Academy Modules: Modules developed for students in the three content areas are referred to as Academy modules. The instructor's modules are created for orientation purposes and are not intended for professional development. Rather, they are designed to convey information about Academy modules and how they can be integrated into teacher education programs.

Antecedent: A stimulus (i.e. a verbal cue, activity, event or person) that immediately precedes a behavior. This stimulus may or may not serve as discriminative for a specific behavior.

Antecedent Interventions: Strategies that include the modification of events immediately preceding problem behavior. Examples include changes in the physical setting, curriculum, or schedule.

Classroom Management: Procedures and instructional techniques that are used to establish a classroom environment that promotes learning. Management strategies are based on understanding how the classroom environment can be used to best accommodate student needs.

Coaching Strategies: Based on the concept that teachers or other school personnel can learn new strategies and, in turn, pass them on to their colleagues using a process that includes observation, modeling, feedback, and dialogue. Coaching may or may not include teachers giving feedback to each other on their performance.

Content Areas: OSEP has specified three content areas within the teacher education curriculum for the Academy to focus on. The content areas include reading, positive behavioral supports and technology in education. These are the content areas from which research-based interventions will be selected and transformed into instructional modules.

Curricular Modifications: Adjustments made to academic activities within a school setting to meet the needs of one student or class. These antecedent interventions are not exclusive to school settings and can be used in a variety of home, school, and other community settings.

Directed Questions: A series of questions about lesson content has been included as a feature in each module. A question is presented. Once students enter their response they are able to access exemplary answers. This allows them to compare their response to responses prepared by the Academy staff.

Functional Assessment: Also known as Functional Behavioral Assessment. The process of collecting information in order to develop hypothesis statements regarding the variables that maintain and predict problem behavior. Functional assessment strategies include indirect assessment methods, direct observation, and functional analysis.

Functional Behavioral Assessment: Also known as Functional Assessment. The process of collecting information in order to develop hypothesis statements regarding the variables that maintain and predict problem behavior. Functional assessment strategies include indirect assessment methods, direct observation, and functional analysis.

Generalize: The use of a newly learned skill in a setting that is different than the setting in which the skill was initially learned.

Interdisciplinary Team: A group of people from different perspectives or disciplines that join together to problem solve and develop educational and behavioral plans. Team members may include the student, parents or other family members, teachers, therapists, community members, job coaches, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and paraprofessionals.

Interval Recording: An observational notation system that takes a predetermined period of time and divides it into a number of shorter intervals. The observer records whether or not the targeted behavior occurred in each successive interval.

Mentoring Program: A process that involves pairing a new teacher with a colleague who has more experience in order to create a supportive atmosphere and an opportunity for sharing practical, hands-on information that may not have been addressed in preservice education.

Menu: There are menus for each level and lesson in an Academy module. Links to the level menus appear in the center of the menubar. Access any level menu by clicking the level titles in the center of the menubar. Click the up arrow (top right) to access the menu for the current level or to go to the next higher menu level. For example, if you are viewing a page in a lesson the up arrow takes you to the current Lesson menu then to the menu for all Lessons then to the Table of Contents (ToC) for the entire module.

Navigation: Navigation refers to the technical process of moving from one feature to another in an online module. The navigation system for Academy modules allows students to follow a critical path, but also to exercise flexibility when they wish to vary from the normal path of progressing through a module.

Off-Task Behavior: When a student is not engaged in or working on a preselected task or activity.

On-Task Behavior: When a student is engaged in or working on a specific task or activity.

Peer Coaching: Although similar to traditional coaching, teachers and other school personnel participating in peer coaching observe each other but are not expected to provide feedback regarding performance of new skills.

Positive Behavior Support Plan: A written plan that is developed based on a functional assessment of problem behavior. Behavioral support plans contain multiple intervention strategies designed to modify the environment and teach new skills.

Positive Behavioral Support: A comprehensive set of strategies that are meant to redesign environments in such a way that problem behaviors are prevented or inconsequential, and to teach students new skills, making problem behaviors unnecessary.

Punishment: A consequent stimulus that reduces the probability a behavior will occur.

Reinforcement: The state of receiving or presenting a reinforcer. A stimulus that, when presented immediately following a response, increases the probability that the response will occur again. Can be the presentation of a reward or removal of something unpleasant.

School-Wide Discipline: A unified approach for implementing behavioral support strategies by all staff members within a school. The purpose of a school-wide discipline plan is to increase the consistency and effectiveness of behavioral support strategies and to prevent problem behaviors by teaching and reinforcing desirable behaviors.

School-Wide Discipline Plans: A unified approach for implementing behavioral support strategies by all staff members within a school. The purpose of a school-wide discipline plan is to increase the consistency and effectiveness of behavioral support strategies and to prevent problem behaviors by teaching and reinforcing desirable behaviors.

Self-Determination: Taking charge of one's own life and playing an active role in important decision-making processes. Characteristics that have been used to describe self-determination include, self-evaluation, personal responsibility, choice, preference, autonomy, self-regulation, psychological empowerment, and self-realization.

Self-Discipline: Regulating one's own behavior for the sake of improvement.

Self-Management: An intervention approach that is considered part of self-determination and involves teaching a student new skills for self-monitoring, self-evaluating, and self-recording behavior.

Self-Monitor: A self-management strategy that involves defining a target behavior, observing one's own behavior, and recording its occurrence while engaging in a task or activity.

Setting Event: Any occurrence that affects a student's responses to reinforcers and punishers in the environment. Setting events can be due to environmental, social, or physiological factors. Occurrences that affect a behavior at one point in time may change the likelihood of a targeted behavior at a later point.

Setting Event Interventions: Strategies using information regarding social, environmental, and physiological events that may temporarily alter the value of reinforcers and punishers within the student's environment to decrease the probability problem behavior will occur. Setting event interventions may involve minimizing the likelihood of the setting event, changing expectations on days when setting events occur, or neutralizing the setting event.

Staff Development: Educational opportunities that continue throughout a teacher's professional career and unite staff as they implement new innovations within a school. Ideally, staff development should include the active input of everyone within the school community while encouraging collaboration, dialogue and reflection.

System: A set of related or interacting variables which function together for a specific purpose. Systems are dynamic and often change over time.

Table of Contents: Each module includes a general Table of Contents (ToC) covering the entire module. Click "ToC" in the top right of the menubar to access the Table of Contents

"Trainer of Trainers" Model: Another name for coaching, this model is based on the premise that a small number of school personnel who learn new techniques can systematically pass the information to their peers within the school or other organization.