To be considered a competent educator, there are almost 2000 strategies, concepts, and terms that you must know. However, since teachers wear so many hats, who has the time to learn them all? Don’t worry; we have you covered. In this series, we will discuss all the teaching and learning strategies, concepts, and terms that you need to know to be considered an effective educator. There are over 70 articles in this series, so pace yourself. We recommend reading one piece per weekday, which will allow you to complete the series in three to four months. We hope you enjoy it.

Click here to read all the articles in this series.

Cues Signals or predictions of what behavior(s) will be rewarded or punished. They are also referred to as antecedent stimuli.

Cultural Bias The perception that intelligence tests are biased against minority students and are therefore discriminatory.

Cultural Blocks A type of creative block caused by an individual’s internalization of pressures to conform and meet social expectations.

Cultural Capital An advantage to a particular group of people, family, or individual student that is a direct result of their academic competence, language competence, or socioeconomic status.

Cultural Competence Understanding and appreciating the diversity of cultures represented by the people we interact and work with.

Cultural Equivalence When systematic variance that could be the result of racial or cultural socialization is removed from the test score. This is often referred to as fairness.

Cultural Pluralism The preservation of cultures as parallel and equal to the majority culture in a given society.

Cultural Pluralist Position The emphasis on pride in an ethnic identity as integral to educational and career achievements.

Cultural Relativism The idea that a person’s way of thinking, talking, and behaving should be understood and accepted by others from the same culture.

Cultural Scripts The various aspects that make up a person’s thoughts, behavior and the way they view the world.

Culturally Responsive Classroom Traditional teaching environments force students from those and other groups to modify their thought and behavior patterns to fit standard European-American norms or else face academic and behavioral consequences. In a culturally responsive classroom, the onus is instead placed on the instructor to learn about and adapt to the cultural intricacies of the students that they teach.

Culturally Responsive Mean Is the term given to the practice of respectfully accepting, acknowledging, and incorporating the students’ diverse cultural knowledge, background experiences, and values into the curriculum and all aspects of learning

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Is a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students’ unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student’s cultural place in the world.  Culturally responsive pedagogy is divided into three functional dimensions: the institutional dimension, the personal dimension, and the instructional dimension.

Culture of Learning Practices that foster academic growth in students across socioeconomic and cultural boundaries. None of these practices involve hands-on classroom interventions on the part of administrators, but all foster a structured environment that’s focused on student learning – a school culture of learning.

Culture The values, assumptions, and beliefs that we share with the group of people we interact with every day. The values and lessons learned by a child from their family and community.

Curriculum A degree program that is made up of a collection of courses offered by the school.

Curriculum Compacting A teacher strategy that gives teachers the ability to modify the curriculum for advanced students by identifying which students are proficient in all or most of the learning outcomes and developing differentiated instructional activities which will provide these students with more of a challenge and help them live up to their academic potential.

Curriculum Is a defined program of how a teacher, school, and district meet the educational goals of each course. This is subdivided into subjects, which each deal with a particular area of specialized learning.

Curriculum Mapping Describes the process through which schools detect gaps in learning between curricula, by analyzing a database where teachers enter course planning, content, skills, and assessment information. Any gaps detected are managed appropriately to ensure that the standard of learning provided at the institution meets district or state requirements.

Curriculum-based Language Assessment A method for assessing a student’s functional language skills and vocabulary about the subject matter being taught.

Custodial Care A category of program for young children which focused on the care of the child and service to the parents but did not emphasize learning.

Customized Learning Experiences Self-initiated and self-directed learning experiences are based on the needs, preferences, and abilities of individual students. The traditional way to look at learning is via the creation and assignment of work by teachers in a one-size-fits-all approach for every classroom. Customized learning, however, allows students to direct focus on feedback techniques that provide strategies for improvement during the process, instead of waiting for a given test period see if the methods are working.

Cut-Off Score Is the lowest possible score on an assessment that a student can make to obtain mastery or pass.

Cyberspace Is a metaphorical concept referring to the world of information provided through the Internet.