Industry Knowledge

Project-based Learning

* type of learning which includes an in-depth investigation of a real-world, authentic topic or problem that is meaningful to students * students work in small groups or pairs to solve a problem or learn more about the topic * teacher facilitates student projects and supports students' inquiries and discoveries

Curriculum Map

A document that gives a brief overview of the course of study in a particular area of the curriculum.

High Stakes Testing

A high-stakes test is any test used to make important decisions about students, educators, schools, or districts, most commonly for the purpose of accountability

API

Academic Performance Index is a California ranking of schools based on student test scores from the CAT/6, CST, and high school exit exam; it ranges from 200 to 1000. Most schools have an API, a state ranking (by elementary, middle, or high school), a ranking in comparison to 100 similar schools, and growth targets for the following year. (Ed-data)

AYP

Adequate Yearly Progress --Schools and district must be progressing. If they don't meet AYP three years in a row the administration may be replaced. Many states that won Race to the Top money have applied and received a waiver of AYP.

504 Plan

504 Plan: this is a legal document made up by the guidance counselor (most of the time) with input from a medical doctor, the parents, the teachers and sometimes the child. It is a list of accommodations to help the child be more successful in the classroom - very specific to whatever that child needs. Usually kids with behavior disorders, physical problems have a 504 plan. (ex. A kid with ADHD is allowed 50% more time to submit their test above & beyond the normal time limit.)

Benchmark

A detailed description of a specific level of student achievement expected of students at particular ages, grades, or developmental levels; academic goals set for each grade level.

Correlation Document

A document that explains where in the weekly scope and sequence each specific state standard/benchmark is covered. Studies Weekly publications come with a correlation document that also lists any standards that are not covered, so teachers will know if/where they need to look for additional materials.

Inquiry Arc Dimension 4

Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action

GT Students

Gifted and Talented

Modeled Reading

I do. Teacher models, verbally, to students a reading process or strategy. Includes reading text aloud to students while they listen and observe.

Scaffolding

In the field of education, the term scaffolding refers to a process in which teachers model or demonstrate how to solve a problem, and then step back, offering support as needed.

IEP

Individualized Educational Plan. How do we execute the IEP? With differentiated instruction (special education student).

Webb's DOK Level 3

Strategic Thinking - Requires reasoning, developing a plan or a sequence of steps, some complexity. Bloom's Taxonomy Equivalent - Analyze "Breaking information into parts to explore understanding and relationship."

TEKs

Studies Weekly covers 100% of the Texas Education Knowledge and Skills twice in the student edition and twice in the Teacher Supplement (print versions). We also cover about 70-90% of the student expectations and breakouts twice in each because of space issues.

Jigsaw

Teacher slang meaning a cooperative group strategy: To divide a large article into small parts and assign them to groups. Example: "Lets jigsaw this!"

Best practices

Techniques, strategies or processes that are considered effective in helping students gain knowledge.

TCAP

Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program tests measure the progress of students from kindergarten to 8th grade, as well as high school.

Minority Classroom

The 504, IEP, EP, minority kids, kids that are struggling.

C3 Framework

The C3 (College, Career, and Civic Live) Framework for Social Studies State Standards is a powerful guide to help each state strengthen instruction in the social studies by establishing fewer, clearer, and higher standards for instruction in civics, economics, geography, and history, K-12.

HSS

The CA term for Social Studies is History Social Sciences

Common Core

The Common Core State Standards are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for the knowledge and skills students need in English language arts and mathematics at each grade level so they can be prepared to succeed in college, career, and life.

NGSS

The Next Generation Science Standards is a multi-state effort to create new education standards that are "rich in content and practice, arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally benchmarked science education."

PACT

The South Carolina Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests

End Fund Balance

All school districts' fiscal year starts on July 1. If there is money left over in their budgets in the April through June period they start thinking of wise ways to hurry and spend their End Fund Balance. Also called "Burn Money."

Authentic Assessments

An alternative to pencil and paper tests in which students are asked to perform a task such as a science experiment or other hands-on activity to demonstrate understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills. For many students (some would say all) this provides a more accurate picture of a student's abilities than a traditional assessment.

