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Kaleidoscope,
Tenth Edition
Kevin Ryan, Boston University
James M. Cooper, University of Virginia
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A | B |
C | D | E |
F | G | H |
I | J | K |
L | M | N |
O | P | Q |
R | S | T |
U | V | W |
X | Y | Z
Abstinence-only
Sexual education programs that teach the benefits of abstaining from sexual activity until marriage or adulthood as the safest and most healthy alternative.
Abstinence-plus
Sexual education programs that emphasize delaying sexual activity, but also urge the use of condoms and other contraceptives for protected sexual activity.
Academic freedom
The freedom of teachers to teach about an issue or to use a source without fear of penalty, reprisal, or harassment.
Academic learning time
Time spent by students performing academic tasks with a high success rate.
Academies
A type of academic secondary school popular during the early national period, which stressed the classics as a preparation for college.
Acceptable use policy (AUP)
A statement of rules governing student use of school computers, especially regarding access to the Internet.
Accountability movement
Reform movement in the 1970s embracing the idea that schools and educators should be required to demonstrate what they are accomplishing and should be held responsible for student achievement and learning.
Achievement gap
Differences in educational achievement between students of different socioeconomic or racial and ethnic groups.
Adaptation
Changes in instruction or materials made to meet the needs of learners with disabilities.
Aesthetic
Appreciative of or responsive to the beautiful.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
The nation’s second-largest teacher’s association or union. Founded in 1916, it is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union.
Artifacts
Products of civilization that show human workmanship or modification.
Assessment
The process of determining students’ learning progress.
Assimilation
The absorption of an individual or a group into the cultural tradition of a population or another group.
Assistive technology
The array of devices and services that help people with disabilities to perform better in their daily lives. Such devices include motorized chairs, remote control units that turn appliances on and off, computers, and speech synthesizers.
At risk
A term used to describe conditions, for example, poverty, poor health, or learning disabilities, that put children in danger of not succeeding in school.
Attendance-zoned school
School to which children are assigned because they are of mandatory school age and live within the school’s designated neighborhood boundaries.
Autism
A developmental disorder characterized by self-absorption, repetitive behaviors, and problems with social and language skills.
Back-to-basics movement
A theme in education reform during the late 1970s and early 1980s that called for more emphasis on traditional subject matter such as reading, writing, arithmetic, and history. It also included the teaching of basic morality and called for more orderly and disciplined student behavior.
Behavioral psychology
A branch of psychology dealing with human action that seeks generalizations of people’s behavior in society.
Behaviorism (behaviorist)
The psychological theory that all human behavior is shaped by environmental events or conditions. Behaviorists are people who follow or practice behaviorism.
Benefit maximization
An ethical principle suggesting that individuals should choose the course of action that will make people generally better off.
Bilingual education
A variety of approaches to educating students who speak a primary language other than English.
Block grants
Federal aid to states or localities that comes with only minimal federal restrictions on how the funds should be spent (as opposed to categorical aid, which restricts federal funds to specified uses or categories of use).
Block scheduling
An approach to class scheduling in which students take fewer classes each school day, but spend more time in each class.
Buckley Amendment
An act passed by Congress in 1974, the real name of which is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. It stipulates that students have the right to see the files kept on them by colleges and universities, and that parents should be allowed to see school files kept on their children.
Busing
The controversial practice of transporting children to different schools in an attempt to achieve racial desegregation.
CD-ROM
An acronym for Compact Disc–Read Only Memory, a type of computer disk that stores several hundreds megabytes of data and is currently used for many kinds of multimedia software.
Carnegie Forum (on Education and the Economy)
A program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York that was created to draw attention to the link between economic growth and the skills and abilities of the people who contribute to that growth, as well as to help develop education policies to meet economic challenges. In 1986 the Forum’s Task Force on Teaching as a Profession issued A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, a report that called for establishing a national board for professional teaching standards.
Carnegie unit
A measure of clock time used to award high school credits toward graduation.
Certification
Recognition by a profession that one of its practitioners has met certain standards. Often used as a synonym for licensure, which is governmental approval to perform certain work, such as teaching.
Channel One
A controversial commercial program that delivers ten minutes of high-quality news programming directly to public school classrooms free of cost in exchange for two minutes of advertising.
