Glossary

edTPA TERMINOLOGY

PLANNING CONSTRUCTS
Planning for content understanding	A teacher's instructional plans purposefully organize tasks, activities, and/or materials to align with the central focus and content standards/objectives.
Planning for varied student learning needs	A teacher's instructional plans are designed to support students in relation to their individual characteristics.
Knowledge of students	A teacher develops learning tasks that make content meaningful to students by drawing upon knowledge of individuals or groups and research or developmental theory.
Identifying and supporting language demands	A teacher's instructional plans, based on evidence, are designed to identify how they will further develop a student's use of language.
Planning Assessments	During instructional planning, a teacher identifies the informal and formal assessments that will be used to monitor student learning.

INSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTS
Learning environment	A teacher establishes a challenging learning environment while fostering respectful interactions between the teacher and students, and among students.
Engaging students in learning	A teacher delivers instruction that engages students in meaningful learning experiences and discussions through multiple modalities that promote active learning.
Deepening Student Learning	A teacher delivers instruction that elicits student responses to promote complex thinking and content understanding.
Subject-specific pedagogy	A teacher delivers instruction that uses modeling, demonstrations, and content examples to develop students' knowledge/skills, content understanding.
Analyzing teaching effectiveness	A teacher uses evidence to evaluate and adjust teaching practice to meet students' varied learning needs.

ASSESSMENT CONSTRUCTS
Analysis of student learning	A teacher deeply reviews student work to identify patterns of individual and whole-class learning.
Providing feedback	A teacher provides meaningful feedback, based on artifacts and evidence (i.e student work) to inform them of what they are doing well and what needs to improve in relation to the learning objectives.
Student use of feedback	Students have a clear understanding and guidance of how to use teacher feedback to guide their further learning.
Assessing student language use	A teacher analyzes his/her students' use of language to develop content understanding.
Using assessment to inform instruction	A teacher uses an analysis of what students know and are able to do to plan the next steps in instruction.

ADDITIONAL TERMINOLOGY


Blended Coaching/Virtual/ Hybrid Coaching	A coaching approach used to supplement face-to-face support that includes customizable coaching approaches utilizing an online platform that may include targeted, and intentional coaching interactions; seamless support for beginning teachers based on individual needs with or without video artifacts
Coaching Activity	General pedagogical support provided by coaches in response to environmental conditions (early release day, parent night, weather-related events, shifts to in-person status).
Coaching Framework	Specific pedagogical support provided in response to evidences collected by coaches to improve teacher practice along.
Collaborative Coaching	An interaction between a coach and coachee allows them to co-construct solutions and co-analyze lessons.
Co-Teach	A coaching method that involves two teachers working together to plan, deliver instruction and implement assessments to one group of students.
Face to face Coaching	An instructional coach will visit, in-person, a teacher's classroom to observe, provide feedback, set goals, plan instruction and develop assessments focused on improving instruction and student learning
Facilitative Coaching	A reflective interaction between a coach and coachee directed by the teacher through a self-assessment.
Instructive Coaching	A coach-directed interaction focused on offering a coachee suggestions and providing examples to improve instruction.
Model Lessons	A coaching approach allowing the coach to make teaching and learning visible for a coachee.
Monthly Reports	A collective value of evidences that are aligned to constructs assigned to the teacher gathered by a coach during the month.   This report is a summation of coaching activities and could possibly inform next month’s coaching and demonstrate teacher professional progress.
Observe Teaching	A classroom observation is a coaching activity that is an act of watching a teacher's performance in their classroom or learning environment to quantitatively measure, based on evidence, a teacher's level of mastery or effectiveness. Observing can take place virtually or in person.
Professional Development	Structured training opportunities provided to teachers focused on changing teacher practice resulting in improved student leaerning.
Reflection	Educators think critically about their teaching practice and look for evidence of effective teaching and ways to improve.
Rubric Constructs	The edTPA criteria that we use to measure the performance progression of a teacher's practice. Coaches utilize 3 levels on the rubric (emerging, proficient and advanced) to determine what a teacher is able to do and what he or she may need to further develop.
Set Goals	During a coaching cycle, the coach and coachee reflect on their current strengths and set goals based on the areas that need improvement.
Teacher Assignment	Content assignment of the teacher (e.g. Science, History, PK, CTE Arts etc.)
Teacher Survey	Collects teachers’ perceptions of the value of the support provided. Perception of support could be valuable and possibly contribute to increased retention because teachers feel supported.
Teacher Retention	Teacher retention refers to the proportion of teachers in one year who are still teaching in the same school the following.
Virtual Asynchronous Coaching	Coaching support provided at a distance allowing both coach and coachee to interact together "live" online.
Virtual Synchronous Coaching	A coaching support process by which a teacher develops in-formal and formal methods to analyze student learning and uses the collected data to inform their practice.