Glossary

Teachers and leaders need to increase their capacity, skills and motivation to provide all learners with equitable opportunities for academic and wider success. Effective professional development must include activities connected to classroom practice and school improvement priorities. Working with other teachers and professionals within and beyond school can extend knowledge and skills and equip teachers to develop their practice to meet the diverse needs of all learners.

High-quality professional development should support research and innovation, rather than expert inputs or single, short courses. It should move from seeing teachers as users of research produced by others, to seeing teachers as collaborative problem-solvers who share potential solutions and actively consider the relevance of various approaches for different learners and different situations (adapted from European Agency, 2017 and European Agency, 2018b).

(See also ‘Teacher professional learning’)

Refers to a comprehensive model of professional learning support for pre-service, in-service, beginning and experienced teachers, as well as support teachers, specialist teachers, teaching assistants, teacher educators and school leaders.

A continuum of support and services matches the full range of additional needs encountered in every school. For children with special educational needs, a continuum of support should be provided. This ranges from minimal help in mainstream classrooms, to additional learning support programmes within the school. It also extends, where necessary, to assistance from specialist teachers and external support staff. (Refer to: UNESCO, 1994).

For teachers, support staff and school leaders, a continuum of support should be provided through the use of research, networking and links to universities and initial teacher education institutions. This will provide development opportunities for all groups as lifelong learners (European Agency, 2014).

A continuum of support ensures coherent transition within education systems, and from education systems to work. It also ensures co-operation among the different stakeholders involved.

(See also ‘Continuum of professional learning’)

‘A standard or principle by which something is judged, or with the help of which a decision is made’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries).

Critical factors are those elements that are crucial in the decision-making process and necessary for an organisation or project to achieve its aim.

For example, in the Changing Role of Specialist Provision in Supporting Inclusive Education activity, the level of school autonomy is a critical factor that directly and significantly affects the way schools use specialist services.

Description of what, why, how and how well students should learn in a systematic and intentional way. This definition refers to what is written during curriculum design and development, but through misunderstanding, disagreement or lack of resources, school-level implementation and enactment may diverge from original intentions. For instance:

• Experienced curriculum refers to learning as students experience it, including the knowledge and perspectives learners bring, their ability to learn and their interaction with the curriculum.
• Hidden curriculum refers to student experiences of school beyond the formal curriculum structure, such as messages communicated by the school or education system concerning values, beliefs, behaviours and attitudes, which may complement or undermine the curriculum as intended and implemented (UNESCO, 2020a, p. 419).

Curriculum-based assessment is an assessment linked to programmes of learning. It serves to inform teachers about their pupils’ learning progress and difficulties in relation to the programme of study. This allows teachers to decide about what a pupil needs to learn next and how to teach that material.

Design for all is a ‘design approach to products and services, aiming to make them usable for as many people as possible’ (UNESCO IITE/European Agency, 2011, p. 101).

Design for all ‘is used to describe a design philosophy targeting the use of products, services and systems by as many people as possible without the need for adaptation’. Design for all is design for human diversity, social inclusion and equality (European Institute for Design and Disability, 2004).

‘The act of discovering or identifying the exact cause of an illness or problem’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries).

Diagnosis is one particular use or purpose of assessment information. It aims to identify particular strengths and weaknesses a learner may have in one or more areas of their functioning. Diagnosis often implies the collection and interpretation of information from a medical perspective, although educational ‘diagnosis’ also occurs. Diagnosis is often one aspect of assessment processes linked to initial identification of special educational needs.

‘Assessment aimed at identifying a learner’s strengths and weaknesses with a view to taking necessary action to enhance learning. Also used prior to the teaching and learning process to appraise the learner’s readiness or level of achievement’ (UNESCO-IBE, Glossary of Curriculum Terminology).

Differentiation is a method of designing and delivering instruction to best reach each learner. Teachers might differentiate content, process, products and/or the learning environment, with the use of on-going assessment and flexible grouping (Tomlinson, 2014). Differentiation in teachers’ practices takes account of learner differences and matches curriculum content and teaching methods to learning styles and learner needs. It may focus on input, task, outcome, output, response, resources or support. Care must be taken, however, that differentiation does not lead to lower expectations and segregation from the mainstream system. It should offer a range of differentiated tasks to everyone in class, giving learners some choice in what they do and how they respond.

‘(as in digital content, digital devices, digital resources, digital technology) – essentially, another word for computers and computer technology. (Computers store and process information by converting it all to single-figure numbers – digits.)’ (UNESCO and Microsoft, 2011, p. 90).

Digital divide refers to ‘the gap between those who can benefit from digital technology and those who cannot’ (Digital Divide Institute, 2015, cited in UNESCO IITE/European Agency, 2011, p. 101).

The digital divide in formal schooling is not simply an equipment differential that can be overcome with further selective investments in hardware, software, and networking. Instead it derives from both within school and within home differences that extend to learning standards as well as support. Student self-learning ability, and in particular, student ability for independent learning, is an additional factor. National policies that attempt to close the digital divide for schooling must attend to all of these contributing factors to be successful (Venezky, 2000, p. 76).

Digital education comprises two different but complementary perspectives: the pedagogical use of digital technologies to support and enhance teaching, learning and assessment and the development of digital competences by learners and education and training staff (European Commission, 2020, p. 95).

Digital Literacy is a broad term used to describe three interrelated dimensions of literate practice:

1. the operational dimension includes the skills and competences that enable individuals to read and write in diverse digital media (including making meaning with and from diverse modes such as spoken and written language, static and moving images, sounds, screen design etc.);
2. the cultural dimension refers to developing a repertoire of digital literacy practices in specific social and cultural contexts (such as constructing and/or maintaining effective social, educational and/or professional relationships online);
3. the critical dimension recognises that meaning-making resources are selective and operate as a means of social control (e.g. knowing what Facebook is up to when it reminds you that your profile is not complete). Becoming critically literate with digital media therefore includes not simply participating competently in digital literacy practices but also developing the ability to transform them actively and creatively.

It is transversal to many activities and is ‘a complex and socio-culturally sensitive issue’ (Lemos and Nascimbeni, 2016, p. 1).