PLT Study Guide

as a technical term in animal psychology and related human psychology, means a condition of a human being or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance to which it has been subjected.

is commonly defined as the belief in one's capabilities to achieve a goal or an outcome. Students with a strong sense of efficacy are more likely to challenge themselves with difficult tasks and be intrinsically motivated. These students will put forth a high degree of effort in order to meet their commitments, and attribute failure to things which are in their control, rather than blaming external factors. Self-efficacious students also recover quickly from setbacks, and ultimately are likely to achieve their personal goals. Students with low self-efficacy, on the other hand, believe they cannot be successful and thus are less likely to make a concerted, extended effort and may consider challenging tasks as threats that are to be avoided. Thus, students with poor self-efficacy have low aspirations which may result in disappointing academic

the desired behavior is reinforced every single time it occurs. Generally, this schedule is best used during the initial stages of learning in order to create a strong association between the behavior and the response. Once the response if firmly attached, reinforcement is usually switched to a partial reinforcement schedule.

the response is reinforced only part of the time. Learned behaviors are acquired more slowly with partial reinforcement, but the response is more resistant to extinction. There are four schedules of partial reinforcement:

is when rules, rewards or personal boundaries are handed out or enforced inconsistently and occasionally. This usually encourages another person to keep pushing until they get what they want from you without changing their own behavior.

An open-ended problem-solving task. Is the process of creating something to fill a need.

Most young children perceive words as whole, indivisible entities. As children develop, they acquire the understanding that words are made up of smaller units called syllables, and eventually that syllables are composed of even smaller units called phonemes. Once children are aware of the nature of words and phonemes and how to break words apart into those corresponding sounds, they are usually ready to learn to read. Until they have reached this step, it is difficult for children to make the connection between the written letters of the alphabet and spoken sounds.

Reading and writing instruction that formally associates sounds with letters of the alphabet. Beginning readers are urged to \"sound out\" a word by saying the sound of each letter in an unfamiliar word, then blending individual sounds to deduce the written word.

An activity created by the teacher to give students practice with language usage. The teacher selects a passage of text, marks out some of the words, then rewrites the text with blank lines where the marked out words were. The result is a \"fill in the blank\" that should be enjoyable for the student while at the same time giving the teacher information about the student's language skills.

Any of several forms of graphical organizers which allows learners to perceive relationships between concepts through diagramming keywords representing those concepts. Originally developed by Joseph Novak in the 1960's.

Teacher-centered instruction which includes lecture, presentation, and recitation.

Objectives for learning are established and communicated to students. Students progress at own speed and continue to work until their performance indicates they have mastered each set of objectives. (see criterion-referenced assessment)

An end-of-class reflection in which students write briefly to answer the questions: \"What did you learn today? and \"What questions do you still have?\"

Any of several techniques or devices used to help remember or memorize names or concepts.

are visual frameworks to help the learner make connections between concepts

Any graphical aids used in presentations or to clarify or improve writing.

methods shift the focus of activity from the teacher to the learners. These methods include active learning, in which students solve problems, answer questions, formulate questions of their own, discuss, explain, debate, or brainstorm during class;

students work in teams on problems and projects under conditions that assure both positive interdependence and individual accountability;

in which students are first presented with challenges (questions or problems) and learn the course material in the context of addressing the challenges

A system in which students solve problems or answer questions by forming tentative answers (hypotheses), then collecting and analyzing data to provide evidence for or against their hypotheses.

students share knowledge with other students through a variety of structures. Cooperative Learning, as a phrase, originated in the 1960's with the work of David and Roger Johnson. True cooperative learning includes five essential elements: positive interdependence, face-to-face interactions, individual accountability, some structured activity, and team-building (group processing) skills. Similar to the \"Social Learning Model.\"

is sometimes confused with skill development. * A concept is a mental representation, image or idea of tangible and concrete objects (e.g., a chair, a dog) and intangible ideas and feelings (e.g., colors, emotions). * A skill is that ability to do something (e.g., tying a shoe, using vision to find an object).Concept

relate to objects or things that are tangible (e.g., a car, a chair).

relate to an action, color, position, or something that can be demonstrated but not held in one's hand (e.g., jumping, behind, red).

include feelings (e.g., love, nervousness).Abs

is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or \"standard\", manner.- designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent[1] and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.[2]

is a test of developed skill or knowledge.

designed to assess your logical reasoning or thinking performance. They consist of multiple choice questions and are administered under exam conditions. They are strictly timed and a typical test might allow 30 minutes for 30 or so questions. Your test result will be compared to that of a control group so that judgments can be made about your abilities.

to gather a demonstration of the scope of knowledge a student has on a subject rather than simply testing the accuracy of their response on a selection of questions.

A test or other type of assessment designed to provide a measure of performance that is interpretable in terms of a clearly defined and delimited domain of learning tasks.\"