Glossary Flashcards
(37 cards)
Language Demands
Specific ways that academic language (vocabulary/symbols,
functions, discourse, syntax) is used by students to participate in learning tasks
through reading, writing, listening, and/or speaking to demonstrate their disciplinary
understanding.
Language Functions
The content and language focus of the learning task,
represented by the active verbs within the learning outcomes. Common language
functions in history/social studies include interpreting maps, graphs, and data
tables; evaluating and interpreting an author/presenter/historian’s purpose and
message; examining evidence an author/presenter/historian uses to support claims;
analyzing arguments in favor of a perspective; writing/presenting persuasive
arguments; analyzing and/or describing causes of historical, economic,
geographic, and political events; and defending argument with evidence.
Vocabulary
Includes words and phrases that are used within disciplines including:
(1) words and phrases with subject-specific meanings that differ from meanings used
in everyday life (e.g., table); (2) general academic vocabulary used across disciplines
(e.g., compare, analyze, evaluate); and (3) subject-specific words defined for use in
the discipline.
Discourse
Discourse includes the structures of written and oral language, as well as
how members of the discipline talk, write, and participate in knowledge construction.
Discipline specific discourse has distinctive features or ways of structuring oral or
written language (text structures) that provide useful ways for the content to be
communicated.16 In history/social studies, language features include expository,
narrative, journalistic, maps, and other graphic print materials; presentations of data
in text, charts, and graphs; and video and live presentations. Discourse structures
can be at the sentence, paragraph, or symbolic level. If the function is to develop a document-based argument, then appropriate language features could include written
essays with specified formats and pattern sentences such as “The two main causes
of were and . For example, the
(author of) (document) stated that ” (citation).
Syntax
The set of conventions for organizing symbols, words, and phrases together into structures (e.g., sentences, graphs, tables).17
Language Supports
The scaffolds, representations, and pedagogical strategies
teachers provide to help learners understand, use, and practice the concepts and
language they need to learn within disciplines (Santos, Darling-Hammond, Cheuk,
2012).
18 The language supports planned within the lessons in edTPA should directly
support learners to understand and use identified language demands
(vocabulary/symbols, language function, and discourse or syntax) to deepen content
understandings.
Aligned
Consistently addressing the same/similar learning outcomes for students.
Analysis
Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something: the process of
separating something into its constituent elements.19
Arguments
Use evidence to support claims about a historical event, topic/issue, or social
studies phenomenon. Evidence comes from analysis and/or interpretation of history/social
studies sources.
Artifacts
Authentic work completed by you and your students, including lesson plans,
copies of instructional and assessment materials, video clips of your teaching, and student
work samples. Artifacts are submitted as part of your evidence.
Assessment (Formal and Informal)
“[R]efer[s] to all those activities undertaken by
teachers and by their students . . . that provide information to be used as feedback to modify
the teaching and learning activities.”20 Assessments provide evidence of students’ prior
knowledge, thinking, or learning in order to evaluate what students understand and how they
are thinking. Informal assessments may include, for example, student questions and
responses during instruction and teacher observations of students as they work or perform.
Formal assessments may include, for example, quizzes, homework assignments, journals,
projects, and performance tasks.
Assets (knowledge of students):
Personal
Refers to specific background information that students bring to the
learning environment. Students may bring interests, knowledge, everyday
experiences, family backgrounds, and so on, which a teacher can draw upon to
support learning.
Assets (knowledge of students):
Cultural
Refers to the cultural backgrounds and practices that students bring to the
learning environment, such as traditions, languages and dialects, worldviews,
literature, art, and so on, that a teacher can draw upon to support learning.
Assets (knowledge of students):
Community
Refers to common backgrounds and experiences that students bring
from the community where they live, such as resources, local landmarks, community
events and practices, and so on, that a teacher can draw upon to support learning.
Central Focus
A description of the important understandings and core concepts that you
want students to develop within the learning segment. The central focus should go beyond a
list of facts and skills, align with content standards and learning objectives, and address the
subject-specific components in the learning segment. For example, a central focus for a
secondary history/social studies learning segment might be “the effects of British colonial
rule in India” or “the role of political parties in the electoral process.” The learning segment
would focus on facts, concepts, analyses, and interpretations of sources to build and
support arguments about historical events, a topic/theme, or social studies phenomenon.
Commentary
Submitted as part of each task and, along with artifacts, make up your
evidence. The commentaries should be written to explain the rationale behind your teaching
decisions and to analyze and reflect on what you have learned about your teaching practice
and your students’ learning.
Concepts
The categories we use to cluster information. They organize specific information
under one label (e.g., shelter, family, community, democracy, region). Concepts summarize
and categorize objects. The difficulty of learning a concept depends on the number of
characteristics, the abstractness or concreteness, and the reasoning that connects the
characteristics.
Conclusion
A final decision or judgment: an opinion or decision that is formed after a
period of thought or research.21
Engaging Students in Learning
Using instructional and motivational strategies that
promote students’ active involvement in learning tasks that increase their knowledge, skills,
and abilities related to specific learning objectives. Engagement in learning contrasts with
student participation in learning tasks that are not well designed and/or implemented and do
not increase student learning.
Evaluation Criteria
Performance indicators or dimensions that are used to assess evidence
of student learning. They indicate the qualities by which levels of performance can be
differentiated and that anchor judgments about the learner’s degree of success on an
assessment. Evaluation criteria can be represented in various ways, such as a rubric, a
point system for different levels of performance, or rules for awarding full versus partial
credit. Evaluation criteria may examine correctness/accuracy, cognitive complexity,
sophistication or elaboration of responses, or quality of explanations
Evidence
Consists of artifacts that document how you planned and implemented
instruction AND commentaries that explain your plans and what is seen in the
videorecording(s) or examine what you learned about your teaching practice and your
students’ learning. Evidence should demonstrate your ability to design lesson plans with
instructional supports that deepen student learning, use knowledge of your students to inform instruction, foster a positive learning environment that promotes student learning,
monitor and assess student progress toward learning objectives, and analyze your teaching
effectiveness. Your evidence must be submitted electronically using the electronic portfolio
management system used by your teacher preparation program.
Facts
Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: a. something demonstrated to
exist or known to have existed; b. a real occurrence, an event; c. something believed to be
true or real.
Inquiry
Developing questions, questioning through investigation and/or developing plans to
seek information. While questioning and searching for answers are important parts of the
inquiry process, effectively generating knowledge from questioning and searching is aided
by a conceptual context for learning. Just as students should not be focused only on content
as the ultimate outcome of learning, neither should they be asking questions and searching
for answers about minutiae.… Inquiry in education should be about a greater understanding
of the world in which they live, learn, communicate, and work.22
Interpret
“To give or provide the meaning of; explain; explicate; elucidate” or “to
understand in a particular way.”2
