Master Plan: Glossary of Terms

Glossary of Terms

Ability Grouping:  Grouping students by ability, interest, and/or needs.  Grouping may even occur in self-contained GATE classes.  It is NOT synonymous with “tracking.”

Acceleration:  Allowing students with advanced ability to move through the curriculum at a faster pace.

Advanced Placement::  These secondary courses with criteria designed by college institutions.  Students may take the course for high school credit.  The optional AP examination allows college credit to those who score 3, 4, or 5.

At Risk:  Students who experience economic, physical, emotional, linguistic, and/or academic problems are more likely to be underachievers and/or to drop out of school.

Cluster Grouping:  Regrouping children in a heterogeneous class or across classes by their ability, interest, and/or needs in a specific area; i.e., math.

Collaborative Learning:  Students share effort and expertise to create a common group production or project.

Content:  Subject matter of the curriculum.

Cooperative Learning:  Usually consists of mixed ability group that is assigned a common task is then divided amongst group members and everyone’s grade is related to the finished product.

Core Curriculum:  The knowledge and skills to be learned by all students at a particular grade.  The local district sets its standards based on the state frameworks.

Critical Thinking:  Using higher order thinking skills – analysis, synthesis, and evaluation – recognize points of view, reach conclusions, and make decisions.  Self-contained GATE classes spend 60% or more of the instructional day working at these levels.

Curriculum Compacting:  A method where students who demonstrate “mastery” are able to omit a portion of the core curriculum, this extra time may be redesignated for enrichment activities while the core material is taught to the other students in a heterogeneous class.

Demand-Driven:  Refers to the District policy providing the opportunity to add additional self-contained GATE core classes when the following conditions are met:

1. By April 20, at the elementary level at least 27 students are on the waiting list for a single grade level: at the secondary level at least 30 students are on the waiting list for a single grade level.
2. The families of at least 27 elementary students must be willing to accept a GATE placement – even if it is outside their neighborhood zone.
3. A classroom must be available at one of the existing elementary GATE sites; at the secondary level, classroom access must be available.
4. A qualified teacher or teachers must be assigned to this class.
5. No additional cost may be incurred to fill the teaching position.

Differentiation:  A method of adapting the core curriculum by making modifications in depth, complexity, and pacing; this may include selecting, rather than covering all, the curriculum areas depending on students’ needs.

Discernible Blocks:  Identified risk factors that may impact a student’s potential or performance on tests of school ability and/or achievement.  They include economic, environmental, health, language/cultural, and social/emotional factors.

Enrichment:  Using activities such as literature, speakers, field trips, etc., used to supplement the core curriculum.  These activities, which are chosen, by the teacher and/or the students are generally not specified in the curriculum.

Grading:  Grading practices – evaluation of student work – should be measured against content and performance standards rather than compared with the norm for their age or grade peers, which limits their educational development.

Heterogeneous Grouping:  This grouping is generally formed by chronological age level and without regard for the diverse needs of students, their interests, or their learning styles.

Homogeneous Grouping:  This grouping is based on common criteria such as the student’s interests, special needs, or academic ability.

Independent Study:  Allowing students to follow individual or self-selected areas of interests and specific aptitude by designing and implementing their own study plans under the close supervision of teachers.

Individualization:  Providing a specific program for some part of a student’s day that meets the particular needs, interests, and/or abilities of individual students.  Individualization does not mean that every child works in isolation.

Instructional Scaffolding:  An approach that emphasizes teacher modeling, extension, rephrasing, questioning, praise, and correction rather than on the teacher as evaluator.  The teacher role is a collaborative, interactive role with students by providing carefully structured and sequenced support.

Interdisciplinary Curriculum:  Topics or concepts taught by gathering and relating information and ideas from multiple disciplines, i.e., English, social studies, and science.

Multiple Intelligences:  A theory – commonly associated with Gardner – which intelligence can be expressed in at least seven ways: linguistic, musical, spatial, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.

Open-Ended Assignment:  A vehicle by which the teacher can judge student work based on the student’s ability to draw upon prior knowledge, generate relevant connections.  And articulate his/her reasoning.

Outcome-Based Education (OBE):  The underlying principle is that decisions about curriculum and instruction should be based on the desired competencies students would demonstrate at the end of their formal education.

Peer Grouping:  Assigning or matching students by shared characteristics such as age, ability, need, and/or interests.

Portfolios:  A collection of student products used to measure student progress.

Problem-Based Curriculum:  This model enables gifted students to practice critical and creative thinking while researching information and organizing ideas to solve real world problems.

Rubric:  A scoring guide that is an assessment scale with intervals along the scale that represents a specific level of learning.  Each interval has a description of the type and quality of work represented.

School Improvement Program (SIP):  A K-12 categorical program funded by the state to improve curriculum, school climate, culture, management, and leadership training, and classroom support.

Standards:  This term is subdivided into content and performance standards.

·         Content standards relate to the specific academic knowledge, skills, and abilities that students are expected to learn in each core curriculum area at every grade level.

·         Performance standards define various levels of competence in each curriculum area at every grade level for which content standards are established.  They measure both student’s and the school’s degree of success in meeting content standards.

Thematic Curriculum:  The study of a topic or concept that is specific, such as “animals,” or global, such as “change” so that they theme serves as an organizing element to provide continuity and “connectedness” for learning.

Tracking:  Fixed groups that are rigidly maintained overtime.  This word is NOT synonymous with grouping.

Underachieving:  A discrepancy between recognized potential and actual academic performance, which may result from social, emotional, physical, and/or academic problems.