Character
The sum of an individual’s enduring habits, which largely determines how one responds to life’s challenges and events.
Character education
Efforts by the home, the school, the religious community, and the individual student to help the student know, love, and do the good, and, in the process, to forge good qualities such as courage, respect, and responsibility.
Charter school
School in which the educators, often joined by members of the local community, have made a special contract, or charter, with the school district. Usually the charter allows the school a great deal of independence in its operation.
Citizenship education
A curriculum that includes teaching the basic characteristics and responsibilities of good citizenship, including neighborliness, politeness, helpfulness, and respect.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Established that discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is illegal in any program or activity receiving federal funding.
Class size
The number of students in a particular classroom, usually under the direction of an individual teacher.
Classical humanism
Renaissance philosophy centered on human values and exalting humans’ free will and their superiority to the rest of nature.
Classicism
The philosophy, originally rooted in the thoughts of the Greek philosophers, that humans are neither inherently good nor bad, but in need of conscious efforts to rise above their limited natural state.
Collective bargaining
A procedure for reaching agreements and resolving conflicts between employers and employees; in education, it covers the teacher’s contract and work conditions.
Common curriculum
A curriculum in which there is agreement about what students ought to know and be able to do and, often, about the age or grade at which they should be able to accomplish these goals.
Common school
Public elementary schools that are open to children of all races, nationalities, and classes. During the nineteenth century, the common school became the embodiment of universal education.
Competency-based testing
Assessment strategy aimed at gauging the acquisition of particular learnings.
Comprehensive high school
The predominant form of secondary education in the United States in the twentieth century. It provides both a preparation for college and a vocational education for students not going to college.
Compulsory education
The practice of requiring school attendance by law.
Computer literacy
Basic knowledge of and skills in the use of computer technology; considered an essential element of contemporary education.
Conant Report
A study of the American comprehensive high school written by James B. Conant, a former president of Harvard University.
Conservation, concept of
Demonstrated through Jean Piaget’s famous demonstration of pouring water from a narrow container into a wider one and then posing the question to children of various ages, “Is this more water, less water, or the same amount of water?” Used to show the importance of providing children with developmentally appropriate learning experiences.
Constructivism
A theory, based on research from cognitive psychology, that people learn by constructing their own knowledge through an active learning process, rather than by simply absorbing knowledge directly from another source.
Cooperative learning
An educational strategy, composed of a set of instructional methods, in which students work in small, mixed-ability groups to master the material and to ensure that all group members reach the learning goals.
Core knowledge sequence
A curriculum based on a strong, specific elementary core of studies as a prerequisite for excellence and fairness in education; intended to be the basis for about 50 percent of a school’s curriculum. The Core Knowledge Foundation is directed by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., of the University of Virginia.
Cosmopolitan
Social values that are determined by modern voices from across the world.
Cosmos
An orderly, harmonious universe.
Coteaching
A situation in which two teachers, often a special education teacher and a general education teacher, teach the same class together.
Council for Exceptional Children
A national organization of individuals concerned about the education of children with disabilities or gifts. The organization promotes research, public policies, and programs that champion the rights of exceptional individuals.
Creative thinking skills
The set of skills involving creative processes as means of analysis and decision making.
Criterion-referenced testing
Assessment in which an individual’s performance is evaluated against a set of preestablished objectives or standards (for comparison, see norm-referenced testing).
Critical thinking
A general instructional approach intended to help students evaluate the worth of ideas, opinions, or evidence before making a decision or judgment.
Cultural citizenship
Citizens participating in society by bringing their cultural strengths to the national civic culture.
Cultural literacy
Being aware of the central ideas, stories, scientific knowledge, events, and personalities of a culture; a concept that led to the core knowledge curriculum.
Cultural milieu
The characteristics of a particular culture, particularly the characteristics that determine one’s value or success. For instance, the self-made person is valued in a highly competitive culture such as that of the United States. The cultural milieu is strongly promulgated by the mass media.
Cultural pluralism
An approach to the diversity of individuals that calls for understanding and appreciation of differences.
Curriculum
All the organized and intended experiences of the student for which the school accepts responsibility.
Dame schools
Schools run by housewives during the early colonial period.
Database
A software program that organizes and stores complex sets of information in the form of records that can be sorted according to different criteria.
