Essentials of educational psychology
Subtitle: big ideas to guide effective teaching
By: Jeanne Ellis Ormrod
Edition: 3rd ed.
Publisher: Pearson
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 410
ISBN-13: 9780131367272; 9780131367326
Subjects: Textbooks; Educational psychology
Other titles: Educational psychology; Big ideas to guide effective teaching
Description: Synopsis: Unlike most educational psychology books, which take one theory at a time, explain its assumptions and principles and then identify implications for educational practice, Essentials of Educational Psychology focuses more on the commonalities than the differences among theories, because although researchers from different traditions have approached human cognition and behavior from many different angles, they sometimes arrive at more or less the same conclusions. This book integrates ideas from many theoretical perspectives into a set of principles and concrete strategies that psychology as a whole can offer you. See for Yourself exercises will help you discover more about yourself as a thinker and learner and also help you come to a deeper and more personal understanding of educational psychology's core ideas.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages R1-R54) and indexes.

Internet Archive - 2

Internet Archive 2
Table of contents: title: Preface; title: Acknowledgments; title: Chapter 1: Introduction To Educational Psychology:; title: Case Study: Starting high school; title: General guiding principles of educational psychology:; title: In-depth knowledge of students must drive teacher decision making; title: Effectiveness of various classroom practices can best be determined through systematic research; title: Research can provide quantitative information, qualitative information, or both; title: Different kinds of research lead to different kinds of conclusions; title: Drawing conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships requires that all other possible explanations for an outcome be eliminated; title: Theories can help synthesize, explain, and apply research findings; title: Developing as a teacher:; title: Keep up to date on research findings and innovative practices in education; title: Learn as much as you can both about the subject matter you teach and about strategies for teaching it effectively; title: Conduct your own research regarding questions and issues at your own school; title: Learn as much as you can about the culture(s) of the community in which you are working; title: Continually reflect on and critically examine your assumptions, inferences, and teaching practices; title: Communicate and collaborate with colleagues; title: Believe that you can make a difference in student's lives; title: Strategies for learning and studying effectively:; title: Relate what you read to things you already know; title: Tie abstract concepts and principles to concrete examples; title: Elaborate on what you read, going beyond it and adding to it; title: Periodically check yourself to make sure you remember and understand what you've read; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: New software; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 2: Learning, Cognition, And Memory:; title: Case Study: New world; title: Learning as a constructive process:; title: By the time they reach school age, young learners are usually actively involved in their own learning; title: Cognitive processes influence what is learned; title: Learners must be selective about what they focus on and learn; title: Learners create (rather than receive) knowledge; title: Learners use what they already know and believe to help them make sense of new experiences; title: Thinking and learning in the brain:; title: Various parts of the brain work closely with one another; title: Most learning probably involves changes in neurons, astrocytes, and their interconnections; title: Knowing how the brain functions and develops tells us only so much about learning and instruction; title: How human memory operates:; title: Sensory input stays in a raw form only briefly; title: Attention is essential for most learning and memory; title: Working memory-where the action is in thinking and learning-has a short duration and limited capacity; title: Long-term memory has a long duration and virtually limitless capacity; title: Information in long-term memory is interconnected and organized to some extent; title: Some long-term memory storage processes are more effective than others; title: Practice makes knowledge more automatic and durable; title: With age and experience, children acquire more effective learning strategies; title: Prior knowledge and beliefs affect new learning, usually for the better but sometimes for the worse; title: Why learners may or may not remember what they've learned:; title: How easily something is recalled depends on how it was initially learned; title: Remembering depends on the context; title: How easily something is recalled and used depends on how often it has been recalled and used in the past; title: Recall often involves reconstruction; title: Long-term memory isn't necessarily forever; title: Promoting effective cognitive processes:; title: Remembering how the human memory system works:; title: Grab and hold students' attention; title: Keep the limited capacity of working memory in mind; title: Relate new ideas to students' prior knowledge and experiences; title: Accommodate diversity in students' background knowledge; title: Provide experiences on which students can build; title: Encouraging effective long-term memory storage:; title: Present questions and tasks that encourage elaboration; title: Show how new ideas are interrelated; title: Facilitate visual imagery; title: Give students time to think; title: Suggest mnemonics