EP 402 Key Terms

Chapter 2 Cognitive and language development

● Development: Changes that occur in all of us as we go through our lives.
● Physical Development: Changes in the size, shape, and functioning of our bodies and
why we can do different tasks as we age.
● Personal, Social, and Emotional Development: Changes in our personalities, the way
we interact with others, and the ability to manage feelings.
● Maturation: Genetically driven, age-related changes in individuals.
● Microsystem: Innermost level of Bronfenbrenner's biological model of human
development; the people and activities in our immediate surroundings.
● Mesosystem: The interactions among the elements in the microsystem. Healthy
development depends on how effectively the elements work together.
● Exosystem: Societal influences such as parents' jobs, schools, and workplace conditions
that influence the microsystem and mesosystem.
● Macrosystem: The culture in which a child develops, and it influences all of the other
systems.
● Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of human development: The levels of influence
the four development systems have on the growth of an individual.
● Neuroplasticity: The brain's ability to physically remodel itself in response to
experience.
● Neurons: 100-200 billion nerve cells that compose the human brain.
● Dendrites: Relatively short, branchlike structures that extend from the cell body and
receive messages from other neurons.
● Axons: Longer branches that also extend from the cell body and transmit messages.
● Synapses: Tiny spaces between neurons that allow messages to be transmitted from one
neuron to another.
● Myelination: First of two processes that occurs in the brain's development. Occurs when
cells grow around neurons to provide structural support and a fatty coating of myelin.
● Myelin sheath: Fatty coating of myelin which develops to insulate axons and enable
them to conduct electrical charges quickly and efficiently.
● Synaptic Pruning: Second of two processes that occurs in the brain's development. The
physical reorganization as the brain recognizes patterns in our environments.
● The Cerebral Cortex: Part of the brain that rests on its top and sides. Area where much
of human thinking occurs.
● Prefrontal Cortex: Located near the forehead. Area largely responsible for a range of
complex human activities.
● Equilibrium: State in which the cognitive order, balance, and predictability that we
described in our overview.
● Schemes: Mental operations that represent our understanding of the world in order to
make sense of our experiences and reach equilibrium.
● Assimilation: The process of using existing schemes to interpret new experiences.
● Accommodation: The process of changing our thinking to create new schemes or adjust
old ones when they can no longer explain new experiences.
● Social Experience: The process of interacting with other people.
● Stages of development: General patterns of thinking for children at different ages or
with different amounts of experience.
● Four stages of development: Sensorimotor (0-2), Preoperational (2-7), Concrete
Operational (7-11), Formal Operational (11-Adult)
● Object Permanence: Understanding that objects exist while out of sight.
● Conservation: The idea that the amount of some substance stays the same regardless of
its shape or number of pieces in which it is divided.
● Centration: Tendency to focus on the most perceptually obvious aspect of an object or
event and ignore other features.
● Transformation: The ability to mentally record the process of moving from one state to
another.
● Reversibility: The ability to mentally trace the process of moving from an existing state
back to a previous state.
● Egocentrism: Inability to see objects and events from others' perspectives.
● Classification: The process of grouping objects on the basis of common characteristics.
● Seriation: The ability to order objects according to increasing or decreasing length,
weight, or volume.
● Transitivity: The ability to infer a relationship between two objects based on their
relationship with a third.
● Neo-Piagetian Theories of Development: Basic insights from Pieget while focusing
more on the ways people process information to explain movement from one stage to the
next.
● Sociocultural Theory of Development: Emphasizes the role of social interaction,
language, and culture on the child's developing mind.
● Cognitive Tools: Used to understand the concepts and symbols together with real tools
that allow people to think, solve problems, and function in a culture.
● Internalization: The process through which learners incorporate external, society-based
ideas into internal cognitive structures.
● Private Speech: Self-talk that guides thinking and action.
● Zones of Proximal Development: Range of tasks that an individual cannot yet do alone
but can accomplish when assisted by others.
● Scaffolding: Assistance that helps children complete tasks they cannot accomplish
independently.
● Nativist Theory: Emphasizes heredity and suggests that all humans are genetically wired
to learn language.
● Language Acquisition Device (LAD): Innate, genetically controlled tool which
predisposes children to learn the rules governing language.
● Overgeneralization: Occurs when a child uses a word to refer to a broader class of
objects than is appropriate.
● Undergeneralization: Occurs when a child uses a word too narrowly.
● Semantics: Branch of linguistics that examines the meanings of words.
● Syntax: The rules we use to create meaningful sentences.
 Chapter 3 Personal, Social, and Moral Development
● Personality: Comprehensive term that describes our attitudinal, emotional, and
behavioral responses to experiences in our environment.
● Personality Development: Changes in the responses which impact personality.
● Extraversion: The extent to which individuals are socially outgoing and inclined.
● Agreeableness: The tendency of people to empathize and get along with others.
● Conscientiousness: The tendency of individuals to follow through on their commitments.
● Neuroticism: The tendency of people to be vulnerable to negative emotions and to view
the world as threatening.
● Temperament: Our relatively consistent inclinations to respond to events in the
environment.
● Parenting Styles: General patterns of interacting with and disciplining children.
