Teacher Terminology Flashcards

Essential educational terminology for graduate school, student teaching, and classroom practice.

504 Accommodation

An adjustment or support provided under a Section 504 plan to ensure a qualified student with a disability has equal access to education.

504 Plan

A plan under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act that provides accommodations or services to an eligible student with a disability to ensure equal access to education.

ABC Data

A method of recording the Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence surrounding a behavior to identify patterns.

Academic Discourse

Purposeful speaking and writing through which students use discipline-specific language to reason, explain, question, argue, and build ideas.

Academic Language

The vocabulary, sentence structures, discourse patterns, and language functions used to learn and communicate in academic settings.

Academic Rigor

The level of cognitive challenge that requires students to think deeply, make meaning, and apply learning rather than simply complete more work.

Accommodation

A change in how a student accesses instruction or demonstrates learning without changing the intended learning standard or construct.

Active Learning

Learning that requires students to actively process, discuss, practice, create, investigate, or apply information.

Annual IEP Goal

A measurable statement describing what an eligible student is expected to accomplish within the IEP period.

Antecedent

An event, situation, or condition that occurs before a behavior and may influence the behavior.

Anticipatory Set

A brief opening activity designed to gain attention, activate prior knowledge, and prepare students for a lesson.

Asset-Based Approach

An approach that begins with students' strengths, knowledge, identities, languages, and resources rather than defining students primarily by deficits.

Assistive Technology (AT)

Devices, equipment, or services used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a student with a disability.

Attendance Intervention

School actions designed to understand and address barriers contributing to absences and improve student attendance.

Authentic Assessment

Assessment that asks students to apply learning through a meaningful or real-world task.

Autism

An IDEA disability category involving a developmental disability that significantly affects communication and social interaction and adversely affects educational performance.

Backward Design

Planning that begins by identifying desired learning outcomes, then determining acceptable evidence of learning, and finally designing instruction.

Baseline Data

Data collected before instruction or intervention that provides a starting point for measuring growth.

Behavior

An observable and measurable action.

Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP)

A written plan based on behavioral data that describes strategies to prevent challenging behavior and teach and reinforce appropriate replacement behaviors.

Behavior-Specific Praise

Positive feedback that clearly identifies the appropriate behavior being recognized.

Behaviorism

A learning theory emphasizing observable behavior and how environmental antecedents and consequences influence learning.

Belonging

A student's sense of being accepted, valued, respected, and an important member of the learning community.

Benchmark Assessment

Periodic assessment used to measure student progress toward grade-level standards or expected milestones.

Bias

A tendency, preference, or prejudice that can influence judgments and decisions.

BICS

Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills; a theory-based term referring to conversational language used in everyday social interactions.

Bloom's Taxonomy

A framework for levels of cognitive thinking commonly organized as Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create.

California Content Standards

California's adopted academic expectations for what students should know and be able to do in specific subjects and grade levels.

California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP)

Standards used in California to describe and support professional teaching practice across major domains.

California Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs)

California standards describing knowledge, skills, and abilities expected of beginning teachers in educator preparation programs.

CALP

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency; a theory-based term referring to language proficiency needed for cognitively demanding academic contexts.

Case Manager

The professional who coordinates a student's special education program, documentation, communication, services, and IEP implementation.

Checks for Understanding (CFU)

Frequent methods used during instruction to determine whether students understand before moving forward.

Child Find

The IDEA requirement that public agencies identify, locate, and evaluate children suspected of having disabilities who may need special education.

Chronic Absenteeism

Missing a significant portion of school, commonly defined in U.S. education data as missing 10% or more of school days for any reason.

Chunking

Breaking complex information, directions, or tasks into smaller and more manageable parts.

Classroom Expectations

Clearly taught standards describing how students are expected to behave and participate in the learning community.

Classroom Management

The systems, relationships, routines, expectations, and responses a teacher uses to create a safe and productive learning environment.

Classroom Procedures

Explicitly taught routines for recurring classroom tasks, transitions, materials, and activities.

Closure

The purposeful ending of a lesson in which students consolidate, summarize, reflect on, or demonstrate their learning.

Co-Regulation

A supportive process in which an adult helps a student manage emotions and behavior through calm interaction, connection, and guidance.

Co-Teaching

Two educators sharing responsibility for planning, instruction, assessment, and support for the same group of students.

Cognate

A word in one language that is related in origin and often similar in meaning and form to a word in another language.

Cognitive Load

The amount of information and mental effort being processed in working memory at one time.

Cognitivism

A perspective on learning that emphasizes mental processes such as attention, memory, perception, problem solving, and information processing.

Cold Calling

Calling on students regardless of whether they volunteered, ideally in a supportive environment where all students are expected to think.

Collaboration

Educators, families, specialists, and/or students working together toward shared goals through communication and shared responsibility.

Collaborative Learning

Learning in which students work together to construct understanding, solve problems, discuss ideas, or create a product.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

A set of academic standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics adopted by many U.S. states.

Community Cultural Wealth

A framework emphasizing forms of knowledge, skills, networks, and strengths that communities of color cultivate and use to navigate social institutions.

Comprehensible Input

Language presented in a way learners can understand through appropriate speech, context, visuals, modeling, gestures, and prior knowledge.

