In EXPLORE LIKE A PIRATE, Matera serves as your experienced guide to help you apply the most motivational techniques of gameplay to your classroom using strategies that work with and enhance (rather than replace) your current curriculum. Part I debunks common myths and fears about gamification and explains why and how game-based learning effectively engages students in any subject or grade level. Part II focuses on how you can empower students to take control of their learning. You’ll also learn all about the different kinds of players in your classroom—and how to inspire them to set and achieve big goals. Part III is an all-in-one treasure chest, tool box, and field guide. Packed with ideas and examples that can be applied or adapted to any classroom—from badges and points, to mini-games and yearlong adventures—this is a resource you’ll return to again and again. Join the adventure with EXPLORE LIKE A PIRATE and discover how gamification can enrich your classroom!

    Ron Clark's The Essential 55 took the country by storm, selling over over one million copies. Now he provides a new edition of the companion workbook with fresh exercises for teachers and parents to transform any child into a successful student. The Essential 55 Workbook is full of easy-to-do lessons to help you reinforce The Essential 55 rules that every child should know. With a series of self-tests, exercises, and questionnaires, The Essential 55 Workbook allows you to adapt Ron Clark's successful tools to your own situation. With determination, discipline, and regular rewards, the children you stick by will be the children you come to admire.

    You've heard the complaints too many times: When am I ever going to use this in the real world? Why are we learning this? When are we going to learn about something interesting? But what if your students came to class excited? What if they were passionate about their projects? What if they grasped the connection between today's work and tomorrow's careers? In classrooms across the nation, innovative teachers are employing passion-based, open-source learning to improve their student's education. In Pure Genius, Don Wettrick encourages teachers and administrators to collaborate--with experts, students, and one another--to create interesting, and even life-changing opportunities for learning. You'll discover: Innovation brings a fresh approach to solving real problems Creative ways to work within the constraints your current budget and system Courses that offer relevant content can inspire students to learn beyond the classroom Collaborating with experts and mentors improves the learning experience for students and teachers Students must be taught and entrusted to appropriately use social media Social media is an incredible resource for inspiration and professional development Innovation is the key to equipping today's students for tomorrow's marketplace. By incorporating the concepts Don explains in Pure Genius, you can empower the next generation to be free thinkers who can create new concepts and products that can change the way we live.

    Costa and Bena Kallick present this collection of stories by educators around the world who have successfully implemented the habits in their day-to-day teaching in K-12 classrooms. The collective wisdom and experience of these thoughtful practitioners provide readers with insight into the transdisciplinary nature of the 16 Habits of Mind--intelligent behaviors that lead to success in school and the larger world--as well as model lessons and suggestions for weaving the habits into daily instruction in language arts, music, physical education, social studies, math, foreign language, and other content areas. Readers will come to understand that, far from an add-on to the curriculum, the habits are an essential element for helping students at all grade levels successfully deal with the challenges they face in school and beyond.As in all their books on the Habits of Mind, Costa and Kallick have a broad and worthwhile goal in mind. As they say in the concluding chapter of this volume, If we want a future that is much more thoughtful, vastly more cooperative, greatly more compassionate, and a whole lot more loving, then we have to invent it. That future is in our homes, schools, and classrooms today. The Habits of Mind are the tools we all can use to invent our desired vision of the future.

    Without artful instruction, many students will never acquire the literacy skills they need not only to meet Common Core Standards but also to meet the challenges this brave new world is sure to deal them." -Carol JagoAgain and again the Common Core Standards state that students must read "proficiently and independently" but how do we achieve this when students are groaning about having to read demanding literature and looking for ways to pass the class without turning pages? Carol Jago shows middle and high school teachers how to create English classrooms where students care about living literate lives and develop into proficient independent readers. With 50% new material, With Rigor for All, Second Edition features: integration of the Common Core State Standards as teaching touchstones YA lit pairings with classic texts to aid comprehension for middle and high school students tips to motivate reluctant readers with immersion, encouragement, and small steps a study guide and guidelines for curriculum development. Students need books that mirror their own experiences and if you teach literature that you love, your students will be more likely to love it too. Let Carol show you how to create an individually designed curriculum in which students read literary works of comparable quality, complexity, and range and enjoy doing it!

