive
consequences, contingent on accomplishing particular behaviour.
Semantic Memory:
Memory for meaning.
Semiotic Function:
The ability to use symbols-language,
pictures, signs, or gestures-to represent actions or objects mentally.
Sensorimotor:
Involving the senses and motor activity.
Sensory Memory:
System that holds sensory
information very briefly.
Serial-Position Effect:
The tendency to remember the
beginning and the end but not the middle of a list.
Seriation:
Arranging objects
in sequential order according to one aspect, such as size, weight, or volume.
Shaping:
Reinforcing each small step of progress toward a desired goal or behaviour.
Sign Language:
Communication system of hand movements that symbolize words and
concepts.
Situated Learning:
The idea that skills and knowledge are tied to
the situation in which they were learned, and are difficult to apply in new
settings.
Social Cognitive Theory:
Theory that adds concern with cognitive factors
such as beliefs, self-perceptions, and expectations to social learning theory.
Social Development:
Changes over time in the ways we relate to others. Social
Goals: A wide variety of needs and motives to be connected to others or part
of a group.
Social Isolation:
Removal of a disruptive student for 5 to 10 minutes.
Socialization:
The ways in which members of a society encourage positive development
for the immature individuals of the group.
Social Learning Theory:
Theory that
emphasizes learning through observation of others.
Social Negotiation:
Aspect
of learning process that relies on collaboration with others and respect for
different perspectives.
Social Persuasion:
A "pep talk" or specific performance
feedback-one source of self-efficacy.
Sociocultural Theory:
Emphasizes role
in development of cooperative dialogues between children and more knowledgeable
members of society. Children learn the culture of their community (ways of thinking
and behaving) through these interactions.
Sociocultural Views of Motivation:
Perspectives that emphasize participation, identities, and interpersonal relations
within communities of practice.
Socioeconomic Status (SES):
Relative standing
in the society based on income, power, background, and prestige.
Sociolinguistics:
The study of formal and informal rules for how, when, about what, to whom, and
how long to speak in conversations within cultural groups.
Spasticity:
Overly
tight or tense muscles, characteristic of some forms of cerebral palsy.
Speech
Impairment:
Inability to produce sounds effectively for speaking.
Speech Reading:
Using visual cues to understand language.
Spiral Curriculum:
Bruner's structure
for teaching that introduces the fundamental structure of all subjects early
in the school years, then revisits the subjects in more and more complex forms
over time.
Spread of Activation:
Retrieval of pieces of information based on
their relatedness to one another. Remembering one bit of information activates
(stimulates) recall of associated information.
Stand-Alone Thinking Skills Programs:
Programs that teach thinking skills directly without need for an extensive knowledge
of subject matter.
Standard Deviation:
Measure of how widely scores vary from
the mean.
Standard Error of Measurement:
A reflection of the degree of unreliability
estimated by the standard deviation of an average student's scores around that
average student's true score.
Standard Score:
Score based on the standard deviation.
Standardized Tests:
Tests given, usually to large numbers of students (district-wide,
provincially, or nationwide) under uniform conditions and scored according to
uniform procedures.
Stanine Scores:
Whole number scores from 1 to 9 where each
stanine represents a range of raw scores that correspond to one-ninth of scale.
Statistically Significant:
Not likely to be a chance occurrence. Stem: The question
part of a multiple-choice item.
Stereotype:
Schema that organizes knowledge
or perceptions about a category.
Stereotype Threat:
The extra emotional and
cognitive burden that your performance in an academic situation might confirm
a stereotype that others hold about you.
Stimulus:
Event that activates behaviour.
Stimulus Control:
Capacity for the presence or absence of antecedents to regulate
behaviour.
Stimulus Discrimination:
Responding differently to similar, but not
identical, stimuli.
Story Grammar:
Typical structure or organization for a category
of stories.
Stuttering:
Repetitions, prolongations, and hesitations that block
flow of speech.
Subjects:
People or animals studied.
