Students are encouraged to just cover the curriculum and the power of purpose and meaningful contribution are absent. Furthermore this old way of doing things doesn't credit students' natural curiosity to direct their own learning. In Who Owns the Learning?, author Alan November uses his Digital Learning Farm education model to show teachers how technology allows students to take ownership of their learning, create their own learning tools, and participate in work that has meaning to them and others. In this model, every student is a teacher and a global publisher.In chapter one, readers will learn what a Digital Learning Farm is and how it can optimize learning. Chapters two through five each focus on a specific job for students in the digital learning farm and provide examples of students working through them. November also offers a story about how the job is being utilized in classrooms, techniques for educators to leverage the work in their classrooms, and questions for discussion in each chapter. Finally, November offers an example of students owning their learning through technology in chapter six. This book is a guide to teachers who want to move teaching and learning into the 21st century incorporating technology and opportunities for students to direct their own learning into instruction.

    Gholdy E. Muhammad presents a four-layered equity framework—one that is grounded in history and restores excellence in literacy education. This framework, which she names, Historically Responsive Literacy, was derived from the study of literacy development within 19th-century Black literacy societies. The framework is essential and universal for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies, and classroom practices. The equity framework will help educators teach and lead toward the following learning goals or pursuits:  Identity Development—Helping youth to make sense of themselves and othersSkill Development— Developing proficiencies across the academic disciplinesIntellectual Development—Gaining knowledge and becoming smarterCriticality—Learning and developing the ability to read texts (including print and social contexts) to understand power, equity, and anti-oppression When these four learning pursuits are taught together—through the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework, all students receive profound opportunities for personal, intellectual, and academic success. Muhammad provides probing, self-reflective questions for teachers, leaders, and teacher educators as well as sample culturally and historically responsive sample plans and text sets across grades and content areas. In this book, Muhammad presents practical approaches to cultivate the genius in students and within teachers.

    In Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom, Kay realizes we often never graduate to the harder conversations so in this text he offers a method for getting them right, providing candid guidance on:How to  recognize  the difference between meaningful and inconsequential race conversations.How to  build  conversational “safe spaces,” not merely declare them.How to  infuse  race conversations with urgency and purpose.How to  thrive  in the face of unexpected challenges.How administrators might  equip  teachers to thoughtfully engage in these conversations. With the right blend of reflection and humility, Kay asserts, teachers can make school one of the best venues for young people to discuss race.

    How do we create learning conditions where kids can ask the questions they want to ask, muddle through how to say the things they are thinking, and have tough conversations? How can we be proactive and take steps to engaging in the types of conversations where risk is high but the payoff could be even greater?Being the Change is based on the idea that people can develop skills and habits to serve them in the comprehension of social issues. Sara K. Ahmed identifies and unpacks the skills of social comprehension, providing teachers with tools and activities that help students make sense of themselves and the world as they navigate relevant topics in today's society.Each chapter includes clear, transferrable lessons and practical strategies that help students learn about a targeted social comprehension concept. From exploring identity and diversity to understanding and addressing biases and microaggressions, Sara demonstrates how to address real issues honestly in the classroom while honoring and empowering students.Dealing with social issues is uncomfortable and often messy, but you can build habitats of trust where kids and adults can make their thinking visible and cultivate empathy; where expression, identity, and social literacy matter. There is no magic formula for making the world a better place. It happens in the moments we embrace discomfort and have candid conversations.****I am convinced that every class of kids I work with is filled with change agents who will make this world the one we teach toward. I believe that my students will carry the work of doing right by this world into their own lives.I'll bet you believe this about your kids, too.-Sara K. Ahmed

    Diane Ravitch—former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum—examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, Ravitch critiques today’s most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability, and the feckless multiplication of charter schools. She shows conclusively why the business model is not an appropriate way to improve schools. Using examples from major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego, Ravitch makes the case that public education today is in peril. Ravitch includes clear prescriptions for improving America’s schools:*Leave decisions about schools to educators, not politicians or businessmen*Devise a truly national curriculum that sets out what children in every grade should be learning*Expect charter schools to educate the kids who need help the most, not to compete with public schools*Pay teachers a fair wage for their work, not “merit pay” based on deeply flawed and unreliable test scores*Encourage family involvement in education from an early ageThe Death and Life of the Great American School System is more than just an analysis of the state of play of the American education system. It is a must-read for any stakeholder in the future of American schooling.

    This updated edition of the best-selling book Because Writing Matters reflects the most recent research and reports on the need for teaching writing, and it includes new sections on writing and English language learners, technology, and the writing process.

