Glossary

Melissa Mehre


Accommodations: changes in how a student access information and demonstrates learning.
Accommodations do not significantly change the level of difficulty, content, or performance tasks
required of the student. Accommodations could include changes in presentation or response format,
instructional strategies used by the general education teacher, time, environment, or equipment
needed. [source: Dr. Deb Pope, UWSP, January 2012]
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): requirement of No Child Left Behind act that all students must meet
proficient levels in reading/language arts and mathematics tests in order to receive Title I funding. If
schools fail to meet their AYP goals for two or more years, they are classified as schools needing
improvement.
Artifact: a piece of evidence of my professional abilities as an educator. This could be almost anything,
like a lesson plan, an essay, or a slideshow from a presentation. When I'm adding an artifact to my
ePortfolio, I will first save or print it as a PDF. I will add the PDF to my ePortfolio, and I will keep the
original file(s) in the correct folder in the "SOE Portfolio" folder in the "private" folder of MyFiles.
Artifacts are sometimes called "work samples" or "performance tasks." [source: Kym Buchanan]
Common Core State Standards: set of standards created by governors and education commissioners to
clarify the educational standards for K-12 English language arts and mathematics. Common Core
standards are a clear set of goals and expectations for each grade level to prepare students to be college
and career ready by the end of 12
th
grade. [source: Common Core State Standards Initiative, October
2013]
Content Literacy Strategies: a teachers ability to incorporate literacy skills into his or her content area.
An example of this in the science classroom would be making sure students are able to read,
comprehend, and draw meaningful information from scientific literature such as scientific journal
articles or lab manuals.
Cooperative Learning: teaching strategy that involves small teams with varying levels of ability, using a
variety of learning activities to improve understanding of a topic. [source: Office of Research, US
Department of Education, October 2013]
Differentiated Instruction: instructional strategy that takes into account that students have different
ways of learning, different interests, and different ways of responding to each instructional strategy.
Differentiated instruction seeks to vary the use of instructional strategies in order to maximize each
students learning. [source: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, October 2013]
Formative Assessment: ongoing assessment that allows the teacher to monitor student learning
throughout instruction. Formative assessment are often low stakes assessment opportunities for
students, meaning they have low point value which allow students to learn from each formative
assessment opportunity without fear of losing large amounts of points. Examples include homework,
laboratory write-ups, exit slips, concept maps, and even projects if they are not the core performance
task of a unit. [source: Carnegie Mellon University, October 2013]
Giftedness: children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for
performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age,
experience, or environment. [source: US Department of Education, October 2013]
Individualized Education Program (IEP): a written statement for each child with a disability that is
developed, reviewed, and revised in meetings. This plan is intended to help each student with a
disability reach the same educational goals as their peers. An IEP is developed with the help of a
students parent(s) or guardian(s), regular education teacher(s), special education teacher(s), school
representative(s), and when needed other individuals the parent/guardian may want present, and
sometimes the child with the disability. [source: U.S. Department of Education, October 2013]
Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA): a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout
the nation. IDEA was created to ensure that states provide early intervention and special education
services to eligible children ages birth to 21. [source: U.S. Department of Education, October 2013]
Least Restrictive Environment (LRE): children with special needs are to be educated with children who
do not have special needs. Students with special needs are to be removed from the regular education
setting only if the severity of the childs disability prevents the child from learning in the regular
education classroom. [source: U.S. Department of Education, October 2013]
Metacognition: thinking about your own thinking processes. Metacognition is an important skill to
teach my students. Students must be able to think about their own thinking; meaning they can think
about their own study skills, memory capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, and can learn to monitor their
own learning.
Modifications: changes in what a student is expected to learn. These changes are made so that
students with more severe special needs can still participate in the general education setting along with
their grade-level peers. Modifications may include changes in instructional level, content, and/or
performance tasks required by the student. [source: Dr. Deb Pope, UWSP, January 2012]
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS): new K-12 science standards that include the standard itself,
science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and connections to
Common Core State Standards. NGSS was developed by the states and for the states in order to re-
create science standards across the country. [source: Next Generation Science Standards, October
2013]
No Child Left Behind (NCLB): federally-backed act of Congress (2001) that reauthorized the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, including Title I, which is an aid program for disadvantaged students.