Comprehension Strategy

A deliberate approach used to support understanding of text, such as predicting, questioning, summarizing, clarifying, or making inferences.

Concepts of Print

Another term for knowledge about the organization and conventions of written language and books.

Confidentiality

The professional and legal responsibility to protect private student and family information and share it only with authorized individuals for legitimate educational purposes.

Consequence

In behavior analysis, an event that occurs after a behavior and may affect the likelihood of that behavior occurring again.

Constructive Feedback

Specific, actionable information that identifies strengths and helps a learner understand how to improve.

Constructivism

A learning theory emphasizing that learners actively construct understanding by connecting new experiences and information with prior knowledge.

Consultation

A collaborative process in which a specialist provides expertise, recommendations, or problem-solving support to another educator or team.

Content Objective

A statement describing the academic knowledge or skill students are expected to learn in a lesson.

Cooperative Learning

Structured small-group learning in which students work together toward a shared academic goal, often with defined roles or individual accountability.

Criterion-Referenced Assessment

An assessment that compares student performance to specific standards or predetermined criteria.

Critical Consciousness

The ability to recognize, analyze, and act upon social and systemic inequities.

Cross-Curricular Instruction

Instruction that intentionally connects skills or content from two or more subject areas.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

A framework emphasizing academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness in teaching and learning.

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Teaching that connects curriculum, relationships, and instruction to students' cultural knowledge, experiences, identities, and ways of knowing while maintaining high expectations.

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

An approach that seeks not only to respond to students' cultures but also to sustain and value linguistic and cultural pluralism.

Cumulative Instruction

Instruction in which new learning is intentionally connected to and practiced with previously taught skills.

Curriculum

The planned content, learning experiences, materials, and goals students encounter in an educational program.

Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM)

A brief, standardized measure administered repeatedly to monitor development of an academic skill.

Data-Driven Instruction

Using assessment and performance data to make decisions about instruction, grouping, reteaching, and intervention.

De-escalation

Strategies used to reduce emotional or behavioral intensity and support a student in returning to a regulated state.

Decoding

Using knowledge of letter-sound relationships and word patterns to read written words.

Deficit Thinking

Viewing students or communities primarily in terms of perceived weaknesses or what they supposedly lack, rather than recognizing assets and examining systemic factors.

Designated ELD

Protected instructional time specifically focused on developing English language proficiency.

Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP)

Teaching that considers typical development, individual variation, and the social and cultural contexts of learners when making instructional decisions.

Diagnostic Assessment

Assessment given before instruction to identify students' prior knowledge, strengths, and areas of need.

Differentiation

Adjusting content, process, product, or the learning environment to respond to students' different readiness levels, needs, and strengths.

Direct Instruction

A structured, teacher-led approach featuring clear objectives, modeling, guided practice, feedback, and independent practice.

Disability Category

A category recognized under IDEA that may be used as part of determining special education eligibility; eligibility also requires a need for special education.

Educational Equity

The principle of identifying and addressing barriers and distributing opportunities and supports so students are not predictably advantaged or disadvantaged by identity or circumstance.

Eligibility

The determination that a student meets criteria for a disability category and, because of the disability, requires special education and related services.

Emotional Disturbance (ED)

The federal IDEA term for an eligibility category involving specified emotional or behavioral characteristics that adversely affect educational performance over time and to a marked degree.

Encoding

Representing spoken sounds and words in writing using spelling and sound-symbol knowledge.

English Language Development (ELD)

Instruction designed to develop English language proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

English Learner (EL)

A student who is developing proficiency in English and meets applicable identification criteria; terminology varies across systems.

Enrichment

Learning experiences that extend, deepen, or broaden learning beyond core expectations.

Equality

Providing the same resources, treatment, or opportunities to everyone, regardless of differences in need or circumstance.

Equity

Providing access, opportunities, resources, and support in ways that account for different needs and barriers so students have meaningful opportunities to succeed.

Essential Question

A broad, thought-provoking question that guides inquiry and encourages deeper understanding across a lesson or unit.

Essential Standard

A standard identified as especially important for students to master because of its endurance, leverage, or importance for future learning.

Evidence-Based Practice

An instructional or intervention practice supported by credible research evidence and applied using professional judgment and knowledge of student needs and context.

Executive Function

A group of cognitive processes involved in planning, attention, inhibition, working memory, organization, flexibility, and goal-directed behavior.

Executive Functioning Skills

Skills such as planning, organization, working memory, cognitive flexibility, attention control, and inhibition that support goal-directed behavior.

Exit Ticket

A brief task completed near the end of a lesson to show what students understood and what may need reteaching.

Explicit Instruction

Clear, systematic teaching in which a teacher directly explains and models a skill, provides guided practice, and moves toward independence.

Expressive Language

Language a person produces through speaking, writing, or other forms of expression.

Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation influenced by external rewards, consequences, recognition, or other outside factors.

Family Engagement

Meaningful, reciprocal partnership between schools and families to support students' learning, development, and well-being.

FAPE

Free Appropriate Public Education; special education and related services provided at public expense and designed to meet an eligible student's individual needs.

FERPA

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act; a federal law protecting the privacy of student education records and giving eligible students and parents certain rights regarding those records.