Reciprocal teaching method

An instructional activity developed in the 1980s in which students become the teacher in small group reading sessions. Teachers model, then help students learn to guide group discussions using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting.

Inservice Meetings

An instructional workshop for teachers. This is also called Professional Development. It's an after school meeting to train teachers. They generally don't like it.

Inquiry Arc Dimension 2

Applying Disciplinary Tools and Concepts (use KWL Charts, Cornell Note Taking, Primary Analysis Tool, etc)

Rigor and Relevance Framework

Bill Daggett invented this. It is a quadrant to show how rigorous and how relevant each assessment question is. This table is widely used and we analyze every single assessment question in grades 3, 4, and five for rigor and relevance.

Which came first... Bloom's Taxonomy or Webb's DOK?

Bloom's Taxonomy became a staple in the 1960s. Norman Webb's Depth of Knowledge came in 1997

ELD Standards

CA's English Language Development Standards. The English-language development (ELD) standards are designed to supplement the English-language arts content standards.

CAASPP

California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress is a system intended to provide information that can be used to monitor student progress and ensure that all students leave high school ready for college and career. The CAASPP includes computer-adaptive tests in English-language arts and mathematics as well as paper-based tests for science.

LCAP

California's Local Control Accountability Funding formula. Means that they decide locally what and when to adopt.

Crosscutting Concepts

Crosscutting concepts have application across all domains of science. As such, they are a way of linking the different domains of science. They include patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; systems and system models; energy and matter; structure and function; and stability and change.

Strand

Curriculum strands and themes are the organizing principles around which the curriculum is built. They are broad—for example, Human Societies—and integrate content from multiple areas and are built around essential questions.

Big Ideas

Declarative statements that describe concepts that transcend grade levels. Big Ideas are essential to provide focus on specific content for all students.

Competencies

Describe what students should be able to do (key skills) as a result of this instruction, specific to grade level.

Inquiry Arc Dimension 1

Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries

Developing Readers

Developing Readers ("PC" for Struggling Readers). Don't say "struggling readers, or below grade level.

Differentiated instruction

Differentiated instruction is a framework or philosophy for effective teaching that involves providing different students with different avenues to learning (often in the same classroom) in terms of: acquiring content; processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and developing teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability.

DBQs

Document Based Questions -- Questions based on primary documents/media

Bloom's Taxonomy

Dr. Benjamin Bloom wrote these. He discovered that by age 10 we have 80 percent of our adult intelligence. Levels of intellectual behavior important to the learning process: 1 - knowledge/remember 2 - understand/describe 3 - apply 4 - analyze 5 - explain 6 - create

EBD

Emotional and Behavioral Disorders/Disability (depending on the state)

EMH/EH

Emotionally and Mentally Handicapped. Emotionally handicapped

ELL

English Language Learners

ELP

English Language proficiency standards. We have ELPs standards in our teacher supplement right after the scope and sequence. (check if this is true with our redesigns)

ESL

English as a Second Language (ELL is more common now)

ESOL

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ELL is more common now)

Essential Questions

Essential Questions: Questions specifically linked to the Big Ideas. They should frame student inquiry, promote critical thinking, and assist in learning transfer. Similar to the Compelling Questions defined in the C3 Frameworks

Inquiry Arc Dimension 3

Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence

Bell to Bell Instruction

Every single instruction minute counts

ESE

Exceptional Student Education. This can be students below grade level or above grade level.

Webb's DOK Level 4

Extended Thinking - Requires an investigation, time to think and process multiple conditions of the problem. Most on-demand assessments will not include Bloom's Taxonomy Equivalent - Synthesize "Putting together elements and parts to form a whole"

FERPA

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act - a law that protects the privacy of student education records; http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

FSA

Florida Standards Assessments

NGSSS

Florida's Next Generation Sunshine State Standards

Balanced Literacy

Four elements (by Fountas and Pinnel): 1) Modeled. (teacher does that and shows them) 2) Shared. We're all doing it together. Reading/writing together. 3) Independent. You do it. Students work alone 4) Instructional. Teachers guides them through the process at their level.