for hard-to-remember facts; title: Promoting retrieval:; title: Provide many opportunities to practice important knowledge and skills; title: Give hints that help students recall or reconstruct what they've learned; title: Monitoring students' progress:; title: Regularly assess students' understandings; title: Identify and address students' misconceptions; title: Focus assessments on meaningful learning rather than rote learning; title: Be on the lookout for students who have unusual difficulty with certain cognitive processes; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Vision unit; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 3: Learning In Context:; title: Case Study: Ben and Sylvia; title: Immediate environment as context:; title: Some stimuli tend to elicit certain kinds of behaviors; title: Learners are more likely to acquire behaviors that lead to desired consequences; title: Learners are also likely to acquire behaviors that help them avoid or escape unpleasant circumstances; title: Learners tend to steer clear of behaviors that lead to unpleasant consequences; title: Learners acquire many behaviors by observing other people; title: Learners learn what behaviors are acceptable and effective by observing what happens to others; title: By seeing what happens to themselves and others, learners form expectations about the probable outcomes of various behaviors; title: Learned behavior and cognitive processes are sometimes situated in specific environmental contexts; title: Social interaction as context:; title: Learners sometimes co-construct knowledge and understandings with more experienced individuals; title: Learners also co-construct knowledge and understandings with peers who have ability levels similar to their own; title: Culture and society as context:; title: Behaviors that others encourage and model are usually compatible with the culture in which they live; title: Concepts and other cognitive tools are also the products of a culture; title: Inconsistencies between the cultures of home and school can interfere with maximum learning and performance; title: Many groups and institutions within a society influence children's learning and development either directly or indirectly; title: Access to resources at home and in the community also affects learning; title: How learners modify their own environments:; title: Learners alter their current environment both through their behaviors and through their internal traits and mental processes; title: Learners actively seek out environments that are a good fit with their existing characteristics and behaviors; title: Providing supportive contexts for learning:; title: Encouraging productive behaviors:; title: Create conditions that elicit desired responses; title: Make sure productive behaviors are reinforced and unproductive behaviors are not reinforced; title: Make response-reinforcement contingencies clear; title: As an alternative to punishment, reinforce productive behaviors that are incompatible with unproductive ones; title: Model desired behaviors; title: Provide a variety of role models; title: Shape complex behaviors gradually over time; title: Have students practice new behaviors and skills in a variety of contexts; title: Providing physical and social support for effective cognitive processes:; title: Provide physical and cognitive tools that can help students work and think effectively; title: Encourage student dialogue and collaboration; title: Create a community of learners; title: Taking into account the broader contexts in which students live:; title: Learn as much as you can about students' cultural backgrounds, and come to grips with your own cultural lens; title: Remember that membership in a particular cultural or ethnic group is not an either-or situation but, instead, a more-or-less phenomenon; title: Incorporate the perspectives and traditions of many cultures into the curriculum; title: Be sensitive to cultural differences in behaviors and beliefs, and accommodate them as much as possible; title: Work hard to break down rigid stereotypes of particular cultural and ethnic groups; title: Identify and, if possible, provide missing resources and experiences important for successful learning; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Adam; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 4: Complex Cognitive Processes:; title: Case Study: Taking over; title: Metacognition:; title: Some effective study strategies are readily apparent in learners' behaviors; title: Even more important than observable study behaviors are the cognitive processes that underlie them; title: Metacognitive knowledge and skills gradually improve with age; title: Learners' views about the nature of knowledge and learning influence their approaches to learning tasks; title: Self-regulation:; title: Self-regulating learners establish goals and standards for their own performance; title: Self-regulating learners plan a course of action for a learning task; title: Self-regulating learners control and monitor their cognitive processes and progress during a learning task; title: Self-regulating learners also monitor and try to control their motivation and emotions; title: Self-regulating learners seek assistance and support when they need it; title: Self-regulating learners evaluate the final outcomes of their efforts; title: Self-regulating learners self-impose consequences for their performance; title: Learners become increasingly self-regulating over the course of childhood and adolescence; title: Transfer:; title: Transfer of knowledge and skills is most likely to occur when there is obvious similarity between the "old" and the "new"; title: Learning strategies and general beliefs and attitudes can also transfer to new situations; title: Relevant context cues