Glossary of Educational terms

 

Educational terms
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A

Acceleration
A curriculum where the learners move through it at a more rapid pace than their chronological age peers.
Accommodations
Supports or services provided to help a student access the general curriculum and validly demonstrate learning. See more.
Accommodation adaptation
Adjustments or modifications made by classroom teacher(s) and other school staff to enable students with disabilities to benefit from their educational program. See more.
Accountability
The process of attempting to use a data-based summary of student learning to hold people and institutions responsible for students learning or failure to learn.  Including identification for system-wide strengths and weaknesses and specific plans for using the information to improve learning.
Adaptations
Any procedure intended to meet an educational situation with respect to individual differences in ability or pursessment.pose.
Antiracism
Is a commitment and obligation to recognize and actively challenge patterns of behavior and outcomes that persistently harm Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC).
Assessment
Assessment is the process of collecting of information (data). It is measurement activities educators use to attempt to make valid inferences to determine or estimate what learners know and can do and how much they have learned (knowledge, skills, and disposions); as well as using those measurements and inferences to decide curricular aims, if instructional strategies that are developmentally and academically appropriate, and if an instruction and curriculum sequences are successful. It can include tests, student demonstrations, teacher observations, professional judgments, graduation rates, and surveys. It may or may not be used for evaluation purposes. More on assessment.

Authentic assessment is a philosophical understanding of assessment where students perform tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of knowledge, skills, and dispositions within a real life context as used outside of the school setting. The closer the task is to what people face in the world as mechanics, construction workers, designers, business people, politicians, parents, citizens ..., then the more authentic the assessment. Authentic assessment is not synonymous with alternative assessment. An alternative assessment may or may not be authentic. See more.

Ecological or environmental assessment is a philosophical understanding of assessment that focuses on the learner’s interactions with the environment.

Alternative Assessment A philosophical belief that assessment can be achieved through a learning process that includes a broad category of nontraditional assessments (portfolios, open book tests, cooperative projects, peer reviews) that will assess more accurately.

Performance assessment is a task where students' actions while completing or attempting to complete the tasks can be observed and compared against a scale or range of performances to determine a level of comprehension, skill, and/ or disposition on a continuum of performance possibilities.

