Glossary

ACHIEVEMENT TEAMS: A group of learning facilitators, site administrators, and/or stakeholders that use a very strategic, short-cycle formative assessment process to utilize data to drive their instructional practices and/or decision-making.

ADULT CURRICULUM: The curriculum for all Lindsay certificated staff that identifies what the adult needs to know and be able to do in Lindsay’s Performance Based System.

AGENCY: The ability for learners to set advantageous goals, initiate action towards those goals, and reflect on and regulate progress towards those goals.

AUTONOMY: A situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all the decisions concerned with their learning and the implementation of those decisions.

BLENDED LEARNING: The practice of using both online and in-person learning experiences when teaching learners.

CODE OF COOPERATION: A process of building class norms, culture and expectations with learners to guide and establish the learner-centered learning environment.

COGNITIVE: Describing the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

COMPETENCY: The ability to do something successfully or efficiently, often referring to specific skills or standards.

CONTENT LEVEL (CL): The curriculum/standards that define the learner’s appropriate academic level of learning; for example, an age-based 5th grader may be in content level 4 in math (4th grade CA math standards), and content level 6 (6th grade CA ELA standards) in English Language Arts.

CUSTOMIZED LEARNING VISION: The vision that addresses customizing learning plans and experiences for each and every learner. Customized learning addresses the learner’s needs, interests, and learning style, but also addresses the structures that support learning such as time and space. Customized learning capitalizes on the use of technology to accelerate learning.

CYCLE OF INQUIRY: A research-based proven strategy that uses data to drive a process of setting goals, taking action, monitoring results, and checking/adjusting in order to reach goals. This process allows for continuous improvement driven by data.

DATA CHATS: Conversations used to inform decisions and drive instruction or other decisions that will impact the learning experience centered on relevant data as the source of input.

EMPOWER: Lindsay Unified’s custom-built, online learner management system (LMS).

ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT (ELD): Instruction designed specifically for English language learners to develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in English.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: The range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by learning facilitators during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve learning attainment.

GOAL METER: The Empower feature used to track and signal the learner’s likelihood of meeting their goals related to pacing and mastery of content.

GROWTH MINDSET: Developed by psychologist Carol Dweck, it is a learning facilitator-perception or “learning facilitator-theory” that people hold about themselves. Dweck’s educational work centers on the distinction between “fixed” and “growth” mindsets. In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Learners who embrace growth mindsets—the belief that they can learn more or become smarter if they work hard and persevere—may learn more, learn it more quickly, and view challenges and failures as opportunities to improve their learning and skills.

GUIDED READING: Small-group reading instruction designed to provide differentiated teaching that supports learners in developing reading proficiency.

IDEAL LEARNING EXPERIENCE: The most effective and personalized learning experience for each learner.

INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PLAN (IEP): A written plan of the educational program designed to meet a child's individual needs. Every child who receives special education services must have an IEP.

INDIVIDUALIZED LEARNING PLAN (ILP): Individualized plan for learners who are behind pace, which specifies content timelines for effective corrective instruction and achievement of learning targets.

INDIVIDUAL VARIABILITY: The variation and uniqueness in how all individuals learn, often referring to the cognitive and neurological differences that influence learner profiles for individuals.

INSTRUCTIONAL LOOK FORS: The 26 constructs describing observable behaviors in learners, fostering personalized learning.

INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING: A teaching approach that combines the curricular objectives and methods from more than one discipline focusing on a central theme, issue, problem or work.

KAGAN COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES: Instructional strategies designed to promote cooperation and communication in the classroom, boost learners' confidence and retain their interest in classroom interaction.

LEARNER: An active, invested person in the learning process who shares accountability for their learning, gives input, and is engaged in all aspects of the learning journey.

LEARNING COMMUNITY: Anyone involved in the learning process such as the learner, learning facilitator, administrator, parents, and any community members.

LEARNING DATA: The various sources of both qualitative and quantitative data that drive instruction and create a culture of investment and engagement for learners.

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: Anywhere the learning takes place such as a classroom, laboratory, or other learning setting.

LEARNING FACILITATOR: The adult who facilitates learning by providing quality instruction, motivating learning opportunities, and ensuring a learner-centered culture.

LEARNING GOAL: What the learner is expected or required to learn or be able to do in a lesson. It provides the purpose or learning outcome derived from the standards.

LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: The district’s digital platform, Empower, to ensure viability of curriculum and offer 24/7 learning to its stakeholders.

