Vermont Agency of Education
Proficiency-Based Graduation Requirements:
Glossary of Terms
Below is a copy of the Vermont Agency of Education Proficiency-based Graduation Requirements Glossary.
For a more comprehensive glossary of education terms go to the Glossary of Education Reform.
For a more comprehensive glossary of education terms go to the Glossary of Education Reform.
Benchmark : A point of reference against which a student’s level of proficiency can be measured.
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) :The CCSS are a set of clear college and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. Today, 43 states (including Vermont) have voluntarily adopted and are working to implement the standards, which are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to take credit-bearing introductory courses in two or four-year college programs or enter the workforce.
http://www.corestandards.org/
Education Quality Standards (EQS): The EQS are rules enacted to ensure that all students in Vermont public schools are afforded educational opportunities that are substantially equal in quality, and enable them to achieve or exceed the standards approved by the State Board of Education.
Vermont State Board of Education: Education Quality Standards
Flexible Pathways: In Vermont, schools must provide students the opportunity to experience learning through flexible and multiple pathways, including but not limited to career and technical education, virtual learning, work-based learning, service learning, dual enrollment, and early college. Learning must occur under the supervision of an appropriately licensed educator. Learning expectations must be aligned with state expectations and standards.
State Board Rule 2120.2 Education Quality Standards
Formative Assessment: Formative assessment is a deliberate process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides actionable feedback that is used to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve students’ self-assessment, reflection and attainment of curricular learning targets/goals. (from
www.smarterbalanced.org)
Grade Expectations (GEs): GEs are specific and detailed academic content area benchmarks within the Vermont Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities.
Grade Expectations on the AOE webpage Proficiency-Based Graduation Requirements: Glossary of Terms
Learning Progressions: Learning progressions are descriptions of children’s thinking and learning in a specific domain, and a related conjectured route through a set of instructional tasks designed to move children through a developmental progression of thinking, created with the intent of supporting children’s achievement of specific goals in that domain. (Clements & Sarama, 2004)
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS): The NGSS are science standards adopted by Vermont that reflect what students should know and be able to do in core ideas, scientific and engineering processes, and cross-cutting concepts.
http://www.nextgenscience.org/
Performance Assessment: Performance assessment is a form of judging student achievement on the basis of relatively unconstrained responses to relatively rich stimulus materials, also known as authentic assessment.
https://scale.stanford.edu/system/files/performance-assessment-era-standards-based-educational-accountability.pdf
Performance Indicators: Performance Indicators are used to assess student proficiency against a content area or transferable skill Graduation Proficiency on the sample AOE PBGR documents. In the sample content area PBGRs, Performance Indicators derive from that content area’s learning standards (CCSS, NGSS, or GEs).
Proficiency-Based Graduation Requirements (PBGRs): The locally-delineated set of content knowledge and skills connected to state standards that, when supplemented with any additional locally-developed requirements, have been determined to qualify a student for earning a high school diploma.
Transferable Skills: A broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed to be critically important to success in today’s world, particularly in collegiate programs and modern careers. Transferable skills include communication, collaboration, creativity, innovation, inquiry, problem solving and the use of technology.
http://education.vermont.gov/documents/EDU-FinalEQS_AsAdopted.pdf
Vermont’s Framework of Standards: Vermont State Board of Education approved standards in multiple fields of knowledge and student practices that cut across all content areas (Vital Results), and which guide curriculum planning, instruction and assessment.
Vermont's Framework of Standards and Learning Opportunities