TeachME Professional Development

1. Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-supported research shows that there are critical associations between features of pre-kindergarten classrooms and positive children's outcomes, as demonstrated by each of the following EXCEPT:

2. Teachers can use specific practices to improve children's language, literacy, mathematics, cognitive, and social skills, such as reading books in a certain way to improve literacy and incorporating types of activities like board games to improve mathematic skills.

3. Research findings show that some measures commonly used in the early childhood community may not provide reliable information about children's skills, and that there is a need to conduct ongoing evaluations of measures commonly used and to develop new measures that provide reliable data.

4. Study results show that classroom instruction can be improved by providing professional development to teachers, and that impacts are not only seen in what teachers do in their classroom, but also in:

5. One of the greatest benefits of IES-supported research is that we now definitively know what minimum thresholds of classroom quality are necessary to optimize learning

6. A critical component of IES research has been rigorous evaluation of the impact of programs, practices, and policies on education outcomes, and this enterprise has provided education leaders and practitioners with extensive amounts of scientifically valid information on which interventions appear to be effective in achieving their intended goals.

7. Young children who exhibit delays in language, literacy, mathematics, cognitive, and social skills due to the presence of various risk factors typically face elevated likelihood of secondary delays or disabilities as well as future academic and social difficulties.

8. Demographic information indicates that in today's early childhood classrooms:

9. Experts have found that the quality of teachers' emotional support for children as well as structural features such as class size, child-to-teacher ratio and teacher credentials were directly related to children's academic and social outcomes.

10. One noteworthy research study has shown a significant relationship between children's history of maltreatment and homelessness during the early childhood years and:

11. Today, many children still attend classrooms that are organized to promote learning through play activities that each child chooses, even though this type of classroom organization is associated with smaller learning gains over the school year when compared to classrooms that include teacher-directed learning.

12. Within early childhood classrooms, children tend to participate in few of the interactions that have been demonstrated to support or accelerate development and learning, which is probably due to the classroom language environment, the content of instruction, and:

13. Observations of teachers in classroom environments that serve children at risk demonstrate that they typically engage in frequent conversations with children, connecting their actions through language, and that they use abstract vocabulary and concepts in these conversations.

14. IES-supported research suggests that there is very little instruction in mathematics and science occurring within early childhood classrooms, and what does occur is generally limited to naming common shapes and counting up to relatively small numbers.

15. Many children in preschool settings, particularly those funded by public streams, spend their days interacting with classmates who may well exhibit significant lags in language, literacy, cognitive and social skills, and therefore do not have exposure to others who could model examples of advanced cognitive and social skills.

16. Early childhood classrooms are different from the later primary grades in that children spend about 25% of their classroom time in free-choice activities rather than focusing on academics.

17. Cognitive developmental theory and research has identified important _____________ skills that are related to children's learning in mathematics and literacy and that will likely improve overall learning outcomes.

18. In order for children to achieve skilled and fluent reading in the primary grades, they need to develop their vocabulary, their ability to draw inferences, and listening comprehension, which are all decoding precursor skills.

19. Which of the following is NOT one of the findings of IES-supported research pertaining to language and literacy development.

20. Although children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) are at risk for significant reading disabilities, long-term prognoses for them has improved due to technological advances with cochlear implants and early detection of hearing loss through universal hearing screening programs.

21. The relation between early math knowledge and future math achievement is particularly strong and persistent; with it being roughly twice as strong as the relation between early and later reading achievement.

22. The preschool math-oriented curricula that features small-group and whole-group activities, computer games, and family activities to be done at home and relies heavily on computer software as a means of conveying mathematical content and engaging children's interest is:

23. The ability to translate accurately among representations of numerical magnitudes, known as numerical comprehension, is a critical skill in enhancing overall arithmetic proficiency.

24. The Response to Intervention (RtI) approach to helping young children gain math skills is aimed at identifying children in need of special assistance, along with preventing difficulties from arising, remedying difficulties that do arise, and providing the tools teachers need for instruction and progress monitoring.

25. While a cumulative growth model suggests that a child's learning in mathematics reflects their earlier understandings, a _____ model calls for instruction in important mathematics concepts which will allow children to catch-up with their more advanced peers.

26. Preliminary evidence indicates that when an instructional approach that integrates scientific inquiry and literacy is implemented, both boys' and girls' learning and motivation for engaging in science increases.

27. Estimates of the prevalence of challenging behavior in preschool children range from _____ percent of the population, and between _____ percent of young children enrolled in Head Start exhibited persistent problem behaviors.

28. Teachers who used praise linked with a specific behavior, which is known as targeted praise, reported a decrease in class-wide challenging behavior during small group activities.

29. Recent scientific pursuits have led to the identification of valid and reliable ways to measure children's learning across the language, mathematic, and social domains.

30. Direct, individualized assessment of preschool aged children is time-consuming and costly, and the routine use of standardized assessment measures with young children has been challenged because results of assessments with this age group are typically less reliable than with older children and adolescents.

31. While it is extremely important for practitioners to have access to tools that yield reliable and valid scores to measure young children's skills across various areas, it is also necessary for them to be able to use these tools to monitor children's progress over time and to make important decisions about children's status, such as whether a child exhibits a disability.

32. In order for professional development to be effective in improving teacher-related outcomes, it must contain each of the following elements EXCEPT:

33. Substantial evidence indicates that brief workshops are effective in promoting lasting changes in instruction because they generally provide practical strategies that can be easily implemented.

34. Professional development interventions that promote teachers' use of effective approaches for teaching important academic and social skills with _______ and that use data to make informed decisions about instruction are expected to promote children's learning by improving teachers' instruction.

35. One method to assist teachers is to assign a more experienced coach or mentor to help provide effective strategies for teaching critical early literacy skills in the classrooms, as results tend to suggest that coaching improves teachers' instruction when compared with teachers who do not receive coaching.

36. Studies indicate that when children are in classrooms where teachers have participated in a one-semester professional development intervention targeting phonological awareness and language comprehension, the students show significant gains in vocabulary skills and understanding of initial sounds.

37. Experts believe that one important question for education research is to explore in what ways special features of ______________ are related to children's development and learning in specific domains.

38. While certain intervention approaches have been used effectively to support elementary school children's learning, they are only beginning to be used in early childhood programs, and in particular, further attention to the development of assessment tools that can be used quickly and reliably to monitor preschool children's progress in academic and social learning domains is needed.