STL — Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology (International Technology Education Association, 2000).

Accountability — The quality of being held answerable or responsible for, which may make one liable to being called to account.

Accreditation — A system designed to attest to the act of accrediting or the state of being accredited. An accreditation system would involve the approval of an institution of learning as meeting a prescribed standard or standards through a review board.

Across disciplines — Inclusive of all content area classrooms as appropriate to develop technological literacy.

Across grade levels — Inclusive of all grades specified in the identified levels of an institution of learning, such as across grades kindergarten through twelve for public school.

Action plan — A management strategy that includes program mission statements, goals, short- and long-range strategic planning,organization, evaluation, and responsibilities.

Adequate — Sufficient to satisfy a requirement or meet a need as identified in a standard.

Administrator — One who manages any aspect of the educational system, including supervisors or teachers as appropriate.

Advisory committee — An organized body comprised of informed and qualified individuals with a specified responsibility to give advice in the development of an idea or process. Members may include parents, business and industry personnel, local engineers, technologists, and interested citizens.

Affective — Relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions.

Alternative licensure — Licensure obtained through means other than a traditional undergraduate teacher preparation program.

Ancillary space — Adequate, safe, and convenient storage that supplements laboratory-classroom space.

Application — Putting general knowledge and skills to specific use.

Articulation/Articulated — A planned sequence of curricula and course offerings from Grades K–12. The planned sequence may involve looking at course offerings across grade levels (vertical articulation) or the curriculum at a single grade level (horizontal articulation).

Assessment principles — The basic truths, laws, or assumptions held in the use of assessment. The assessment principles that are in current use should enhance student learning; provide coherency of programs and courses; identify expectations; ensure developmental appropriateness, and be barrier-free.

Attributes of design — Design characteristics,which specify that design be purposeful, based on certain requirements, systematic, iterative, creative, and involve many possible solutions.

Authentic assessment — An assessment method that directly examines student performance on tasks that are directly related to what is considered worthy and necessary for developing technological literacy. Traditional assessment, by contrast, relies on indirect or stand-in tasks or questions that are more efficient and simplistic than they are helpful in determining what students actually know and can do.

Best practices — What works and does not work in the laboratory-classroom.

Brainstorming — A method of shared problem solving in which all members of a group spontaneously and in unrestrained discussion generate ideas.

Class size — The number of students designated to participate simultaneously as a group.

Co-curricular — The part of student educational experience that exists in conjunction with the academic setting but also outside of it.

Cognitive — 1. Having a basis in or being reducible to empirical, factual knowledge. 2. A teaching method that recognizes the close relationship between what is known and what is to be learned. The teaching proceeds to build on the student’s knowledge base by helping the student associate new material with something that is familiar.

Collaboration — A cooperative relationship that enables goals to be accomplished more effectively and comprehensively than by individual efforts.

Communicate — To exchange thoughts and ideas.

Constituent — A person or entity that patronizes, supports, or offers representation.

Context/Contextual — The circumstances in which an event occurs; a setting.

Continuous — Uninterrupted in time, sequence, substance, or extent.

Continuous-improvement model — The process of identifying educational goals; implementing strategies designed to achieve those goals; collecting data; analyzing the data in light of the goals and strategies; making changes; and continuing the cycle.

Control — An arrangement of chemical, electronic, electrical, and mechanical components that commands or directs the management of a system.

Core concepts — A set of ideas that make up the basis for the study of technology. The core concepts of technology as identified in STL are systems, resources, requirements, optimization and trade-offs, processes, and controls.

Correlation — In AETL, it shows a relationship within or between the standards in AETL and STL.

Course of study — A series of lessons, activities, projects, or lectures that last a specified period of time and are designed around a specified school subject.

Creativity — The ability to use imagination, intellect, and artistic talent to invent new things, innovate existing resources, or solve problems.

Critical thinking — The ability to acquire information, analyze and evaluate it, and reach a conclusion or answer by using logic and reasoning skills.

Cross-curricular technology program — Everything that affects student attainment of technological literacy, including content, professional development, curricula, instruction, student assessment, and the learning environment, implemented across grade levels and disciplines. The cross-curricular technology program manages the study of technology in technology laboratory-classrooms and other content area classrooms.