Assessment related vocabulary
Advanced Superior performance, in depth understanding, application of skills and knowledge to develop new understanding. See quality
Age Score Also called age equivalent; a score that translates test performance into an estimated age; reported in years and months.
Achievement & growth Achievement is an act of performance. The level of performance can vary from time to time and person to person. Growth is a change in achievement over time. See more.
Analytical Scoring Rating performance on several different dimensions.
Anecdotal Records Written notes kept by teachers on a daily basis about student performance and needed modifications of instructional programs.
Annual Goal A statement that describes what a learner can reasonably be expected to accomplish within a twelve-month period in the child's special education program. There should be a direct relationship between the annual goals and the present levels of educational performance.
Annual Improvement Goals Goals which describe the district's desired rate of improvement for students.
Assessment Accommodation A change in the assessment procedure that does not alter the construct being measured, but allows for the participation of students in district wide assessments.  These must be driven, by and consistent with, the IEP.
Assessment Modification (Alternate Assessment) Changes in assessment procedures that alter the construct being measured.  NIEP describes why the alternate assessment is necessary and how the student will be assessed in lieu of district wide assessment.
Assessment Quality Attempts to evaluate an assessment by identifying attributes of assessments and defining levels for those attributes with top levels labeled as quality.
Assessment Team Assessment often requires active involvement of professionals from many fields, parents, the person with a disability, and other interested stake holders in the assessment process.
Baseline Performance To measure baseline performance, a point in time is selected from which one can monitor changes or improvement in student performance.
Beginning Limited mastery of essential knowledge and skills,
Benchmarks (Major Milestones) Are major milestones which specify skill or performance levels a student needs to accomplish toward reaching his or her annual goal.
Bilingual A student who fluently speaks more than one language.
Challenge Index Index used to quantify a rank from district to district with regards to number of students with disabilities, student mobility (% new to district), low socioeconomic status, and ESL, or LEP.
Checklist An informal assessment device with a list of descriptions that are checked if they apply to the student in question.
Classroom Quiz An informal, teacher made assessment tool, to assess students’ learning.
Competencies A competency is a learned student performance statement which can be accurately repeated and measured. Competencies function as the basis for building the instructional program.
Consensus The mutual feeling that all concerns have been addressed and that everyone has been heard and understood.
Constructed Response Item An assessment item with a direction, a question, or a problem that elicits a written or graphic response from a student.
Content Standards Describe the goals for individual student achievement. They specify what students should know and be able to do in identified disciplines or subject areas. (See 3.3.2)
Continuum of Services For preschool children, ages three through five, means the availability of different types of settings where specialized services may be delivered; for school-age children means the availability of different types of education environments.  Course of Study: A general statement that identifies the career path that is based on the student's vision and his or her needs, interests, and preferences.
Criteria Guidelines, rules, or principles by which student responses, products, or performances are judged.
Criterion Referenced assessment or test Criterion reference assessment, or test, compares a learner’s performance or academic achievement to a set of curricular criteria, standards, or outcomes. A level of achievement is based on a norm or criteria which is established from the curriculum or standard before the test is taken. A rubric may be created to communicate different levels of achievement or a standard may be set as a percentage. The score should show the learner's progression toward the desired outcome or standard. See examples and steps to create criterion assessment.
Critical Skills Are knowledge or performance skills that are essential to the progress of a student.
Diagnostic Probe An informal technique in which task or instructional condition is used to observe if a change in the student’s performance results. See more.
Diagnostic Teaching An informal assessment strategy in which two or more instructional strategies and/or methods are compared to determine which is most effective.
Disaggregation of Data Reporting the performance of subgroups of a population.
Discrepancy Conclusion A comparison of the student with disabilities with peers at two points in time -- at the beginning of the IEP period, and at the point of the annual review.
Distracters Alternatives that are not the correct or best answer for a given item.
District Standards District goals for student achievement and performance that can be measured by measuring the improvement of students' skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, mathematics, reasoning, studying, and technological literacy.
District-wide Assessment A large-scale academic achievement assessment.
Error Analysis A type of work sample in which the incorrect responses of the student are described, categorized, and quantified.
Evaluation The process of determining the quality, or value of some response, product, or performance based upon established criteria.
Exemplar An illustrative example of the ideal response/performance representing a particular level of student work.
Extended Response Essay An essay question that provides students with a  great deal of flexibility in responding.
Formal Assessment Assessment procedures that contain specific rules for administration, scoring, and interpretation; generally norm-referenced and/or standardized.
Formative Evaluation Assessment during learning to determine student understanding and progress. more
Functional Behavioral Assessment Assessment that enhances an understanding of the purpose and function of a student's behaviors and subsequently provides information that leads to interventions and needed supports.
General Education Intervention Are attempts to resolve presenting problems or behaviors of concern in the general education environment prior to conducting a full and individual evaluation.
Grade Score Also called grade equivalent; a score that translates test performance into an estimated grade level; expressed in grades and tenths of grades. (5.2 is equivalent to 5th grade, 2nd month)
Holistic Scoring Scoring performance as a whole; based on criteria but not giving scores or feedback on specific attributes of the student’s work; giving a single score.
Independence Conclusion Is a judgment about the outcome from the educational efforts related to the IEP goal. It is based on information about the individual's performance improvement.
Informal Assessment Assessment procedures without rigid administration, scoring, and interpretation rules; includes criterion-referenced tests, task analysis, inventories, and so forth.
Instructional Services Are the specially designed instruction and accommodations provided by special education instructional personnel to eligible individuals.
Inter rater Reliability The reliability of scoring across raters.  The most common measure of inter-rater reliability is the percent of exact agreement between two scorers independently scoring the same set of papers.
Interview An informal assessment procedure in which the tester questions a learner.
Inventory An informal assessment device that samples the student’s ability to perform selected skills within a curricular sequence.
Language Sampling A procedure for recording language during play, while telling stories, or in conversational sequence.
Learning Strategies Methods used by individuals in their interactions with learning tasks.
Least Restrictive Environment Means that to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are not disabled.
Modifications Are changes made to the content and performance expectations for students.

Monitoring Strategy

See Reporting ...

