Analytical Learner
A learner who functions best when provided with step-by-step instructions, formulas, and tasks, and prefers working towards an understanding of the big picture,rather than starting with the pig picture.
Assessment
Any task that allows a teacher to find out information about strengths and weaknesses in a student's learning; some assessments are graded, while others are informal.
Auditory Learner
A learner who prefers to engage in hearing-based activities while learning or studying.
Bloom's Taxonomy
A hierarchy developed by psychologist Dr. Benjamin Bloom that lists increasingly complex and rigorous tasks students can undertake when learning new content to boost their ability to use the content in meaningful and real-world ways; see Webb's Depth of Knowledge.
CERRA
The center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement; located in Rock Hill, SC. CERRA is an organization that supports and recruits teachers in the state of South Carolina, and is resposible for administering the Teacher Cadet Program and creating its crriculum, Experiencing Education.
Cooperative Learning
A strategy used by teachers to encourage students to work in small groups to develop mastery of a concept or to practice a task.
Disability
A physical or mental condition resulting from an impairment that limits what a person is able to do.
Diversity
Inclusion of, or representation by, more than one type of individual in any setting; in an educational setting, this can include gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic status, age, ability, and many other considerations, and should be accounted for when designing an appropriate classroom experience for all students.
Essential Question
A term used in lesson planning to describe a path of inquiry that the lesson will investigate and answer.
Formative Assessment
An assessment that is used as a tool to analyze student achievement and discover any gaps in learning before a more formal test of knowedge.
Gardner's Multiple Intelligences
A list developed by theorist Howard Gardner that describes the many different types of intelligence that individuals can display, going beyond those types- like reading and logical/mathematical intelligence-that are favored in schools.
Global Learner
A learner who functions best when provided with a big picture idea of the goals and understandings behind a lesson before undertaking small, specific tasks that pertain to the lesson.
Kinesthetic/tactile Learner
A learner whose preferred processing style involves hands-on or movement-based activities.
Learning Styles
Also know as preferred processing styles, learning styles are specific conditions under which some leaners believe that they work best.
Lesson
ANy planned quantity of information that is taught to students within a specified period of time.
Lesson Plan
A daily list of activities, goals, and assessments created by a teacher to use as a blueprint for the lessons to be taught.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
A list developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow to describe the importance of certain basic needs, like physicolgical needs, love, affection, and sense of belonging.
Objective
In a lesson plan, the list of new skills that student will be able to master by the end of the lesson.
Self-actualization
The highest level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; a state of being in which a individual feels that he is living up to his potential and/or purpose.
Self-esteem
A belief in one's own sense of worth, without which it is difficult to develop confidence in one's abilities and strengths.
Standard
A specific skill, body of knowledge, or idea within a subject area that students are required to master.
Teaching Fellows
A coolege-level organization in Scouth Carolina that awards scholarships to members who show great academic and personal promise and intend to become teachers.
Visual Learner
A learner whose preferred precessing style includes visual elements like graphics, color, and imagery.
Webb's Depth of Knowlege
Also known as DOK; a concept pioneered by eductional researcher Norman Webb that uses the skills in Bloom's Taxonomy, demonstrating how increasing levels of complexity in questioning and in asking students to perform content-related tasks can increase students' fluency with the content as a whole. While Bloom's Taxonomy is used as a tool for teachers planning lessons, DOK is used as a guidepost for creating rigorous assessments to match equally rigorous lesson delivery.