    This expanded collection of writings and reflections offers practical guidance on how to navigate the school system, form rewarding relationships with colleagues, and connect in meaningful ways with students and families from all cultures and backgrounds.

    It takes into account recent changes such as ubiquitous connectivity, open-source technology, mobile devices, and personalization to dramatically shift how schools have been run and structured for over a century.  Leading in education becomes exponentially powerful when using technology to your advantage.Eric Sheninger—“Principal Twitter”—shares his Pillars of Digital Leadership to help readers Transform school culture by initiating sustainable change Use free social media tools to improve communication, enhance public relations, and create a positive brand presence  Integrate digital tools into the classroom to increase student engagement and achievement Facilitate professional learning and access new opportunities and resources The time is now, whether you are a building level or teacher leader, to boldly move schools forward in the digital age.

    This book shows you how and gives you hundreds of lesson-planning ideas and strategies for every grade level and subject. Discover new educational tools that support research-based instruction, and learn ways to use technologies you already know to * Create and use advance organizers and nonlinguistic representations * Help students take notes, summarize content, and make comparisons * Engage students in cooperative learning * Help students generate and test hypotheses * Support students in practicing new skills and doing homework * Reinforce students? efforts through formative assessment and feedback Getting this guide ensures you always know when to use educational technologies, which ones are best for a learning task, and how they help students use new learning strategies.

    Based on the work of W. Edwards Deming and on Dr. Glasser's own choice theory, it is written for teachers who are trying to abandon the old system of boss-managing, which is effective for less than half of all students. William Glasser, M.D., explains that only through lead-management can teachers create classrooms in which all students not only do competent work but begin to do quality work. These classrooms are the core of a quality school. The book begins by explaining that to persuade students to do quality schoolwork, teachers must first establish warm, totally noncoercive relationships with their students; teach only useful material, which means stressing skills rather than asking students to memorize information; and move from teacher evaluation to student self-evaluation. There are no generalities in this book: It provides the specifics that classroom teachers seek as they begin the move to quality schools.

    In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been similarly embattled for nearly two centuries. From the genteel founding of the common schools movement in the nineteenth century to the violent inner-city teacher strikes of the 1960s and '70s, from the dispatching of Northeastern women to frontier schoolhouses to the founding of Teach for America on the Princeton University campus in 1989, Goldstein shows that the same issues have continued to bedevil us: Who should teach? What should be taught? Who should be held accountable for how our children learn?    She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change. And she also discovers an emerging effort that stands a real chance of transforming our schools for the better: drawing on the best practices of the three million public school teachers we already have in order to improve learning throughout our nation’s classrooms.   The Teacher Wars upends the conversation about American education by bringing the lessons of history to bear on the dilemmas we confront today. By asking “How did we get here?” Dana Goldstein brilliantly illuminates the path forward.

    Students need to know how writers’ and speakers’ choices are shaped by elements of the rhetorical situation, including audience, occasion, and purpose. In Teaching Arguments: Rhetorical Comprehension, Critique, and Response , Jennifer Fletcher provides teachers with engaging classroom activities, writing prompts, graphic organizers, and student samples to help students at all levels read, write, listen, speak, and think rhetorically. Fletcher believes that, with appropriate scaffolding and encouragement, all students can learn a rhetorical approach to argument and gain access to rigorous academic content. Teaching Arguments opens the door and helps them pay closer attention to the acts of meaning around them, to notice persuasive strategies that might not be apparent at first glance. When we analyze and develop arguments, we have to consider more than just the printed words on the page. We have to evaluate multiple perspectives; the tension between belief and doubt; the interplay of reason, character, and emotion; the dynamics of occasion, audience, and purpose; and how our own identities shape what we read and write. Rhetoric teaches us how to do these things. Teaching Arguments will help students learn to move beyond a superficial response to texts so they can analyze and craft sophisticated, persuasive arguments—a major cornerstone for being not just college-and career-ready but ready for the challenges of the world.