Is a guide to how data will be collected to make decisions about the progress of a student and it establishes the decision-making plan for examining data collected. Reflection and metacognition
(NAEP) National Assessment of Educational Progress Begun in 1968 to track academic progress over time.  Administered in January and February during even years to grade 4 and 8. Schools are selected through a stratified random sampling. Scores are reported at state and national levels only, not individual schools or districts.
Non-discriminating Assessment Assessment that does not penalize students for their sex, native language, race, culture, or disability.
Norm-referenced Tests Standardized tests that compare a student’s performance to that of other test-takers who are part of a sampling group. Must be administered under standardized conditions. Norms are obtained by administering the test (under the same conditions) to a given sample (drawn from the population of interest, called the norm group) and then calculating means (or medians), standard deviations, percentile ranks, and other standard scores. See examples.
Observation An informal assessment technique that involves observing and recording the quality and quantity of student behaviors.
Open-ended A question or task that has many correct, appropriate, or excellent responses. There is no single, specific correct answer. More on questioning
Outcome A statement specifying desired knowledge, skills, processes, and attitudes to be developed as a result of educational experiences.
Percentile Rank A score that translates student test performance into the percentage of the norm group that performed as well as or poorer than the student on the same test.
Performance Assessment Assessment is based on observation and judgment intended to provide a rich portrait of student learning.  Assessment tasks require students to construct a response, create a product, or perform a demonstration.
Performance Descriptors or Indicator A comprehensive description of the “observable” behaviors that indicate the presence of specific knowledge and/or skills.
Performance Levels A structure for reporting student progress and clarifying expectations by demonstrating trends or progress.  Suggested levels for Nebraska are Beginning, Progressing, Proficient, and Advanced.
Performance Standards Standards that specify how good is good enough and describe at least three levels of student performance. The federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) requires that at least three levels of performance be established to assist in determining which students have or have not achieved a satisfactory or proficient level of performance for reading and mathematics. Districts may decide to provide more than three performance levels. Examples of assessment standards
Performance Task Activities that include opportunities for students to learn and opportunities to assess the quality of student work.
Personal Communication Oral questions and student responses used during interviews, class discussions, and informal conversation.
Portfolio Assessment The analysis of student work samples, assembled in portfolios to document student progress over time.
Pre-referral Interventions A series of procedures attempted by teachers for students who are experiencing problems, prior to referring them for special education services.
Present Level of Educational Performance Is a summary statement which describes the student's current achievement in the areas of need as determined by an evaluation.
Primary Learning Medium The primary learning medium is the medium most frequently used by a student with a visual impairment during classroom instruction. A primary learning medium can also be utilized in a wide variety of settings inside and outside the classroom. It should permit independence and efficiency in both reading and writing. A primary learning medium will become a primary living medium. It must, therefore, accommodate academic, nonacademic, and vocational needs and be applicable to adult activities following the termination of school.
Proficient Solid academic performance, demonstrates competency of subject matter, and applies knowledge to real world situations.
Progressing Partial mastery of essential knowledge and skills, partial success in tasks using this knowledge or skill.
Progress Monitoring Is a method of monitoring a student's progress that enables the IEP Team to discern whether changes need to be made in the IEP.
Related Services Means developmental, corrective, and other services that are required to assist an individual with a disability to benefit from special education.
Reliability The amount of agreemeent among different observer's measurements or level placements to each others determines the assessment's reliability. A test’s consistency or the degree to which an assessment yields consistent results; ways to attain reliability include test-retest, alternate form, split-half, and inter rater comparisons. The manner in which an assessment is created, implemented, and scored all affect its reliability. Ways to increase reliability.
Reporting & reporting systems

Data-based, systemic communication about student learning in writing, through portfolios, in three-way conferences, with numbers/letters or descriptive phrases, and using narratives.

Monitoring and reporting system: The method used to report the results of activities and milestones, along with key performance indicators, to all relevant stakeholders and personnel to ascertain whether progress is being made on the system goals.

