What type of question would most likely generate the widest range of answers and discussions among students?
Why would the author have ended the book
... [Show More] this way? "Why" questions tend to be the most open-ended.
Why should a teacher always spend time explaining classroom rules during the first few days of class?
To establish clear expectations for performance and behavior. Students benefit from clear, firm guidelines from the outset.
What method will BEST hold students accountable for their full participation in cooperative learning groups?
Assign each student in the group a specific role in accomplishing the objectives of the activity. If each student has a role in meeting the objectives and the activity is well structured, then all students will be drawn into participating because they all have something to do.
When teachers share standardized test results with parents, there is a large amount of information in the score report to be discussed. Which information will be of MOST use to the typical parent?
Specific areas of academic strength and weakness. When parents know their child's weaknesses, they can emphasize working to improve them.
Suppose your objective for a lesson is "The student will demonstrate an ability to differentiate among igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks." Which of the following is the BEST activity for introducing students to the attributes of each type of rock?
Students examine rocks belonging to each group and identify the similarities and differences. The activity is followed by a group discussion in which the teacher brings out the important characteristics of each type. Students learn best when they are actively involved.
A group of students wants to produce an electronic magazine that publishes original student writing and art. Their adviser is planning a unit to train them how to use a word-processing application to create pages that include features such as images, multi-column layouts, sidebars, headers, footers, links, and page backgrounds. What would be the BEST culminating activity for this portion of the training?
Small teams producing a document under proctored conditions, using specified features, and within a time limit. The purpose of the raining is to prepare students to apply what they learn. The team and time limit conditions make the performance more realistic; the whole activity promotes retaining and transferring what has been leaned.
What is MOST likely to promote effective transfer of knowledge to students?
Having students work on their own with specific information related to a topic before giving an organizing lecture. Studies indicate that topics need to be organized and connected in order to promote transfer knowledge, but that a large number of topics covered quickly will hinder student transfer because students have too little time to connect and organize the information.
Students are about to take a paper and pencil test. If there is time for only one activity, what would be the BEST to prepare the students for the test?
Students should make a chart of the important topics with notes on subtopics below each. Organizational structures help students to connect and remember.
What learning objectives uses a higher order thinking skill?
Bloom's Taxonomy identifies thinking skills in increasing order of sophistication as knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. "Students will create a metaphor to describe an emotion." requires synthesis in order to complete the task.
What would provide the BEST introduction for a lesson on writing bibliographic references?
Demonstrate to students the specific procedure and order expected. Procedures are best taught through demonstration.
A social studies teacher wants students to consider the role of geography in population patterns. She asks her class, "What role did geography play in the growth of Chicago as a major U.S. city?" what should she do next?
Tell students not to call out responses but to raise their hand when they think of an answer and wait to be called on. Students need various amounts of time to think through an answer to a question, particularly for complicated questions. Allowing students to answer right away can stop the thinking process for the other students.
Consider the following two questions a teach might ask a high school social studies class.
I: According to our textbook, what does the public welfare system do to solve the problems of poverty?
II: What are some ways our country might solve the problems of poverty?
What best describes the differences between these questions?
This question is a matter of relative convergence and divergence. Question I converges on the textbook; that is good answers will stick to what the textbook says. Question II allows for answers that may draw on sources other than the textbook. Both questions are open-ended.
II invites more divergent thinking than I.
What activity would BEST help students in a middle school social studies class understand why different Native American tribes had different trading practices?
Assign a tribe to each group of students and give each group handouts that identify needs and oversupply for a particular tribe. Then stage trading activities among groups and have students identify important aspects. Students engaged in active participation are more likely to learn and understand complex interconnections.
A struggling student comes to pick up a paper at your desk during class time. You have determined that this student needs extra help. What would be BEST to say to the student?
"I'd like to talk to you about this paper in a little more detail.. Let's set up a time when we can talk in private." It is important to protect student privacy and avoid embarrassment. The vital issue is not to share lack of success with the rest of the students.
Consider the following question asked by a first grade teacher: " What do the three stories we have read by Tomie de Paola have in common?"
What is the main instructional value of asking a question like this?
Analysis of the separate stories and comparison between them. This question utilizes comparisons, which is part of the fourth level of Bloom's Taxonomy, analysis. The teacher is looking to see which students are able to think of all three stores at the same time and make comparisons between them.
If a school wanted to compare how its students were doing with respect to students in other schools, what kind of assessment would be MOST appropriate?
Norm-referenced test. A norm-referenced test is designed to give a percentile score that places each student on a continuum of 1 to 99+.
A teacher is planning a lesson for a unit on the portion of the Seven Years War fought in North America between England and France, known to Americans as the French and Indian War. The lesson's main goal is to show the relative strengths and weaknesses of English and French forces in North America. What aid would be MOST useful for reaching that goal?
A comparison/contrast chart for students to fill in as they work through the unit. A chart of this type helps students focus on similarities and differences as they study.
Suppose you want students to learn to distinguish between the words imply and infer. What sequences would be MOST effective?
Explain the distinction, then have students apply the terms to their own examples.
In order to use an inductive sequence for testing about Work War II, what would be the BEST way for a class to work?
Examine events leading up to the war and develop a general model of world war in the process. Induction is the process of building a general model.
Given the following set of scores on a standardized test, what is the estimated difference between the mean and median of the set?
89, 65, 77, 93, 80, 87, 79
1, the mean of the data is 81.43 and the median is 80. the difference between them is 1.43.
A fifth-grade student has just finished a three-week unit on the American Revolution in social studies. What would be the best strategy to use to culminate the unit?
In order to know whether the learning objectives of the unit have been met, the objectives must be measured. A test on the major concepts of the American Revolution achieves that goal.
A student comes to you and says, "I just can't do math. My dad can't either. I don't have that kind of brain. I just don't get it." What would be the BEST response to this situation?
All students should be accountable. It insults students when the teacher assumes they cannot learn and gives them an excuse to avoid a challenge. Offer additional help and explain that you will pinpoint the areas that are causing problems and work through them.
What are the six levels of thinking skills that Bloom identifies?
1. Knowledge, as in Identifying characters in a novel.
2. Comprehension, as in summarizing a chapter from a novel.
3. Application
4. Analysis, as in comparing and contrasting
5. synthesis, organizing and planning
6. Evaluation, justifying something
Two students work together to prepare visual aids that illustrate the major waves of immigration to the United States. The activity satisfies what learning objectives?
Communication in suitable ways. Preparing visual aids necessarily engages students in thinking about what's suitable for the content, purpose and audience.
Curriculum planning is a major aspect of a teacher's job. What is a good teaching practice that will help students to achieve grade-level outcomes?
Using the state curriculum at the beginning of the school year to determine the learning objectives for the year, which are then incorporated into units of study. A teacher should have a plan for the school year before the year begins, so that he or she is sure to teach the required learning objectives. The units of study can then be constructed around the objectives. [Show Less]