Decentralization
The practice of diffusing the authority and decision making of a central individual or agency and allocating these responsibilities and privileges among others. As a restructuring approach in education, decentralization is intended to achieve more responsive and flexible management and decision making; site-based decision making is an example.
Desegregation
The practice of eliminating segregation; that is, bringing together students of different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic levels.
Developmentally appropriate
The term used to describe learning tasks appropriate to the child’s level of intellectual development.
Dewey, John
American philosopher, educator, and author (1859–1952) who taught that learning by doing should form the basis of educational practice.
Didactic instruction
A lecture approach to teaching that emphasizes compliant behavior on the part of the student while the teacher dispenses information.
Didactic philosophy
The view that teachers should be masters of particular subject areas and that their role is to transmit their knowledge to students. Under this philosophy, teaching methods include lectures and recitations. Students are expected to memorize facts and concepts and practice skills until mastery has been achieved. (For comparison, see constructivism.)
Differentiation
A variety of techniques used to adapt instruction to the individual ability levels and learning styles of each student in the classroom.
Dimensions of learning model
Developed by Robert Marzano, this model outlines five dimensions of higher-order thinking skills or learning.
Direct instruction
Instruction in which the teacher explains the intended purpose and presents the content in a clear, orderly way.
Directive teaching
Instructional method in which the teacher leads the students through the learning process rather than allowing learning to be student-led.
Disaggregated data
Usually statistical information which has been broken down into smaller parts.
Distance learning
The use of technology to link students and teachers who are separated in terms of location.
Domain-specific knowledge
Knowledge that is specialized to a particular subject or application.
Due process
The deliberative process that protects a person’s constitutional right to receive fair and equal protection under the law.
Early childhood education
Programs that concentrate on educating young children (usually up to age eight). Early childhood education has become an important priority in helping children from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve educational parity with other children.
Edison Project
Experiment in entrepreneurial education begun in 1992 that seeks to establish partnerships with the public schools to create schools with a common curriculum and greater use of technology, among other characteristics. Now called the Edison Schools.
Educable mentally retarded (EMR)
A classification of individuals who are mentally retarded but capable of learning basic skills and information.
Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL94-142)
1975 federal law that established the right of all students with disabilities to a free appropriate public education.
Education Management Organization (EMO)
A private company that contracts with a school district to operate one or more public schools.
Educational Testing Service (ETS)
A nonprofit organization, located in Princeton, New Jersey, that develops educational tests like the SAT.
Effective schools
Schools characterized by explicit academic goals for children, frequent evaluation of performance, maximum time on learning tasks and with a focus on order and discipline in the classroom.
Empathy
The capacity to participate in another’s feelings or ideas.
English as a second language (ESL)
Method of teaching English to non-English speakers.
Epistemic knowledge
Representational or symbolic knowledge; the understanding that explicit concepts and domains connect or correspond. Such knowledge is demonstrated by the use of manipulatives such as blocks in teaching mathematics.
Equal Access Act of 1984
Statute making it unlawful for any public secondary school receiving federal funds to discriminate against any students who want to conduct a meeting on school premises during “noninstructional time” (before and after regular school hours) if other student groups (such as clubs) are allowed to use school facilities during these times.
Equal educational opportunity
The legal principle that all children should have equal chances to develop their abilities and aptitudes to the fullest extent regardless of family background, social class, or individual differences.
Equal respect
An ethical principle suggesting that our actions acknowledge the equal worth of humans (i.e., the Golden Rule).
Equity pedagogy
Teachers modifying their teaching in ways that will facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse racial, cultural, language, and social-class groups.
Ethics
A branch of philosophy that emphasizes values that relate to “good”and “bad” behavior; examining morality; and rules of conduct. Proponents believe that an educated person must have these values and that all children should be taught them.
Eurocentrism
Term used to describe the heavy focus in school curricula on European history and contributions to Western civilization and the effective exclusion from instruction of the history and advances of other peoples.
Excellence movement
Education reform movement of the mid-1980s, in which greater academic rigor and higher standards were required of both students and teachers.
Extended school year
Provision of education programs beyond the minimum number of school days mandated by law. Often referred to as “summer school.”
Extrinsic motivation
Rewards or motivation that are external to an activity itself, such as grades, gold stars, and prizes.
