Praxis PLT: Grades K-6 flashcards
Praxis PLT: Grades K-6 · Build recall with a focused review session.
33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Zone of Proximal Development
- Vygotsky's term for the range between what a learner can do alone and what the learner can do with adult or peer assistance. Instruction targets this range, with scaffolding gradually withdrawn.
- Scaffolding
- Temporary supports such as models, prompts, graphic organizers, or peer help that let a learner complete a task beyond independent ability. Supports are removed as competence increases.
- Concrete operational stage
- Piaget's stage from about age 7 to 11, when children reason logically about concrete objects and events, understand conservation and reversibility, but struggle with abstract hypothetical reasoning.
- Industry versus inferiority
- Erikson's psychosocial stage for ages 6 to 12. Children seek competence and approval through work and peer comparison; repeated failure without support can produce feelings of inferiority.
- Intrinsic motivation
- Drive to engage in an activity for its own sake, from interest, curiosity, or satisfaction. It sustains effort longer than external rewards, which can sometimes reduce it.
- Least restrictive environment
- IDEA principle requiring students with disabilities to be educated with nondisabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate, with removal only when supports in the general setting are insufficient.
- Individualized Education Program
- A legally required written plan for a student eligible under IDEA, specifying present levels, measurable goals, services, accommodations, and placement. It is reviewed at least annually.
- Constructivism
- A learning theory holding that learners actively build knowledge by connecting new information to prior knowledge and experience, rather than passively receiving transmitted facts.
- Explicit instruction
- A structured teaching sequence: state the objective, review prior knowledge, model, guide practice with feedback, then move to independent practice and cumulative review.
- Positive interdependence
- A cooperative learning condition in which group members need one another to succeed, through shared goals, divided roles, or shared materials. It is paired with individual accountability.
- Wait time
- The pause of roughly three to five seconds after asking a question and after a student responds. Longer wait time increases response length, participation, and reasoning quality.
- Differentiation
- Adapting content, process, product, or environment to student readiness, interest, and learning profile while holding the same learning standard for all students.
- Bloom's revised taxonomy
- A hierarchy of cognitive processes ordered remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create. Objectives are written with verbs that name the intended level.
- Advance organizer
- An introductory structure, such as a comparison or outline, presented before new content to connect it to existing knowledge and improve retention and comprehension.
- Withitness
- A management skill of noticing and addressing multiple classroom events simultaneously and early, signaling awareness so minor disruptions do not escalate.
- Formative assessment
- Ongoing, low-stakes gathering of evidence during instruction to identify where students are relative to a learning target and to adjust teaching accordingly.
- Summative assessment
- Assessment administered after instruction to judge achievement against standards, typically graded or reported, such as unit tests or end-of-year exams.
- Validity
- The degree to which an assessment measures what it claims to measure for its intended purpose. A test can be reliable but invalid, but cannot be valid without reliability.
- Reliability
- The consistency and stability of assessment scores across occasions, forms, or raters. It is necessary but not sufficient for validity.
- Percentile rank
- A norm-referenced score reporting the percentage of the norm group scoring at or below a given score. A percentile of 75 is not 75 percent correct.
- Standard error of measurement
- An estimate of score variation due to imperfect reliability, used to build a confidence band around a score and to judge whether score differences are meaningful.
- Item discrimination
- An index of how well a single test item separates students who know the content from those who do not, typically by comparing high and low scorers' performance.
- Analytic rubric
- A scoring guide that evaluates separate criteria, each with its own performance levels, producing detailed diagnostic feedback rather than a single overall score.
- Accommodation versus modification
- An accommodation changes how a student accesses or responds to a task without changing content, such as extended time. A modification changes content or expectations.
- Professional learning community
- A school structure in which collaborative teams share a mission, examine student evidence, and continuously improve instruction, with results orientation rather than isolated workshops.
- Mandated reporting
- A legal duty of teachers to report suspected child abuse or neglect to designated authorities promptly, without investigating the claim themselves or notifying the family.
- FERPA
- A federal law protecting the privacy of student education records, granting parents rights to inspect and amend records and limiting disclosure without consent.
- Co-teaching models
- Arrangements for two teachers in one classroom, including one teach/one support, station, parallel, alternative, and team teaching. Choice depends on student and content needs.
- Data team cycle
- A collaborative process: examine common assessment data, identify a problem, select a research-based strategy, implement it with fidelity, and re-check results.
- Title I
- A federal program providing funds to schools with high concentrations of students from low-income families to support academic achievement and family involvement.
- Readiness mismatch
- A scenario cause in which task difficulty falls too far below or above a student's current level, producing disengagement or frustration rather than a behavior problem.
- Individual accountability
- A cooperative learning condition in which each member's learning is separately assessed, preventing one student from doing the group's work for everyone.
- Assessment alignment
- The match between what an assessment asks and the stated objectives, including cognitive level. Misalignment is a common cause of unexpectedly low scores.