Standard 1

This indicator addresses the teacher's ability to draw appropriate academic language from students. Academic language used in textbooks and classrooms differs in structure and vocabulary from everyday spoken English. Students' use of academic language promotes precision of thinking and deeper understanding of content. It helps them learn from reading because it facilitates comprehension, and speeds up information processing. Teachers can teach academic language and model its use in their own teaching. To score high on this indicator, teachers must also draw correct use of academic language from students. This can be done in spoken language (e.g., classroom discussion) or in writing assignments (e.g., lab reports, essays). Students typically need repeated exposure, in context, to understand academic vocabulary. ELL students who may be adequately fluent in "everyday language" may still need extra support for academic language.

Note that academic language includes both content-general and content-specific language. Content-general academic language (e.g., corollary, conclusion, argument, evidence) might be found in any classroom in the building, whereas content-specific would be limited to only some classrooms (e.g., "hypotenuse" in math, or "scapula" in an anatomy class).

The standard requires that the teacher demonstrates excellent depth and breadth of key content knowledge and uses academic language. The teacher is able to facilitate students’ use of academic and disciplinary language in context correctly. The academic language used in textbooks and classrooms differs in structure and vocabulary from everyday spoken English. Using academic language in the classroom enhances learning. Academic language captures the complex ideas and abstract concepts of a domain, helping students comprehend and access the concepts. It helps transform domain knowledge from fuzzy understanding to precise, clear, and explicit understanding. The Common Core Standards and Next Generation Science Standards have renewed attention to teaching academic language.

In the classroom, this might look like:

• Teacher provides clear lesson objectives in student friendly language
• Teacher is able to promote the content by discussing and having students use content in real-world everyday applications
• Teacher uses curriculum and aligns standards to deepen content knowledge of students
• Teacher designs assessment and instruction to meet the content needs of students
• Teacher draws academic language from students
• Students articulate their learning in academic language

A student might say this teacher:

• helps us learn the correct vocabulary words in this subject
• explains new vocabulary in a way that helps us understand the subject
• makes us use the vocabulary we learn
• knows a lot about the subject of this class
• Is a real expert in this subject

The teacher cognitively engages students in the content. Cognitive engagement in the classroom refers to students’ active mental involvement in the learning activities or mental effort, such as meaningful processing, strategy use, concentration, and metacognition. Cognitive engagement is different from behavioral engagement, which is cooperative participation, or adhering to classroom rules. Cognitive engagement is a key goal of many school reform efforts because it predicts achievement.

In the classroom, this might look like:

• Teacher incorporates appropriate learning and instructional strategies to encourage deep thinking
• Teacher supports students in monitoring their own levels of cognitive engagement
• Teacher recognizes if some students are not cognitively engaged, and tries alternate strategies to increase or maintain students’ thinking about content
• Teacher uses cognitive engagement strategies such as advanced organizers, K-W-L charts, share-out, shoulder-partner work
• Teacher cognitively engages students so that they are active in the lesson or activity
• Teacher is able to build activities appropriate for all depth of knowledge levels
• Teacher assesses student understanding often

A student might say this teacher:

• expects us to think a lot and concentrate in this class
• teaches lessons that make us think deeply
• teaches lesson that make us think the whole class time
• makes us think about how we might use the subject in everyday life
• wants us to ask questions during lessons

In the teacher professional development plan, teacher explicitly discusses how change in practice is expected to improve student engagement in learning.

In the unit of instruction, unit objectives are evident through essential and guiding questions that focus student attention on meaningful activities leading to desired learning.

The teacher strongly communicates the methods of inquiry, research methodologies, disciplinary standards of evidence and/or requires students to employ these methods to acquire and critically evaluate appropriate content and grade level information during almost all of the session.

In the classroom, this might look like:

• Teacher strongly models effective use of inquiry methods in the discipline
• Teacher builds capacity for all students to design and conduct inquiry individually and in teams using standards of evidence in the field in all aspects of the lesson
• Students communicate the importance of inquiry and research as a part of their learning

A student might say this teacher:

• explains how experts develop knowledge in this subject
• has taught us how to learn more about the subject on our own
• expects us to judge or question information in this subject
• has us learn through experimenting or discussion

The teacher frequently makes well-integrated interdisciplinary content connections during instruction.

In the classroom, this might look like:

• Teacher makes several strong connections between two or more disciplines
• Teacher makes connections that are well-integrated with overall learning goals
• Teacher frequently uses learning experiences in which students apply cross-disciplinary knowledge
• Teacher weaves interdisciplinary themes into meaningful learning experiences through collaboration with students, colleagues and/or real-world partners
• Teacher engages students in analysis using perspectives from a variety of disciplines.

A student might say this teacher:

• talks about how this class subject relates to things we learn in other classes
• uses what we learn in other classes to help us understand this subject
• expects us to use what we learn in other classes in our work for this class

The teacher frequently and strongly examines national/regional/ethnic contributions to the discipline, social and cultural diversity within the discipline, potential for bias in the discipline, and global perspectives of the discipline.

In the classroom, this might look like:

• Teacher designs almost all of the lesson to facilitate students’ development of diverse social and cultural perspectives
• Teacher connects diverse perspectives to a sequence of learning
• Teacher encourages students to share their personal perspectives as they relate to other perspectives
• Teacher engages students in strategies to determine if bias is present in representations of content
• Teacher designs activities that require students to demonstrate an understanding of local and global issues related to the discipline

A student might say this teacher:

• tells us how different people view this subject
• uses examples from across the world
• uses examples from different cultures in our country