Fair use doctrine
A legal principle defining specific, limited ways in which copyrighted material can be used without permission from the author.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
A disorder caused by a mother’s consumption of alcohol during pregnancy, which can lead to retardation and delayed growth in the child.
Formal curriculum
Subjects taught in school and the instructional approaches used to transmit this knowledge.
Formative evaluation
Evaluation used as a means of identifying a particular point of difficulty and prescribing areas in need of further work or development. Applied in developmental or implementation stages.
Fourteenth Amendment
Requires that there be no law “respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Relevant case law has been applied to keep public schools neutral in matters of religion.
Frontal teaching
Traditional teaching method, now much criticized, in which the teacher’s primary instructional method is lecturing in front of the classroom.
Full-day kindergarten
An extension of the standard initial three- or four-hour introductory educational program for four- to six-year-old children to a full six- to eight-hour program.
Full-service schools
Schools where the educational, health, psychological, and social requirements of students and their families are addressed by coordinating the services of professionals from these various disciplines at the school site.
Gender equity
Treating males and females equally in terms of opportunities to learn and expectations for achievement. Avoids gender bias or stereotyping.
Globalization
The recent move toward heightened connection among nations and people around the world, fed by technology, free markets, and the free flow of information.
Group investigation
Form of cooperative learning in which students work in small groups using cooperative inquiry, group discussion, and projects.
Guided Reflection Protocol
Method developed to aid teachers, alone or with colleagues, to think about their teaching practice.
Head Start
A federally funded compensatory education program, in existence since the mid-1960s, that provides additional educational services to young children suffering the effects of poverty.
Heuristic learning
Educational method in which the student is encouraged to learn independently through extensive and reflective trial-and-error investigation.
High-stakes tests
The use of standardized test scores as a major determinant of significant educational outcomes, such as graduation, admission, or promotion.
Higher-order thinking skills
Skills involving critical analysis of a problem or situation; the ability to apply one’s whole range of knowledge and cognitive skills to problem evaluation and decision making. To do so involves moving beyond such skills as memorization and demonstration to application and conceptual understanding.
HIV [human immunodeficiency virus]
An infection of the blood predisposing the individual to death from AIDS.
Holistic scoring
Grading a student’s work as a whole, considering achievement in all relevant skill areas; the opposite of analytic scoring, which involves grading work according to specific, quantifiable achievement criteria.
Home schooling
A movement that allows parents to keep their children out of regular public or private school and to educate them in the home.
Hypermedia
A framework for creating interconnected, weblike assemblages of content in a computer application or network. Hypermedia can be thought of as interlinked multimedia that the user can explore in a nonlinear manner, following embedded links from one piece of content (text, graphics, video, sound) to another.
Ideology
The integrated assertions, theories, and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.
Inclusion
The commitment to educate each child, to the maximum extent appropriate, in the regular school and classroom, rather than moving children with disabilities to separate classes or institutions.
Individualized education program/plan (IEP)
A management tool required for every student covered by the provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It must indicate a student’s current level of performance, short- and long-term instructional objectives, services to be provided, and criteria and schedules for evaluation of progress.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
Federal law passed in 1990, extending and expanding the provisions of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975.
Informal curriculum
The teaching and learning that occur in school but are not part of the formal, or explicit, curriculum; also called the hidden curriculum.
Inquiry
An education method that confronts the learner with an issue or problem and guides the learner toward a solution.
Inservice training
Training provided by a school or school district to improve the skills and competencies of its professional staff, particularly teachers.
Intelligence
According to classical theory, a single and general human capacity to think and solve problems.
Internet
A worldwide computer network that can be accessed by individuals to communicate with others and to retrieve various kinds of information stored electronically in many locations throughout the world.
Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC)
A project sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers that is identifying standards for what beginning teachers should know and be able to do.
Intrinsic motivation
Motivation that comes from the satisfaction of doing something, in contrast to extrinsic motivation, which comes from the reward received for doing something.
Invented spelling
Child’s attempt to express in symbols (letters) the group of sounds that make up a word.
Iowa Test of Basic Skills
A series of standardized achievement tests that measure learning in reading, mathematics, language, and word study skills in grades K–9.
IQ
Intelligence quotient, a measure of an individual’s general intelligence.