NCLB is based on the idea that setting high standards and establishing goals will improve individual
state, district, school, classroom, and student outcomes. NCLB also requires states to develop
assessments that are given to all students at various grade levels in order to track the states progress
towards set goals. [source: Wikipedia, October 2013]
Performance Task: a specific artifact for a specific course. To get my teaching license, I must complete
every Performance Task for my major. To get an endorsement on my license, I must complete every
Performance Task for the minor. I should add each artifact to the correct page of the correct
Performance Tasks Presentation in my ePortfolio, as soon as possible. [source: Kym Buchanan]
Portfolio: a collection of artifacts. Different portfolios can have different purposes, including earning a
license, applying for a job, performance evaluation in a job, professional development, and personal
growth. The purposes of my SOE Portfolio include earning a license, professional development, and
personal growth. A potential employer probably won't ask for or look at my portfolio. But I can use part
of my portfolio before and during an interview. [source: Kym Buchanan]
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS): school-wide system of behavioral support that
include proactive strategies for defining, teaching, and supporting appropriate student behaviors to
create positive school environments. Key steps to PBIS include first teaching the positive, desired
behavior, then acknowledging and rewarding the positive behavior, and finally using data to celebrate
successes and identify new problems as they arise. [source: OSEP Center on Positive Behavioral
Interventions & Supports, October 2013]
Pre-service: the period of coursework, field experience, and other preparation before I'm a licensed,
professional educator. Sometimes called "pre-service" or "pre-professional." The next period is called
"inservice." [source: Kym Buchanan]
Professional Development: comprehensive, sustained, and intensive approach to improving teachers
and principals effectiveness in raising student achievement. Professional development involves the
collective responsibility among teachers for improving student performance. [source: Learning Forward:
The Professional Learning Association, October 2013]
Professional Learning Community (PLC): an extended learning opportunity to foster collaborative
learning among colleagues within a particular work environment or field. It is often used in schools as a
way to organize teachers into working groups. [source: Wikipedia, 8 Oct 2010]
Response to Intervention (RtI): multi-level intervention system that is intended to maximize student
learning and achievement while minimizing behavioral issues. RtI allows teachers to identify a problem
with student learning and success, make evidence-based changes to instruction in order to intervene
with the problem, and finally monitor for student progress. The three tiers within RtI include primary
prevention, which involves quality core instruction where most students fall, secondary prevention,
which involves moderate level evidence-based interventions that help most at-risk students, and finally
tertiary prevention, which involves individual, increased intensity interventions and is only for students
that do not respond to the first two tiers of RtI first. [source: National Center on Response to
Intervention, October 2013]
Smarter Balanced Assessment: assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards in English
language arts/literacy and mathematics. Smarter Balanced Assessment is currently being developed for
implementation by the 2014-2015 school year. The system will use computer adaptive testing
technologies to test students across the country. This form of assessment will likely be used to compare
state, district, school, and even classroom/teacher achievement levels. [source: Smarter Balanced
Assessment Consortium, October 2013]
Summative Assessment: final assessment that allows the teacher to evaluate student learning at the
end of an instructional unit. Summative assessments are often high stakes assessment opportunities,
meaning they have a high point value. Examples include midterm exams, final projects, final papers, or
final presentations. [source: Carnegie Mellon University, October 2013]
Talent: "Talents, as Gallup formally defines the word, are naturally recurring patterns of thought,
feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. Your talents are the ways in which you think, feel,
and behave instinctively, unintentionally, and without even noticing it." [source: Liesveld & Miller, 2005,
Teach With Your Strengths, p. 49 ]
Team Teaching: instructional strategy used that involves two to four teachers working collaboratively to
plan and teach units and lesson plans. Team teaching is also known as co-teaching or collaborative
teaching. [source: University of North Carolina School of Education, October 2013]
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): the difference between what a learner can do and what a learner
cannot do on their own. The ZPD requires teachers to scaffold in their instruction. This means teachers
provide help initially so that the student can complete a task with help. The teacher slowly removes this
help, removing the scaffolding, until a student can complete the task without help. [source: Kym
Buchanan]