NPDL Glossary

Transforming education means transforming the language we use to speak about it.

Accelerated: Faster than expected in its rate of progress or growth, as in student learning that improves at a steeper trajectory than expected.

Assessment (Formative): The monitoring of student learning in progress in order to provide on-going feedback useable by teachers to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning.

Assessment (Summative): The evaluation of student learning at the end of an instructional unit or period of study, often in comparison to some agreed upon standard or benchmark.

Capacity building: The process of developing the knowledge, skills and commitment of individuals and organizations to transform learning which increases a person or organization’s (e.g., a school or cluster of schools) ability for continuous improvement and sustainability.

Collaborative Inquiry Cycle: A process in which educators come together to examine their own practice systematically. Teams work together to assess student learning needs, design relevant deep learning tasks, implement the learning using rapid cycle of formative assessment and then collaboratively analyse student work products to measure and review progress. The collaborative approach results in constructing new knowledge about deep learning and shifts practice. A similar cycle can be used by schools, clusters and system to assess and plan for growth.

Competency: Possession of required skills, knowledge, attitudes qualification, and/or capacity to be able to demonstrate a level of mastery.

Content: The facts and conceptual ideas of a particular field, discipline, or activity, or the key principles of effective facilitation for a classroom teacher.

Deep Learning: Comprehensive learning that includes a range of skills and attributes related to human flourishing, e.g., creativity, connectedness and collaboration, problem solving, wellness, and the capacity to establish and pursue personal and collective visions. An initial summary of deep learning skills might be grouped within the following realms: character education; citizenship; communication; critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration; and creativity and imagination.

Deep Learning Hub: A center of activity and information-sharing related to deep learning generally or some specific component of it, e.g. particular aspects of pedagogy, learning conditions, technology or policy. For example, schools in different clusters may form a Deep Learning Hub to share and advance practice in a particular aspect of deep learning.

Education: A form of learning in which knowledge, skills, habits, and/or practices are transferred from one person or group of people to another through teaching or some other means.

Engagement: A state of being connected, e.g. to one’s learning, through personal meaning. A heightened state of attention or involvement.

Global: Of, relating to, involving, or extending to the entire world.

Knowledge: The facts, information, and skills acquired by a person or collective through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

Learner: One who is gaining knowledge, understanding, or mastery through experience and/or study.

Learning Progressions: A Deep Learning Progression is a description of what a student’s knowledge and skills look like at different levels as they move up the deep learning competencies.

Leveraging Digital: The term Digital is used to describe a way of thinking and acting around needs, problems and challenges, using information and communication technologies as tools, a medium, context setter, reflector and catalyst to name some functions. This goes beyond information and communication technologies being just tools and teaching aids.

Implementation: The process of putting plans into effect. The processes, behaviours, actions, measures and structures that translate intentions into tangible outcomes.

New Measures: New Pedagogies for Deep Learning has a rubric-based monitoring system of New Measures that will allow us to track and show clear progress on: increasing deep learning; increasing new pedagogies that enable deep learning; and improving learning conditions that expand deep learning

Measurement: The act or process of determining the amount or degree of something, as in the degree to which a set of skills and attributes have been acquired, or the degree to which a particular set of pedagogies influenced desired learner outcomes.

Partnership: A collaborative arrangement in which parties cooperate to advance shared interests through equitable, transparent and mutually beneficial relationships.

Pedagogy: The methods and practices of teaching, including its context, as distinct from the content being conveyed.

Rubrics: A rubric is a description of what performance looks like at different levels of effectiveness. Rubrics have long been used in education for grading student work, such as essays and assignments. They are also used across multiple disciplines for strengths and needs assessment, performance appraisal, personnel selection, and for the evaluation of products, services, portfolios, proposals, projects, programs, and policies.

System: A set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole, as in a system of schools or systems of school clusters.

Skills: Learned abilities to carry out particular tasks, behaviors, or processes. In the case of deep learning skills, also extending to attributes and realms of proficiency related to deep learning.

Teacher Self-Assessment Rubric: A tool to identify the knowledge and skills teachers need in the New Pedagogies to be able to bring deep learning to life for their students.

Transformation: A complete change in appearance, composition, or form, often for the better.

Traditional: Long established, conventional.