Response Analysis Analysis in which both errors and correct responses are considered.
Restricted Response Essay An essay question that limits the form and content of students responses.
Rubric Rubrics consist of a fixed scale, a list of characteristics that describe criteria at each core for a particular outcome, and sample responses (anchors) for the various score points on the scale.
School Performance Index in Nebraska A formula which takes into account three factors: student performance, assessment quality, and unique local challenges.
Secondary Learning Medium A secondary learning medium is a medium that is learned in order to allow a student with visual impairment to perform specific tasks not easily performed in the primary learning medium. It may alleviate fatigue experienced when using the primary learning medium for extended periods of time. It may be appropriate when a visual prognosis indicates a future loss of vision and, therefore a changing learning medium. It may also be appropriate when functional assessment criteria suggest the student may benefit by using different media under some conditions.
Selected Response A choice given in a question or task from which students must choose what they believe is the best or correct answer.
Short-term Objectives Measurable, intermediate steps between a learner's present level of educational performance and the annual goals of the student.
Standard Deviation An accepted measure which indicates to what extent scores deviate from the mean (With a mean of 100, a standard deviation of +/- 15 points is equivalent to a score of 85 to 115.)
Standard Error of Measurement A statistic that estimates the amount of measurement error in a score.
Standardization Sample The group used to establish scores on norm-referenced tests.
Standardized Tests Tests that are constructed, administered, and scored under consistent procedures uniform to all students.  Standardization attempts to make scores comparable and attempts to give the students equal chances to demonstrate what they know.
Standard Score A derived score with a set mean and standard deviation; examples are IQ scores, scaled scores, and T-scores.
State of the Schools Report Profiles of individual school districts with information reported to Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) regarding student performance of the standards.
Stem Main part of an assessment item. (An incomplete statement or a direct question.)
Summative Evaluation Assessment after an intervention to assess student achievement of goals, objectives, or outcomes. More
Task Analysis The process in which a task is broken into essential components or subtasks, or the steps of procedure to do a task.
Tasks or Items Questions to answer or an activity to complete.
Teacher Assessment Assessments developed by teachers.
Trait Essential characteristics or qualities of performance.
Validity is how well an assessment measures what it is supposed to measure. Ways to increase validity.
Work Sample Analysis An assessment technique in which samples of student work are assessed.
Artifact
Anything that a student or teacher makes or does that can be used as evidence to support a claim. Oral statements, written, recorded video and audio, drawings, models, grades, portfolio, student groupings, nonverbal behaviors...
Assistive Technology
Any item, piece of equipment or product system, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability.
Assistive Technology Services
Any service that directly assists an individual with a disability in the selection, acquisition, or use of an assistive technology device.
At Risk Students
Students who are likely to develop learning or behavior problems.

B

Behavioral Intervention Plan
Written, specific, purposeful, and organized plan which describes positive behavioral interventions and other strategies that will be implemented to address goals for a student's social, emotional, and behavioral development. For students whose behavior prompts disciplinary action by the school, the behavioral intervention plan addresses the behavior(s) of concern that led to conducting a functional behavioral assessment. See Six Step Behavior Management (intervention) Plan
Benchmarks
are generalizations or groups of generalizations that are usually written as outcomes or objectives and used to assess students' learning at very broad intervals of time (years).
Bias
is an opinion, usually not based on fact or reasonable experiences, that is in favor of or against one idea, thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. See bias.
Big idea
is a statement that connects information in informative ways that have powerful explanatory value. We are all made of star stuff. Addition and subraction are an operations for joining, separating, comparing, and equalizing. Observation as the basis of scientific explanation. Transfer of energy from sources to receivers... Relative position and motion as ... Water cycle as ... Ecosystem as ...
Black serving institution (BSI)
Black serving institution (BSI) see - 2019 FUTURE Act authorized funds for minority-serving institutions of higher education.

