Merriam-Webster defines jargon as “the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity, group, profession, or field of study.”
NPR Ed recently set out to define the most commonly used terms of education jargon in language regular people could understand, using a text editor that restricts you to the 1,000 most common words in the English language. Below are the results:
Words School People Like To Use
Authentic (learning or assessment)
What does this schoolwork have to do with my life or the real world?
Best practices
Let’s all do what the really good people do.
Closing the achievement gap
Some students don’t do as well as other students and we can fix it by working harder.
College and career ready
School should teach you how to learn and work.
Competency-based education
School should be about proving what you know, not just sitting in a chair for a number of weeks or years.
Culturally responsive teaching
Do you know where your students come from and what their lives are like?
Data-driven
We should decide things using numbers.
Deeper learning
Students should think hard, ask questions, and really work.
Efficacy
Is this thing working or not? Let’s find out.
Grit
People who try harder do better.
Growth mindset
You can do better if you believe you can do better if you try harder.
Hybrid education
Let’s use computers and people to teach students.
Implement
You have a good idea. Making it happen is the hard part.
Mastery-based
Don’t stop until you really know a thing.
Microcredential
You might not have to go to college for four years. You can learn good stuff even in just a few weeks, and you should be able to prove that.
Personalization
All students learn in their own way and their own time. Schools should help them. Maybe with computers?
Pivot
If your idea is not working, change it.
Proficiency
Good enough.
Professional development
Teach the teachers too.
Project-based learning
Don’t just write words and numbers. Do something.
Reform
Schools need to change.
Scaffolding
Teaching things step by step so the student can do more and more by herself.
Scaling
Make your good idea bigger.
Social and emotional skills
Being a good friend and working hard are just as important as books.
Stakeholders
Lots of people care what happens in schools, like students, teachers, parents and leaders. You should listen to everybody.
Teacherpreneur
A teacher should act like a businessperson.
Transformative leader
A good leader makes big changes.
Value-added
We can tell how good a teacher is by his or her students’ work over time.
For the original article, see http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/12/473016059/a-simple-cure-for-educations-jargonitis