Frameworks

Frameworks dictate how teachers teach.

Intermediate Grades

Grades 3-5, newspaper format, (old pubs typically 28 weeks)

Middle Grades

Grades 6-7, newspaper format.

Primary Grades

Grades K-2, magazine format, (old pubs typically 24 weeks)

Pacing Guide

Informs teachers what they are teaching and for how long. Typically provided by district, maybe subject coach. It tells them "in January we will move on to this topic, etc." for example. They are often very complex documents and almost no two are alike. The scope and sequence, at the beginning of TS, is our recommended pacing guide, or order in which they can teach the units, and contains the standards which correlate to them.

K-12 Curriculum Director

Large districts will have one overall K-12, one for elementary, and one for secondary schools (high schools). This person is in charge of the selection of instructional materials and ensure the materials purchased, or "adopted" will adequately teach the standards. T

Gardner's Multiple intelligences

Linguistic, Logico-mathematical, Musical, Spatial, Bodily-kinesthetic, Naturalist, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal

Low Stakes Testing

Low-stakes tests generally carry no significant or public consequences—the results typically matter far more to an individual teacher or student than to anyone else—and scores are not used to burnish or tarnish the reputation of teachers or schools.

Majority Classrooms

Majority classrooms. Kids that don't have an EP, IEP, or 504. The are the white middle class or literally the majority.

2.0 Technology

Means you don't have to download anything. It's all web based.

NCLB

No Child Left Behind was signed into law by President Bush in 2002, No Child Left Behind sets performance guidelines for all schools and also stipulates what must be included in accountability reports to parents. It mandates annual student testing, includes guidelines for underperforming schools, and requires states to train all teachers and assistants to be "highly qualified."

Curriculum Integration

Or Integrating the curriculum. This has been a buzz idea for the last 10 years. Since so much emphasis is placed on Reading and Math let's use social studies and science content to practice reading. All the smartest schools want to do it. It's a great intro for Studies Weekly because we offer the content they need to accomplish integration.

POS

Program of Study

Charter Schools

Publicly funded schools that are exempt from many state laws and regulations for school districts. They are run by groups of teachers, parents, and/or foundations.

RTI

RTI (Response to Intervention). Putting developing readers into special groups early when reading difficulties are spotted.

Webb's DOK Level 1

Recall/Reproduction - Recall a fact, information, or procedure. Process information on a low level.

Rubric

Refers to a grading or scoring system. A rubric is a scoring tool that lists the criteria to be met in a piece of work. A rubric also describes levels of quality for each of the criteria. These levels of performance may be written as different ratings (e.g., Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement) or as numerical scores (e.g., 4, 3, 2, 1).

STEAM

Same as above with "Arts" included; newer movement by supporters of Arts Education to tap into the momentum of STEM

Dr. Benjamin Bloom

Scholar that worked at the University of Chicago in the 1960s. His work was the basis for the 1965 Head Start Act that created the Federal Head Start program. He proved that by age 4 children have acquired 50 percent of their adult intelligence and 80 percent by age 10. He's the author of Bloom's Taxonomy of Higher Level Thinking. This book became a "bible" in the library of all educators. It's used to stratify assessment questions by level of thought required.

STEM

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - an initiative in many states to connect and improve education in these areas.

Scope & Sequence

Scope and sequence in education refers to the breadth and depth of a specific curriculum. The scope is how much you are going to teach of a subject over the course of a semester or year. The sequence is the order in which you are going to teach the material. Every SW publications has one, It can be downloaded individually or found in the teacher supplement.

Site Based

Site Based. When the decisions for implementation are made at the school level.

Webb's DOK Level 2

Skill/Concept - Use information or conceptual knowledge, two or more steps Bloom's Taxonomy Equivalent -Apply "Uses information in another familiar situation."

Building academic vocabulary (BAV)

Skills to teach students to increase vocabulary. This was a Robert J. Marzano (researcher) term that we are phasing out to just 'vocabulary.'

