Deck 4: Influential Theories Shaping Practice Today

Question 1

What is the overarching premise of Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory?

A) Schools should plan curricula based on an awareness of environmental issues.
B) Children are influenced by parents, but not by other people.
C) Community traditions are the most influential elements in children's lives.
D) There are multiple layers of direct and indirect influences at work on children's lives, which they, in turn, also have an impact on.

Answer 1

There are multiple layers of direct and indirect influences at work on children's lives, which they, in turn, also have an impact on.

Question 2

The Bioecological Model integrates all of the following key aspects, EXCEPT:

A) Developmental maturation (biological processes)
B) Children's Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score
C) Environmental influences
D) Influences both constant and changing across time

Answer 2

Children's Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score

Question 3

Of the following, which one is NOT one of the five structures of the Bioecological model?

A) Exosystem
B) Macrosystem
C) Microsystem
D) Suprasystem

Answer 3

Suprasystem

Question 4

Which statement best reflects the overarching premise of the Bioecological Model?

A) Children place demands on family resources which, without public support, cannot be met
B) The interrelationships among people, settings, and experiences create a unique context for each child's lived experience
C) Children living in smaller families or in rural areas have fewer relationships and less support
D) Children's learning and development are most strongly influenced by parent workplace family policies.

Question 5

Examples of practices which value, support, and actively engage families in reciprocal relationships include all of the following, EXCEPT:

A) Knowing and supporting family goals for children's development
B) Voting for and promoting family-supportive laws and policies
C) Helping families access services and programs as needed (such as economic assistance or developmental screenings)
D) Relying solely on parent newsletters as the way to communicate with families

Question 6

What is constructivism?

A) A method of education that provides children with materials to build complex structures with, thereby enhancing their spatial thinking skills.
B) A theory of knowledge and learning which posits that children actively engage with their world-people, experiences, materials-and build their beliefs and knowledge through interaction and internal processes.
C) A detailed curriculum outlining key content to be covered at successively more challenging levels throughout the academic year.
D) One of Piaget's stages of cognitive development during which children learn to solve problems of conservation.

Question 7

Why do constructivists believe cognitive conflict is important in the classroom?

A) Children need to learn how to negotiate negative behaviors for when they become adults.
B) It teaches children to stand up for themselves and debate their ideas.
C) New ideas and experiences that challenge old ways of thinking are a source for growth and learning.
D) Constructivists seek to minimize all kinds of conflicts when they arise and maintain a peaceful classroom environment.

Question 8

What is a defining feature of the role of the learner in a constructivist classroom?

A) The learner is valued as an active, important part of the knowledge construction process.
B) Learners are viewed as blank slates.
C) Learners are passive recipients of important content transmitted by the teachers.
D) Learners are expected to independently wrestle with ideas until they come to the right answer.

Question 9

What does scaffolding mean in constructivist teaching?

A) Doing tasks for children when they are too hard for them.
B) Giving children challenging tasks and letting them work independently to solve them.
C) Separating children to avoid conflicts in the classroom.
D) The dynamic and active assistance from the more expert partner, relying heavily on verbal cues, prompts, modeling, and questions.

Question 10

What is the basic premise of cognitive developmental constructivism?

A) Children actively build knowledge in social groups, influenced heavily by cultural expectations.
B) Knowledge is an individual construct, built through maturation and new experiences that challenge the learners' existing knowledge.
C) Children's development is fostered through building complex structures with blocks.
D) Learning leads development.

Question 11

What is the basic premise of sociocultural constructivism?

A) Knowledge is socially constructed and then internalized, heavily influenced by social and cultural environments.
B) Knowledge is an individual construct, build through maturation and new experiences that challenge the learners' existing knowledge.
C) Development leads learning.
D) Language and social interactions do not greatly influence development.

Question 12

What did Vygotsky believe about the role of language acquisition in cognitive development?

A) Language does not play a key role in thinking.
B) Language is the most influential milestone in shaping cognitive development.
C) Language and cognition are not linked.
D) Language is important only as far as it allows children's basic needs to be met (food, rest).

Question 13

Which of the following is an area where sociocultural and cognitive developmental constructivists differ?

A) Learner-centered models of how thinking develops.
B) Value children as active participants in the knowledge construction process.
C) Children are viewed as internally motivated to explore their world to make sense of it.
D) View of the role of peers/social partners.

Question 14

How can teachers ensure that they are covering necessary content in constructivist classrooms?

A) Rely on prescribed curricula designated by the state.
B) Give children a variety of materials to manipulate and hope they touch on core content on their own.
C) Balance some directed with ample interest-based experiences.
D) Core content standards cannot adequately be covered in constructivist classrooms.

Question 15

Why are KWHL charts useful?

A) Accesses prior experience, outlines what class is interested in learning, charts misconceptions and new learning.
B) Identifies content teachers are required to cover, prepares students for state tests.
C) Charts correct answers to teacher-generated questions and identifies student misconceptions.
D) They are a requirement under RtI.

Question 16

Which step is NOT a part of Vygotsky's Dynamic Assessment plan?

A) Children complete a task alone.
B) Teacher intervenes with some form of scaffolding instruction.
C) Children complete the task again, observed by the teacher.
D) Children complete a written survey of their experiences.

Question 17

Attachment theory focuses on which key principal:

A) The quality of infant-caregiver interactions greatly impacts the child's attachment and trust in caregivers.
B) Infants are automatically attached to mothers, regardless of the mother's level of responsive nurturing.
C) If the amount of time an infant spends in child care is too much, it always negatively impacts the attachment to parents.
D) Infants are only capable of forming secure attachment to one adult at a time.

Question 18

What is responsive caregiving?

A) Firm and clear expectations of compliant behavior set by care givers.
B) Reading the child's cues and expressions of needs, and meeting needs appropriately (for example, responding to cries of hunger with feeding, not play)
C) Encouraging infants to learn to meet their own needs as early as possible, ideally within the first 2 months
D) Ensuring the infant has many different care givers during the day, so they learn that no single person is primarily responsible for meeting needs

Question 19

A key premise of Social Learning Theory is:

A) Children learn from both direct and indirect experiences.
B) Children learn from indirect experiences only.
C) Children learn from direct teaching experiences only.
D) Children learn best when they are in a peer group and left alone frequently to teach each other.

Question 20

What is a main idea of Neuroscience Education?

A) Brian activity is fairly slow in young children, and connections and neural activity is more active in adulthood.
B) Teachers don't need to worry about the brain functioning of young children.
C) The early childhood years are a time of unprecedented brain activity and growth.
D) Young children's brains are highly active, and best nurtured by more passive learning experiences.