Successive Approximations:
Small components that make up complex behaviour.
Summative Assessment:
Testing
that follows instruction and assesses achievement.
Sustaining Expectation Effect:
Student performance maintained at a certain level because teachers don't recognize
improvements.
Syntax:
The order of words in phrases or sentences.
T Score:
Standard
score with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10.
Tacit Knowledge:
Knowing
how rather than knowing that-knowledge that is more likely to be learned during
everyday life than through formal schooling.
Task Analysis:
System for breaking down a task hierarchically into basic skills
and sub-skills.
Task-Involved Learners:
Students who focus on mastering the
task or solving the problem.
Taxonomy:
Classification system.
Teaching Efficacy:
A teacher's belief that he or she can reach even the most difficult students
and help them learn.
Teaching Portfolio:
A depiction of you as a teacher, usually
including a curriculum vitae, statement of teaching philosophy, examples of
your teaching plans and activities, example assignments and tests, students'
work, and even videos or CD excerpts of teaching.
Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT):
Learning arrangement in which team members prepare cooperatively, then meet
comparable individuals of competing teams in a tournament game to win points
for their team.
Test Bias:
A potential problem with tests in which the content
or procedures of administering the test discriminate against a group of students
on the basis of gender, SES, race, ethnicity, etc.
Theory:
Integrated statement
of principles that attempts to explain a phenomenon and make predictions.
Time on Task:
Time spent actively engaged in the learning task at hand.
Time Out:
Technically, the removal of all reinforcement. In practice, isolation of a student
from the rest of the class for a brief time.
Token Reinforcement System:
System
in which tokens earned for academic work and positive classroom behaviour can
be exchanged for some desired reward.
Top-Down Processing:
Perceiving based
on the context and the patterns you expect to occur in that situation.
Tracking:
Assignment to different classes and academic experiences based on achievement.
Transfer:
Influence of previously learned material on new material.
Transition Programming:
Gradual preparation of exceptional students to move from high school
into further education or training, employment, or community involvement.
Triarchic Theory of Intelligence:
A three-part description of the mental abilities (thinking
processes, coping with new experiences, and adapting to context) that lead to
more or less intelligent behaviour.
True Score:
Hypothetical average of all
of an individual's scores if repeated testing under ideal conditions were possible.
Unconditioned Response (UR):
Naturally occurring emotional or physiological
response.
Unconditioned Stimulus (US):
Stimulus that automatically produces
an emotional or physiological response.
Undergeneralization:
Exclusion of some
true members from a category; limiting a concept.
Utility Value:
The contribution
of a task to meeting one's goals.
Validity:
Degree to which a test measures
what it is intended to measure.
Variability:
Degree of difference or deviation
from mean.
Verbalization:
Putting your problem-solving plan and its logic into
words.
Vicarious Experiences:
Accomplishments that are modelled by someone else.
Vicarious Reinforcement:
Increasing the chances that we will repeat a behaviour
by observing another person being reinforced for that behaviour.
Voicing Problems:
Inappropriate pitch, quality, loudness, or intonation.
VolitionWillpower:
self-discipline.
Whole Language Perspective:
A philosophical approach to teaching and learning
that stresses learning through authentic, real-life tasks. Emphasizes using
language to learn, integrating learning across skills and subjects, and respecting
the language abilities of student and teacher.
Within-Class Ability Grouping:
System of grouping in which students in a class are divided into two or three
groups based on ability in an attempt to accommodate student differences.
Withitness:
According to Jacob Kounin, awareness of everything happening in a classroom.
Work-Avoidant Learners:
Students who don't want to learn or to look smart, but
just want to avoid work.
Working-Backward Strategy:
Heuristic in which one starts
with the goal and moves backward to solve the problem.
Working Memory:
The information
that you are focusing on at a given moment.
z Score:
Standard score indicating
the number of standard deviations a raw score is above or below the mean.
Zone
of Proximal Development:
Phase at which a child can master a task if given appropriate
help and support.
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