increase the probability of transfer; title: Meaningful learning and conceptual understanding increase the probability of transfer; title: Problem solving and creativity:; title: Depth of learners' knowledge influences their ability to solve problems and think creatively; title: Both convergent and divergent thinking are constrained by working memory capacity; title: How learners encode a problem or situation influences their strategies and eventual success; title: Problem solving and creativity often involve heuristics that facilitate-but don't guarantee-successful outcomes; title: Effective problem solving and creativity are partly metacognitive activities; title: Critical thinking:; title: Critical thinking requires sophisticated epistemic beliefs; title: Critical thinking is a disposition as much as a cognitive process; title: Promoting complex cognitive processes:; title: Promoting specific processes:; title: Actively nurture students' metacognition awareness and self-reflection; title: Explicitly teach effective learning strategies; title: Communicate that acquiring knowledge is a dynamic, ongoing process-that one never completely "knows" something; title: Encourage and support self-regulated learning and behavior; title: Provide numerous and varied opportunities to apply classroom subject matter to new situations and problems; title: Create the conditions that creative thinking and problem solving require; title: Encourage critical thinking; title: Promoting complex processes in general:; title: Teach complex thinking skills within the context of academic disciplines and subject matter; title: Pursue topics in depth rather than superficially; title: Foster complex cognitive processes through group discussions and projects; title: Create an overall classroom culture that values complex thinking processes; title: Incorporate complex cognitive processes into assessment activities; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Interview with Emily; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 5: Cognitive Development:; title: Case Study: Hidden treasure; title: General principles of development:; title: Sequence of development is somewhat predictable; title: Children develop at different rates; title: Development is often marked by spurts and plateaus; title: Development involves both quantitative and qualitative changes; title: Heredity and environment interact in their effects on development; title: Children's own behaviors also influence their development; title: Developmental processes:; title: Brain continues to develop throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; title: Children have a natural tendency to organize their experiences; title: Children are naturally inclined to make sense of and adapt to their environment; title: Development builds on prior acquisitions; title: Observations of the physical environment-and, ideally, frequent interactions with it-promote development; title: Language development facilitates cognitive development; title: Interactions with other people promote development; title: Formal schooling promotes development; title: Inconsistencies between existing understandings and external events promote development; title: Challenging tasks promote development; title: Trends in cognitive development:; title: Children's growing working memory capacity enables them to handle increasingly complex cognitive tasks; title: Children's growing knowledge base enhances their ability to learn new things; title: Children's knowledge, beliefs, and thinking processes become increasingly integrated; title: Thinking becomes increasingly logical during the elementary school years; title: Thinking becomes increasingly abstract in the middle school and secondary school years; title: Several logical thinking processes important for mathematical and scientific reasoning improve considerably during adolescence; title: Children can think more logically and abstractly about tasks and topics they know well; title: True expertise comes only after many years of study and practice; title: To some extent, different cultures encourage different reasoning skills; title: Intelligence:; title: Intelligence can be measured only imprecisely at best; title: To some degree, intelligence reflects speed, efficiency, and control of cognitive processing; title: Intelligence also involves numerous specific processes and abilities; title: Learners may be more intelligent in some domains than in others; title: Intelligence is a product of both heredity and environment; title: Learners may have specific cognitive styles and dispositions that predispose them to think and act in more or less intelligent ways; title: Learners act more intelligently when they have physical, symbolic, or social support; title: Addressing students' developmental needs:; title: Accommodating developmental differences and diversity:; title: Explore students' reasoning with problem-solving tasks and probing questions; title: Interpret intelligence test results cautiously; title: Look for signs of exceptional abilities and talents; title: Consult with specialists if children show significant delays in development; title: Fostering cognitive development:; title: Encourage play activities; title: Share the wisdom of previous generations; title: Rely heavily on concrete objects and activities, especially in the early elementary grades; title: Present abstract ideas more frequently in the middle school and high school grades, but tie them to concrete objects and events; title: Initially introduce sophisticated reasoning processes within the context of familiar situations and group work; title: Scaffold students' early efforts at challenging tasks and assignments; title: Involve students in age-appropriate ways in adult activities; title: Be optimistic