C

Career & technical education (CTE)
CTE programs are designed to inform, generate and sustain student’s Interest in careers. See 2019 The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century - (Perkins V) Act. Program like World of Work (WoW) by Ed Hidalgo and Thinkabit Lab. WoW uses John Holland’s theory of career choice six personality choices: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional (RIASEC). It is supported by Beable, a digital portfolio and interest tracker. It also aligns with Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning framework (CASEL). Includes classroom jobs, career fairs, community helpers, explorers talent, interests, collaborative learning,
Caring
People feel a person cares for them when: they feel the person knows them personally; they care for them as an individual; they inquire about their interests in a positive manner, they help them learn, they care about their success and encourage their accountability, and the person is passionate, committed, hardworking, and knowledgeable themself.
Concept
An idea about a particular phenomenon people abstract from specific experiences. The idea includes all the properties that distinguish examples of the concept from all the non examples of the concept. Examples: plants, animal, rock, soil, dog, cat… Concepts can be concrete or abstract. Concrete concepts such as temperature as degrees on a thermometer, mammal as a dog, cat etc. Abstract concepts such as temperature as molecular energy, mammals as warm-blooded vertebrate with a four chambered heart, that bears live young, nurses them etc. Examples
Cloze procedure
A technique used to assess reading skills in which words are omitted from a text and the learner is asked to state the missing word.
Concentration
is how deeply a person focuses and thinks.
Cooperative Learning
An instructional and learning procedure that uses groups of learners to facilitate their learning of content and social skills through a variety of learning activities and experiences. See more.
Critical thinking
is the process, or art, of reflecting and evaluating our conscious understanding and ways of deciding what to believe or do with the hope of improving our decisions and thinking.
Curiosity
is a strong desire to learn something. Often driven by attraction to the unknow, new, rare, or odd. It can be strong enough to override hunger, thirst, and pain. The zona incerta, a group of cells below the thalamus, seems to be aroused by novelty. And GABAergic neurons are stimulated to maintain attention.
Curriculum
is our educational aims: the knowledge, skills, and dispositions we hope our educational efforts will produce in students. Curricular aims include: goals, objectives, outcomes, and standards. These aims are represented in a variety of documents, but more importantly are the mental representations and emotional feelings different people consciously or unconsciously use to influence their decisions.

Decoding
The process by which readers analyze a word in order to pronounce it; includes sight recognition, phonic analysis, structural analysis, and contextual analysis.
Deficit thinking
is thinking of a culture or environment as weak or less or by what is missing. It is related to the blame the victim analogy that suggests people are responsible for their life situations. Not that failure is on account of the oppressive situations in which they being coerced during their lives.
Developmentally appropriate
Developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) means teachers instruct and facilitate learning by understanding the common nature of children’s development, their social and contextual needs and interact with them where they are as individuals to facilitate their development.
See also. Nine principles of developmentally appropriate practice by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. 2020
Dimensions of a Subject or Discipline
1. Subject Content Knowledge - the ideas (facts, concepts, generalizations, principles, theories, and or laws) that are created by doing the subject.
2. Processes and pactices of subjects or disciplines - includes the processes, practices, and procedures used to inquiry and create knowledge in the subject or discipline.
3. Subject or Discipline Perspective - the relationship of the different dimensions of a subject or discipline to its other dimensions and to its whole as well as the subject's or discipline's relative significance for explaining and understanding the world.
4. Subject Attitudes, dispostions, values, or habits of mind that people have when practicing a subject or discipline that increase their likelihood of success in discovering or using the content for the subject or discipline.
Direct Instruction
Teacher-guided instruction focused on mastery of specific skills and concepts. Models, procedures, syntax, & ITIP
Diversity
Describes the composition of schools, faculty, and student body. How that composition is similar and different. A diverse population doesn’t automatically make an inclusive curriculum.

E

English as a Second Language (ESL)
A common title used for programs aimed at teaching English language proficiency to non English speaking or marginal English speaking students.
Equity
Describes the fairness and availability of opportunities for all students and teachers to succeed by removing barriers and providing appropriate experiences regardless of their past experiences. Requires ongoing, intentional, and deliberate practices.
Evaluation
is the ranking or rating of a particular artifact or collections of artifacts. It is the process of putting a value on the artifact(s). See more.
Executive functions
are the set of mental processes and skills that control and coordinate other cognitive abilities and behavior. Like the CEO of a company or air traffic controller at a large airport. Three examples: Cognitive flexibility or creative thinking sees problems from different angles, adapting to new situations. Self-control ignoring distractions, impulsive behaviors, and thinking before acting. Working memory is the ability to hold information in your mind without losing track of it. Notes on a white board.
Extended School Year Services
Special education and related services that are provided to a child with a disability beyond the normal school year of the public agency; in accordance with the child's IEP; at no cost to the parents of the child; and meet the standards of the SEA.

F

Fact
is something that actually existed, object or event, and can be verified by observation. Facts are single occurrences. Examples
Flow
to do something smoothly, continuously, and effortlessly Elements to attain flow include competence and control; appropriate level of challenge; clear goals and feedback; & a focus on the immediate. (Or how to make a viral video)
Focus
is where a person's attention is directed.

