The International Schools Review Forum

I am a great teacher with a lot of experience and great references. But, what I'm not great at is the 'lingo'. In fact, I'm personally kind of 'anti-lingo' (particularly in the teaching professions) but I know I have to be up on 'it' for interviews.

So...what is the lingo that I need? What buzz words should I be throwing around?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Collaboration, engaging, differentiation, scaffolding, mental dexterity, student advocacy, Grit, adjusting assessments, structuring concepts and skills, enrichment, and most of all, think and speak in terms of what students are learning, not what they are presenting.

Thanks, fine dude.

I think I got most of that...what is 'scaffolding' exactly. I think that's why I get turned off by 'lingo'...not all of it but some of it is just so intentionally nebulous and bs (y) if you will.

:)

Scaffolding is when a teacher or a competent peer supports a learner to help complete a task, which he/she couldn't complete independently in the first place. Once the learner becomes more confident about the task or skill, you withdraw that support naturally shifting the responsibility to the learner, which again in the lingo is called independent, self-regulatory learning.

Scaffolding (also known in circles as schema and instantiation for the more psych inclined) is also building concepts so that when you get to the higher order thinking parts, the student has the ability because they have been given the skills at an earlier stage.

Tangential to this is the concept of curriculum articulation, also a buzz word, because you want to make sure you are not reteaching concepts the student had in grade X - for instance, there are students in the UK who have "done" WW II several times in their history lessons over the years.

This is where you want to be asking the school how they have aligned or articulated their curriculum to ensure best learning on the students' part. Admin love questions like that LOL