TCS-II Glossary

academic enrichment center / Usually an after-hours academic program serving students with a broad spectrum of interests and abilities. It should be viewed as an extension of the regular school program, not merely as a catch-all for middle grade students whose needs may not be addressed in other after-hours programs.
Academic Excellence / One of four components used in the Schools to Watch program to indicate school programs that: (1) hold high expectations for all students; (2) align instruction and curriculum to state standards; (3) provide depth and real-world, connected learning; (4) provide a variety of challenging and engaging learning activities; (5) employ a variety of assessments; (6) provide time and flexible scheduling to ensure mastery; (7) provide supports for students; and (8) conduct regular professional development based on student learning needs.
academic literacy / An advanced level of literacy that enables students to learn in depth the more complex knowledge and skills embedded in and defined by grade-level content standards.
rogram Survey / The Academic Program Survey (APS) is a tool designed to help a school determine how well it is implementing the nine Essential Program Components considered to be crucial to an effective academic program.
accountability / The extent to which an individual, group, or institution is held responsible for actions or performance. In education, schools and districts are now held accountable by providing evidence of student learning and achievement and school improvement.
achievement gap / The achievement gap refers to the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.
action research / Action research is research done by professionals on their own actions. The purpose of action research is to improve future actions.
active learning / Learning in which instructional strategies engage students intellectually and physically as they pursue given classroom assignments. Active learning is the opposite of passive learning, in which one-way communication from teachers to students is the norm. Active learning involves substantive changes in the ways students and teachers work together, shifting the focus of classroom instruction from teaching to learning. In such classrooms, students are engaged in learning activities such as gathering data, defining issues, stating problems, generating and testing hypotheses, drawing conclusions, reporting and defending their work. One of active learning’s most basic aims is to create independent learners. Active learning is directly responsive to the developmental characteristics associated with early adolescence.
adults as mentors / Middle grade students benefit from close, personal connections with adults who can serve as mentors and guides. At some schools, each adult staff members is assigned a group of students with whom to develop special connections. At other schools, mentoring is less formal. The key element of a mentoring program is the availability of caring adults who are willing to listen and share.
advisory program / A special type of group guidance experience in which students meet together in small groups with the same teacher or counselor over an extended period of time, often for two or more years. A strong, trusting relationship nurtured between students and their advisor allows them to deal with sensitive issues and concerns. Students gain emotional strength, self-knowledge, and social skills through their participation in well-defined advisory programs. (See also teacher-based adviser/advisee program.)
AMOs (Annual Measureable Objectives) / AMOs are targets established by individual states for schools and districts under the requirements of NCLB. (See NCLB below). The most crucial AMOs for schools and districts are reflected in the minimum percentages of students who are required to meet or exceed the proficient level on the state assessments used for AYP for the academic year.
API
(Academic Performance Index) / The Academic Performance Index (API) is the cornerstone of California’s Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA) of 1999. The purpose of the API is to measure the academic performance and growth of schools. It is a numeric index (or scale) that ranges from a low of 200 to a high of 1000. A school’s score on the API is an indicator of a school ’s performance level, based on the percentage of students scoring at a given performance level or band on statewide testing. APIs are also reported for LEAs as an element of California’s accountability requirements under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001.
Argumentative Literacy / Argumentative literacy is the ability of students to discuss what they read, think critically, and defend their positions. Also known as discussion or academic discourse, argumentative literacy helps teachers know when students thoroughly understand a subject.
Articulation / “…articulation, or more specifically course articulation, refers to the process of comparing the content of courses that are transferred between postsecondary institutions such as colleges or universities. In other words, course articulation is the process by which one institution matches it's courses or requirements to course work completed at another institution. Students use course articulation to assure that the courses they complete will not have to be repreated at the institution to which they are transferring.” (Wikipedia)
assessment / The processes used to collect information about student progress toward educational goals. The particular form of an assessment depends on what is being assessed and on the uses to which the results of assessment will be applied. Assessments can range from small-scale assessments used in the classroom by teachers to obtain day-to day information about student progress, through medium-scale assessments used by school districts to evaluate the effectiveness of schools or educational programs, to large-scale assessments used by state or national bodies to assess the degree to which large educational goals have been met.
assessment system / The combination of assessments into a comprehensive system that produces comprehensive, credible, and dependable information upon which important decisions can be made about students, schools, districts, or states.
authentic assessment / “Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks. Traditional assessment, by contract, relies on indirect or proxy 'items'--efficient, simplistic substitutes from which we think valid inferences can be made about the student's performance at those valued challenges.”[1]
AYP
(Adequate Yearly Progress) / As a condition for receiving funding under the Federal No Child Left Behind legislation, districts and schools are held accountable for making progress toward designated achievement and accountability targets. In California, Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is measured primarily by the percentage of students scoring “Proficient” (or above) on the California Standards Tests in English-language Arts and Mathematics. Federal requirements are such that a school must meet all of its designated targets in order to be judged as having made “adequate yearly progress.”
backward mapping / Backward mapping is a curriculum design method in which the teacher(s) start with the goals of the lesson and work backwards to develop the steps leading to the goal. For example, the beginning question is, “What should students know and be able to do at the end of this lesson? What scaffolding will they need to attain this knowledge? What assessment measures are needed to demonstrate mastery?”
