To be considered a competent educator, there are almost 2000 strategies, concepts, and terms that you must know. However, since teachers wear so many hats, who has the time to learn them all? Don’t worry; we have you covered. In this series, we will discuss all the teaching and learning strategies, concepts, and terms that you need to know to be considered an effective educator. There are over 70 articles in this series, so pace yourself. We recommend reading one piece per weekday, which will allow you to complete the series in three to four months. We hope you enjoy it.
Click here to read all the articles in this series.
Bachelor’s A degree at the undergraduate level that is awarded by an institution of higher education, after a student completes a degree program that usually takes four years of continuous full-time study.
Background Knowledge What students already know about a given topic that can be used to construct meaning.
Balanced Approach A pedagogical method that emphasizes different aspects of literacy instruction at different stages appropriate to students’ needs.
Balanced Assessment A philosophy of educational assessment that recognizes that a variety of measures must be used for the teaching and learning process to help students reach their intellectual potential. This includes the use of formative assessments, summative assessments, authentic assessments, standardized assessments, etc.
Balanced Literacy A reading program that uses several different reading methods to offer differentiated reading instruction.
Baldwin Identification Matrix A matrix identification model that has increased the identification of African-American students for gifted programs. It considers both objective and subjective criteria. This model was created by Baldwin.
Bank Street Model The Bank Street model began at Bank Street College of Education in New York City in 1916. This non-traditional program helps children learn from the world around them by introducing them to social sciences. The program encourages active learning and imagination guided by teachers (who are viewed in this program as facilitators).
Baseline Measures Initial assessments of students’ knowledge about a topic or concept. A basic standard for the goal of each course is gathered within the first few weeks of the course.
Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) The aptitude for certain forms of social interaction including conversational language.
Behavioral Intervention Plan A strategy for changing the normal program for a young child who presents troubling behavior. This plan is made based on an assessment of the child and monitored over time.
Behavioral Learning Theories Rationales, principles, and tenets of learning that emphasizes perceptible changes in conduct.
Behavioral Questionnaires Forms with questions created to solicit input from families on a child’s behavioral challenges.
Behavior-Content Matrix A chart that categorizes the goals of a given lesson about appropriate cognitive levels.
Bell Curve Refers to a statistical distribution of measurement. Its function is to show the frequency with which a phenomenon is repeated. A certain distribution is expected, where, the high and low range will turn out to be similar, and the majority of scores will be distributed in the center.
Benchmarks Assessments of students’ understanding of instructional material over time.
Best Practices Research-based recommendations that provide informational resources for improving literacy instruction.
Between-Class Grouping A teaching strategy that groups students into low-, middle-, and high-level classes at each grade level based on their abilities. Also known as XYZ grouping or tracking.
Biases The stereotyping of an individual or group based on perceived differences from other individuals or groups. Biases can be conscious or sub-conscious and may pertain to race, religion, culture, intelligence or other characteristics.
Bibliotherapy A reading activity that fosters self-awareness in which students are matched with books having a character or situation they can relate to.
Bio-Impressions A teaching idea used prior to a reading assignment to predict what information the upcoming text will contain. To create a bio-impression, students will choose a person and receive a list of clues about their life connected by downward arrows. A pair of students will try to use the clues in sequential order to write their prediction of what information the biography will contain. This learning tool helps students to make predictions about the text and encourages them to make connections between the vocabulary and the biography.
Bio-Pyramid A reading comprehension strategy designed by Macon (1991) that is a summary of a person’s life. It forms a pyramid shape that creates a graphic organizer of information with a specific number of words and particular information on each line.
