Glossary of Terms

Adaptive Learning System: A digital online platform that helps determine where students are in math and/or reading, and by adjusting automatically in the middle of assessments when students get correct or incorrect answers, can scale up and down its lessons as appropriate. This is one of many tools and strategies a teacher will use to grow students academically to their fullest potential as effectively and quickly as possible. Education Galaxy is an example of an adaptive learning systems used in Shelby County.

Big Picture Learning: What are you passionate about? In Big Picture Learning, a student answers that question, and a team supports and fosters his or her aspirations. It is a model of student-centered, personalized learning that deeply involves internships and real world context. The advisors (teachers) have a ratio of 1 to every 15 students; each student has a mentor from their internship. Big Picture Learning focuses heavily on post-secondary planning. Shelby County's Big Picture Learning Academy, hosted inside the Shelby JCTC campus, opened in August 2016. It is the first Big Picture school in Kentucky.

For more information on Big Picture Learning:

Big Picture Learning has "Ten Distinguishers" that make it a unique academic model. They include a focus on authentic assessment, a democratic leadership structure that includes students, and its "second family" advisory council comprised of an advisor, mentor and student cohort.

Blended Learning: When a teacher intentionally combines select digital online tools with in-person facilitation and guidance, usually in a "brick and mortar" location (i.e. a school building), for a purposeful learning environment. Blended learning occurs in the middle spectrum between fully online courses (which never have face-to-face instructor interaction) and analog, non-digital classrooms.

For more information on blended learning:

The Christensen Institute gives a definition for blended learning and explains various common models.
The Learning Accelerator puts blended learning in a contextual framework of what it enables, and what it ultimately provides.

CCR: College and Career Ready. There are now multiple paths for a student to demonstrate they are prepared for a productive life after high school, including minimum scores on tests like the ACT and successful completions of industry certifications.

Competency-Based Learning: Simply put, competency-based learning is the transformation of our education system from a time-based system to a learning-based system. Critical components of any competency-based learning are:

Students advance upon mastery.
Competencies include explicit, measurable, transferable learning objectives that empower students.
Assessment is meaningful and a positive learning experience for students.
Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs.
Learning outcomes emphasize competencies that include application and creation of knowledge, along with the development of important skills and disposition

Flexible Learning Areas: A setting where the classroom environment can be changed, usually easily and quickly, to better facilitate different modes of working from individual to collaborative. Flexible learning areas often involve customized furniture and a reorientation of underutilized areas such as hallways, foyers, or even outdoors. It encourages movement, choice, and discourse. This is the antithesis of the "desks in rows" of traditional classrooms. Flexible learning areas serve an essential role in personalized learning.

For more information on flexible learning areas:

The Third Teacher is an award-winning book on rethinking learning environments. The work continues on its website, The Third Teacher Plus. Among many informative articles on the site is "Redesigning Education: Rethinking the School Corridor" (3/26/10), which shows (using a few International school models) how various design elements can positively affect learning.
Form should follow function, and an Iowa district wanting to focus on personalized learning needed learning spaces to match that purpose. This article ("Inside 'Room 21C': This Iowa Classroom's Redesign Inspired Seven Other Districts," 8/24/16) explains their plan and includes helpful graphics and videos.

Flipped Learning: Typically, an instructor may deliver content information inside a classroom (say, in the form of a lecture) and assign homework for a student to do outside of school. Unfortunately, a student who struggles with the content will now be attempting to practice the skill or apply the knowledge at home without instructional support, causing frustration and an ineffective use of learning time. Flipped learning inverts that idea. Instead, a teacher will assign an introduction to content at home (say, in the form of a short video) and use classtime to be alongside students in supporting their practice or application. Because it often involves an effective use of digital tools and the merge of online and face-to-face learning, flipped learning is usually seen as a form of blended learning.

For more information on flipped learning:

Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams are considered the founders of flipped learning. An Edutopia article co-authored by Sams ("Flipped Learning Toolkit: Getting Everyone On Board," 12/16/14) is a good place to learn more about their philosophy.
Adam Watson, Shelby County's Digital Learning Coordinator, wrote a blog entry ("Flipping Your Classroom: A Reflective Checklist," last revised 4/27/15) that outlines first steps for a teacher to flip their instruction.

Leader in Me: A Franklin-Covey sponsored program that incorporates The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and other basic leadership skills into core curriculum in order to increase academic achievement in addition to reducing discipline problems, create better parent-school partnerships, and increase student self-confidence and leadership.

LMS: Learning Management System. This is an online program that teachers can use to be the "hub" of their digital classroom, and extend learning beyond the walls of school. A teacher may use an LMS to host instructional materials (which means access is 24/7 with an Internet connection), post announcements, give assessments, facilitate safe online conversations, and provide a place where a student can submit work. The main LMS used in Shelby County is Schoology. (Note: LMS can also be used as a acronym for a "Library Media Specialist," although that is not how it is used in our SLP.)

PBL: Project Based Learning. As stated on the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) website, "PBL is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge." A key part of PBL is not only the relevancy of the work, but how the completion of the project should make a difference in the community or world. It is important that the PBL ends in front of an audience beyond the initial classroom or teacher. In Gold Standard PBL, Essential Project Design Elements include:

Key Knowledge, Understanding, and Success Skills
Challenging Problem or Question
Sustained Inquiry
Authenticity
Student Voice & Choice
Reflection
Critique & Revision
Public Product or Exhibition

Personalized Learning: The term personalized learning, or personalization, refers to a diverse variety of educational programs, learning experiences, instructional approaches, and academic-support strategies that are intended to address the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, and cultural backgrounds of individual students. While differentiation and individualization are also useful teacher strategies, personalization is the only one that is truly learner-centered.

POP: Plan on a Page. At the beginning of the school year, educators in Shelby County create a personal POP that centers on an area of growth that will positively impact student learning. Throughout the year, they measure and reflect on how their own leadership moves are a part of that impact.

SBG: Standards Based Grading. Standards-based grading is a system of reporting academic progress that measures a student’s mastery of standards for a class. The student is assessed to see if they know the concepts and skills of the standards using a variety of tasks, assessments, and observations. The academic progress is based on all of the evidence their teacher collects demonstrating mastery of the essential standards.

Thinking Strategies: Proficient readers (and thinkers) are metacognitive: they think about their thinking

strategically in order to understand. They pose questions, make predictions, visualize, infer and synthesize to make meaning. They also monitor thinking and "fix up" what isn't making sense. Intentionally teaching students to name their thinking helps them to use strategies as tools for understanding.

TPGES: Teacher Professional Growth and Education System. This is the current KDE system of teacher evaluation. It involves self-reflection, peer observation, student voice and student growth as indicators of teacher effectiveness and for the benefit of demonstrating teacher growth.

Workshop Model: An instructional delivery model that gradually releases responsibility for learning over to students, within a lesson, over a unit as well as throughout a year. Beginning with a "Crafting" or Mini Lesson, teachers model or think aloud to set the learning target for the lesson before turning over the largest part of the class to "Composing" or Work Time, where students work collaboratively or independently to apply the strategy modeled to a novel situation. The teacher uses this time to confer with students, researching, instructing, and setting goals for personalized next learning steps. Reflection, or a debrief, where students share what they are learning about strategy use, the topic at hand, and becoming more independent in learning helps students to reach the goal of workshop: increasing independence.