Guided Reading

Small group reading instruction designed to provide differentiated instruction

Textbook Coordinator

Someone in a district office who's in charge of the purchase and maintenance of all instructional materials

Content Standards

Standards that describe what students should know and be able to do in core academic subjects at each grade level.

Adoption

State standards are re-written. Publishers are invited to submit their product. Adoption committee chooses publishers and put on approved or "adopted" list. Publishers are typically allowed to present in regions or by district. Each district will choose which product they want to purchase. Sometimes, due to budget, districts will adopt, but not purchase.

PARCC

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a consortium featuring eight states, that work to create and deploy a standard set of K-12 assessments in Mathematics and English, based on the Common Core State Standards. Over the last several years the participation fell from 24 states now down to 8.

PSAT

The Primary Source Analysis Tool is an instruction strategy adapted from the Library of Congress. It strengthens students' visual literacy skills and here's how it works. 1) List all the students' observations about the photo. 2) What would be different if this photo was taken today. 3) What else would you like to know about it 4) Research with reverse google image search

SBAC

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is a standardized test consortium. It creates Common Core State Standards-aligned tests ("adaptive online exams") to be used in several states. Currently there are 20 member states.

STAAR

The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness

Dr. Norman Webb

The author of Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels of thinking. System used as a guide for assessment writers and content creators.

Alignment

The degree to which assessments, curriculum, instruction, textbooks and other instructional materials, teacher preparation and professional development, and systems of accountability all reflect and reinforce the educational program's objectives and standards. (Ed Source)

Formative Assessment

The practice of monitoring student progress during the instructional process, as well as after formal or informal assessments, and providing specific feedback to students to improve their understanding and test-taking skills.

Intervention Funds

The term refers to funds that schools get for students who are not learning at grade level. They can be used to fund before-school or after school programs or to pay for materials and instructors.

Integrated Curriculum

This is a big deal with Literacy requirements. There's a big emphasis on teaching social studies/science content during the literacy hour. Refers to the practice of using a single theme to teach a variety of subjects. It also refers to an interdisciplinary curriculum, which combines several school subjects into one project.

Parking Lot

This is where your presentation attendees put their questions and you promise you will come to the parking before you finish and answer any questions that are still left in the "Parking Lot." Some teachers use this strategy in their classroom.

Curriculum Supervisor

This person is in charge of the selection of instructional materials and ensure the materials purchased, or "adopted" will adequately teach the standards.

Title 3 Schools

Title Three of NCLB provides federal funds for English Language Learners, including immigrant students to help them achieve English proficiency and meet academic standards.

Title 1

Title one is a body of law that regulates how certain funds are distributed to underprivileged schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. Title one funds are supposed to be only spent on instructional materials.

Informational text

To inform the reader about a specific subject. Examples may be a newspaper, biography, cookbook, user's manual, etc. Different from fiction. All our publications include informational text, thus can be used in the Literacy/Reading/ELA block.

Summative Assessment

Usually a traditional assessment given at the end of a longer interval; quarterly, semester and final exams are all examples of summative assessments.

Shared Reading

We do. Interactive reading experience, guided by teacher.

Professional Development

We use train the trainer, webinars, online videos showing in class model instruction. We will provide in person training every year for districts for districts that purchase more than $100K but that is a guideline. Management may decide to be more liberal or conservative.

Webb's DOK

Webb's Depth of Knowledge is a tiered system of 4 levels that evaluates the complexity of the question or task being asked of a student; similar to Bloom's Taxonomy (6 levels) but reflects more recent thinking in education; developed by Norman Webb and sometimes called Webb's Depth of Knowledge.

Domain Specific Vocabulary

Words that are not necessarily common or frequently encountered in informal conversation, but are required either directly or indirectly when teaching a standard. Example: In second grade they have "I pledge allegiance to the flag..." Allegiance is not a second grade word. It's part of the "domain specific vocabulary."

Independent Reading

You do. Students read alone, a book of their choice, at their own pre-determined level