Glossary
Advisory
School organization design in which every student in the school is assigned a teacher or staff member who assists the student in achieving his or her academic and personal goals. Advisory usually has two distinct parts: an advisory class and one-to-one advisement to address personal issues.
Advisory Board (Exhibition)
Recommended board for a school using exhibitions as a School Wide Diploma Assessment. An advisory board is an independent board with responsibility for reviewing student petitions and appeals. The advisory board's independence and lack of bias comes from being composed of members that are not otherwise formally associated with exhibition system or student advising.
Applied Learning
Skill sets with six main areas: communicating (reading, writing, speaking), problem solving, critical thinking, research, personal/social responsibility, and interpersonal interactions. In order to be determined "proficient," a student must demonstrate content knowledge and the application of that knowledge using the applied learning skills.
Authentic Assessments
Alternatives to conventional, multiple-choice, and true-false testing. Authentic assessments both mirror and measure how well students use knowledge, skills, and competencies to solve real world tasks and problems. Examples include exhibitions, performances, written or oral responses, journals and portfolios.
Calibration
Process to measure the consistency with which assessments are evaluated using rubrics.
Capstone Project
In-depth, independent learning experience in which students investigate an area of personal interest. The capstone presentation is a required component of a capstone project and offers students an opportunity to showcase their work to an external audience. In Rhode Island, these projects are the culminating event for achieving a Certificate of Initial Mastery.
Career Academy
Organizational structure offering students broad information about a specific field (i.e. health care, finance, natural resources, etc). An academy weaves this theme into an academic curriculum that may qualify students for admission to a four-year college or university. Career academies consist of three structural elements:
- A small learning community
- A college preparatory curriculum with a career theme
- Partnerships with employers, the community, and local colleges
Career and Technical Education
Continuum of learning opportunities open to all students, including career awareness, exploration, and preparation. For those students who choose to prepare for specific careers within the career and technical education structure, preparation begins in high school and often includes formal post-secondary learning experiences directly after high school.
Carnegie Unit
Credit assigned for a class meeting for 200 minutes per week for a period of one year. In Rhode Island, students must complete 20 Carnegie units, among other requirements, to receive a diploma.
Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM)
Certificate of student accomplishment issued by the Rhode Island Skills Commission. The CIM represents demonstrated knowledge and skills agreed upon by educators, families, businesses, community and higher education representatives and reflects a standard of quality that is competitive throughout the world. A combination of traditional tests, performance measures, collections of student work over time, and projects or exhibitions are required to award a CIM. The CIM provides the students with a forum for analyzing, synthesizing, and implementing the skills and knowledge that they have gained throughout their education.
Common Task
Structured opportunity that is common for a group of students to demonstrate learning through written products and/or oral presentations. They allow a student to prove that s/he has mastered one or more proficiencies based upon deep content knowledge. The proficiencies are those that are generally agreed upon as crucial or important, and are defined by standards and expectations. A task may be an on demand or extended task.
As part of the Rhode Island Diploma System, common tasks may serve as components of a student's graduation portfolio or as preparation for a student's graduation exhibition.
Community Service Learning
Instructional reform strategy that actively involves youth in an academic program through service to their communities. Service-learning is a method whereby students learn about the complexity of community issues and public policy through active participation in thoughtfully organized service projects.
Content Standards
Broadly stated expectations of what students need to know, understand, and be able to do in a specific content area such as English language arts or mathematics. Content standards define for teachers, schools, students, and the community not only the expected student skills and knowledge, but also what schools should teach.
Criteria
Guidelines, rules, characteristics, or dimensions used to judge the quality of student performance. Criteria are descriptions of the most important features of a learning goal that can be used to judge what students know and are able to do. Scoring rubrics are based on criteria and define what the criteria mean and how they are used.
Curriculum Mapping
Method of aligning a district's curriculum to appropriate state and national standards. It includes a review and evaluation of course content.
Design Committee (Exhibition)
Recommended committee for schools using exhibitions as their school-wide diploma assessment. The design committee facilitates the development, implementation, and evaluation of the school's exhibition system. The design committee usually consists of teaching staff and might also include variety of community members.
End-of-course Assessments (proficiency-based)
Summative assessments designed to ascertain what students know and are able to do relative to a course of study. They are purposefully designed to include proficiency-based measures of performance. They may include multiple choice and true/false responses. At least 50 percent of the test must include on-demand or extended tasks based on the expectations for student learning that provide the foundation of knowledge and skills for the course.
