Worksheet Questions

Which one of the following common expressions best reflects the idea of distributed cognition?

• Look before you leap.

• A stitch in time saves nine.

• A rolling stone gathers no moss.

• Two heads are better than one.

Which one of the following is the best example of an authentic activity?

• Listing four different kinds of sedimentary rocks

• Designing a bridge using principles of physics

• Putting definitions of new terms in your own words

• Discussing reasons why World War II occurred

Which of the following most closely defines Uri Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory?

• Children learn the concept of biological systems from experience

• Humans develop by participating in separate, but interacting systems

• Adults actively manipulate children's understanding of changing systems

• Children who learn about ecological systems from an early age have higher cognitive abilities

Which one of the following is the best example of problem-based learning?

• Solving a series of mathematical word problems that gradually progress in difficulty

• Devising a way to move a large, heavy object using principles of physics

• Learning the logic behind certain problem-solving procedures in math

• Learning history by reading detective novels set in certain historical eras

Communities of learners often create conceptual artifacts as they study a topic. Which one of the following is the best example of such an artifact?

• Students jointly create a diagram that helps them understand the water cycle. They occasionally revise it as they learn more about evaporation and condensation.

• Students write their own, individual summaries of what they think the class has accomplished each week.

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• Students jointly create a board game that puts the economic principle of supply-and-demand into action.

• Students jointly write a one-act play based on a short story they've been reading

Using the guidelines presented in the textbook regarding when classroom discussions are most valuable, choose the topic below that would be most appropriate for a classroom discussion.

• Learning the various tenses of the verb "to be"

• Learning how gravity affects the speed with which an object falls

• Interpreting Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven

• Studying the definitions of difficult words

According to the Uri Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, which of the following is an example of a child's microsystem?

• The country in which the child lives

• The relationship between the child's parents and his or her school

• The leader of the country in which the child lives

• The relationship between the child and his or her parents

Which one of the following alternatives is the best example of service learning?

• Students in a biology class collect samples of local pond water, evaluate them for bacteria content, and report their findings to the city health department.

• A group of young boys develop a business in which they mow the lawns of their neighbors to make extra spending money.

• Struggling readers in a first-grade class spend three days a week with parent volunteers who provide one-on-one tutoring in basic reading skills.

• Students in a fourth-grade class work in small cooperative groups to help one another make sense of challenging reading material.

A community of learners can best be described as:

• A classroom in which most activities involve whole-class discussions and reciprocal teaching.

• A small group of students that chooses a special topic it wants to pursue independently.

• A classroom in which a cooperative spirit of helping one another learn prevails.

• A classroom in which most activities are relatively structured discovery-learning activities.

Which one of the following cooperative groups is using the jigsaw technique?

• As it prepares for a debate about capital punishment, a cooperative group decides which member will present each argument for the group’s position.

• When attempting to solve several challenging mathematics problems, group members brainstorm various approaches to solving each one.

• When studying types of mountains (volcanic, dome, fold, and block), each student studies one type and teaches what he or she has learned to other group members.

• After everyone has read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, group members divide up the scenes of the play, and each student skims through his or her scenes for examples of symbolism.