Glossary
The education field is so full of acronyms and specialized words that it can seem like a confusing alphabet soup! Find out what AYP, IEP, 504, and many other abbreviations and words mean in this glossary of frequently used terms.
- independent educational evaluation (IEE)
- An evaluation conducted by a qualified examiner, who is not employed by the school district at the public's expense.
- Independent School District (ISD)
- ISD is a commonly-used acronym in education plans to refer to the school system the child attends.
- Independent(ly)*
- A student performance done without scaffolding from a teacher, other adult, or peer; in the Standards, often paired with proficient(ly) to suggest a successful student performance done without scaffolding; in the Reading standards, the act of reading a text without scaffolding, as in an assessment; see also proficient(ly), scaffolding.
- indirect vocabulary learning
- Vocabulary learning that occurs when students hear or see words used in many different contexts — for example, through conversations with adults, being read to, and reading extensively on their own.
- Individualized Education Program (IEP)
- A plan outlining special education and related services specifically designed to meet the unique educational needs of a student with a disability. For more information, go to LD Topics: IEPs.
- Individualized Transition Plan (ITP)
- A plan developed by the IEP team to help accomplish the student's goals for the transition from high school into adulthood.
- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
- The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is the law that guarantees all children with disabilities access to a free and appropriate public education. For more information, go to IDEA 2004.
- informal assessment
- The process of collecting information to make specific instructional decisions, using procedures largely designed by teachers and based on the current instructional situation.
- Information gap
- 'Information gap' is an oral language activity in which a student is rated on his or her success in verbally describing visual information that is hidden from a partner, such as a picture, map, or object (O'Malley & Valdez-Pierce, 1996).
- Instructional Conversations
- [D]iscussion-based lessons geared toward creating opportunities for students' conceptual and linguistic development. They focus on an idea or a student. The teacher encourages expression of students' own ideas, builds upon information students provide and experiences they have had, and guides students to increasingly sophisticated levels of understanding (Goldenberg, 1991).
- Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
- A measure of someone's intelligence as indicated by an intelligence test, where an average score is 100. An IQ score is the ratio of a person's mental age to his chronological age multiplied by 100.
These terms and definitions were collected from the following sources: Dr. Jean Lokerson, ERIC Digest; Southwest Educational Laboratory (SEDL); Dr. Linda Wilmshurst and Dr. Alan Brue, A Parent's Guide to Special Education, American Management Association, 2005; The Partnership for Reading; Learning Disabilities Council; Dr. Don Deshler, University of Kansas.
*Source: Common Core State Standards. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010.