PSYC 3400 Psych of Ed Final Exam Study Guide - Dr.

Falco

1. Learning Disabilities
a. Labeling:
i. labeling students is controversial because it can stigmatize and create
self-fulfilling prophecies, but it can also protect the child
ii. impairment: loss or abnormality in physical or psychological structure
or function
iii. disability: inability to do something specific
iv. handicap: disadvantage in certain situations; sometimes caused by a
disability
b. Person-First Language
i. emphasis on individual before the disability; “student with disability” not
“disabled student”
c. Identity-First Language
i. terms like “autistic” or “deaf” to describe a person; preferred by some people
with disabilities
d. Learned helplessness
i. expectation, based on previous experiences with lack of control, that all of one’s
efforts lead to failure
ii. teacher attributions affect teacher reactions, student attributions
- attributional retraining: reframing thinking about cause of challenges
- better to attribute failure/success to controllable factors (effort)
e. Effective intervention strategies for teachers
i. Three approaches to teaching (effective when used together)
1. Direct instruction: clear explanations/demonstrations of new material,
teaching in small steps with practice after each step, immediate feedback,
& teacher guidance/support
2. Peer tutoring: teachers train and monitor students who act as peer tutors
3. Strategy instruction: teachers should ask students to think and be aware
of their purpose for reading/asking questions that elicit awareness
ii. General strategies: For younger students: give students simple verbal
instructions, have students repeat directions back, give multiple examples, repeat
main points, allow more practice time. For older students: teach self-monitoring
strategies, note taking devices. CONNEXT NEW MATERIAL TO EXISTING
KNOWLEDGE

f. Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, ADHD, emotional disturbances, Autism Spectrum Disorder

(ASD)
i. Dyslexia: learning disability that makes reading/writing difficult from
structural/functional differences in left temporal lobes
 ii. Dyscalculia: learning disability that makes it difficult to understand numbers and
do math
iii. ADHD: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children/adults.
Persistent/ongoing pattern of inattention/hyperactivity-impulsivity that gets in the
way of daily life or typical development
1. Indicators include inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity
2. Students with ADHD have trouble task switching.
3. Symptoms before age 7
4. Boys with ADHD more active & disruptive, girls more withdrawn &
inattentive– this explains the gender diagnosing gap
5. Alternatives/additions to drugs are behavioral treatments like
contingency management, time-out, shaping, self-regulation, and
modeling
iv. Emotional Disturbances: inappropriate behaviors, unhappiness/depression,
fears/anxieties, & trouble with relationships
1. An inability to learn that can’t be explained by intellectual, sensory, or
health factors.
2. Inability to maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with
peers/teachers
3. Inappropriate behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances
4. General pervasive moods of unhappiness/depression
5. Tendency to develop physical symptoms of fears associates with
personal/school problems
v. Autism Spectrum Disorders: developmental disabilities significantly affecting
verbal/nonverbal communication & social interaction
1. Evident before age 3
2. Difficulty in social communications and repetitive/restrictive behaviors
3. Asperger syndrome- high functioning autism spectrum disorder

2. Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

a. Fluid Intelligence: mental efficiency; nonverbal abilities grounded in brain development.
i. Related to changes in brain volume, myelination, density of dopamine receptors,
or processing abilities
ii. Increases until late adolescence & declines with age. Sensitive to injuries &
diseases
b. Crystalized Intelligence: ability to apply culturally approved problem-solving methods
i. Increases throughout life because it includes learned skill & knowledge
* we develop our crystalized intelligence by investing fluid knowledge in solving problems

3. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

a. Logical-Mathematical: Sensitivity to, and capacity to discern, logical/numerical
patterns. Ability to handle long chains of reasoning. (Scientists, mathematician, engineer)
 b. Musical: Ability to appreciate/produce rhythm, tone, pitch, & timbre. Appreciation of
forms of musical expression (Composer, pianist)
c. Interpersonal: Ability to read moods/motivations of others. Ability to understand the
desires/needs of others/respond appropriately. (Therapist, salesperson, mediator)
d. Linguistic: Sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, & word meanings. Sensitivity to different
functions of language. (Poet, journalist, novelist)
e. Spatial: Ability to perceive the visual & spatial world accurately. Ability to perform
transformations on those perceptions. (Sculptor, Navigator, Artichect)
f. Intrapersonal: Knowledge of own own behavior. Access to own feelings (anyone with
detailed, accurate knowledge of self) strengths, weaknesses, capabilities, and
needs/abilities to use these to guide
g. Naturalist: Ability to recognize plants & animals. Ability to use categories & systems to
understand the natural world. (Farmer, Gardener, Animal tracker)
h. Existential: Ability to consider & examine deeper/larger questions about human
existence & the meaning of life. Ability to understand religious/spiritual ideas. (Clergy,
philosopher, life coach)
i. Bodily-Kinesthetic: Ability to control body movements/know where body is in space.
Ability to handle objects skillfully. (Dancer/Actor, Gymnast, Carpenter)

4. IQ Scores
a. Average IQ: 100, for White, native-born Americans with Standard ENglish
b. How to interpret and use IQ test scores effectively
i. Check to see whether score is based on individual/group test. Be wary of
group test scores
ii. Remember that IQ tests only estimate general aptitude for learning
1. Ignore small differences in scores among students
2. Remember that individual score may change over time for reasons like
new ability developments or measurement error
3. Remember that total score is an average of scores on several kinds of
questions
iii. Remember that IQ scores reflect student’s experiences & learning
1. Consider scores to be predictors of school abilities
2. Don’t change opinions/expectations if scores seem low
3. IQ scores of minority students/non-English first language students may
be lower.

5. Creative Intelligence and Encouraging creativity in the classroom

a. Accept & encourage divergent thinking
i. Reinforce attempts at unusual solutions to problems
ii. Offer choices in topics for projects/models of presentations
b. Tolerate dissent & question assumptions
i. Ask students to support dissenting opinions
 ii. Make sure nonconforming students receive equal share of classroom privileges &
rewards
iii. Identify & examine unstated assumptions
c. Encourage students to take reasonable risks & trust own judgment
i. Rephrase/clarify questions
ii. Give ungraded assignments occasionally
iii. Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn
d. Emphasize everyone’s capable of creativity
i. Avoid describing artist/inventor’s feats as superhuman accomplishments
ii. Recognize creative efforts in students works
e. Provide time, space, collaborative partners, & materials to support creativity
i. Collect “found” materials
ii. Tie learning to real-world problems
iii. Follow up on memorable occasions
f. Take your time & play
i. Encourage and celebrate fantasy, humor
ii. Play with ideas, what-ifs
g. Be a stimulus for creative thinking
i. Use brainstorming sessions
ii. Model creative problem solving
iii. Share own interests & passions in creative fields
h. Capitalize on technology
i. Use visual apps, wordclouds, make facebook page for figure

6. Learning Styles
a. Effectiveness in teaching with consideration to students’ learning styles
i. Learning styles: the characteristic ways a person approaches learning and
studying
ii. Learning preferences: individual preferences for a particular learning mode and
environment
iii. Results and research indicate that students do not learn more when they study in
their preferred setting and manner. It is important for students to develop new and
maybe even more effective strategies to learn.
b. Role of self-monitoring and self-awareness
i. By encouraging students to think about how they learn, you can help them develop
self-monitoring and self-awareness, as well as a willingness to try new ways.

7. Legislation
a. No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
i. Required that all students reach proficiency by 2014
ii. Led to “teaching to the test”; narrowed the curriculum
iii. Schools/teachers penalized for low performance; student engagement decreased
b. Individualized Education Program (IEP)
 i. IEP: annually revised program for exceptional students that details present
achievement level, goals, & strategies drawn up by teachers, parents, specialists,
& students.
ii. Components of IEP:
1. Present academic achievement/ functional performance
2. Annual goals, short-term objectives, how progress will be measured
3. Statement od specific special education & related services
4. Justification for any program not in regular classroom
5. Assessment plan for student participation in state/district tests
6. Behavior intervention plan (functional assessment) if needed
7. Transitional services to prepare for adult life
c. Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)
i. LRE: Educating each child with peers in general education classroom to the
greatest extent possible.
ii. Approaches have moved from mainstreaming to integration, then to inclusion
d. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
i. IDEA: Guarantees a free public education to all children regardless of disability

