Purpose:
This activity is designed to help students gain technical and practical
understanding of concepts presented in the text.
Objectives:
- Develop a teaching resource
- Gain understanding of abstract concepts
Student Project:
One aspect of becoming a professional in any field is learning the
jargon associated with that field. Teaching is no exception. In your
educational psychology class, you have the opportunity to become familiar
with many abstract concepts and jargon associated with teaching. This
project will help you understand those terms and become more comfortable
using them. For this activity, you will choose terms from the text and
develop your own professional glossary. It is a good idea to choose
terms that are difficult for you by the end of this project, you will
know them! A list of terms may be provided to you, or you may develop
your own list of fifty to seventy-five terms. For each term, do these
three things: (1) locate and copy the text definition, (2) put that
definition in your own words, and (3) generate an example or personal
story related to what the term means.
A general list of terms follows:
- Advance organizers
- Behaviorism
- Constructivism
- Equilibration
- Inclusion
- Learning
- Learning goals
- Median
- Metacognition
- Punishment
- Reliability
- Scaffolding
- Transfer
| - Assessment
- Conditioning
- Development
- Extrinsic motivation
- Intrinsic motivation
- Learning disabilities
- Mean
- Mode
- Mnemonics
- Negative reinforcement
- Positive reinforcement
- Reflectivity
- Research
- Theory
- Validity
|
Assessment:
This glossary may be turned in or may be utilized as a resource for
exams or other assignments.
Each entry should have three parts: (1) the text definition, (2) your
interpretation of that definition (i.e., put it in your own words),
and (3) a personal or practical illustration of this term.
Variation:
- Form small groups. Groups are responsible for terms of two to three
chapters of the book. Compile these lists and create a single glossary
for the class. Make copies for all students or post on the web.
- As an option, you can turn in fifty to seventy-five words in an
electronic format. One to three students can volunteer to compile
and sort through the terms in one gigantic file. Weed out multiple
postings of the same term.