● Authoritative Parents: High expectations. Firm, caring, and consistent.
● Authoritarian Parents: High expectations, but cold and unresponsive.
● Permissive Parents: Warm, but hold few expectations.
● Uninvolved parents: Few expectations and are cold, unresponsive.
● Emotions: Feelings that are often short-live, intense, and specific.
● Emotional Self-Regulation: Processes people use to influence personal emotions.
● Emotional Intelligence: Ability to perceive, understand, and manage emotions in
ourselves and others while enhancing cognition.
● Goodness to Fit: Our ability to adapt our work with our students in order to make them
more willing to respond.
● Identities: Self-constructed definitions of a person, their meaning, and desires.
● Self-Concepts: Cognitive assessments of physical, social, and academic competence, to
influence the way they respond to school and life in general.
● Sexual Identity: People's definitions of who they are with respect to gender orientation.
● Sexual Orientation: The gender to which an individual is romantically and sexually
attracted.
● Ethnic Identity: An individual's sense of belonging to an ethnic group.
● Self-Esteem / Self-Worth: Emotional reaction to, or an evaluation of, the self.
● Collective Self-Esteem: Individuals' perceptions of the relative worth of the groups to
which they belong.
● Social Development: The advances we make in our ability to interact and get along with
others.
● Social Cognition: The ability to use cues to understand social interactions.
● Social Referencing: People's ability to use vocal and nonverbal cues to evaluate
ambiguous events and regulate their behaviors accordingly.
● Perspective Taking: The ability to understand other people's thoughts, feelings, and
actions.
● Theory of Mind: Ability to attribute mental states such as intentions and emotions to
oneself to other persons.
● Social Problem Solving: The ability to resolve conflicts in ways that are beneficial to all
involved.
● Moral Development: The advances in people's conceptions of right and wrong, as well
as the development of prosocial traits such as honest and respect.
● Moral Domains: Basic principles of right, wrong, and justice.
● Conventional Domain: Addresses societal norms and ways of behaving in specific
situations.
● Personal Domain: Decisions that aren't socially regulated and don't harm or violate
other's rights.
● External Morality: Rules viewed as fixed, permanent, and enforced by authority figures.
● Autonomous Morality: Stage where individuals develop rational ideas of fairness and
see justice as a reciprocal process of treating others how they want to be treated.
● Moral Dilemmas: Ambiguous, conflicting situations that require a person to make a
moral decision.
● Preconventional Morality: Egocentric orientation that focuses on the consequences of
actions for the self.
● Punishment-Obedience: Making decisions based off getting caught and punished.
● Market Exchange: Reasoning that an act is morally justified if it results in a returned
favor.
● Conventional Level of Morality: Reasoning is linked to acceptance of society's concepts
of right and wrong to create an orderly world.
● Interpersonal Harmony: Decisions made based off loyalty, living up to the expectations
of others, and social conventions.
● Law and Order: Following laws and rules for their own sake.
● Preconventional / Principled Morality: Views moral issues in terms of abstract
principles of right and wrong.
● Social Contract: Decisions made based on socially agreed upon principles.
● Universal Principles: Individual's moral reasoning is based on abstract, general
principles that transcend society's laws.
● Shame: Painful emotion aroused when people recognize they have failed to act in ways
they believe are good.
● Guilt: Uncomfortable feelings people get when they know they've caused someone else's
distress.
● Empathy: Ability to experience the same emotion someone else is feeling.
● School Connectedness: Belief by students that adults and peers in the school care about
their learning and them as individuals.
● Instrumental Aggression: Action aimed a gaining an object or privilege. Most common.
● Physical Aggression: It describes itself.
● Relational Aggression: Intent to hurt someone through words/rumors.
● Proactive: Deliberately initiating aggressive attacks.
● Reactive: Aggressive behavior in response to frustration or perceived aggressive attack.
● Bullying: Peer Aggression which involves a systematic or repetitious abuse of power.
● Cyber bullying: Bullying through the internet.
 Chapter 6 Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Theory
● Behaviorism: A theory that explains learning in terms of observable behaviors and how
they're influenced by stimuli
● Learning: A relatively enduring change in observable behavior that occurs as a result of
experience
● Classical Conditioning: A component of behaviorism that explains how we learn
involuntary emotional or physiological responses that are similar to instinctive or
reflexive responses
● Unconditioned Stimulus: An object or event that causes an unconditioned response
● Unconditioned Response: The instinctive or reflexive (unlearned) physiological or
emotional response caused by the unconditioned stimulus
● Generalization: Occurs when stimuli similar to a conditioned stimulus elicit conditioned
responses by themselves
● Discrimination: The process of giving different responses to related but not identical
stimuli. Opposite of generalization.