LEARNING TARGET (LT): What the learner should know or be able to do to show proficiency on standards.

LEVEL 3 VERIFIERS (3Vs): An assessment that serves as one indicator to determine proficiency on the learning target.

LIFELONG LEARNING STANDARDS: LUSD’s standards, designed to prepare learners for the 21st century, with seven spheres of living that drive all school curricula and instruction: Personal, Learning, Relationship, Civic, Global, Economic, and Cultural.

MEASUREMENT TOPICS (MTs): The LUSD curriculum is organized into units of study based on the standards.

METACOGNITIVE: Refers to thinking about thinking; using prior knowledge and awareness to plan a strategy for approaching a learning task, take necessary steps to problem solve, reflect on and evaluate results, and modify one’s approach as needed.

MODES/MODALITIES: Refers to how content and instruction is presented or shared, often referring to multiple modes or modalities.

MOTIVATION: The general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

MOVEMENT V MASTERY: In Lindsay’s Performance Based System, it is our belief that learners must master specific competencies before they are moved to the next level.

OPEN-WALLED ENVIRONMENTS: Learning environments that are not defined by walls; Environments that are flexible and varied to meet learning needs.

PATHWAYS: The options available to learners to personalize their movement through courses and content linked to a career or field of study.

PERFORMANCE BASED SYSTEM (PBS): An educational system which has learners work at their performance level and advance through the learning once they have demonstrated proficiency of the required knowledge or skills.

PERSONALIZED 21st CENTURY LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: A learning environment that offers: differentiated learning plans and paces, next generation curriculum and assessment, flexible and real-world learning opportunities, an appropriate balance between time learning online and brick-and-mortar, virtual content that is directly related to instruction, content personalized to learners’ interests, and is learner-centered.

PERSONALIZED LEARNING: 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, or cultural backgrounds of individual learners.

PERSONALIZED LEARNING PLAN (PLP): A learning plan that is tailored for each learner addressing the learning needs, pace, and learning path. The Personalized Learning Plan tailors learning for each learner’s strengths, needs, and interests.

PERSONALIZED LEARNING SEQUENCE: The progression of all content and courses in which learners demonstrate proficiency.

PREREQUISITE: Refers to content, skills, and knowledge that is needed to know or understand before attempting to learn or understand something new.

PRODUCTIVE STRUGGLE: The process of effortful learning that develops grit and creative problem solving.

PROFICIENCY: The level or state of mastery of specific skills or standards.

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING: Refers to any programmatic or instructional approach that utilizes multifaceted projects as a central organizing strategy for educating learners.

RESULTS-DRIVEN CULTURE: A culture created through an unrelenting focus on attaining academic and personal achievement results.

SCAFFOLDING: A variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process.

SELF-AWARENESS: The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values, and how they influence behavior. It is the ability to accurately assess one’s strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a “growth mindset.

SELF-EFFICACY: The belief in one’s ability to succeed in achieving an outcome or reaching a goal. This belief, specific to a task or an area of knowledge or performance, shapes the behaviors and strategies that help one pursue their goal.

SELF-REGULATION: The ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed.

SENTENCE FRAME: A method of scaffolding that applies part of a specific sentence or phrase and can be used in multiple situations along with vocabulary words.

SHARED VISION AND CODE OF COOPERATION: The process and outcomes of co-constructing, with learners, how they want to be defined in their learning environment, the goals of the learning environment, and how they will cooperate and learn together.

SMART GOALS: A goal-setting process to develop academic and personal goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based.

STAKEHOLDERS: Any participant in the learning community, such as parents, school board trustees, community members, learners, and school personnel.

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES (SOPs): A set of step-by-step instructions to help learning facilitators and instructional staff carry out regular routines.

STATION ROTATION: An instructional model that allows learners to rotate through stations, often including multiple learning modalities, on a fixed schedule.

STRATEGIC DESIGN: A document created by all stakeholders defining the mission, vision, guiding beliefs/principles, core values and lifelong learning of the Lindsay Unified community.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS: An assessment that is used to evaluate learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period—typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year.

VARIED EVIDENCE OF LEARNING: The opportunity for learners to demonstrate mastery of specific learning targets through a variety of learning products.

VISIBLE LEARNING OUTCOMES: A set of “targets” or standards that are attainable.

ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD): The zone of the closest, most immediate psychological development of learners that includes a wide range of their emotional, cognitive, and volitional psychological processes.