OAE APK Middle Childhood flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Concrete operational stage

Piaget's stage (ages 7–11) when children can conserve, classify, and seriate but cannot yet reason abstractly or hypothetico-deductively.

Industry vs. inferiority

Erikson's psychosocial stage (ages 6–12) in which success in school and peer tasks builds competence, while repeated failure fosters inferiority.

Zone of proximal development

Vygotsky's concept of the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can do with adult or peer scaffolding.

Kohlberg's conventional morality

Moral reasoning at stages 3–4, where judgments center on social approval (good boy/good girl) and maintaining rules and authority.

Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems

A framework describing nested contexts-microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem-that shape a child's development.

Peer acceptance status

Sociometric classification (popular, rejected, neglected, controversial) that predicts social adjustment differently across middle childhood.

Domain-specific self-concept

In middle childhood, self-esteem differentiates into academic, social, athletic, and other domain-specific self-evaluations rather than a single global rating.

Direct instruction

A teacher-directed approach with explicit modeling, guided practice, and independent practice, effective for foundational skills.

Cooperative learning

Structured small-group tasks with positive interdependence and individual accountability that enhance peer learning and social skills.

Differentiation

Adjusting content, process, or product based on students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles to ensure appropriate challenge.

Bloom's revised taxonomy

A hierarchy of cognitive objectives-remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create-used to design higher-order learning goals.

Scaffolding

Temporary support such as prompts, models, or cues that is faded as the learner gains competence within the zone of proximal development.

Inquiry-based instruction

An approach in which students pose questions, investigate, and construct explanations while the teacher acts as facilitator.

Universal Design for Learning

A framework offering multiple means of representation, engagement, and action/expression to reach all learners.

Formative assessment

Ongoing, low-stakes checks such as exit tickets or questioning used to adjust instruction, not for accountability reporting.

Summative assessment

End-of-unit or end-of-year measures of learning that are high-stakes and used for reporting or placement decisions.

Validity

The extent to which an assessment measures what it claims to measure, supported by content, construct, and criterion evidence.

Reliability

The consistency of scores across occasions, raters, or items; it is necessary but not sufficient for validity.

Norm-referenced assessment

An assessment that compares a student's performance to that of a peer norm group rather than to a defined standard.

Criterion-referenced assessment

An assessment that compares a student's performance to a defined standard or learning objective rather than to peers.

Authentic assessment

Performance tasks, portfolios, and projects that require students to apply knowledge in real-world contexts.

Assessment bias

Items or procedures that systematically disadvantage a group for reasons unrelated to the construct being measured.

Reflective practice

Systematic self-examination of teaching decisions and outcomes to improve future instruction and student learning.

Professional Learning Community

A collaborative team of educators that cycles through data analysis, goal setting, and instructional adjustment to improve results.

Action research

Teacher-led cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting on a classroom problem to improve practice.

Mentoring and induction

Structured support for early-career teachers that reduces attrition and builds instructional capacity.

Teacher leadership

Influencing school decisions, mentoring colleagues, and leading professional learning without formal administrative authority.

Distributed leadership

Shared responsibility across administrators, teachers, and staff for school improvement and decision making.

Instructional leadership

A principal's focus on teaching quality, curriculum coherence, and a culture of high expectations for all students.

School improvement planning

A data-based process of setting goals, action steps, timelines, and monitoring to guide school reform.

Epstein's six types of involvement

Parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community.

Cultural competence

Recognizing and responding to students' cultural backgrounds, values, and communication styles to support learning.