Exhibition (Graduation)
Broad term used to capture the demonstration of learning that occurs in both physical or written products and oral presentations. An exhibition is an in-depth, extended project requiring the student to simultaneously demonstrate that s/he has mastered deep content knowledge as well as the habits of thinking that are expected of a graduate of that school. An exhibition often takes place in a student's senior year, but may take place at any time in his/her high school experience. The exhibition draws on a personal academic focus of the student, explores a topic through in-depth research, represents the acquisition and use of knowledge in new ways, is completed individually, demonstrates one or more of the school's identified expectations for learning, is presented to an external audience, has opportunities for revision, documents the process, and offers opportunities for reflection.
Expectations for Student Learning
Part of the NEASC accreditation process. These are a guiding set of statements that, taken as a whole, describe the knowledge, skills, and values that students are expected to have when they graduate from high school. Expectations for Student Learning must be fair and equitable for all students.
Extended Task
Multi-day or multi-week project that is common for a group of students to demonstrate learning through written products and/or oral presentations. Extended tasks allow a student to prove that s/he has mastered one or more proficiencies based upon deep content knowledge. Extended tasks include opportunities for feedback, revision, and reflection.
Grade Span Expectations (GSEs)
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.
Graduation by Proficiency (Section 5.0 of the Regents' Regulations)
Part of the 2003 Rhode Island Regents' Regulations. 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.
Individualized Learning Plans (ILPs)
Tools that help customize and direct student development in three domains: academic, career, and personal/social. ILPs are a mapped academic plan and profile that reflect each student's unique set of interests, needs, learning goals, and graduation requirements.
Judge (Exhibition)
Part of a trained panel that evaluates student performances and materials. For an exhibition to be a school-wide diploma assessment in Rhode Island, the judges must be trained to score student presentations reliably and be free of personal bias.
Learner Outcomes
Descriptions of what students should know and be able to do after completing a unit, a program, a grade, or a school. They represent the minimum knowledge that students must demonstrate to be proficient with the standards and expectations for student learning. They are assessed with performance indicators.
Local Assessments
Assessments developed, administered, and scored by educators with the purpose of evaluating individual, classroom, grade or school level student performance on a topic. These include tests, graded student work, quizzes, etc. Ideally, the results of a local assessment are used to inform and influence instruction that helps students reach high standards.
Local Assessment System
Coherent, coordinated collection of assessments that are aligned to content and performance standards. Together they form a body of evidence that yield data about students' progress toward demonstrations of proficiency for student learning and other learning targets. In Rhode Island, an assessment system may consist of classroom assessments, diploma assessments, district assessments, state assessments, and alternative assessments, among others.
Multiple Measures Of Performance
Multiple instruments within an assessment system that measure student proficiency. These measures must include a variety of assessments and students must have multiple opportunities to exhibit their proficiency.
Multiple Opportunities To Learn
Conditions in schools that enable all students to have a fair opportunity to achieve the knowledge, skills, and understandings set out in the expectations for student learning.
New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)
A self-regulatory membership organization serving the public and educational community by developing and applying standards assessing the educational effectiveness of elementary, secondary, and collegiate educational institutions. Processes of self-evaluation and peer review utilizing the Association's goals assure and improve the quality of institutions, which seek its accreditation. It also endeavors to inform public discourse about educational improvement. For more information, visit their website at http://www.neasc.org
On-Demand Task
Timed classroom exercise given in a controlled setting that is common for a group of students to demonstrate learning through written products and/or oral presentations. On-demand tasks allow a student to prove that s/he has mastered one or more proficiencies based upon deep content knowledge.
Performance-Based Assessment
Assessment strategy requiring students to demonstrate achievement and skills in an active manner in a way that reveals a student's understanding of, and ability to, apply the underlying processes. It usually includes self-assessment and measures non-traditional areas of integrating knowledge across disciplines.
Performance Indicators
Component of learner outcomes that defines the stages of achievement towards meeting the content and performance standard for the expectations for student learning.
Performance Standard
Agreed upon level of acceptable accomplishment for an area of student learning, and exemplified by a benchmark set of student work. Standards are characterized by high expectations of what is acceptable for all learners. Performance standards describe how well a student must perform to achieve or exceed the standard.
Portfolio (Graduation)
One option for school-wide diploma assessments in Rhode Island. Graduation portfolios are composed of a specific subset of student work tied to the school's learning expectations and the state's high school diploma system requirements. The evidence collected demonstrates that a student has the skills and knowledge expected of any graduate from that school. The graduation portfolio requires formative and summative student reflections and a final evaluation by a panel of trained reviewers. Students collect work from their courses and learning experiences/activities over four years and then choose a subset of those entries that best reflects their learning and demonstrates a defined set of proficiencies.