that with appropriate guidance and support, all students can perform more intelligently; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Stones lesson; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 6: Motivation And Affect:; title: Case Study: Passing algebra; title: Basic human needs:; title: Learners have a basic need for arousal; title: Learners want to believe they are competent and have self-worth; title: Learners want to determine the course of their lives to some degree; title: Learners want to feel connected to other people; title: How motivation affects behavior and cognition:; title: Motivation directs behavior toward particular goals; title: Motivation increases effort and persistence in activities; title: Motivation affects cognitive processes; title: Motivation determines what consequences are reinforcing and punishing; title: Motivation often leads to improved performance; title: Intrinsic motivation is usually more beneficial than extrinsic motivation; title: Conditions in the learning environment influence intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation; title: Cognitive factors in motivation:; title: Learners find some topics inherently interesting; title: To engage voluntarily in activities, learners want their chances of success to be reasonably good; title: When learners think their chances of success are slim, they may behave in ways that make success even less likely; title: Learners are more likely to devote time to activities that have value for them; title: Learners typically form goals related to their academic achievement; the specific nature of these goals influences learners' cognitive processes and behaviors; title: Learners must juggle their achievements with their many other goals; title: Learners identify what are, in their minds, the likely causes of their successes and failures; title: Learners' attributions for past successes and failures affect their future performance; title: With age, learners increasingly attribute their successes and failures to ability rather than to effort; title: Over time, learners acquire a general attributional style; title: Culture influences the cognitive factors underlying motivation; title: Cognitive factors underlying sustained motivation build up over a period of time; title: Affect and its effects:; title: Affect and motivation are interrelated; title: Affect is closely tied to learning and cognition; title: Positive affect can trigger effective learning strategies; title: Affect can also trigger certain behaviors; title: Some anxiety is helpful, but a lot is often a hindrance; title: Different cultures nurture different emotional responses; title: Promoting motivation and positive affect:; title: Fostering intrinsic motivation by addressing students' basic needs:; title: Conduct stimulating lessons and activities; title: Protect and enhance students' self-efficacy and overall sense of competence and self-worth; title: Present challenges that students can realistically accomplish; title: Give students control over some aspects of classroom life; title: Evaluate students' performance in a noncontrolling manner; title: Use extrinsic reinforcers when necessary, but do so in ways that preserve students' sense of self-determination; title: Help students meet their need for relatedness; title: Promoting motivation-enhancing cognitions:; title: Relate assignments to students' personal interests, values, and goals; title: Create conditions that foster internalization of values essential for students' long-term academic and professional success; title: Focus students' attention more on mastery goals than on performance goals; title: Ask students to set some personal goals for learning and performance; title: Form and communicate optimistic expectations and attributions; title: Minimize competition; title: Generating productive affect:; title: Get students emotionally involved in the subject matter; title: Foster emotion self-regulation; title: Keep anxiety at a low to moderate level; title: As students make the transition to middle school or high school, make an extra effort to minimize their anxiety and address their need for relatedness; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Praising students' writing; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 7: Personal, Social, And Moral Development:; title: Case Study: School play; title: Personality and sense of self:; title: Heredity and environment interact to shape personality; title: Despite their relatively stable personality traits, children often behave somewhat differently in different contexts; title: As children grow older, they construct increasingly multifaceted understandings of who they are as people; title: With age, self-perceptions become more realistic, abstract, and stable; title: As children reach puberty, they understand that they are unique individuals, but they sometimes go overboard in this respect; title: Learners' self-perceptions influence their behaviors, and vice versa; title: Other people's behaviors affect learners' sense of self; title: Group memberships also affect learners' sense of self; title: Gender plays a significant role in most learners' sense of self; title: Despite the influence of others, learners define and socialize themselves to a considerable degree; title: Peer relationships:; title: Peer relationships promote personal and social development in ways that adult-child relationships often cannot; title: Peers help define "appropriate" ways of behaving; title: Boys and girls interact with peers in distinctly different ways; title: Social groups become increasingly important in adolescence; title: Romantic relationships in adolescence provide valuable practice for the intimate relationships of adulthood; title: Truly popular children have good