Educational+Terms

Educational Terms Chapter 6

1. A __syllabus__ provides students and parents with an overview of the course:
 * 1) the rules and expectations;
 * 2) classroom procedures;
 * 3) required materials;
 * 4) grading policy and weights;
 * 5) attendance, assignments and homework;
 * 6) student-teacher contracts of behavior.

2. __Materials__ are reading materials (textbooks, workbooks, worksheets, websites and other resources) and technology (calculators, computers and software) that students access while learning. These materials influence planning for instruction.

 3. __Curriculum guide__ identifies the objectives and contents of the subject and/or grade level. The School District of Philadelphia's curriculum guide is the Planning and Scheduling Timeline. The timeline provides a broad scope of the course, an abridge calender and a detailed weekly guide which include //learning objectives// and //goals// for each lesson.

4. __Aims__ are broad statements about education that are developed by national and state regulators. The statements reflect the social role of schools and the philosophy of education for all children. The aims are categorized into seven areas. Four of which ellicit personal experiences: health, ethical character and vocation and citizenship. The other topics need more definition.

5. __Goals__ are broad statements of what is expected to be accomplished without specifying certain achievement level. It is a teachers goal to maintain the curriculum timeline. A classroom goal will be to improve oral and written communication on the subject area.

6. Assessment of __student needs__ is a necessity to accomplish goals set in the beginning and throughout the year. Teachers need to know their students' abilities, aspirations, apptitudes, learning types, backgrounds, problems, and potential barriers to learning. There are a number of resources available to obtained some understanding of student needs in the form of prior grades and records, former teachers and couselors and their parents. Teacher can prepare a survey to identify students interest or lack of interest.

7. __Planning for instruction__ is the most important task a teacher undertakes. A successful lesson requires reflection on subject knowledge, student ability and learning type; organization of knowledge, scheduling (timing of lesson) and implementation; and then evalutation during and after instruction. Planning is a cyclical event where more knowledge and experience is obtained after each cycle. The phases of planning are: preplaninning, active planning, ongoing planning and postplanning.

8. __Interdisciplinary planning__ is when two or more teachers from other subject areas plan their individual lessons are other subject areas. The mathematics and physical science teachers create lessons that scaffold each other so students can relate the topics.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">9. __Active planning__ is one of the planning phases when written plans are developed based on decisions about instruction.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">10. __Teacher student planning__ is a method that gives students some control of what they learn. There are numerous activities in textbooks and teachers can not do everyone, therefore allowing students choice motivates them. If there are 10 projects and the teacher wants to complete at least 5 of them, give the students choice to choose 3 of the 5.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">11. __Learning Objectives__ are clear and concise statements about the lesson or unit that will be discussed in the course. The objectives must be measureable in a way that students can accomplish them by the end of the lesson. An example in Algebra is, "By the end of this chapter, students are able to: use graphs as visual representations of how two variables relate to one another."

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">12. The __mental image approach__ is a lesson planning technique that uses mental visualizations of the instructional plan. Teachers can image themselves providing direct instruction while the students are developing understanding of the subject. Teacher can image themselves in the place of the students to understand their potential misconceptions thereby self evaluating the instructional plan. The mental image approached helps teachers formulate lesson plans in much greater detail than written ones.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">13. __Backward mapping__ is a planning method that begins with the learning objective and/or goal statement -what will the students be able to accomplish at the end of the lesson and/or unit. I want my students to solve equations, but if I specifically state I want them to solve a single step equation -I will focus my lessson plan and develop instructional activities on that aspect of solving equations.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">14. __Academic learning time__ is the actual amount of time a student has the opportunity to engage in learning tasks. The allotted time of the class period includes the obligatory chores, direct and guided instruction and independent practice. The amount of time a student actively engages yields the highest rate of success for learning is called the //time-on-task//.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">15. __Time-on-task__ is the amount of time that students are focused and engaged in learning. Students who are distracted or disengaged are deemed off-task. The student's success during time-on-task is positively related to achievement.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Completed by B.R. and G.L.