Education Glossary

Learning and Memory

Working memory — the small amount of information a person can consciously hold and manipulate at once. Overload it and learning stops.

Long-term memory — durable storage. Learning is, operationally, a change here.

Cognitive load — the demand a task places on working memory. Intrinsic load is inherent to the material; extraneous load comes from how it's presented and is worth eliminating.

Prior knowledge — what a learner already holds. The single best predictor of how well new material will be learned, and the reason gaps compound.

Retrieval practice — recalling material from memory rather than reviewing it. Among the most effective interventions available.

Spaced practice — distributing study over time instead of massing it.

Interleaving — mixing problem types within a session rather than blocking by topic.

Desirable difficulty — difficulty that slows performance now and improves retention later.

Transfer — applying knowledge in a new context. The real goal of teaching and the hardest outcome to produce.

Metacognition — awareness of one's own thinking and understanding. Weak metacognition causes students to study the wrong things confidently.

Executive function — planning, attention, working memory, and impulse control.

Teaching

Pedagogy — the practice and theory of teaching. Curriculum — what is taught.

Explicit (direct) instruction — structured, teacher-led teaching with modelling, guided practice, and checks. Strongest for novices and procedural knowledge.

Inquiry-based learning — learners investigate questions rather than receiving conclusions. Effective once foundational knowledge exists.

Project-based learning — extended work producing an artifact; strong for integration, needs structure to avoid activity without learning.

Scaffolding — temporary support removed as competence grows.

Zone of proximal development — the band between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with help.

Modelling — demonstrating a process while narrating the thinking behind it.

Guided practice — students working with the teacher available to correct, before independent work.

Checking for understanding — techniques producing evidence of what students actually grasp, as opposed to asking whether they do.

Wait time — the pause after a question. Three to five seconds roughly doubles response quality.

Cold calling — selecting students to answer rather than taking volunteers.

Differentiation — adapting teaching to different readiness levels within one class.

Personalized learning — tailoring pace, path, or content to individual learners.

Flipped classroom — content delivered before class; class time used for practice and discussion.

Blended learning — combining in-person and online instruction.

Assessment

Formative assessment — low-stakes checking during learning, used to adjust teaching.

Summative assessment — measuring achievement at the end of a unit or course.

Diagnostic assessment — checking prior knowledge before teaching begins.

Exit ticket — a short end-of-lesson check.

Rubric — an explicit description of what each level of performance looks like.

Standardized testing — assessment administered and scored uniformly, allowing comparison across schools or systems.

High-stakes assessment — assessment with significant consequences attached. Reliably distorts what gets taught.

Testing effect — the finding that being assessed improves retention. Assessment is a learning tool, not only a measuring one.

Feedback — information about the gap between current and desired performance. Effective when specific, timely, and followed by a chance to act on it.

Moderation — the process of aligning marking standards between teachers or schools.

Curriculum and Policy

Syllabus / specification — the document listing what a course covers and how it's assessed.

Learning objective — a statement of what a learner should be able to do after a lesson or unit.

Bloom's taxonomy — a hierarchy of cognitive demand from remembering to creating.

Spiral curriculum — revisiting topics at increasing depth across years.

Intended / implemented / achieved curriculum — what the document says, what is taught, and what is learned. The three are never identical.

Cross-curricular — taught across subjects rather than as its own subject.

Streaming / setting / tracking — grouping students by attainment, permanently or by subject. Fixed grouping tends to become self-fulfilling.

Attainment gap — the persistent difference in outcomes between student groups, most commonly by socioeconomic background.

Learners and Inclusion

Inclusive education — designing teaching so all learners can participate, rather than retrofitting adjustments.

Special educational needs (SEN / SEND / IEP) — the frameworks by which additional support is identified and provided. Terminology and legal duties vary by country.

Reasonable adjustment / accommodation — a change to how a student accesses learning or assessment, without changing the standard.

Whole-child education — attending to social, emotional, and physical development alongside academic outcomes.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) — explicit teaching of self-awareness, regulation, empathy, and relationship skills.

Emotional intelligence — the ability to recognize and manage emotions, one's own and others'.

Growth mindset — believing ability develops with effort. More modest in effect than the popular version suggests, but a reasonable framing.

Self-regulated learning — a learner planning, monitoring, and adjusting their own study. Strongly predictive and rarely taught explicitly.

Learning styles — the popular idea that individuals learn better through a preferred sensory channel. Preferences exist; matching instruction to them has repeatedly failed testing.

Technology

EdTech — technology built for teaching and learning.

LMS (learning management system) — the platform hosting materials, assignments, and grades.

Adaptive learning — software adjusting difficulty or path based on performance.

Digital literacy — finding, evaluating, creating, and communicating information with digital tools. Distinct from device fluency.

Gamification — applying game mechanics to non-game tasks. Useful for effort and consistency, weaker for depth.

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