social skills; title: Social cognition:; title: As children get older, they become increasingly aware of other people's thoughts and emotions; title: Children's cognitive processes in social situations influence their behaviors toward others; title: Aggressive behavior is often the result of counterproductive cognitive processes; title: Moral and prosocial development:; title: At an early age, children begin applying internal standards for behavior; title: Children increasingly distinguish between moral and conventional transgressions; title: Children's capacity to respond emotionally to others' misfortunes and distress increases throughout the school years; title: With age, reasoning about moral issues becomes increasingly abstract and flexible; title: Challenges to moral reasoning promote advancement toward more sophisticated reasoning; title: Cognition, affect, and motivation all influence moral and prosocial behavior; title: Moral values become an important part of some learners' sense of self; title: Promoting personal, social, and moral development:; title: Fostering personal development; title: Accommodate students' diverse temperaments; title: Help students get a handle on who they are as people; title: Channel adolescents' risk-taking tendencies into safe activities; title: Create a warm, supportive environment with clear standards for behavior and explanations of why some behaviors are unacceptable; title: Be especially supportive of students at risk; title: Be on the lookout for exceptional challenges that students may face at home; title: Provide extra support and guidance for students who have disabilities that affect their personal or social functioning; title: Be alert for signs that a student may be contemplating suicide; title: Encouraging effective social cognition and interpersonal skills:; title: Encourage perspective taking and empathy; title: Explicitly teach social skills to students who have trouble interacting effectively with others; title: Provide numerous opportunities for social interaction and cooperation; title: Talk with students about the advantages and potential dangers of Internet communications; title: Explain what bullying is and why it cannot be tolerated; title: Be alert for incidents of bullying and other forms of aggression, and take appropriate actions with both the victims and the perpetrators; title: Promote understanding, communication, and interaction among diverse groups; title: Promoting moral reasoning and prosocial behavior:; title: Expose students to numerous models of moral and prosocial behavior; title: Engage students in discussions of social and moral issues; title: Get students actively involved in community service; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Scarlet letter; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 8: Instructional Strategies:; title: Case Study: Oregon Trail; title: Planning instruction:; title: Identify the desired end results of instruction; title: Ask students to identify some of their own objectives for instruction; title: Create a class website; title: Break complex tasks and topics into smaller pieces, identify a logical sequence for the pieces, and decide how best to teach each one; title: Develop step-by-step lesson plans; title: Conducting teacher-directed instruction:; title: Begin with what students already know and believe; title: Promote effective cognitive processes; title: Intermingle explanations with examples and opportunities for practice; title: Take advantage of well-designed educational software; title: Ask a lot of questions; title: Extend the school day with age-appropriate homework assignments; title: Shoot for mastery of basic knowledge and skills; title: Conducting learner-directed instruction:; title: Have students discuss issues that lend themselves to multiple perspectives, explanations, or approaches; title: Create a classroom atmosphere conducive to open debate and the constructive evaluation of ideas; title: Conduct activities in which students must depend on one another for their learning; title: Have students conduct their own research about new topics; title: Have students teach one another; title: Assign authentic real-world tasks, perhaps as group activities; title: Use technology to enhance communication and collaboration; title: Provide sufficient scaffolding to ensure successful accomplishment of assigned tasks; title: General instructional strategies:; title: Take group differences into account; title: Take developmental levels and special educational needs into account; title: Combine several instructional approaches into a single lesson; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Cooperative learning project; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 9: Strategies For Creating An Effective Classroom Environment:; title: Case Study: Contagious situation; title: Creating an environment conducive to learning:; title: Arrange the classroom to maximize attention and minimize disruptions; title: Communicate acceptance, caring, and respect for every student; title: Work hard to improve relationships that have gotten off to a bad start; title: Create a sense of community and belongingness; title: Create a goal-oriented, businesslike (but nonthreatening) atmosphere; title: Establish reasonable rules and procedures; title: Enforce rules consistently and equitable; title: Keep students productively engaged in worthwhile tasks; title: Plan for transitions; title: Take individual and developmental differences into account; title: Continually monitor what students are doing; title: Expanding the sense of community beyond the classroom:; title: Collaborate with colleagues to create an overall sense of school community; title: Work cooperatively with other agencies that play key roles in