Jigsaw teaching
Form of cooperative learning in which each student on a team becomes “expert” on one topic by working with members from other teams assigned the same topic. On return to the home team, each expert teaches the group, and all students are assessed on all aspects of the topic.
Kohlberg’s moral dilemma discussions
Values education methodology involving presentation of moral dilemmas as catalysts for student discussions and the development of moral reasoning.
Learning criteria
Specific statements of what students should know and be able to do after having completed a learning experience.
Learning disability (LD)
A disability classification referring to a disorder in basic psychological processing that affects the individual’s ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations. A learning disability is not primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; of mental retardation; of emotional disturbance; or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
Learning style
Characteristic way a student learns, including such factors as the way an individual processes information, preference for competition or cooperation, and preferred environmental conditions such as lighting or noise level.
Least restrictive environment (LRE)
A requirement of the Individuals with Disabilities Act that students with disabilities should participate in regular education programs to the extent appropriate.
Lemon test
A set of three requirements, established by the Supreme Court ruling in the case Lemon v. Kurtzman, that limits government action or legislation with respect to religion in the schools. Government action must not 1) have a religious purpose, 2) have the primary effect of either enhancing or inhibiting religion, and 3) create “excessive entanglement” between church and state.
Liberal education
A broadly-based education that teaches people to think for themselves rather than follow a particular orthodoxy.
Licensure (Licensing)
Governmental approval to perform certain work, such as teaching.
Limited English Proficient (LEP)
Term for students whose native language is not English and who have difficulty understanding and using English.
Linear thinking
The process of thinking through a concept or idea from start to finish by using step-by-step reasoning to reach a logical conclusion.
Local area network (LAN)
A method of connecting computers within a relatively small area to allow people to work together and share information. Especially useful for fostering communication among classrooms within a school.
Magnet schools
Alternative schools that provide instruction in specified areas such as the fine arts, for specific groups such as the gifted and talented, or using specific teaching styles such as open classrooms. In many cases, magnet schools are established as a method of promoting voluntary desegregation in schools.
Mainstreaming
The practice of placing special education students in general education classes for at least part of the school day, while also providing additional services, programs, or classes as needed.
Mastery learning
An instructional approach that requires students to achieve specific objectives before moving on to new material.
Median
A statistical term meaning the midpoint of a set of scores; that is, the point on either side of which half the scores occur.
Melting pot
A metaphor and historical theory that suggests that although America takes in a wide variety of peoples (races, creeds, nationalities, and classes), the process of living in this country and being an American melts away differences so that all peoples blend together.
Merit pay
The system of paying teachers according to the quality of their performance, usually by means of a bonus given for meeting specific goals.
Metacognitive thinking
The process of monitoring one’s own thinking.
Metaknowledge
“Knowing what you know”; awareness of what knowledge one possesses.
Mixed-ability (or heterogeneous) grouping
A placement approach in which students of different abilities are grouped together. Rooted in the belief that peer supervision, peer teaching, and group learning are effective means of educating all students, this approach is the opposite of tracking or ability grouping.
Mnemonics
Techniques for improving the memory, such as creating an acronym of the phrase or information to be learned.
Modern
A vague term, but usually refers to the time period after World War II.
Moral leadership
Guiding or setting examples in matters of ethics, character, and right or wrong.
Multicultural education
An approach to education intended to recognize cultural diversity and foster the cultural enrichment of all children and youth.
Multiculturalism
A concept or situation in which individuals understand, respect, and participate in aspects (such as sports, food, customs, music, and language) of many different cultures.
Multimedia
The combination of various media, such as text, graphics, video, music, voice narration, and manipulative objects; today, the term is often applied to computerized applications that incorporate two or more media.
Multiple intelligence (MI) theory
A theory of human intelligence advanced by Howard Gardner, which suggests that humans have the psychobiological potential to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in at least one cultural context. Gardner’s research indicates at least eight separate faculties.
National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)
Acongressionally-mandated survey of American students that is the primary source on educational achievement, and has become known as “the nation’s report card.”
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS)
A professional agency that is setting voluntary standards for what experienced teachers should know and be able to do in more than thirty different teaching areas.
National Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974
Federal law that defines child abuse and neglect as “the physical or mental injury, sexual abuse or exploitation, negligent treatment, or maltreatment of a child under the age of eighteen, or the age specified by the child protection law of the state in question, by a person who is responsible for the child’s welfare.”
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future
Blue-ribbon panel that in 1996 released the report What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future. The report emphasized the importance of high-quality teaching and recommended the National Board certification of 105,000 teachers by the year 2006.
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)
Nationally recognized organization awarding voluntary accreditation to college-level teacher education programs. Approximately 500 colleges and universities in the United States are accredited through NCATE.
National Education Association (NEA)
The nation’s largest teachers’ association, founded in 1857 and having a membership of over 2.2 million educators.
National Education Goals
Goals for U.S. education, established by the president and the fifty state governors in 1990.
New math
A mathematics curriculum popular in the 1960s that focused on teaching students to understand the structure of the discipline of mathematics rather than on teaching computation techniques.
Norming
The process of establishing norms for standardized tests, based on reviews of norm groups and their scores. Most tests are renormed approximately every seven years; the trend has been to raise norms on subsequent evaluations, so that increasingly higher performance has been required to reach the 50th percentile (or normal performance).
Norm-referenced testing
Assessment in which an individual’s performance is evaluated against what is typical of others in his or her peer group (i.e., norms) (for comparison, see criterion-referenced testing).
OERI
The Office of Educational Research and Improvement, a division of the U.S. Department of Education up until 2003.
Old Deluder Act
A Massachusetts law passed in 1647 that strengthened an earlier law that required parents to educate their children by requiring citizens to support schools, which would in turn enable children to thwart the snares of Satan by their ability to read God’s word in the Bible.
Oldfield schools
An early form of community schools in rural areas, usually built in abandoned, worn-out fields and supported by parents’ contributions and tuition payments.
Paideia
From the Greek pais, meaning “the upbringing of a child”; used as the equivalent of the Latin humanitas (from which came “the humanities”), signifying the general learning that should be the possession of all human beings.
Pantheism
The belief that there are many gods and that they inhabit all reality.
Paraprofessional
A trained aide who assists a professional, such as a teacher’s aide.
Pedagogy
The art or profession of teaching.
Peer coaching
A method by which teachers help one another learn new teaching strategies and material. It often involves release time to allow teachers to visit one another’s classes as they start to use new programs, such as cooperative learning.
Performance-based tests
Tests that require students to actually perform, as by writing or drawing, to demonstrate the skill being measured.
Personalism
An approach to life that focuses on the satisfaction of individual desires.
Philosophy
The love or search for wisdom; the quest for basic principles to understand the meaning of life. Western philosophy traditionally contains five branches of philosophy: metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and logic.
Phonics
An instructional strategy used to teach letter-sound relationships to beginning readers by having them sound out words.
Politically correct (PC)
A term coined to describe thinking that is politically popular. Taken to extreme, such thinking is so euphemistic and generalized as to be opinionless.
Portfolio
A collection of a person’s work. For students, portfolios are being used as a relatively new form of authentic assessment. They can contain a great range of work, from paper and pen work to sculpture.
Portfolio assessment
A means of assessment based on a collection of a person’s work. For students, portfolios may contain a great range of work, from paper and pen work to sculpture.
Positivism
A philosophy asserting a radical distinction between facts, which can be scientifically proven, and values, which positivism holds are mere expressions of feelings, not objective truth. Positivism provides the philosophical underpinnings for moral relativism.
Postmodern
Somewhat imprecise term, usually denoting the period that began during the latter third of the twentieth century, characterized by the heavy social influence of mass media, technology, new social and sexual mores, and a change in the traditional roles of men and women.
Pragmatism
Belief that one tests truth by its practical consequences. Therefore, truth is relative.
Presage characteristics
Characteristics of teachers resulting from formative experiences, training, and individual properties such as intelligence and personality.
Private venture schools
Schools run by individuals or corporations, which theoretically can generate a profit.
Privatization
A movement in which public schools are run by private, often for-profit, organizations.
Problem-solving skills
Skills involving the application of knowledge and information to solving a given problem, for example, definition, analysis, comparison/contrast, and sequencing; synonymous with higher-order thinking skills.
Process criteria
Learning criteria used for grading and reporting in which teachers take into account effort, work habits, classroom quizzes, homework, class participation, or attendance. (For comparison, see product criteria and progress criteria.)