    Here is a brief overview of each part: Part 1, Seeing the Big Picture Connections First, defines curriculum in terms of rigor, provides the background of this model, connects curriculum design to the big picture of standards, assessments, instruction, and data practices, previews the step-by-step design sequence, and introduces end-of-chapter reader assignments. Part 2, Building the Foundation for Designing Curricular Units, explains the five steps that must first be taken to lay the foundation upon which to build the curricular units of study, and provides explicit guidelines for applying each step. Part 3, Designing the Curricular Unit of Study From Start to Finish, gives the nuts and bolts directions for designing a rigorous curricular unit of study, from beginning to end, and concludes with an overview of how to implement the unit in the classroom or instructional program. Formatively assessing students along the way, educators analyze resulting student data to diagnose student learning needs and then adjust ongoing instruction accordingly. Part 4, Organizing, Monitoring, and Sustaining Implementation Efforts, addresses the role of administrators in beginning and continuing the work of implementation. These final three chapters provide first-person narra - tives and advice to administrators from administrators who have personally led the implementation and sustainability efforts of curriculum redesign and related practices within their own school systems. I have endeavored to pull together all of the elements necessary for designing a rigorous curriculum, to position these elements in a sequential order, and to provide a step-by-step approach for constructing each one. My hope is that this road map will not only show you the way to design your own curriculum, but also allow you the flexibility of customizing it to fit your own purpose and needs. As with the realization of any lofty vision, it will take a great deal of time, thought, energy, and collaboration to create and revise a single curriculum, let alone multiple curricula. The best advice I can offer is to regard whatever you produce as a continual work in progress, to be accomplished over one, two, or three years, or even longer. As my friend and colleague Robert Kuklis points out, curriculum designers shape and modify the process as they move through it. It is important that they know this is not a rigid, prescriptive procedure, but rather an opportunity for learning, adapting, and improving. This preserves fidelity to the process, encourages flexibility, and promotes local ownership. Whenever people s spirits need lifting because the work seems so demanding, remind everyone that it is a process, not a one-time event. You are creating something truly significant a comprehensive body of work that is going to serve your educators, students, and parents for years to come!"

    This user-friendly, practical book is full of real-world examples of what assessment for learning looks like in today's classrooms. Presented in a format appropriate for use by individuals or collaborative learning teams, the book has an exceptionally strong focus on integrating assessment with instruction through student involvement in the assessment process. "Classroom Assessment FOR Student Learning "comes packaged with an Activities and Resources CD and a Video Segments: Demonstrations & Presentations DVD.

    Now, in Leading with Focus, he shows administrators, principals, and other education leaders how to apply his model to the work of running schools and districts. In this companion to his previous book, Schmoker offers* An overview of the case for simple, focused school and district leadership--demonstrating its power for vastly improving the work of teachers and leaders.* Examples of real schools and districts that have embraced focused leadership--and the incredible results for student learning.* A practical, flexible, and easy-to-follow implementation guide for ensuring focused leadership in schools and districts.All students deserve to learn in schools where educators eschew distractions and superfluous activities to concentrate on what's most important. To that end, this book is an essential resource for leaders ready to streamline their practice and focus their efforts on radically improving student learning.

    Unlike so many education 'reforms, ' this is not small-bore stuff. For that reason alone, it's likely to be resisted by defenders of the status quo, even though it's necessary and right for our kids. We owe it to them to make sure this book isn't merely a terrific read; it must become a blueprint for educational transformation." --Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education"A brilliant teacher, Christensen brings clarity to a muddled and chaotic world of education."--Jim Collins, bestselling author of "Good to Great"According to recent studies in neuroscience, the way we learn doesn't always match up with the way we are taught. If we hope to stay competitive-academically, economically, and technologically-we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence, reevaluate our educational system, and reinvigorate our commitment to learning. In other words, we need "disruptive innovation."Now, in his long-awaited new book, Clayton M. Christensen and coauthors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson take one of the most important issues of our time-education-and apply Christensen's now-famous theories of "disruptive" change using a wide range of real-life examples. Whether you're a school administrator, government official, business leader, parent, teacher, or entrepreneur, you'll discover surprising new ideas, outside-the-box strategies, and straight-A success stories.You'll learn how Customized learning will help many more students succeed in school Student-centric classrooms will increase the demand for new technology Computers must be disruptively deployed to every student Disruptive innovation can circumvent roadblocks that have prevented other attempts at school reform We can compete in the global classroom-and get ahead in the global marketFilled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and unprecedented insights on how innovation must be managed, "Disrupting Class" will open your eyes to new possibilities, unlock hidden potential, and get you to think differently. Professor Christensen and his coauthors provide a bold new lesson in innovation that will help you make the grade for years to come.The future is now. Class is in session.