Cultural context — The culture setting of beliefs, traditions, habits, and values controlling the behavior of the majority of the people in a social-ethnic group. These include the people’s ways of dealing with their problems of survival and existence as a continuing group.

Cumulative assessment — Assessment that is summative and usually occurs at the end of a unit, topic, project, or problem.

Curricula/Curriculum — Specification of the way content is delivered, including the structure, organization, balance, and presentation of content in the laboratory-classroom.

Curriculum development — The process of creating planned curriculum, pedagogy, instruction, and presentation modes.

Developmentally appropriate — Intended to match the needs of students in the areas of cognition, physical activity, emotional growth, and social adjustment.

Discipline — A specified realm of content.

Dynamic — Ever changing and evolving.

Educators — Those professionals involved in the teaching and learning process, including teachers and administrators.

Effective — Produces the desired results with efficiency.

Empathy — The ability to place oneself in another person’s perspective in order to better understand that person’s point of view. Empathy provides more complete understanding than sympathy.

Engineering — The profession of or work performed by an engineer. Engineering involves the knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences (biological and physical) gained by study, experience, and practice that are applied with judgment and creativity to develop ways to utilize the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.

Environment — The circumstances or conditions that surround one in a setting, such as a laboratory-classroom.

Evaluation — Collection and processing of information and data to determine how well a design meets the requirements and to provide direction for improvements.

Experiment — 1. A controlled test or investigation. 2. Trying out new procedures, ideas, or activities.

Explicitly — Clearly stated, leaving no ambiguity, and consequently able to be understood and re-stated by others.

External review — Evaluation by a group outside of the academic setting that can provide an impartial review of the program for purposes of accountability and improvement.

Extra-curricular — The part of student educational experience that exists outside of the academic setting but complements it.

Formalized assessment — Assessment that is strictly standardized to allow for accurate comparisons.

Formative assessment — Ongoing assessment in the classroom. It provides information to students and teachers to improve teaching and learning.

Group project — Specific organized work or research by two or more individuals who interact with and are influenced by each other.

Guided discovery — A form of instruction in which learning takes place with a limited amount of teacher direction, and students are required to work out basic principles for themselves.

Guideline — Specific requirement or enabler that identifies what needs to be done in order to meet a standard.

Holistic — Emphasis of the whole, the overall, rather than analysis and separation into individual parts.

Human adaptive systems — Systems that exist within the human-made and natural world, including ideological, sociological, and technological systems.

Ingenuity — The innate or developed ability to invent, innovate, be resourceful, and be creative.

Innovate — To renew, alter, or introduce methods, ideas, procedures, or devices.

Innovation — The capacity to renew, alter, or introduce methods, ideas, procedures, or devices.

In-service — 1. A practicing educator. 2.Workshops, lectures, and other educational opportunities designed to keep practicing professionals abreast of the latest developments in their fields.

Instruction — The actual teaching process that the teacher employs to deliver the content to all students.

Integration — The process of bringing all parts together into a whole.

Invention — A new product, system, or process that has never existed before, created by study and experimentation.

Large-scale assessment — An assessment tool or method that involves a large number of students, such as across a state/province/region or nation.

Leadership — Guidance, direction, and support.

Learning environment — Formal or informal location where learning takes place that consists of space, equipment, resources (including supplies and materials), and safety and health requirements.

Local — 1. The individual school. 2. The environment defined by the administrative duties of a legally administered public agency within a state or province.

Long-range planning — Planning that spans weeks, months, or even years and may not commence until sometime in the future.

Manageable class size — The number of students that (a) designated teacher(s) is/are able to most effectively and safely guide, direct, and instruct.

Manageable teacher schedule — A daily, weekly, monthly, semester, and term itinerary that allows teachers to accomplish goals for teaching and learning.

Mathematics — The study of abstract patterns and relationships that results in an exact language used to communicate about them.

Measurement — Collecting data in a quantifiable manner.

Mentor — A mentor possesses knowledge and experience and shares pertinent information, advice, and support while serving as a role model.

Meta-cognition — Learners reflecting upon their own process of thinking and learning.