Portfolio (Print Or Electronic)
A collection of work that documents a student's educational performance over time. A portfolio typically includes a range of materials (e.g., reports, photographs) selected by the student and may include a brief introduction and summary statement describing how the portfolio was assembled and what was learned in the compilation process. Portfolios can be designed to assess student progress, effort, and/or achievement, and encourage students to reflect on their learning. A portfolio becomes an assessment when (1) the assessment purpose is defined; (2) criteria or methods are made clear for determining what is put into the portfolio, by whom, and when; and (3) criteria for assessing either the collection or individual pieces of work are identified and used to make judgments about performance.
Portfolio Review
A required component of a portfolio system for schools using graduation portfolios as their school-wide diploma assessment. A review system includes a trained panel of reviewers that use established criteria to fairly and reliably evaluate student work.
Reliability
An indication of the consistency of scores across raters, over time, or across different tasks or items that measure the same thing.
Reviewer (Portfolio)
Part of a trained panel that evaluates student portfolios. For a portfolio to be a school-wide diploma assessment in Rhode Island, the reviewers must be trained to score student portfolios reliably and be free of personal bias.
Rhode Island's Common Core of Learning
Rhode Island's 2001 touchstone document written to describe the knowledge, skills, and competencies that all Rhode Island students should learn to succeed in post-secondary education and work. It describes these competencies in four main areas: communication, problem solving, body of knowledge, and responsibility.
Rhode Island Diploma System
Combination of all of the assessment measures, student supports, and school and district requirements that a school uses to show what students know and are able to do. Components for graduation required as part of the diploma system include completion of a minimum of 20 credits, Diploma Assessments (exhibition, graduation portfolios, and the CIM) chosen by the school, local assessments, and state assessments. It is the school's responsibility to provide each student with the necessary and appropriate support and "opportunities to learn" in order for him/her to develop the knowledge and skills needed to prepare them for success in post-secondary learning experiences and in the work place.
Rhode Island Network for Educational Technology (RINET)
A non-profit corporation operating as a partnership to support the collective technology needs of the K-12 educational community. RINET provides advanced Internet access for schools and municipalities and high quality technology programs and services in support of K-12 teaching and learning.
Rhode Island Skills Commission
A professional organization dedicated to redesigning high schools and infusing standards-based instructional practices into classrooms. The Rhode Island Skills Commission maintains a network of schools that use common tasks in their classrooms, some of which offer their students an opportunity to earn Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM).
School-Wide Rubric
Rubrics used school-wide and across all disciplines to evaluate student work. School-wide rubrics should be aligned to appropriate state and national standards.
School-Wide Diploma Assessments
Components of the Rhode Island Diploma System. School-wide diploma assessments refer to the multiple measures that were outlined in the Rhode Island Board of Regents' High School Regulations–exhibitions, portfolios, end-of-course assessments, and Certificates of Initial Mastery. These assessments concurrently measure deep content knowledge and the habits of thinking, reasoning, applying, problem solving, and critical-thinking that are part of in-depth long-term work. They are purposefully designed to both mirror and measure how well students use knowledge, skills, and competencies to solve real-world tasks and problems.
Standards
Broadest of a family of terms referring to statements of expectations for student learning, including content standards, performance standards, and benchmarks.
Steering Committee (Exhibition)
Recommended committee for every school implementing exhibitions as its school-wide diploma assessment. The steering committee has the responsibility for implementing and maintaining an exhibition system. This can include running a pilot program, creating handbooks, designing and implementing a communication plan, and reviewing the curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices to ensure that students have sufficient opportunities to learn and practice the skills necessary to successfully complete an exhibition.
Support Structures
The variety of structures – physical, curricular, organizational, instructional, programmatic – a school offers its students to support their learning and growth and ensure their success. A network of support structures is critical to student success in Rhode Island's Diploma System.
Validity
Extent to which an assessment measures what it is supposed to measure and logical inferences are appropriate and accurate. A valid standards-based assessment is aligned with the standards intended to be measured, provides an accurate and reliable estimate of students' performance relative to the standard, and is fair.
Work-Based Learning
Activities at the high school level that involve actual work experience or connect classroom learning to work. At the highest level, there is full integration of academic and vocational/occupational curriculum with work site experience.