G

Gateway
is a predetermined place in an educational sequence where students must demonstrate certain competencies
General Curriculum
A description of the standards and benchmarks adopted by an local educational district or schools within a district that applies to all students. It is applicable to children with disabilities as well as nondisabled children and related to the content of the curriculum and not to the setting in which it is used. It is the basis of planning instruction for all students.
Generalizations
are statements of a relationship between two or more concepts. Examples: All matter has volume and mass. There is a relationship between an object's volume and surface area. Notice each requires understanding of each concept to have meaning. Generalizations can also be a generalized condition of fact, all dogs have canines. Examples
Ggenome-wide association study (GWAS)
is an approach used in genetics research to associate specific genetic variations with particular diseases. In education it is the use of genetics to associate different educational variations. See more.
Goal
is a broad or general statement reflecting the ultimate ends toward which the total educational program is directed. (Some texts sometimes refer to these as aims.) Goal an immediate objective or outcome that a person desires and executes a behavior or sequence of behaviors to attain. Motivation - hunger; Goal - food; Strategy - raid the refrigerator
Graphic Organizers
Visual form that helps students organize their understanding of information and the relationships between various parts of the information.
Grit
is the quality that combines passion and persistence to achieve a long term goal.

H

Hands on
further explanation of hands on and concrete experiences
Heritability
is the degree to which genetic variations lead to variations in physical traits, psychological characteristics, and life outcomes. It is generally agreed that almost every observable human characteristic is heritable to some extent. See heritability & education
Humanism
includes three principles: Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope.
Freethinkers guide their decision making by a moral conscience, or by evidence, or by social or political responsibilities to others, rather than dogmas or ideologies solely justified by authority.
Inquiry
... believe in study and education with critical thinking and reasoning which they apply to sacred texts or other authorities thought not to be questioned.
Hope is a feeling of trust that it is possible to achieve worthwhile things with our STEAM to live a life of value worth living, because good things happen when people are empowered, they will strive to achieve what is best for all of us.

I

Inclusion
Describes a culture, environment, and atmosphere, in which all learners feel welcomed, valued, and safe. Requires ongoing, intentional, and deliberate practices.
Individualized Education Program
A written statement for a child with a disability that is developed, reviewed periodically, and if appropriate, revise its provisions. A meeting must be held for this purpose at least once a year.
Immagination
is what makes our sensory experience meaningful, enabling us to interpret and make sense of it, whether from a conventional perspective or from a fresh, original, individual one. It is what makes perception more than the mere physical stimulation of sense organs. It also produces mental imagery, visual and otherwise, which is what makes it possible for us to think outside the confines of our present perceptual reality, to consider memories of the past and possibilities for the future, and to weigh alternatives against one another. Thus, imagination makes possible all our thinking about what is, what has been, and, perhaps most important, what might be.
Instruction
is the means people use to attempt to achieve heir curricular aims. Specifically what teachers do to help students learn what they believe students are supposed to learn as well as any consequential learning from those actions that were not anticipate by the teacher (hidden curriculum ).
Intuition
represents an emotional feeling or gut reaction you have about ideas, events, people, and so forth.
Industry recognized certifications (IRCs)
are designed by businesses, industrial groups, and state agencies to enable students to demonstrate their skills related to a specific profession and to allow employers to know the qualifications of potential employees. IRCs focus on specific skill areas and do not indicate career ready employees.

J

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M

K

K
M

L

Learning community
philosophically is a group empowered to set its own achievement or learning goals, select strategies to achieve them, implement a change process, and evaluate the progress through reflection and critical thinking.
Limited English Proficiency
Is when an individual's primary language is something other than English.