    They also argue that it should be taught in the simplest way possible. Drawing on twenty years of experience, the authors present the Question Formulation Technique, a concise and powerful protocol that enables learners to produce their own questions, improve their questions, and strategize how to use them.Make Just One Change features the voices and experiences of teachers in classrooms across the country to illustrate the use of the Question Formulation Technique across grade levels and subject areas and with different kinds of learners.

    It's a book that will be treasured and shared by every teacher in America—and everyone who's ever loved or learned from one.

    In Thrive, Meenoo shares the five strategies that helped her become a confident, connected teacher. From how to find mentors and build networks, both online and off, to advocating for yourself and empowering your students, Thrive shows new and veteran teachers alike how to overcome the challenges and meet the demands of our profession. Praise for Thrive "Whether you are entering your first year of teaching or your 40th, Thrive feels as if it were written just for you. At a time in our profession when many of us are feeling stretched thin, Meenoo Rami offers strategies to reignite our passions and rediscover why we chose to teach." -Christopher Lehman, coauthor of Falling in Love with Close Reading "Teaching is a profession that eats its young. Meenoo Rami offers guidelines for surviving the challenges of the classroom as well as the faculty room." -Carol Jago, author, teacher, and past president of NCTE "Thrive includes a mosaic of dynamic teacher voices from many grade levels and content areas. Reading their stories deepened my thinking about the immense untapped potential of our profession. Meenoo Rami's vision of teaching and learning can sustain us all." -Penny Kittle, author of Book Love Join the conversation on Twitter at #edthrive. SAVE on a book study bundle! 15% off 15 copies.

    It looks at what it means to be a teacher and a student in urban America, and deals with the critical moral issues teachers must face.

    Some may advocate the use of carrots rather than sticks; some may refer to punishments as "logical consequences." But virtually all take for granted that the teacher must be in control of the classroom, and that what we need are strategies to get students to comply with the adult's expectations.Alfie Kohn challenged these widely accepted premises, and with them the very idea of classroom "management," when the original edition of Beyond Discipline was published in 1996. Since then, his path-breaking book has invited hundreds of thousands of educators to question the assumption that problems in the classroom are always the fault of students who don't do what they're told; instead, it may be necessary to reconsider what it is that they've been told to do--or to learn. Kohn shows how a fundamentally cynical view of children underlies the belief that we must tell them exactly how we expect them to behave and then offer "positive reinforcement" when they obey.Just as memorizing someone else's right answers fails to promote students' intellectual development, so does complying with someone else's expectations for how to act fail to help students develop socially or morally. Kohn contrasts the idea of discipline, in which things are done to students to control their behavior, with an approach in which we work with students to create caring communities where decisions are made together.Beyond Discipline has earned the status of an education classic, a vital alternative to all the traditional manuals that consist of techniques for imposing control. For this 10th anniversary edition, Kohn adds a new afterword that expands on the book's central themes and responds to questions from readers. Packed with stories from real classrooms around the country, seasoned with humor and grounded in a vision as practical as it is optimistic, Beyond Discipline shows how students are most likely to flourish in schools that have moved toward collaborative problem solving--and beyond discipline.

    Spanning the whole range of schools and grade levels, from preschool through higher education, these techniques are grounded in the everyday world of schools, colleges, and universities. Beginning firmly with teachers and all those working with students, including administrators, counselors, and other personnel, the Plum Village approach stresses that educators must first establish their own mindfulness practice since everything they do in the classroom will be based on that foundation. The book includes easy-to-follow, step-by-step techniques perfected by educators to teach themselves and to apply to their work with students and colleagues, along with inspirational stories of the ways in which teachers have made mindfulness practice alive and relevant for themselves and their students across the school and out into the community. The instructions in Happy Teachers Change the World are offered as basic practices taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, followed by guidance from educators using these practices in their classrooms, with ample in-class interpretations, activities, tips, and instructions. Woven throughout are stories from members of the Plum Village community around the world who are applying these teachings in their own lives and educational contexts.

    No More "I'm Done!" demonstrates how to create a more productive, engaging, and rewarding writer's workshop. Jennifer guides teachers from creating a supportive classroom environment through establishing effective routines; shows teachers how to set up a writer's workshop; and provides an entire year of developmentally appropriate mini-lessons that build confidence and, ultimately, independence.

    Best-selling author Mike Schmoker boils down solutions for improved schools to the most powerful, simple actions and structures that ensure you prepare all students for college, careers, and citizenship.

    This book has been praised for its unique components: discussion of "four stages" of reading texts and "three phases" of teaching texts. The authors' many years of experience teaching English are obvious throughout the material, but nowhere more so than in their straightforward presentation of organization and planning for instruction and their firm stand on teaching grammar. This book covers the challenging and the controversial in English instruction and explores censorship, national standards, high-stakes testing, multi-lingual students, and multicultural literature. For professionals in the field of teaching.