“A derived noun whose formation has the general meaning of ‘act or process of…’: e.g. construction (from construct + ion), with the basic meaning ‘process of constructing.’ Compare agent noun.
Excerpted from: Marshall, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
“An individual’s ability to learn, without reference to specific instruction or prior knowledge. Aptitude is most often measured by standardized tests (for example the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [WISC]) or cognitive batteries of tests that also include achievement components (such as the Woodcock-Johnson). Other important aptitude tests include the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Test, each of which plays a prominent role in college admissions.
Determining whether someone has a learning disability is generally based on a discrepancy between achievement and aptitude, as measured by standardized tests. Consequently, tests of aptitude such as the WISC and the Woodcock-Johnson play a central role in determining who is eligible to receive special education services.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Instructional approaches that incorporate thinking processes and real-life activities in the classroom, make use of visual and auditory stimuli in addition to written materials, and engage higher-order thinking skills. Critics say there is no scientific basis to such strategies and that they simply reflect the pedagogical preferences of advocates.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
This article on homework from The Atlantic–a practice of which teachers really ought to be skeptical–is definitely worth a look.
As I have repeated ad nauseam in these pages, Mark’s Text Terminal is not a political or educational policy blog. Any number of reasons suffice to explain this, but I always return to the most salient of them: there are quite a few smart and well-informed people, many of whose websites can be found in the right margin of this site under the heading Blogs Followed at Mark’s Text Terminal, covering those topics. That said, I intend in the coming months to highlight several of these blogs.
The assault on public education has now reached a stage where I can no long remain completely silent. Fortunately, as I say, there are plenty of people speaking and perceptively, and buttressing their arguments with evidence, something that happens less and less in public discourse, about educational policy.
Starting out, I want to highlight the work of Bob Shepherd, who blogs under the heading Praxis. Bob is, as Diane Ravitch noted recently, a polymath. I originally made his acquaintance in the comments forum of Dr. Ravitch’s blog, where I occasionally presume to comment on topics of the day. Bob is an acutely perspicacious and wide-ranging commentator on educational policy, particularly where privatization of public schools and the scandals that often ensue are concerned.
That said, Bob covers a lot of other ground in Praxis. He recently posted a lengthy discourse on the physical and philosophical nature of time, a topic I find abstruse (I dropped Lester Mazor’s “Perspectives on Time” seminar at Hampshire College in the fall of 1994 because I didn’t have the intellectual stamina to keep up with it and plan my honors thesis) and fascinating at the same time. I guess I like to imagine that in another life, Bob and I would be an Intellectual History department of two at some small, lively, and innovative liberal arts college.
If you’re at all interested in issues and problems in educational policy—or to quote briefly from his “About” page, “curriculum design…,linguistics…, hermeneutics…, philosophy…, classical and jazz guitar…, history of ideas…, heuristics for innovation,” (and I’ve enumerated only about one-quarter of this list), then you should by all means point your browser at Praxis.
Over time, I’ve posted several items like this learning support of basic literary terms. This one is something I assembled for a specific class that was dealing with the terms outlined. Like everything else here at Mark’s Text Terminal, it’s a Microsoft Word document, so you can manipulate the text for your classroom needs.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Earlier this week, NBC News ran this surprisingly frank and cogent piece on Black History Month. Under any circumstances, and particularly those in which I’ve spent the past 16 years working, I’ve never found satisfying the idea of a single month for Black History; as this feature rightly observes, in the not particularly humble opinion of Mark’s Text Terminal, Black History is United States History.
“(Born Miltona Mirkin Cade, 1939-1995): American short-story writer, novelist, and editor. Known as a writer and social activist, Bambara focused on issues of racial awareness and feminism. Her first, most widely read collection of stories, Gorilla, My Love (1972), depicts a young, sensitive black girl and her family and community as she grows up in a world of racial, sexual, and economic inequality. Her second collection, The Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977), portrays the intense conflicts among people, especially women, involved in intimate relationships. Interested in black liberation and women’s movements during the 1970s, Bambara edited and contributed to The Black Women: An Anthology (1970), one of the early collections of feminist writing. Her novel, The Salt Eaters (1980), set in Claybourne, Georgia, deals with the recovery of the revolutionary community organizer Velma Henry from an attempted suicide.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“(1937-2002) American writer. Brown’s reputation rests primarily on his best-selling autobiographical novel, Manchild in the Promised Land, which depicts his upbringing in Harlem, experiences in a succession of correctional institutions, and eventual escape from the ghetto when he goes to college. The Children of Ham (1976) is a collection of sketches of a group of Harlem adolescents and their attempts to survive in a living hell dominated by heroin.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Mental activities associated with self-control, attention, focus, or concentration that allow an individual to achieve specific goals. Problems in executive function are associated with dysfunction at the frontal part of the brain. Mild or nonspecific deficits of executive functions are common in the general population. Executive functions also may be impaired by injury to the brain, fatigue, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, and various psychological disorders, including learning disability, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Problems with attention, self-regulation, planning, and impulse control may be connected to differences in the processing of neurotransmitters, especially dopamine, in the brain.
Executive functions control four kinds of mental activities. Working memory is essential to the problem-solving process. Information must be held in mind and internalized while a task is being completed. Internalized or private speech allows people to use complex sets of rules in problem solving. These include rules for using sets of rules. Third is the control of emotions and impulses, which allows and individual to remain focused and to continually return to a path of progress toward a desired goal. This allows an individual to set aside the attraction of immediate gratification. The achievement of deferred greater gratification is the product of this kind of self-regulation. Fourth is reconstitution, a process of observing behaviors and then synthesizing components into new combinations. This function is essential to problem solving and survival in a complicated world.
Individuals with ADHD and learning disabilities may have problems in reading long assignments or completing writing projects, since these tasks require executive functions. These difficulties may be connected to differences in the way certain brain chemicals are processed in the prefrontal lobes.
Some individuals with executive function difficulties are also very impulsive, having a hard time considering alternatives and consequences before they act. In solving problems, they are likely to select the first alternative without weighing other possibilities. They often speak without thinking of the consequences of their statements. Some students with these problems get so fidgety that it is hard for them to sit through a 50- or 90-minute class session.
Many individuals with executive function difficulties experience problems with time. Understanding the passage of time and planning for the future or the completion of a task by a particular point in time can be challenge. These individuals may frequently arrive late to appointments or classes. Long-term academic projects are among the greatest challenges for students who have executive function difficulties.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
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