Mission — Organized goals and strategies for realizing goals that could be articulated in a mission statement.

Model — A visual, mathematical, or three-dimensional representation in detail of an object or design, often smaller than the original. A model is often used to test ideas, make changes to a design, and to learn more about what would happen to a similar, real object.

Modeling — The act of creating a model.

Modular environments — Areas that, by design, allow for flexibility, as they can be arranged in a variety of ways to suit the purpose of the specific activity or lesson.

National — Pertaining to the geographical extent of a centralized government, but not controlled by that single, centralized governing body.

Notations — Within AETL, notations consist of definitions, tables, quotations, and correlations.

Optimization — An act, process, or methodology used to make a design or system as effective or functional as possible within the given criteria and constraints.

Pedagogical — Of or relating to the deliberately applied science/art, methodologies, and strategies of teaching.

Peer assessment — An assessment method that involves the use of feedback from one student to another student, both students being of similar standing (grade level).

Performance — A demonstration of student-applied knowledge and abilities, usually by presenting students with a task or project and then observing, interviewing, and evaluating their solutions and products to assess what they actually know and can do.

Performance-based method — A lesson or an activity that is designed to include performances that involve students in the application of their knowledge.

Perspective — An individual point of view based on experience.

Policymakers — 1. Those representatives inside the educational, public, and governmental system who are responsible for public education at school, school district, state/provincial/regional, and national/federal levels. 2. Those individuals, businesses, or groups outside the public educational system who influence educational policy. This may include parents, clubs, organizations, businesses, political activists, and any number of other citizens or groups of citizens who, while not directly and legally responsible for creating educational policy, nevertheless influence educational policy.

Portfolio — Formal or informal, systematic, and organized collection of student work that includes results of research, successful and less successful ideas, notes on procedures, and data collected. A portfolio may be in many forms, from photographs depicting student growth and understanding to a specialized electronic journal showing work completed over a period of time.

Practical context — The everyday environment in which an event takes place.

Practices — The established applications of knowledge.

Pre-service — 1. A teacher candidate. 2. Undergraduate level education for those who intend to teach.

Principle — A basic truth, law, or assumption that is widely accepted and followed as a general rule or standard.

Problem solving — The process of understanding a problem, devising a plan, carrying out the plan, and evaluating the plan in order to solve a problem or meet a need or want.

Process — 1. Human activities used to create, invent, design, transform, produce, control, maintain, and use products or systems. 2. A systematic sequence of actions that combines resources to produce an output.

Product — A tangible artifact produced by means of either human or mechanical work, or by biological or chemical processes.

Professional — Of or relating to practicing one’s occupation with skill, knowledge, dedication, and with a conscious accountability for one’s actions.

Professional development — A continuous process of lifelong learning and growth that begins early in life, continues through the undergraduate, pre-service experience, and extends through the in-service years.

Professional development providers — Those who organize and/or deliver preservice and in-service teacher education, including teacher educators, supervisors, and administrators.

Program — Everything that affects student learning, including content, professional development, curricula, instruction, student assessment, and the learning environment, implemented across grade levels.

Program permeability — The vision behind AETL, which calls on teachers, administrators, and policymakers to perpetuate interchange between elements of the program, including content, professional development, curricula, instruction, student assessment, and the learning environment, in all areas of learning.

Project — A teaching or assessment method used to enable students to apply their knowledge and abilities. These may take many forms and are limited by time, resources, and imagination.

Prototyping — The act of creating a prototype, such as an original type, form, or instance, that serves as a working model on which later stages are based or judged.

Provincial — Of or belonging to a province, as in the ten main administrative divisions of Canada.

Psychomotor — 1. Physical behavior that has a basis in mental processes. 2. A teaching method that involves both mental processes and physical movement.

Questioning — A technique of informal assessment and instruction, wherein the teacher guides the direction, understanding, and application of the information being taught through the use of questions and also attempts to identify student misconceptions and uses that information to adjust instruction.

Regional — The administrative boundaries of a legally administered public agency, which may be combined with all other regions.

Research — Systematic, scientific, documented study.

