In recent years, while continuing to learn more about strengths, Gallup scientists have also been ex....

    Sharing her expertise as a world-renowned curriculum designer and calling upon the collective wisdom of 10 education thought leaders, Jacobs provides insight and inspiration in the following key areas:* Content and assessment: How to identify what to keep, what to cut, and what to create, and where portfolios and other new kinds of assessment fit into the picture.* Program structures: How to improve our use of time and space and groupings of students and staff.* Technology: How it's transforming teaching, and how to take advantage of students' natural facility with technology.* Media literacy: The essential issues to address, and the best resources for helping students become informed users of multiple forms of media.* Globalization: What steps to take to help students gain a global perspective.* Sustainability: How to instill enduring values and beliefs that will lead to healthier local, national, and global communities.* Habits of mind: The thinking habits that students, teachers, and administrators need to develop and practice to succeed in school, work, and life.The answers to these questions and many more make Curriculum 21 the ideal guide for transforming our schools into what they must become: learning organizations that match the times in which we live.

    From one of America s most celebrated educators, an inspiring guide to transforming every child s education In a Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by guns, gangs, and drugs, there is an exceptional classroom known as Room 56. The fifth graders inside are first-generation immigrants who live in poverty and speak English as a second language. They also play Vivaldi, perform Shakespeare, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests, and go on to attend Ivy League universities. Rafe Esquith is the teacher responsible for these accomplishments. From the man whom The New York Times calls a genius and a saint comes a revelatory program for educating today s youth. In Teach Like Your Hair s on Fire!, Rafe Esquith reveals the techniques that have made him one of the most acclaimed educators of our time. The two mottoes in Esquith s classroom are Be Nice, Work Hard, and There Are No Shortcuts. His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. They learn to handle money responsibly, tackle algebra, and travel the country to study history. They pair Hamlet with rock and roll, and read the American classics. Teach Like Your Hair s on Fire! is a brilliant and inspiring road map for parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about the future success of our nation s children. "

    This book by one of Wired magazine's art directors traverses the graphic world through a collection of pie charts, bar graphs, timelines, scatter plots, and more. Super Graphic offers readers a unique look at the intricate and sometimes contradictory storylines that weave their way through comic books, and shares advice for navigating the pages of some of the most popular, longest-running, and best-loved comics and graphic novels out there. From a colorful breakdown of the DC Comics reader demographic to a witty Venn diagram of superhero comic tropes and a Chris Ware sadness scale, this book charts the most arbitrary and monumental characters, moments, and equipment of the wide world of comics.

    (Just think about all those New Year’s resolutions that revert to status quo by January 5th!) But real change is possible, sustainable, and even easy when it happens little by little. In Shift This! educator and speaker Joy Kirr identifies how to make gradual shifts—in your thinking, teaching, and approach to classroom design—that will have a massive impact in your classroom. You’ll learn how to… Shift learning to make it authentic and student-led. Shift the classroom environment to make it a space in which students thrive. Shift conversations and classwork to get kids thinking rather than repeating. Shift away from homework and grades to keep the focus on learning. Shift the way you spend your time at school so you have more time to enjoy life at home. You can create the kind of classroom you’ve always dreamed of. Make the first shift today!

    The children who heard more words were better prepared when they entered school. These same kids, when followed into third grade, had bigger vocabularies, were stronger readers, and got higher test scores. This disparity in learning is referred to as the achievement gap.Professor Dana Suskind, MD, learned of this thirty million word gap in the course of her work as a cochlear implant surgeon at University of Chicago Medical School and began a new research program along with her sister-in-law, Beth Suskind, to find the best ways to bridge that gap. The Thirty Million Word Initiative has developed programs for parents to show the kind of parent-child communication that enables optimal neural development and has tested the programs in and around Chicago across demographic groups. They boil down to getting parents to follow the three Ts: Tune in to what your child is doing; Talk more to your child using lots of descriptive words; and Take turns with your child as you engage in conversation. Parents are shown how to make the words they serve up more enriching. For example, instead of telling a child, “Put your shoes on,” one might say instead, “It is time to go out. What do we have to do?” The lab's new five-year longitudinal research program has just received funding so they can further corroborate their results. The neuroscience of brain plasticity is some of the most valuable and revolutionary medical science being done today. It enables us to think and do better. It is making a difference in the lives of both the old and young.  If you care for children, this landmark book is essential reading.

    Dehaene's research will fascinate not only readers interested in science and culture, but also educators concerned with debates on how we learn to read, and who wrestle with pathologies such as dyslexia. Like Steven Pinker, Dehaene argues that the mind is not a blank slate: Writing systems across all cultures rely on the same brain circuits, and reading is only possible insofar as it fits within the limits of a primate brain. Setting cutting-edge science in the context of cultural debate, Reading in the Brain is an unparalleled guide to a uniquely human ability.

