P-12 School Personnel. Licensed practitioners in P-12 schools who provide instruction, supervision, and direction for candidates during field-based assignments. See Professional Education Faculty and School Faculty
Part-time Faculty. Professional education faculty who have less than a full-time assignment in the professional education unit. Some part-time faculty are full-time employees of the college or university with a portion of their assignments in the professional education unit. Other part-time faculty are not full-time employees of the institution and are commonly considered adjunct faculty. See Adjunct Faculty and Professional Education Faculty.
Pedagogical Content Knowledge. The interaction of the subject matter and effective teaching strategies to help students learn the subject matter. It requires a thorough understanding of the content to teach it in multiple ways, drawing on the cultural backgrounds and prior knowledge and experiences of students.
Pedagogical Knowledge. The general concepts, theories, and research about effective teaching, regardless of content areas.
Performance Assessment. A comprehensive assessment through which candidates demonstrate their proficiencies in subject, professional, and pedagogical knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions, including their abilities to have positive effects on student learning.
Performance-based Licensing. Licensing based on a system of multiple assessments that measure a teacher can¬didate's knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions to determine whether he/she can perform effectively as a teacher or in another school specialty.
Performance-based Program. A professional preparation program that systematically gathers, analyzes, and uses data for self-improvement and candidate advisement, especially data that demonstrate candidate proficiencies, including positive effects on student learning.
Performance-based Accreditation System. A practice in accreditation that makes use of assessment information describing candidate proficiencies or actions of professional education units as evidence for determining whether professional standards are met. It contrasts with accreditation decisions based solely on course offerings, program experiences, and other "inputs" as the evidence for judging attainment of professional standards.
Performance Criteria. Qualities or levels of candidate proficiency that are used to evaluate candidate performance, as specified in scoring guides such as descriptions or rubrics.
Performance Data. Information that describes the qualities and levels of proficiency of candidates, especially in application of their knowledge to classroom teaching and other professional situations. Sometimes the phrase is used to indicate the qualities and levels of institutional practice, for example, in making collaborative arrangements with clinical schools, setting faculty professional development policies, or providing leadership through technical assistance to community schools.
Policymakers. Representatives of public and governmental agencies with public education responsibility at the national, state, and local levels.
Portfolio. An accumulation of evidence about individual proficiencies, especially in relation to explicit standards and rubrics, used in evaluation of competency as a teacher or other school professional. Contents might include end-of-course evaluations and tasks used for instructional or clinical experience purposes such as projects, journals, and observations by faculty, videos, comments by cooperating teachers or internship supervisors, and samples of student work.
Precandidate Unit. A unit that has filed an "Intent to Seek NCATE Accreditation" form and has begun to pay NCATE's annual base fees.
Preconditions for Accreditation. A specified number of fundamental requirements that undergird NCATE's standards that must be met before a unit is permitted to advance to candidacy for first accreditation.
Professional Community. Full- and part-time faculty (including clinical faculty) in the professional education unit, faculty in other units of the college/university, P-12 practitioners, candidates, and others involved in professional
education.
Professional Development. Opportunities for professional education faculty to develop new knowledge and skills through activities such as inservice education, conference attendance, sabbatical leave, summer leave, intra- and inter-institutional visitations, fellowships, and work in P-12 schools.
Professional Dispositions. Professional attitudes, values, and beliefs demonstrated through both verbal and non verbal behaviors as educators interact with students, families, colleagues, and communities. These positive behaviors support student learning and development. NCATE expects institutions to assess professional dispositions based on observable behaviors in educational settings. The two professional dispositions that NCATE expects institutions to assess are fairness and the belief that all students can learn. Based on their mission and conceptual framework, professional education units can identify, define, and operationalize additional professional dispositions.
Professional Development Schools (PDS). Specially structured schools in which the P-12 school and higher education faculty collaborate to (1) provide practicum, student teaching, and internship experiences; (2) support and enable the professional development of school and higher education faculty; (3) support and enable inquiry directed at the improvement of practice; and (4) support and enhance student achievement. PDSs require the institutional commitment of colleges and universities, school districts, and teachers' organizations.
Professional Education Faculty. Those individuals employed by a college or university, including graduate teaching assistants, who teach one or more courses in education, provide services to candidates (e.g., advising), supervise clinical experiences, or administer some portion of the unit. See Adjunct Faculty, Clinical Faculty Full-time Faculty, Higher Education Faculty, and Part-time Faculty.
Professional Education Unit. See Unit
Professional Knowledge. The historical, economic, sociological, philosophical, and psychological understandings of schooling and education. It also includes knowledge about learning, diversity, technology, professional ethics, legal and policy issues, pedagogy, and the roles and responsibilities of the profession of teaching.
Professional Standards. Standards set by the specialized professional associations (SPAs) and adopted by NCATE for use in its accreditation review. Professional standards also refer to standards set by other recognized national organizations/accrediting agencies that evaluate professional education programs (e.g., the National Association of Schools of Music).
Proficiencies. Required knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions identified in the professional, state, or institutional standards.
Program. A planned sequence of courses and experiences for the purpose of preparing teachers and other school professionals to work in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade settings. Programs may lead to a degree, a recommendation for a state license, both, or neither.
Program Completers. NCATE uses the Higher Education Act, Title II definition for program completers. Program completers are persons who have met all the requirements of a state-approved teacher preparation program. Program completers include all those who are documented as having met such requirements. Documentation may take the form of a degree, institutional certificate, program credential, transcript, or other written proof of having met the program's requirements
Program Review. See National Program Review.
Program Report. The report prepared by faculty responsible for a program (e.g., math education, elementary education) responding to specialized professional association (SPA) standards.
Provisional Accreditation. An NCATE accreditation decision rendered by the Unit Accreditation Board following a first accreditation visit that indicates that the unit is provisionally accredited, and has significant problems related to one or more standards. When the UAB renders this decision, the unit maintains its accredited status but must satisfy conditions by meeting the unmet standard(s) within 18 months.
