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.

Resiliency The ability to bounce back and recover from failure or adversity.

Response An action taken or emotion arising after a triggering event but also after an individual takes the time to think through the possible consequences of actions or expressed emotions, to consider alternative plans of action, and to choose the option most likely to lead to the desired outcome.

Response An emotion or action that follows a triggering event but results from the careful examination of the motivations and emotions that led to the triggering event, consideration of alternative courses of action, and selection of the action that will most likely lead to the desired outcome.

Response Mode The way in which a student responds to a task or request.

Responses A part of the Behavioral Theory that describes a child’s behavior after receiving a stimulus.

Responsiveness One person’s intentional response to the emotional state of another.

Rest of the Story An inquiry-based research method in content area study that encourages students to go further in their research beyond general knowledge about a person, event, invention, discovery, or topic.

Restorative Justice A restorative justice approach that rehabilitates offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large can go a long way towards keeping kids in class and out of the criminal justice system. This does not have to happen exclusively in classrooms all the time though. Community outreach programs that embrace youth and teach them peace-making resolution strategies can improve the overall outcome for these students. It is important to note that many of these community outreach programs have had a positive impact on their participants and helped them to break the cycle of poverty, violence, and recidivism that has plagued their families for generations.

Resume Is a one- to a two-page written summary of your abilities and experiences.

Retelling The act of describing what one has read, which can provide insight into the reader’s ability to engage with, understand, interpret, and draw conclusions from the text.

Retention The act of keeping a student who has not mastered the curriculum at their current grade level for an additional year. It focuses on the academics at hand and is less likely to take into account the feelings or potential social shortfalls of holding a child back. The positive angle is that it allows students to take additional time to master materials that they have struggled with.

Retroactive Facilitation An increased ability to understand previously learned information due to the acquisition of new information.

Retroactive Inhibition A weakened ability to remember information due to the act of learning new information.

Reversals (literacy) Reading WAS for saw or spelling with a w instead of an m.

Reverse Brainstorming A creative problem-solving technique in which the problem is turned around and considered from a different point of view to spur new and different solutions.

Reverse Mainstreaming When children without disabilities are brought into the special education classroom or a therapy session for a specified period of time. Professional use reverse mainstreaming to increase the contact between disabled children in special education settings and their more typical peers.

Reversibility The ability to carry out a mental function and then undo one’s thinking back to the point of departure.

Revising Stage A step in the writing process in which students modify the content based on feedback provided by peers, teachers, or their own opinions.

Rewritten Text Text in simple sentences focusing on the major themes, main ideas, and supporting details.

Rhyming Words A part of phonological awareness. Two words that start differently, but have a similar sound at the end.

Rhythm The beats in spoken language.

Rich Instructional Tasks The incorporation of Common Core standards into lesson plans.

Rime The section of the word that comes after the onset.

Rimes The phonogramic parts of rhyming words that are identical; in a syllable, the vowel and any consonants which follow it.

Ripped from the Headlines A long-term inquiry-based activity in which teachers and students select an intriguing story from a news source to use as the basis for inquiry and examination.

Risk-Taking A choice made to spur further growth.

Role Model An adult who can serve as an example of achievement and a model of behavior that leads to achievement for an underachieving child.

Role- or Perspective-Taking Empathetic arousal through an individual’s ability to picture the mental state of another person in his or her mind and thereby understand that person’s thoughts, emotions, and goals.

Rolling Admissions An admissions policy whereby institutions consider each application as soon as it has all of the required materials, instead of a certain deadline.

Root Mapping A strategy that provides an overview of a root word and the words that can come from that root.

Rote Learning A method of memorization that is based on the repetition of facts or associations, and may be arbitrary in essence.

Round-Robin Reading Students will take turns reading a text aloud.

Routines-Based Interview A loosely-structured interview conducted by a child-care professional to solicit input from parents and primary caregivers on a child’s skills and level of independence in completing routine tasks, the child’s social relationships, and the interviewee’s concerns and priories about the child.

Rubric An assessment tool for grading student work that breaks down the components on which an answer or project will be graded as well as outlining the levels of achievement.

Rubric Is a specifically stated set of standards that allow subjective ideas, observations, and projects to be scored equally.

Rule-Example-Rule A technique for teaching concepts in which the teacher presents a rule or definition through examples and then demonstrates how the examples fit the rule.

Running Records Written notes on the routines and behavior of a student or small group of students.