students' lives; title: Communicate regularly with parents and other primary caregivers; title: Invite families to participate in the academic and social life of the school; title: Make an extra effort with seemingly "reluctant" parents; title: Reducing unproductive behaviors:; title: Consider whether instructional strategies or classroom assignments might be partly to blame for off-task behaviors; title: Consider whether cultural background might influence students' classroom behaviors; title: Ignore misbehaviors that are temporary, minor, and unlikely to be repeated or copied; title: Give signals and reminders about what is and is not appropriate; title: Get students' perspectives about their behaviors; title: Teach self-regulation strategies; title: When administering punishment, use only those consequences that have been shown to be effective in reducing problem behaviors; title: Confer with parents; title: To address a chronic problem, plan and carry out a systematic intervention; title: Determine whether certain undesirable behaviors might serve particular purposes for students; title: Addressing aggression and violence at school:; title: Make the creation of a nonviolent school environment a long-term effort; title: Intervene early for students at risk; title: Provide intensive intervention for students in trouble; title: Take additional measures to address gang violence; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Good Buddy; title: MyEducationLab.; title: Chapter 10: Assessment Strategies:; title: Case Study: Akeem; title: Using assessment for different purposes:; title: Guiding instructional decision making; title: Diagnosing learning and performance problems; title: Determining what students have learned from instruction; title: Evaluating the quality of instruction; title: Promoting learning; title: Assessments influence motivation; title: Assessments influence students' cognitive processes as they study; title: Assessments can be learning experiences in and of themselves; title: Assessments can provide feedback about learning progress; title: Assessments can encourage intrinsic motivation and self-regulation if students play an active role in the assessment process; title: Important qualities of good assessment:; title: Good assessment is reliable; title: Good assessment is standardized for most students; title: Good assessment has validity for its purpose; title: Good assessment is practical; title: Conducting informal assessments:; title: Observe both verbal and nonverbal behaviors; title: Ask yourself whether your existing beliefs and expectations might be biasing your judgments; title: Keep a written record of your observations; title: Don't take any single observation too seriously; instead, look for a pattern over time; title: Designing and giving formal assessments:; title: Get as much information as possible within reasonable time limits; title: When practical, use authentic tasks; title: Use paper-pencil measures when they are consistent with instructional goals; title: Use performance assessments when necessary to ensure validity; title: Define tasks clearly, and give students some structure to guide their responses; title: Carefully scrutinize items and tasks to be sure they are free from cultural bias; title: Identify evaluation criteria in advance; title: When giving tests, encourage students to do their best, but don't arouse a lot of anxiety; title: Establish conditions for the assessment that enable students to maximize their performance; title: Take reasonable steps to discourage cheating; title: Evaluating students' performance on formal assessments:; title: After students have completed an assessment, review evaluation criteria to be sure they can adequately guide scoring; title: Be as objective as possible; title: Make note of any significant aspects of a student's performance that a rubric doesn't address; title: Ask students to evaluate their performance; title: When determining overall scores, don't compare students to one another unless there is a compelling reason to do so; title: Give detailed and constructive feedback; title: Make allowances for risk taking and the occasional "bad day"; title: Respect students' right to privacy; title: Summarizing students' achievement with grades and portfolios:; title: Base final grades largely on achievement and hard data; title: Use many assessments to determine final grades; title: Share grading criteria with students, and keep students continually apprised of their progress; title: Keep parents in the loop; title: Accompany grades with descriptions of what the grades reflect; title: Accompany grades with additional qualitative information about students' performance; title: Use portfolios to show complex skills or improvements over time; title: Assessing students' achievement and abilities with standardized tests:; title: High-stakes tests and accountability; title: Using standardized achievement tests judiciously:; title: When you have a choice in the test you use, choose a test that has high validity for your curriculum and students; title: Teach to the test if-but only if-it reflects important instructional goals; title: Make sure students are adequately prepared to take the test; title: When administering the test, follow the directions closely and report any unusual circumstances; title: Take students' ages and developmental levels into account when interpreting test results; title: Make appropriate accommodations for English language learners; title: Never use a single test score to make important decisions about students; title: Summary; title: Practice for your licensure exam: Two science quizzes; title: MyEducationLab; title: Appendix: Interpreting standardized test scores; title: Glossary; title: References; title: Author index; title: Subject index.