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 * RITTI - ALPHABET SOUP**
 * **Accountable Talk** - Accountable talk refers to the ways that teachers skillfully encourage their students to think deeply, articulate their reasoning, and listen with purpose.


 * **Aligning Tasks -** Aligning Tasks is the process of connecting assignments (tasks) to PBGRs, GSEs, GLEs, IEPs, and/or PLPs.


 * ALS - Applied Learning Standards

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 * Assessments (Formative) ongoing assessment of student understanding in order to focus instruction
 * Assessments (Summative)


 * Authentic Assessment - A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills


 * **Authentic Task:** An assignment given to students designed to assess their ability to apply standards-driven knowledge and skills to real-world challenges//. // A task is considered authentic when 1) students are asked to construct their own responses rather than to select from ones presented; and 2) the task replicates challenges faced in the real world. Good performance on the task should demonstrate, or partly demonstrate, successful completion of one or more standards. The term //task // is often used synonymously with the term //assessment // in the field of authentic assessment


 * Benchmarks - meeting certain levels of success in given areas (reading, math)

> Students typically are asked to suggest a way to represent a real problem posed by the teacher. Guided questions, encouragement and suggestions further encourage students to devise solutions and share the outcome with the class. > > >
 * Cognitively Guided Instruction - An instructional strategy in which a teacher assesses what students already know about a subject and then builds on students' prior knowledge.
 * Common Tasks - agreed upon act. That show student outcomes/knowledge/skills/understanding in a particular academic area w/ a goal of mtg. GLE/GSE
 * Comprehensive Course Assessment - assessment systems that are based on standards designed to prepare students for college and the workplace, that more validly measure student knowledge and skills, that better reflect good instructional practices, and that support a culture of continuous improvement in education.


 * Content Standards


 * DOK -Depth of Knowledge


 * DI - Differentiated Instruction**Differentiated instruction** (sometimes referred to as **differentiated learning**) involves providing students with different avenues to acquiring content; to processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas and to developing teaching materials so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability.


 * District Academic Expectations commonly agreed upon outcomes based upon a districts goals for its students, in conjunction with national, state and local standards (GLEs)

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 * EQ - Essential Questions - overarching questions that do not have a yes/no answer which focus instruction.
 * Exhibition - an organized presentation and display of a selection of items.

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 * Higher-Order Thinking Skills - moves away from general knowledge type skills to thinking skills like: synthesizing, analyzing, reasoning, comprehending, application, evaluation. Rather than emphasize the drill and repetition activities, the focus is on problem solving and higher level/order thinking skills
 * ILP - Individual Learning Plan - a document that establishes a set of learning goals and objectives for an individual student based on their strengths and weaknesses


 * IFL - Institute for Learning

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 * GLE - Grade Level Expectation -- is a stated objective that is aligned with VT, NH, RI, and ME standards, by grade. A GLE differentiates performance on concepts, skills, or content knowledge between adjacent grade levels, and as a set, leads to focused, coherent, and developmentally appropriate instruction without narrowing the curriculum.
 * GSE - Grade Span Expectation -- Statements of the reading, writing, and math content knowledge and skills expected of all students for Grades 9-10 and 11-12. They are intended to capture the “big ideas” of English Language Arts and mathematics content areas and identify which GSEs are intended for large scale assessment by the state, and which are for local assessment purposes only. Science GSEs are under development
 * GBP - Graduation By Proficiency requires all high schools to implement graduation requirements that use local measures-exhibitions, portfolios, end-of-course assessments, and/or CIMs-and uses standards and performance to determine student proficiency
 * Graduation Portfolio - a collection of student work that demonstrates the student's overall academic success

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 * Learner-Centered Classroom - classroom where focus is strictly based upon student goals in which the way the student learns best
 * Metacognition - ability to think about thinking/monitorr comprehension through active reading strategies
 * MCG - Model Classroom Grant