● Extinction: Results when the conditioned stimulus occurs often enough in the absence of
the unconditioned stimulus that it no longer elicits the conditioned response
● Three guidelines to promote positive emotions in our students through classical
conditioning:
1) Consistently treat students with warmth and respect
2) Personalize our classrooms to create an emotionally secure environment
3) Require that students treat each other with courtesy and respect
● Operant Conditioning: Learning in terms of observable responses that change in
frequency or duration as the result of consequences
● Consequences: Events that occur following behaviors
● Reinforcer: A consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior recuring
● Reinforcement: The process of applying reinforcers to increase behavior
● Satiation: The process of using a reinforcer so frequently that it loses its ability to
strengthen behaviors
● Primary Reinforcers: Consequences that satisfy basic biological needs such as food,
water, air, sleep, and sex.
● Secondary Reinforcers: Consequences that become reinforcing over time through their
association with other reinforcers
● Positive Reinforcement: The process of increasing the frequency or duration of a
behavior as the result of presenting a reinforcer
● Types of Positive Reinforcers:
- Social Reinforcers (Comments, signs, or geaustures),
- Concrete Reinforcers (Objects that can be touched or held),
- Activity Reinforcers (Privileges or desired actions)
● Premack Principle: More-desired activity can serve as a positive reinforcer for a less-
desired activity
● Shaping: The process of reinforcing successive approximations of a behavior
● Reinforcement Schedules: Patterns in the frequency and predictability of reinforcers
● Continuous Schedule: Every desired behavior is reinforced
● Intermittent Schedule: Some, but not all, of the desired behaviors are reinforced
● Ratio Schedules: Type of intermittent schedule which depends on the number of
individuals
● Interval Schedules: Type of intermittent schedule which depends on time
● Types of Reinforcement Schedules:
- Continuous
- Fixed-Ratio
- Variable-Ratio
- Fixed-Interval
- Variable-Interval
● Negative Reinforcement: Process of increasing behavior by removing or avoiding an
aversive stimulus
● Punishers: Decreases the likelihood of the behavior recurring
● Punishment: The process of using punishers
● Presentation Punishment: Occurs when a learners behavior decreases as a result of
being presented with a punisher
● Removal Punishment: Occurs when a behavior decreases as a result of removing a
stimulus
● Desists: Verbal or nonverbal communications that teachers use to stop a behavior
● Response Cost: Involves the removal of reinforcers already given
● Nonexclusion Time-Out: Involves seating a student near the teacher or on the edge of
the classroom
● Antecedents: Stimuli that precede and induce behaviors
● Two most common types of antecedents: Environmental Conditions and Prompts &
Cues
● Guidelines to Using Behaviorism:
1) Use antecedents to elicit desired behaviors which can then be reinforced
2) Reinforce students for genuine accomplishments and good behavior
3) Use reinforcers and punishers appropriately to help maintain an orderly classroom
4) employ drill-and-practice technologies to help your students develop basic skills
● Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA): Process of systematically implementing the
principles of operant conditioning to improve students' behavior
● Steps in ABA:
1) Identify target behaviors
2) Establish a baseline for the target behaviors
3) Choose reinforcers and punishers
4) Measure Changes in the target behaviors
5) Gradually reduce the frequency of reinforcers as behavior improves
● Positive Behavior Support: The process of using interventions that replace problem
behaviors with others serving the same purpose for the student but are more appropriate
● Social Cognitive Theory: A theory of learning that focuses on changes in behavior,
thinking, and affect that result from observing others
● Similarities between Social Cognitive Theory and Behaviorism:
1) Focus on experience as an important cause of learning
2) Include the concepts of reinforcement and punishment in their explanations of learning
3) Emphasize that feedback is an important aspect of the learning process
● Reciprocal Causation: Suggesting that behavior, the environment, and personal factors
are interdependent.
● Modeling: A general term that refers to behavioral, cognitive, and affective changes
deriving from observing the actions of others
● Cognitive Modeling: Cognitive changes which occur in individuals when they observe
models articulate their thinking as they demonstrate skills
● Direct Modeling: An individual attempts to imitate the behavior or thinking of a live
model
● Symbolic Modeling: People imitate behaviors and thinking displayed by characters in
books, plays, movies, television, or the Internet.
● Synthesized Modeling: People combine behaviors observed in different acts
● Inhibition: A self-imposed restriction on our behavior, and observing a model and the
consequences of the model's behavior can either strengthen or weaken it
● Four Processes are involved in learning from models:
1) Attention
2) Retention
3) Reproduction
4) Motivation
● Vicarious Learning: Observing the consequence of another's decision and adjusting
your own behavior accordingly
● Self-Regulation: The ability to direct and control one's own actions, thoughts, and
emotions toward meeting goals
● Delay of Gratification: The ability to forgo an immediate pleasure or reward in order to
gain a more substantial one later
● Self-Regulated Learning: The process of setting personal goals, combined with the
motivation, thought processes, strategies, and behaviors that lead to reaching the goals
● Self-Regulated Learning Includes the Following Components:
1) Goal Setting
2) Self-Monitoring
3) Self-Assessment
4) Strategy Use
● Cognitive Behavior Modification: A procedure that promotes behavioral change and
self-regulation in students through self-talk and self-instruction. A tool to help develop
self-regulated learning
● Suggestions for applying cognitive theory to increase students' learning:
1) Capitalize on modeling
2) Use vicarious reinforcement and punishment as learning and management tools
3) Follow through on all aspects of instruction and classroom management
4) Promote self-regulation