To be considered a competent educator, there are almost 2000 strategies, concepts, and terms that you must know. However, since teachers wear so many hats, who has the time to learn them all? Don’t worry; we have you covered. In this series, we will discuss all the teaching and learning strategies, concepts, and terms that you need to know to be considered an effective educator. There are over 70 articles in this series, so pace yourself. We recommend reading one piece per weekday, which will allow you to complete the series in three to four months. We hope you enjoy it.
Click here to read all the articles in this series.
Social and Play Skills The ability of a child to interact using specific behavior in a social situation such as using toys to interact with peers and adults.
Social Capital The values, institutions or collective assets of a group or society that can be used to its advantage, such as the concepts of freedom, justice, civic participation and a diverse population.
Social Coaching Instruction from an educator to teach children social skills and help facilitate group inclusion, communication, or dynamics.
Social Communication Disorder A disorder where kids have problems processing and interacting with the subtlety and nonconformity of communication. They don’t understand the social conventions of communication, such as personal space, the ebb, and flow of conversations, etc.
Social Comparison A method of self-evaluation in which an individual gathers information for self-assessment by comparing their abilities, attitudes, and conduct to that of others.
Social Constructivist Process A learning development theory based on the schema that concludes that learning takes place when prior knowledge is combined with new information.
Social Dialects Variations in the standard system of language among groups in society including groups based on different cultures or social status.
Social Justice The belief that citizens should provide for disadvantaged members of society.
Social Leadership The capacity to drive a group to reach concrete goals while also empowering team members and strengthening cohesion within the group.
Social Learning Theory A set of rules and principles, developed by Bandura, that places significance on reinforcement as well as the effects of cues on thinking and of thinking on action.
Social Networking Refers to the ability and platforms that allow users to interact online, often in real time. Users can conduct live chats, and create or leave comments on blogs or discussion groups.
Social Pretend Play A complex form of social play where the child must be able to engage in the basic concept of the game as well as interact with others. It requires the more complicated coordination of the two activities at the same time.
Social Promotion The act of moving a student to the next grade level, even though they have not mastered the curriculum of their current grade level. It allows their promotion regardless, always in spite of a common and reasonable concern that this approach places already struggling students at risk of future failure, rather than addressing their academic or personal needs at the moment.
Social Reconstructionism Is an educational philosophy that views schools as tools to solve social problems. Social reconstructionists reason that, because all leaders are the product of schools, schools should provide a curriculum that fosters their development. Reconstructionists not only aim to educate a generation of problem solvers, but also try to identify and correct many noteworthy social problems that face our nation, with diverse targets including racism, pollution, homelessness, poverty, and violence. Rather than a philosophy of education, reconstructionism may be referred to as more of a remedy for a society that seeks to build a more objective social order.
Social Referencing An infant or young child’s tendency to look back to his or her parents or caregiver for encouragement and approval.
Social Self-Concept How a student interprets their own ability to interact with others socially.
Social Skills-Based Programs A program based on the idea that social interaction is a developmental task closely linked to language.
Social Validity The perceived value of an assessment including whether it is generally acceptable and appropriate. Social validity involves asking questions about whether the situational factors presented in an assessment are valuable for the child and the family as well as whether the methods were acceptable to the children who participated.
Social Workers A mental health professional who often works with families who have children with special needs in order to coordinate services.
Social-Emotional Development In children is crucial. It includes the child’s ability to understand the feelings of others, manage his emotions, and build relationships with both children and adults.
Socialization The ability to learn the social norms and expectations of society.
Socialization The variety of experiences that a child has that help to develop the personality and teach suitable social behaviors.
Society-Centered Philosophies Go beyond focusing on the student and focus instead on a group or a population. Society-centered philosophies focus on educating a group of people—whether a minority group or the world as a whole—rather than a curriculum or a student. The objective is to improve society as a whole.
Sociocultural Constructivism The theory that because knowledge is socially constructed, it is heavily influenced by society and the cultural setting in which it is developed.
Socioeconomic Status (SES) Is a collective assessment of a persons economic and sociological standing. Many students from low-SES backgrounds face socio-emotional instability.
Sociohistorical Theory Vygotsky’s theory that states the social context is important to the acquisition of domestic, vocational, and communication skills that can increase a child’s daily independence and ability to do things for him or herself.
Sociolinguistic Competence The use of language to achieve a particular goal especially about society.
Socratic Method Is the process of gaining knowledge by carefully questioning and then criticizing the answers.
Socratic Seminars Are lectures in which the teacher asks a specific series of questions to encourage the students to think, rationalize, and discuss the topic.
Soft Skills The basic idea is simple: soft skills include everything an employee needs to be successful in her or his position other than academic skills. It should be apparent that, while we may be able to automate cars in the next decade or two, we are nowhere close to automating the work of social workers, therapists, educators, and others whose jobs focus around soft-skills—or on the softer aspects of other jobs, such as the need for surgeons to communicate with the patient’s family.
Software Refers to the programs and applications that make use of the hardware to direct the functions of a computer. Software allows users to give instructions to the computer hardware and receive feedback.
Solitary Play The act of engaging in recreational activities by oneself and unaccompanied by others.
Solution Products The resulting material from problem-based learning which are, generally, reasoned explanations. Students come up with these solutions based on the information given to them, their responses to the questions they have come up with, as well as subsequent reasoning.
Sonority The abstract concept that refers to the amount of sound in a speech segment is sonority. Some sounds are more sonorous than others with a sonority hierarchy arranging sound from most to least. Other sonority concepts should also be considered to include the sonority sequencing principle and the difference score. Taken together these concepts have been used to study the acquisition of consonant clusters by children and understand the responses to the intervention of targeting consonant clusters that comprise different sonority difference scores.
Sophomore A student who is in their second year of high school or college.
Sounds of Silence The degree to which society ignores the needs of gifted children.