Product criteria
Learning criteria used for grading and reporting in which teachers base their grades or reports exclusively on final examination scores, overall assessments, or other culminating demonstrations of learning. (For comparison, see process criteria and progress criteria.)
Professional development
Continuous advances in teacher’s knowledge and skills; lifelong learning.
Professional development schools
Innovative public schools formed through partnerships between professional education programs and P–12 schools. Their mission is professional preparation of candidates, faculty development, inquiry directed at the improvement of practice, and enhanced student learning.
Professionalization of teaching
The movement toward establishing or recognizing teaching as a profession, not merely an application of skills toward a particular task. This movement supports such practices as site-based decision making and other efforts that give teachers more authority and control over educating students.
Progress criteria
Highly individualized learning criteria used for grading and reporting in which teachers look at how far students have come rather than where they are. (For comparison, see process criteria and product criteria.)
Progressive school
A school that focuses on students’ personal and social development. See progressivism.
Progressivism (progressive ideals)
An educational philosophy that embraces largely unstructured educational programs, focusing on implicit teaching and individualized instruction.
Provincial
Social values that are determined by local traditions and mores.
Pull-out groups
Groups of students who periodically leave the regular classroom for special education services. For instance, students with hearing impairments may attend regular sessions of instruction in sign language.
Readiness
A judgment that a student is capable of learning a specific topic or skill.
Reciprocal teaching
An instructional procedure designed to teach students cognitive strategies that might lead to improved reading comprehension. Examples include summarization, question generation, clarification, and prediction, supported through dialogue between teacher and students and the attempt to gain meaning from the text.
Reflection
An inner process in which the individual thinks back on events, attempting to see them in a more objective matter with a view toward improvement.
Regression analysis
A statistical approach that allows judgment regarding the impact of one variable independent of the effects of other variables.
Relativism
The theory that all truth is relative to the individual and to the time or place in which he or she acts.
Romanticism
A nineteenth-century philosophical movement celebrating all that is natural and disparaging all that is artificial. In education, this philosophy leads to a focus on the child’s natural instincts and interests.
Sabbatical
A study leave granted to selected teachers, usually after a number of years of service.
Saxon Math Program
A traditional skills-based approach for teaching mathematics developed by John Saxon; it emphasizes repetition of mathematical operations.
School choice
Allowing parents to select alternative educational programs for their children, either within a given school or among different schools.
School culture
The prevailing mores, values, and rituals that permeate a school.
School within a school
In large schools, the establishment of “houses” of teachers and 100 to 400 students who spend much of their time together.
Scientific creationism
A theory of world creation, based on the Book of Genesis, that some Christians have proposed as a counterbalance to the teaching of evolution in science classes.
Scientism
An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science to explain social or psychological phenomena, to solve pressing human problems, or to provide a comprehensive unified picture of the meaning of the cosmos.
SCORE
Acronym for the essential goals in Strong, Silver, and Robinson’s model of student engagement: Success, Curiosity, Originality, and Relationships, resulting in Energy to complete tasks and work productively.
Secularism
An educational approach that ignores religious and spiritual perspectives in favor of a scientific and totally human perspective, excluding, too, the role of religious motivation in historical events (e.g., the movement to free slaves in nineteenth-century America).
Segregation
The act of separating people according to such characteristics as race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. In education, the fact that most students attend schools in the areas in which they live means that student populations will be homogeneous and thus segregated; desegregation is achieved when student populations are mixed.
Self-actualization
The status of having achieved one’s potential through one’s own efforts. Providing opportunities for self-actualization greatly promotes self-esteem.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Students’ behavior that comes about as a result of teachers’ expectations that the students will behave in a certain way. Teachers expect students to behave in a certain way, they communicate those expectations by both overt and subtle means, and students respond by behaving in the way expected.
Sexism
Discriminatory attitudes and actions against a particular gender group, especially women.
Sexual harassment
Acts directed against an individual of the opposite sex that are intended to humiliate, intimidate, or oppress. Sexual harassment includes making comments of a sexual nature, propositioning, touching, making unwelcome sexual advances, or making one’s successful employment or education contingent upon accepting or tolerating such harassment.
Sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs)
Bacteria and infectious syndromes, including syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, trichomonas, bacterial vaginosis, and pelvic inflammatory disease.
Site- or school-based decision making
A school reform effort to decentralize, allowing decisions to be made and budgets to be established at the school-building level, where most of the changes need to occur. Usually teachers become involved in the decision-making process. Also known as site-based management or school-based management.
Skepticism
An attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object.
Social justice
The concept of doing away with social and economic inequalities for those in our society who have been denied these benefits of a democratic society.
Social learning theory
The part of psychology that deals with human learning in social situations, including attitudes, motivations, and behavior.
Social promotion
The practice of promoting students to the next grade whether or not they have accomplished the goals of their current grade.
Socialization
The general process of social learning whereby the child learns the many things he or she must know to become an acceptable member of society.
Socioeconomic status
The status one occupies on the basis of social and economic factors such as income level, educational level, occupation, area of residence, family background, and the like.
Socratic instruction
A method of teaching in which the teacher asks questions and leads the student through responses and discussion to an understanding of the information being taught.
Split-brain theory
Theory suggesting that certain intellectual capacities and functions are controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain and others by the right hemisphere.
Spreadsheet
Computer software used to calculate and analyze numerical data.
Standard
Exemplary performance that serves as a benchmark.
Standardized tests
Tests given to large groups of students under uniform, or standard, conditions and scored according to uniform procedures.
Standards movement
Efforts at the local, state, and federal level to make clear exactly what students need to know and be able to do and, therefore, what schools need to teach. Implicit in the standards movement is an attempt to increase the academic achievement of students.
Summative evaluation
Evaluation used to assess the adequacy or outcome of a program after the program has been fully developed and implemented.
Tao
A Chinese term used by C. S. Lewis that combines the wisdom of many cultures to identify a universal path to becoming a good person.
Teach for America
An alternative teacher education and placement program for college graduates who have not taken an undergraduate teacher preparation program. After training, recruits are placed in urban or rural schools and make a two-year commitment to stay in teaching.
Teacher competencies
The characteristics that make a teacher qualified to do the job, including various areas of subject-matter expertise and a wide range of personality variables. Some school reform proposals urge that teachers undergo periodic assessment of their competencies to maintain licensure or earn incentives.
Teacher empowerment
The process of giving teachers (or of teachers taking) greater control over their professional lives and how they deliver their educational services.
Teaching for understanding
An educational approach in which the goal is to enable students to explain information in their own words and use it effectively in school and nonschool settings. This approach fosters the development of critical thinking or problem-solving skills through the direct application of knowledge and information.
Teaching portfolio
Collection of such items as research papers, pupil evaluations, teaching units, and videocassettes of lessons to reflect the quality of a teacher’s teaching. Portfolios can be used to illustrate to employers the teacher’s expertise or to obtain national board certification.
Tenure
A legal right that confers continuing employment on teachers, protecting them from dismissal without adequate cause.
TIMSS
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study, which is the largest and most extensive international study of academic achievement in mathematics and science ever undertaken.
Title I (Chapter 1)
Part of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act that delivers federal funds to local school districts and schools for the education of students from low-income families. It also supplements the educational services provided to low-achieving students in those districts.
Title IX
A provision of the 1972 federal Education Amendment Act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex for any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
Tracking
The homogeneous grouping of students for learning tasks on the basis of some measure(s) of their abilities.
Traditional school
A school that seeks to transmit to its students the best knowledge, skills, and values in society.
Transfer of learning
Connection or application of learned material to future knowledge or skill acquisition.
Values clarification
A values education methodology advocating the presentation of values to students free from imposed value judgments. Students should then be allowed freedom to choose their own values.
Voucher programs
A type of school choice plan that gives parents a receipt or written statement that they can exchange for the schooling they feel is most desirable for their child. The school, in turn, can cash in its received vouchers for the money to pay teachers and buy resources.
White flight
A response to public school racial integration efforts in which white citizens move out of the central city into the suburbs so their children can attend neighborhood schools with a lower percentage of minority students.
Whole language
A progressive approach to the teaching of reading that emphasizes the integration of language arts skills and knowledge across the curriculum.
Word processing
Computer software used for writing.
World Wide Web
An interconnected collection of individual information, opinion, and entertainment sites available on the Internet.
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