Resource — A thing needed to get a job done. In a technological system, the basic technological resources are: energy, capital, information, machines and tools, materials, people, and time.

Requirements — The parameters placed on the development of a product or system. The requirements include the safety needs, the physical laws that will limit the development of an idea, the available resources, the cultural norms, and the use of criteria and constraints.

Rote memorization/response — A response that is generated by memory alone, without understanding or thought.

Rubric — An assessment or evaluative device based on the identified criteria taken from the content standards. Points or words are assigned to each phrase or level of accomplishment. This method gives feedback to the students about their work in key categories, and it can be used to communicate student performance to parents and administrators.

Science — Understanding the natural world.

Self assessment/Self reflection — An assessment method that encourages individuals to evaluate themselves, for example, in terms of their learning or teaching.

Short-range planning — Planning for the immediate future and for a relatively short period of time; for example, the next day, week, or the rest of the grading period.

Simulation — A method of instruction that attempts to re-create real-life experiences.

Society — A community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests.

Space — 1. The continuous expanse beyond the earth’s atmosphere, as in space exploration. 2. The area allotted for a specific purpose, as in classroom space.

Stakeholder — An individual or entity who has an interest in the success of a specific venture or program. Stakeholders may include teachers, administrators, school leaders, professional development providers, business and industry leaders, engineers, scientists, technologists, and others.

Standard — A written statement or statements about what is valued that can be used for making a judgment of quality.

State — A geographically bound level of government that, combined with all other states, comprise the totality of the nation, as in the U.S. In terms of education, state authorities, administrators, and policymakers refer to those that administer publicly maintained schools.

Strategic planning — A disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future.

Stem statements — Introductory phrases in AETL that appear before guidelines to connect individual guidelines to the standard addressed. Stem statements should always be used when quoting individual guidelines.

Student assessment — A systematic, multi-step process of collecting evidence on student learning, understanding, and abilities and using that information to inform instruction and provide feedback to the learner, thereby enhancing student learning.

Student interview — An assessment method that includes a planned sequence of questions, similar to a job interview. Students are not given information, as the objective is to collect data on student knowledge and abilities at a certain point in time. In contrast, a student conference suggests a discussion, with both student and teacher idea-sharing taking place.

Student presentation/demonstration — An assessment method that involves student explanation and communication of their understanding of key ideas, concepts, and principles and abilities of processes, techniques, and skills.

Study of technology — Any formal or informal education about human innovation, change, or modification of the natural environment.

Summative assessment — Cumulative assessment that usually occurs at the end of a unit, topic, project, or problem. It identifies what students have learned and judges student performance against previously identified standards. Summative assessment is most often thought of as final exams, but it may also be a portfolio of student work.

Systems — Groups of interrelated components designed to collectively achieve a desired goal or goals.

Systems-oriented — Looking at a problem in its entirety; looking at the whole, as distinct from each of its parts or components, taking into account all of the variables and relating social and technological characteristics.

Teacher candidate — An individual preparing to teach.

Teaching — The conscious effort to bring about learning in a manner that is clearly understood by the learner and likely to be successful.

Technological competency — What some people need to be prepared to be successful in a technical career.

Technological literacy — The ability to use, manage, assess, and understand technology.

Technology — The innovation, change, or modification of the natural environment to satisfy perceived human needs and wants.

Technology education — A school subject specifically designed to help students develop technological literacy.

Technology program — Everything that affects student attainment of technological literacy, including content, professional development, curricula, instruction, student assessment, and the learning environment, implemented across grade levels as a core subject of inherent value.

Test (e.g., multiple choice, true/false, essay, etc.) — 1. A method for collecting data. 2. A procedure for critical evaluation.

Trade-off — An exchange of one thing in return for another; especially relinquishment of one benefit or advantage for another regarded as more desirable.

Vignette — An illustration or literary “snapshot” that, in AETL, provides detailed examples of how standards can be put into practice.

Vision — A contemplative image of future promise and possibility articulated with the intention to inspire others.

International Technology Education Association. (2003) Standards for technological literacy: Content for the
     study of technology. Reston, VA: Author. http://www.iteaconnect.org/TAA/PDFs/xstnd.pdf