M

Mathematizing
is the human activity of organizing and interpreting reality mathematically.
Milieu approaches
Methods for increasing communication skills, such as contingent imitation, responsivity, following the child’s lead, linguistic mapping, and social routines; providing language models; and embedding teaching within routines.
Mindset
Mindset a state of mind that oversees ones actions and suggests probabilities for achievement as successful or not. Carol Dweck contrasts growth mindset and fixed mindset, which are based on an attribution model.
Motivation
is a hypothetical or theoretical force that drives a person to do something. It includes varying emotions such as: initiative, drive, intensity, persistence, that inhibit, neutralize, or promote goal-directed behaviors Motivation - hunger; Goal - find food; Strategy - raid the refrigerator. See motivation theory
Multitasking
is really task switching. We can only focus on one thing at a time. So we focus on something for a short time, then focus on another thing, and hopefully switch back before we lose focus.
If you want to compare A, B, & C, you focus on A, drop it, focus on B, drop it, then focus on C. You can’t experience them all at once. However, you can pull related information and create a picture or relationship with all three. For example: view A, then B. Relate A to B (A taller than B); then view B, view C, compare them (C taller than B); then create a relationship with all three A < B < C.

N

N
N

O

Objective
is a thing aimed at or sought. In education there are different kinds and definitions of objectives. See Kinds of objectives
Outcome
is a description of what learners do to demonstrate understanding, skill, or competence. Outcome levels describe different levels of what learners may do to demonstrate a level of skill, competency, or conceptualization of a concept they have achieved from beginning to advanced.

P

Pedagogy
is the art or profession of teaching which includes information on learning and human development.
Performance Outcome
See outcome.
Physical Education
Is the term of development of physical and motor fitness, fundamental motor skills and patterns; and skills in aquatics, dance, and individual and group names and sports (including intramural and lifetime sports). The term also refers to special physical education, adaptive physical education, movement, education, and motor development.
Polygenic scores
are a measure of a person's success due to their genes (DNA). See more
Program Accessibility
All school districts will ensure programs and activities are accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities.

R

Rubric
Rubrics consist of a fixed scale, a list of characteristics that describe criteria at each core for a particular outcome, and sample responses (anchors) for the various score points on the scale.
Reliability
The amount of agreemeent among different observer's measurements or level placements to each others determines the assessment's reliability. A test’s consistency or the degree to which an assessment yields consistent results; ways to attain reliability include test-retest, alternate form, split-half, and inter rater comparisons. The manner in which an assessment is created, implemented, and scored all affect its reliability. Ways to increase reliability.

S

Section 504
Part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.  “No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States…shall, solely by reason of his handicap be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance…”
Self Monitoring
A strategy where students keep track of and record information about their own behaviors.
Self Paced Instruction
A curriculum model assigned to allow students to move through a curriculum at their own pace.
Self Reflection
Thinking, recording, or communicating about the process and content of learning individuals do.
Socio gram and Sociometric Techniques
A assessment procedures used to determine how learners perceive their peers. Sample and instructions
Special Education
is a specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability.
Standards
Statements that describe what students are expected to know and perform. Standard documents and notes
Skeptic
A philosopher who denies the possibility that any knowledge of world can be known, or even rational beliefs, in some conditions. see stoic
Skeptics believe the search for knowledge or truth is an infinite regress with no end.
Stoic
believe a search for knowledge or truth is possible and need not be infinite, as there are points in time when the process of collecting information becomes enough to be useful to be understood.
Supplementary Aids and Services
Services provided in order for an eligible individual to be served in the general education classroom environment, which may include intensive short-term specially designed instruction; educational interpreters; readers for individuals with visual impairments; special education assistants; special education assistants for individuals with physical disabilities for assistance in and about school, and for transportation; materials; and specialized or modified instructionally related equipment for use in the school.
Support Services
are the specially designed activities which augment, supplement or support the educational program of eligible individuals.

T

Team Teaching
is the utilization of more than one professional who actually co-teach learners.
Transition
Is a coordinated set of activities for a student with a disability that is designed with an outcome-oriented process, that promotes movement from school to post-school activities, including postsecondary education, vocational training, integrated employment (including supported employment), continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation.
Transportation
Is a related service that refers to the means by which a student travels to and from school.

U

U
T

V

Validity
is how well an assessment measures what it is supposed to measure. Ways to increase validity.
Vocational Education
Means organized educational programs that are directly related to the preparation of individuals for paid or unpaid employment, or for additional preparation for a career requiring other than a baccalaureate or advanced degree.

W x y z

Work sample
A permanent product created by the student.
X
T
Z
T

 

 

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Dr. Robert Sweetland's notes
homeofbob.com & schoolofbob.com