Learn: the words behind modern schools
Short, plain definitions of the terms you'll meet when choosing education software, and where to see each one in practice.
- What is academic integrityAcademic integrity is honesty in learning and assessment: doing your own work, crediting others' work, and taking exams fairly. Schools protect it with clear rules, good assessment design and fair checks.
- What is an academic transcriptAn academic transcript is an official record of a student's courses or subjects, their results and grades, and often their attendance and standing, issued by a school, university or exam body.
- What is adaptive learningAdaptive learning is teaching that adjusts what each student does next (the difficulty, the topic, the pace) based on how they're doing, so each student gets a path that fits.
- What are AI agentsAn AI agent is an AI system that works toward a goal in steps: it plans, uses tools (search, code, other software), checks the results and decides what to do next, instead of answering once.
- What is AI literacyAI literacy is knowing what AI is, what it can and can't do, how to use it well for real work, and how to use it responsibly, including its risks to privacy, fairness and truth.
- What is AI markingAI marking (or AI grading) is the use of AI to read students' answers, typed or handwritten, and suggest a mark against a rubric or mark scheme, usually with a reason, for a teacher to review.
- What is an AI tutorAn AI tutor is software that teaches a student one to one: it explains ideas, asks questions back, adapts to what the student gets wrong, and helps them reach the answer themselves.
- What is blended learningBlended learning mixes in-person teaching with online learning, so students learn part of the time with a teacher in the room and part of the time online, often at their own pace.
- What is Bloom's taxonomyBloom's taxonomy is a way of sorting thinking skills into levels. The revised version has six: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create.
- What is competency-based educationCompetency-based education (CBE) moves learners forward when they can show they've mastered a skill or competency, rather than after a fixed amount of time in class.
- What is continuous assessmentContinuous assessment judges a student's learning across the year, through homework, class tests, projects and practicals, rather than through a single final exam. In India it's often called CCE (continuous and comprehensive evaluation).
- What is an exam blueprintAn exam blueprint (or table of specifications) is a plan for a paper that sets how many marks go to each topic and each skill level before any question is written, so the paper tests what was taught.
- Formative vs summative assessment: what's the differenceFormative assessment checks learning while it's happening, to guide what comes next. Summative assessment measures learning at the end of a unit or course, usually for a grade.
- Generative AI in education: what it is and how to use it wellGenerative AI is AI that creates new content (text, images, code or audio) from a prompt. In education it's used to draft plans and papers, give feedback, tutor students and generate practice.
- What is learning analyticsLearning analytics is the use of data about learners (results, attendance, activity and progress) to understand how they're doing, spot who needs help early, and improve teaching.
- What is a lesson planA lesson plan sets out a single lesson: what students should learn, the activities and their timing, the materials, and how the teacher will check understanding.
- What is an LMSA learning management system (LMS) is software where a school or organisation keeps its courses and runs the teaching around them: lessons, materials, assignments, tests, grades and progress.
- LMS vs school ERP: what's the differenceAn LMS runs teaching and learning (lessons, homework, tests and grades). A school ERP runs the business of the school (admissions, fees, staff, transport and timetables). They overlap in attendance, timetables and results.
- What is marks normalisationMarks normalisation is adjusting or ranking results from different sittings of the same exam, such as several shifts, so a candidate isn't helped or hurt by sitting an easier or harder paper.
- What is a mock testA mock test is a full practice exam taken under conditions like the real one (the same sections, timing and rules) to check readiness and get used to the pressure.
- What is OMROMR (optical mark recognition) is a way of reading marks, usually filled-in bubbles, from a scanned answer sheet, so multiple-choice papers can be marked automatically.
- What is online proctoringOnline proctoring is supervising an exam that's taken on a computer, using some mix of webcam, microphone, screen recording, browser lockdown and AI or human review, so the result can be trusted.
- What is a question bankA question bank is a store of exam questions, each tagged by topic, difficulty, marks and type, that teachers or exam bodies draw on to build papers and practice sets.
- What is RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a way of building AI systems where the model first looks up relevant passages from a set of documents, then writes its answer from them, so answers rest on your sources rather than memory.
- What is a rubricA rubric is a scoring guide that lists the criteria for a piece of work and describes what each level of quality looks like, so marking is consistent and students know what's expected.
- What is Socratic tutoringSocratic tutoring teaches by asking guiding questions rather than giving answers, so the student reasons their way to the idea and can do it again on their own.
- What is spaced repetitionSpaced repetition is reviewing material at growing intervals, each one timed for just before you'd forget, so it moves into long-term memory with less total study time.
- What is a student information system (SIS)A student information system (SIS) is the school's record of its students: enrolment, classes, timetables, attendance, grades, contacts and documents.
- What is TVETTVET (technical and vocational education and training) is education and training that prepares people for work, from technical skills to trades, delivered in schools, colleges, training institutes and workplaces.
- What is a unit planA unit plan maps a block of teaching across several weeks: the learning goals, the sequence of lessons, the assessments and the timing, tied to the curriculum.
- What is vocational trainingVocational training teaches the practical skills for a particular job or trade, such as healthcare assistant, electrician, technician or safety officer, mostly by doing the work under guidance.
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