8. Response to Intervention (RTI)

a. RTI: systematic process of assessing and providing appropriate instruction/support for
students with learning problems
i. main goal: effective research-based instruction and support as soon as possible,
before students fall behind
ii. second goal: systematic documentation of interventions tried
b. three-tiered system commonly used to reach RTI goals
i. tier 1 schoolwide, grade-level research-based instruction
ii. tier 2 targeted supplemental instruction offered 3-4 times a week
iii. tier 3 intensive interventions by specialists

9. Suicide Myths
a. Second leading cause of death in the United States for age group 10–24; Higher rates for
Native Americans, rural students
i. Watch for intense sadness, hopelessness, changes in appetite, weight, grades,
disposition, drug/alcohol use
ii. If you suspect a problem, talk to the student
iii. Be direct, nonjudgmental; always take the student seriously
iv. Teenage deaths by suicide often occur in clusters
b. Jason Flatt Act (adopted in some states): Requires educators to complete in-service
training about suicide awareness/prevention

10. Classical Conditioning in the Classroom

a. Classical conditioning: Association of automatic responses with new stimuli
b. Associate positive, pleasant events with learning tasks
i. Create comfortable reading corner to make voluntary reading appealing
 c. Help students risk anxiety producing situations voluntarily and successfully
i. Let fearful student read report to small group while seated, then while standing, then
from notes, then to whole class
d. Help students recognize differences and similarities among situations so they can
discriminate, generalize appropriately
i. Help anxious students compare college entrance exams to any other achievement
tests they have taken
- Contiguous pairing: Association of two events because of repeated pairing; plays a major
role in classical conditioning

11. Operant Conditioning in the Classroom

a. Operant Conditioning:learning in which voluntary behavior is strengthened/weakened
by consequences or antecedents
b. Reinforcer: is any consequence that strengthens the behavior it follows.
c. Types of Reinforcement
i. Positive: strengthening behavior by adding a desired stimulus after the behavior
1. Peers laugh when child falls out of chair; child likes laughter/attention
and repeats behavior
2. Bad behavior reinforced by teacher’s negative attention
3. Child likes attention, repeats bad behavior, gets more attention
ii. Negative: strengthening behavior by removing an aversive stimulus when the
behavior occurs
1. Child fears giving report “gets sick”, escapes giving report
2. Aversive stimulus removed (task of giving report)
3. Strengthens behavior: child repeats behavior of getting sick

12. Albert Bandura’s Four Elements Essential for Observational Learning

a. Attention: selective attention (paying attention to the correct cues and information) as
well as sustained attention (maintaining focus).
b. Retention: mentally representing the model’s actions in some way, probably as verbal
steps or as visual images, or both.
c. Production: practice makes the behavior smoother and more expert.
d. Motivation and Retention
i. Three types of retention:
1. Direct reinforcement: Reinforcement given after successful completion
of a task.
2. Vicarious reinforcement: Increasing the chances that we will repeat a
behavior by observing another person being reinforced for that behavior.
3. Self-reinforcement: Controlling (selecting and administering) your own
reinforcers.
13. Sources of Low Self-Efficacy for Students
a. Self-efficacy: sense of competence toward a particular task. Essential for positive student
outcomes across content areas
b. Sources:
i. Mastery experiences: our own direct experiences. Successes raise efficacy
beliefs; failures lower them
ii. Vicarious experiences: accomplishments modeled by someone else. Seeing their
success increases belief in observer’s ability; while failure of esteemed model
decreases self-efficacy of observer
iii. Social persuasion: a “pep talk” or specific performance feedback
iv. Physiological and emotional arousal: reactions causing one to feel alert,
attentive, wide awake, excited, or tense. Psyched and ready increases efficacy;
anxiety decreases efficacy

14. Guidelines for Encouraging Emotional Self-Regulation

a. Create a climate of trust in your classroom
i. be fair with consequences; avoid comparisons among students
b. Help students recognize and express their feelings.
i. use terms describing emotions, encourage journal writing about feelings (keep
writings private)
c. Help students recognize emotions in others, and develop empathy and compassion.
i. use students interactions, analysis of characters in stories
d. Provide strategies for coping with emotions.
e. Help students recognize cultural differences in how people express emotion.