benchmark assessments / assignments. / Formative, uniform measure of student progress relative to standards. Standards-aligned assessments and assignments provide information about progress toward the end target. The term benchmark assessments/assignments in this publication refers to a common, grade-level, standardized administration of an assessment/assignment that provides results that are comparable for all grade-level students. These results give an objective basis for measuring progress and making decisions about individual students.
bias / Bias is a characteristic of a test that might negatively impact the performance of identifiable subpopulations, instead of accurately measuring their knowledge or skills. Common sources of bias may be related to language, cultural, or gender differences.
block scheduling / An arrangement of blocks of instructional time during the school day composed of any number of increments and scheduled flexibly to accomplish specific instructional goals. Combined with interdisciplinary team teaching, block scheduling provides one of the most effective uses of instructional time.
blog / A blog is an online journal or diary that can be interactive, allowing people to respond back and forth about topics of common interest.
blueprints (testing) / The California State Board of Education has developed long-range blueprints for its statewide testing and assessment program. The blueprints describe the content that individual tests will cover for coming assessment cycles.
CAHSEE
(California High School Exit Examination) / A 1999 State law required the State Board of Education to develop the California High School Exit Examination. Beginning in 2005-06, students must pass the CAHSEE examination in order to received a high school diploma. The CAHSEE includes an assessment of English-language arts and an assessment of mathematics. The English-language arts assessment covers reading, decoding, and writing. The mathematics assessment includes statistics, data analysis and probability, number sense, measurement, geometry, mathematical reasoning and algebra.
Career Technical Education
(CTE) / A program of study that involves a multiyear sequence of courses that integrates core academic knowledge with technical and occupational knowledge to provide students with a pathway to postsecondary education and careers. In the middle grades, CTE is often exploratory and assists students to consider possible career options.
celebrations / Young adolescents thrive on explicit recognition and connections. Celebrations provide opportunities for schools and classrooms to recognize student successes and to create positive attitudes. Schools and classes can celebrate many things and give awards for many purposes. Some of the most successful are the “caught being good” or “caught being kind” celebrations where many students receive positive attention.
character education / Character education is set or correlated instructional and behavioral programs designed to help students understand, appreciate, and internalize elements of positive character traits, including trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, citizenship, civic virtue, honesty, and personal responsibility.
chronological team / A type of team teaching in which two or more teachers specializing in different subject areas share the same students but teach in different classrooms. It is the most basic model for team teaching.
civic Education / The California standards require students to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to become effective, participating citizens in a democratic republic. Students are required to understand the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, and the processes of national, state, and local government.
classroom assessment / An assessment developed, administered, and scored by a teacher or group of teachers to evaluate individual student or classroom performance on a topic. Ideally, the results of classroom assessments are used to inform and improve instruction to help students reach identified standards.
coaching (instructional) / Instructional coaching is a professional support system provided to teachers in-the-classroom by academic “coaches” with deep knowledge of the content area and pedagogy appropriate for the content area. Most often the coaches are experienced teachers from the district who received extensive coaching training. The goal of most instructional coaching programs is to improve the in-the-classroom effectiveness of teachers within the academic content area.
collaboration among teachers / Teacher collaboration involves reviewing student data, planning effective instruction, coordinating instructional topics, peer mentoring and support, and creating an atmosphere of professional connection to meet a common vision and school goals.
common planning time / Time provided to a team of teachers in order to plan as a whole team to meet the needs of the whole student rather than one specific discipline. Some schools schedule common planning time daily for each time, while others provide this opportunity on a weekly or semi-weekly basis.
community service learning / Community service-learning (also called service-learning) is an standards-based educational process that integrates students' academic learning with service that meets community needs. It combines two effective approaches to education and youth development: experiential learning and community service. Several evaluations, including one on CalServe, California's statewide service-learning efforts, have now documented the positive impacts on students both academically and developmentally (socially, emotionally, morally, and spiritually), on teachers, on school climate, and on communities.
content standards / Stated expectations of what students should know and be able to do in particular subjects and grade levels. Content standards define for teachers, students, parents, and communities not only what is expected of students, but also what schools should teach.
constructed response / Constructed-response assessments measure student ability to apply knowledge. Constructed response activities include short answers, essays, time lines, maps, graphs, cartoons, charts, short readings, or demonstrations to show what they know and can do. Responses are scored according to a rubric.
cooperative team / A type of team teaching in which two or more teachers specializing in different subject areas share the same students. Instruction may or may not involve having all the students learn together in large or small groups. The teachers may plan together but usually focus on allocating time and organizing instruction within a block schedule rather than on developing interdisciplinary connections.
core curriculum / A curriculum clearly defined by sets of content and performance standards for each subject and providing students with access to the knowledge, skills, and values that all educated citizens should possess. The core curriculum emphasizes cultural literacy, scientific literacy, knowledge of the humanities, and an appreciation for the basic values that sustain our nation. It also includes the opportunity to acquire proficiency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, which are systematically and continually reinforced in all learning experiences at every grade level. The core curriculum is designed to maintain the future academic and career options of all students and to prepare them to exercise their personal, civic, and economic rights and responsibilities as adults.
counseling / A school counseling program is comprehensive in scope, preventive in design, and developmental in nature. A comprehensive program focuses on what all students should know, understand, and be able to do in three areas: academic, career, and personal/social. The purpose of the school counseling program is to impart specific skills and learning opportunities in a proactive, preventive manner, ensuring that all students achieve success in school. The goal of a school counseling program is to increase student learning and achievement by promoting student academic development, career development, and personal and social development.