    Would you take it? -Debbie Miller and Barbara MossWe know children learn to read by reading. Is independent reading valuable enough to use precious classroom minutes on? Yes, writes Debbie Miller and Barbara Moss, but only if that time is purposeful.DEAR and SSR aren't enough. Research shows that independent reading must be accompanied by intentional instruction and conferring. Debbie and Barbara clear a path for you to take informed action that makes a big difference, with:a rationale for independent reading that's worth finding the time for research evidence on its effectiveness and instructional best practices a framework with 10 teaching tactics for starting and sustaining success. When we set children loose day after day with no focus or support, it can lead to fake reading and disengagement, write Debbie and Barbara. It's our job to equip children with the tools they need when we're not there. Read No More Independent Reading Without Support and find out how.About the Not This, But That Series No More Independent Reading Without Support is part of the Not This, But That series, edited by Nell K. Duke and Ellin Oliver Keene. It helps teachers examine common, ineffective classroom practices and replace them with practices supported by research and professional wisdom. In each book a practicing educator and an education researcher identify an ineffective practice; summarize what the research suggests about why; and detail research-based, proven practices to replace it and improve student learning. Read a sample chapter from No More Independent Reading Without Support.

    Written as a comprehensive, facts-only approach for students and their instructors, this lucid text offers an abundance of examples to illustrate how to use children's literature in the classroom, providing a sound foundation for beginning survey courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The Sixth Edition of this best-selling book by well-known authors Carol Lynch-Brown and Carl Tomlinson has been heavily reorganized and includes three parts to allow flexibility and ease of use to professors and students--the organization is perfectly tailored to college courses. The chapters in Part One cover current trends and the introductory material students need in order to begin selecting, reading, and evaluating children's trade books. Part Two defines and describes specific genres of literature and discusses the types of books that fall within the categories. The chapters comprising Part Three present curriculum and teaching strategies.

    Not to worry: This book is the one place you can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help. In The Non-Designer's Design Book, 2nd Edition, best-selling author Robin Williams turns her attention to the basic principles of good design and typography. All you have to do is follow her clearly explained concepts, and you'll begin producing more sophisticated, professional, and interesting pages immediately. Humor-infused, jargon-free prose interspersed with design exercises, quizzes, illustrations, and dozens of examples make learning a snap—which is just what audiences have come to expect from this best-selling author.

     In this paradigm-shifting book, neurolearning experts Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide describe an exciting new brain science that reveals that dyslexic people have unique brain structure and organization. While the differences are responsible for certain challenges with literacy and reading, the dyslexic brain also gives a predisposition to important skills, and special talents. While dyslexics typically struggle to decode the written word, they often also excel in such areas of reasoning as mechanical (required for architects and surgeons), interconnected (artists and inventors); narrative (novelists and lawyers), and dynamic (scientists and business pioneers). The Dyslexic Advantage provides the first complete portrait of dyslexia.

    Now, in Disrupting Thinking they take teachers a step further and discuss an on-going problem: lack of engagement with reading. They explain that all too often, no matter the strategy shared with students, too many students remain disengaged and reluctant readers. The problem, they suggest, is that we have misrepresented to students why we read and how we ought to approach any text - fiction or nonfiction. With their hallmark humor and their appreciated practicality, Beers and Probst present a vision of what reading and what education across all the grades could be. Hands-on-strategies make it applicable right away for the classroom teacher, and turn-and-talk discussion points make it a guidebook for school-wide conversations. In particular, they share new strategies and ideas for helping classroom teachers:–Create engagement and relevance–Encourage responsive and responsible reading–Deepen comprehension–Develop lifelong reading habits“We think it’s time we finally do become a nation of readers, and we know it’s time students learn to tell fake news from real news. It’s time we help students understand why how they read is so important,” explain Beers and Probst. “Disrupting Thinking is, at its heart, an exploration of how we help students become the reader who does so much more than decode, recall, or choose the correct answer from a multiple-choice list. This book shows us how to help students become the critical thinkers our nation needs them to be." Includes online resource bank.

    The book walks a teacher, either novice or veteran, through structuring and organizing a classroom for success that can be applied at any time of the year at any grade level, pre-K through college.The book is used in thousands of school districts, in over 116 countries, and in over 2,027 college classrooms. Its practical, yet inspiring. But most important, it works The new 4th edition includes updated research, photos, and more examples of "how-to" along with an implementation DVD, "Using The First Days of School" featuring Chelonnda Seroyer.This is the most requested book for what works in the classroom for teacher and student success.

    This highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area. The authors are leading experts who provide clear guidelines for identifying key concepts, skills, and routines to teach; designing and delivering effective lessons; and giving students opportunities to practice and master new material. Sample lesson plans, lively examples, and reproducible checklists and teacher worksheets enhance the utility of the volume. Purchasers can also download and print the reproducible materials for repeated use. Video clips demonstrating the approach in real classrooms are available at the authors' website: www.explicitinstruction.org. See also related DVDs from Anita Archer: Golden Principles of Explicit Instruction; Active Participation: Getting Them All Engaged, Elementary Level; and Active Participation: Getting Them All Engaged, Secondary Level

    Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell- DVD is enclosed- This is the next new breakthrough in teaching this subject.