15. Promoting Intrinsic Motivation in the Classroom

a. Intrinsic motivation: Motivation associated with activities that are internally rewarding.
b. Classrooms that support self-determination and autonomy:
i. Increase students’ interests, curiosity, creativity, attendance, grades, conceptual
learning, use of self-regulated learning strategies, psychological well-being,
preference for challenge, lower stress
c. Need-supportive vs need-thwarting classrooms
i. Controlling: diminished intrinsic motivation; fear of failure
ii. Informational: increase students’ sense of competence, intrinsic motivation;
willing to handle challenges
d. Association between intrinsic motivation at school and students’ feelings of
connection and relatedness
i. Teacher support: strongest factor predicting student belonging
ii. Greater need for teacher support among students who are at risk of school
difficulties
e. Lessons for teachers:
i. Give students choices and appropriately challenging tasks
 ii. Use self-monitoring to help students see their own growth
iii. Support students’ need to connect with trusted/caring people at school
iv. As a teacher, use autonomy-supportive strategies with students

16. Helping Students Establish a Pattern of Mastery Goal Orientation

a. mastery goal: (also called a task goal or learning goal) is to improve, to learn, no matter
how awkward you appear.
i. Focuses: Mastering the task, learning, understanding
1. Standards Used: Self-improvement, progress, deep understanding
ii. Avoidances: Avoiding misunderstanding, fear of not living up to potential
1. Standards Used: Past performance; Perfectionism

17. Fixed and Growth Mindsets

a. Fixed Mindset: A personally held belief that abilities are stable, uncontrollable, set traits.
b. Growth Mindset: A personally held belief that abilities are unstable, controllable, and
improvable.
c. Self-Handicapping Strategies: Students’ engagement in behavior that blocks their own
success in order to avoid testing their true ability.
i. Failure Avoidance: Avoid failing by setting up external conditions that could be
blamed if fail
ii. Teachers encourage self-handicapping by stressing performance, grades,
competition
d. Failure acceptance
i. Students need experience in coping with failure, so standards must be high
enough to encourage effort. Occasional failure can be positive if appropriate
feedback is provided. Making errors in low-stakes contexts can enhance learning
if students get quality corrective feedback. Students who never learn how to cope
with failure may give up quickly when their first efforts are unsuccessful.

18. Students’ Anxiety About Test-Taking and Graded Assignments

a. Anxiety can be a cause/effect of school failure, students do poorly because they are
anxious & poor performance increases anxiety
b. Different learning situations may trigger perceptions of threat or self-doubt that add to
basic levels of anxiety
c. Anxiety has both cognitive side effects like worry and negative thoughts and also has an
affective side like sweaty palms, upset stomach, racing heartbeat, or fear.
d. Three phases:
i. Preparation: learners tend to have a difficult time effectively focusing on
material, studying, and maintaining positive self-worth toward the test or
assignment
 ii. Performance: anxiety blocks retrieval of content learned in the preparation
phase
iii. Reflection: learners with anxiety build attributions for failure that further impede
their future performance by creating more negative beliefs
e. Coping with Test Anxiety
i. Make sure all instructions are clear
ii. Avoid unnecessary time pressures
iii. Remove some pressures from major tests & exams
iv. Develop alternatives to written tests
v. Teach students self-regulation strategies

19. Classroom Management

a. Cultural asynchronization between background of teacher and that of their students
b. Culturally responsive classroom management
i. diversity: culturally responsive management
ii. race-based discrepancies in harsh school discipline
iii. culturally responsive management: taking cultural meanings/styles into
account when developing management plans and responding to students
iv. understand/address your own biases, stereotypes, values
v. develop knowledge of your students cultural backgrounds
vi. understand broader social/economic context, societal practices
vii. use culturally appropriate management strategies
viii. commit to building a caring classroom
ix. be warm demanders (high expectations and great caring for students)