CEOE key terms

Ongoing checks of student understanding during instruction-questions, quizzes, observations, drafts-used to adjust teaching and give feedback, rather than to assign a final grade.

Evaluation at the end of a unit, course, or program that measures how much students have learned against a standard, such as a final exam or culminating project, typically yielding a grade or score.

The consistency of an assessment-whether it produces similar results across repeated administrations, different scorers, or comparable items. A reliable test is stable, though not necessarily measuring the intended construct.

The degree to which an assessment measures what it is intended to measure and supports the specific interpretations and decisions educators make from its scores.

Temporary instructional support-models, prompts, guided practice, sentence frames-that helps a learner complete a task just beyond current ability, then is gradually withdrawn as competence grows.

Planning so that content, process, and product are adjusted to students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles while all students work toward the same essential standards.

The ability to notice and manipulate the individual speech sounds in spoken words-blending, segmenting, deleting, substituting. It is oral and does not involve printed letters.

Reading connected text accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with suitable expression, which frees attention for comprehension.

Frequent, brief measurement of a student's skill growth over time-often weekly-used to judge whether instruction or an intervention is working and to adjust it.

An assessment that compares a student's score with those of a defined comparison group, reporting percentiles or standard scores rather than performance against a fixed mastery standard.

A legally required written plan for a student eligible for special education, stating present levels, measurable annual goals, services, accommodations, and placement, developed by a team that includes parents.

The requirement that a student with a disability be educated with peers who do not have disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate, with removal only when supports and services cannot meet the student's needs.

The entitlement of eligible students with disabilities to special education and related services that meet their individual needs, at public expense, under public supervision, and consistent with the IEP.

A multi-tiered system of increasingly intensive, research-based instruction and intervention matched to student need, with progress monitored to guide decisions, including referral for a special education evaluation.

A change in how a student accesses instruction or shows learning-extended time, preferential seating, text-to-speech-that does not alter content expectations or the standard being measured.

A change to what a student is expected to learn or how much is expected, such as reduced content, simplified text, or alternate achievement standards, which does change the level of the curriculum.

A systematic process of identifying the antecedents, the behavior, and the consequences that maintain a challenging behavior, so that an effective behavior intervention plan can be designed.

A schoolwide framework that explicitly teaches and reinforces expected behavior, uses data to spot problems, and provides tiered supports to prevent discipline issues and improve climate.

Coordinated activities and instruction designed to help a student with a disability move from school to postsecondary education, employment, and independent living, beginning by the required age.

Support services such as speech-language therapy, occupational therapy, counseling, or transportation that are required for a student with a disability to benefit from special education.

Federal privacy rules limiting disclosure of students' education records, giving parents rights to inspect records and requiring consent before most releases of personally identifiable information.

A testable, tentative explanation or prediction about a relationship among variables that can be supported or refuted through observation and experiment.

In an experiment, the comparison group that does not receive the treatment or receives a neutral condition, allowing researchers to attribute observed changes to the independent variable.

A well-supported, broad explanatory framework built from many tested hypotheses and converging evidence; it is repeatedly confirmed, still open to revision, and is not merely a guess.

A finite, ordered set of unambiguous steps that solves a problem or completes a task and can be carried out by a person or a machine.

Approaching problems by decomposing them, finding patterns, abstracting essential features, and designing step-by-step procedures that a computer or a person could execute.

Reasoning about quantities that change together at a constant rate, using ratios, rates, scaling, and unit comparisons to solve problems.

The combined qualitative features, quantitative measures, and reader-and-task factors that determine how demanding a text is, used to match readers with appropriately challenging material.

Careful, repeated reading of a short, rich text focused on textual evidence, structure, and word choice, building independent interpretation rather than relying on outside summary.

A sentence or two in an essay that states the central claim and previews the reasoning the writer will support with evidence.

Nonliteral wording-simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole-used to create comparisons, imagery, or emphasis beyond the dictionary meanings of the words.

Original material created during the period under study-letters, photographs, laws, artifacts, interviews-that provides firsthand evidence for historical inquiry.

The practice of understanding people and events within the beliefs, values, and conditions of their own era rather than judging them by present-day standards.

The spread of ideas, technologies, languages, or practices from one society to another through trade, migration, conquest, or communication, often producing adaptation rather than simple copying.

The ability to use a language appropriately and effectively in real contexts, combining grammatical accuracy with vocabulary, social norms, and strategies for negotiating meaning.

The basic visual components-line, shape, form, color, value, texture, space-that artists organize using principles such as balance, contrast, and emphasis to create works.

In music, the varying degrees of loudness and softness in performance, indicated by symbols such as p, f, crescendo, and decrescendo, that shape expression.

A leader's focus on improving teaching and learning through shared goals, coherent curriculum, classroom observation and feedback, and data use, rather than on management tasks alone.

A team of educators who meet regularly to examine evidence of student learning, share practice, and plan improvements collaboratively, with a focus on results.

The knowledge and skills needed to make informed personal financial decisions, including budgeting, saving, borrowing, credit, interest, and managing risk.