Metacognition
“Thinking about thinking.”
Key Concept: The ability to monitor, direct, and review your own mental processes (e.g., realizing you don’t understand a paragraph and deciding to re-read it).
Metamemory
Knowledge about how memory works.
Key Concept: Understanding your own memory limits and which strategies (like mnemonics or repetition) help you personally retain information.
Constructivist Schools
Learners “construct” their own knowledge.
Key Concept: Based heavily on Piaget’s theories; teachers act as facilitators while students actively explore the physical world to build mental frameworks.
Social Constructivist Schools
Knowledge is co-constructed through social interaction.
Key Concept: Based on Vygotsky’s theories; emphasizes the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and the role of culture, peers, and language in learning.
Phonics
The relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes).
Key Concept: A “bottom-up” approach to reading where children learn to decode by sounding out words.
Word Recognition Model
The process of identifying a word’s meaning and pronunciation.
Key Concept: Efficient reading requires “automaticity”—the ability to recognize words instantly without having to laboriously decode every letter.
Dyslexia
A specific learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate or fluent word recognition.
Key Concept: It is neurobiological in origin and primarily involves a deficit in the phonological component of language, not a lack of intelligence or visual “reversing” of letters.
Piaget Stage 1: Moral Realism
Approx. 4–7 years.
Key Concept: Rules are seen as fixed and unchangeable. Judgment of “badness” is based on the objective consequences (how much damage was done) rather than the intent.
Piaget Stage 2: Autonomous Morality
Approx. 10+ years.
Key Concept: Rules are seen as social agreements that can be negotiated. Judgment is based on intent (why the person did it) rather than just the physical outcome.
The School-to-Prison Pipeline
A trend where children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems.
Key Concept: Driven by “Zero Tolerance” policies and increased police presence in schools, disproportionately affecting marginalized students and those with disabilities.