While Gardner contends that all humans have some degree of all seven (now 8) intelligences, there are those who are more gifted in some areas, or in combinations of areas, than in others.  (An eighth [|intelligence, naturalistic/environmental], was defined and put forth in the mid '90s by Gardner. He explained it further in presentations, interviews, journal publications, and then more fully in detail '99 in his book //Intelligences reframed//. You will find more details on this form of intelligence on a separate web site, and on many other online sources. He has alluded to "existential intelligence" also, but at this time (2005) has declined to describe it more fully. Despite Gardner's reluctance to fully commit, many others have accepted this intelligence.
 * MI - Multiple Intelligence - Howard Gardner's ground breaking theories were first published in Frames of Mind, 1983. Gardner was a Harvard scholar studying work on the development of children's cognitive processes based on the work of Jean Piaget. Through his own work on the development of cognition, he came to view those of Piaget as too narrowly focused. In his innovative theory, he presents a new framework for considering the gifts of children. Through studying other cultural definitions of intelligence, neurophysiology, anthropological studies and his own experimentation and observation of children, Gardner originally devised seven categories of respective intelligence. These are:
 * verbal/linguistic;
 * logical/mathematical;
 * spatial;
 * bodily/kinesthetic;
 * musical;
 * interpersonal; and
 * intrapersonal.


 * NEASC - New England Association of Schools and CollegesThe New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) provides accreditation services for more than 2000 public and private institutions in the six state region - Pre-K through university. Emanating from high quality standards, NEASC accreditation uses self-reflection, peer review and best practices as integral components of its assessment process and monitors the follow-up endeavors leading to continuous school/program improvement. NEASC consists of six Commissions, each of which sets the standards for a particular segment of the educational community


 * NECAP - New England Common Assessment Program- a series of reading, writing, mathematics and science achievement tests, administered annually, which were developed in collaboration with the Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire departments of education.


 * Opportunities To Learn

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 * PBGR - Performance Based Graduation Requirements- Evidence of what students know, apply, and are able to do to show proficiency of the standards using none traditional assessments
 * PLP - Personal Literacy Plan -

Rhode Island's Personal Literacy Plans (PLPs) The Rhode Island Statewide Curriculum is committed to the goal of reading achievement for **all** students. The Personal Literacy Plan (PLP) is designed to accomplish this goal. A Personal Literacy Plan (PLP) is a plan of action used to accelerate a student’s learning in order to move toward grade level reading proficiency. A problem-solving approach is used to develop this plan in order to determine specific needs, establish short-term student goals, and set the course of action. The cycle of student support follows: · Diagnose, Analyze, and Validate Need (s) · Design Intervention Plan · Implement Intervention · Review Progress Monitoring Data · Revise/Modify Support · <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt;">Implement Revised/Modified Intervention · <span style="color: black; display: block; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt;">Use Assessments to Determine Discontinuation or Need for New Intervention This process is inclusive because it involves teachers, parents, administrators, and other staff members. Parents may choose not to participate with home support; however, they may //not// decline a PLP for their child.


 * Personalization - //Personalization is a learning process in which schools help students assess their own talents and aspirations, plan a pathway toward their own purposes, work cooperatively with others on challenging tasks, maintain a record of their explorations, and demonstrate learning against clear standards in a wide variety of media, all with the close support of adult mentors and guides//

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 * PWT - Portfolio Worthy Tasks - <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Teachers create their own assignments or import them from libraries of common tasks validated at the state level.
 * PBL - Problem Based Learning- <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Teacher presents a problems and students discover and work with content in order to find solution.


 * Proficiency- the quality of having great facility and competence


 * POL - Principles of Learning


 * RIEPS - Rhode Island Electronic Portfolio System


 * RITTI - Rhode Island Teacher Technology InitiativeTitle II D federal funds finance the Rhode Island Teachers and Technology Imitative (RITTI) program in Rhode Island. The focus of the program is always to bring technology to the hands of students as well as provide effective professional development embedded in real work and real efforts


 * Rubrics


 * Scaffolding - Scaffolding is an instructional technique whereby the teacher models the desired learning strategy or task, then gradually shifts responsibility to the students.


 * Scaffolding Literacy Program - its primary focus on the narrative genre, as this is a very powerful and enriching resource for writing development. The program explores the communicative purposes for which authors make different language choices as they construct their texts. It aims to extend children’s language development beyond oral language and into literate language.


 * Standards - Standards-based education is a process for planning, delivering, monitoring and improving academic programs in which clearly defined academic content standards provide the basis for content in instruction and assessment.
 * Standards help ensure students learn what is important, rather than allowing textbooks to dictate classroom practice.
 * Student learning is the focus - aiming for a high and deep level of student understanding that goes beyond traditional textbook-based or lesson-based instruction.


 * Technology - The use of tools to solve practical problems


 * Validity - the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure