The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension skills at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware.But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

    Now, the internationally recognized leader on creativity and human potential focuses on one of the most critical issues of our time: how to transform the nation’s troubled educational system. At a time when standardized testing businesses are raking in huge profits, when many schools are struggling, and students and educators everywhere are suffering under the strain, Robinson points the way forward. He argues for an end to our outmoded industrial educational system and proposes a highly personalized, organic approach that draws on today’s unprecedented technological and professional resources to engage all students, develop their love of learning, and enable them to face the real challenges of the twenty-first century. Filled with anecdotes, observations and recommendations from professionals on the front line of transformative education, case histories, and groundbreaking research—and written with Robinson’s trademark wit and engaging style—Creative Schools will inspire teachers, parents, and policy makers alike to rethink the real nature and purpose of education.

    A follow-up to the bestseller Disrupting Class by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson, this hands-on guide expands upon the blended learning ideas presented in that book to provide practical implementation guidance for educators seeking to incorporate online learning with traditional classroom time. Readers will find a step-by-step framework upon which to build a more student-centered system, along with essential advice that provides the expertise necessary to build the next generation of K-12 learning environments. Leaders, teachers, and other stakeholders will gain valuable insight into the process of using online learning to the greatest benefit of students, while avoiding missteps and potential pitfalls. If online learning has not already rocked your local school, it will soon. Blended learning is one of the hottest trends in education right now, and educators are clamoring for "how-to" guidance. Blended answers the call by providing detailed information about the strategy, design, and implementation of a successful blended learning program. Discover a useful framework for implementing blended learning Unlock the benefits and mitigate the risks of online learning Find answers to the most commonly asked questions surrounding blended learning Create a more student-centered system that functions as a positive force across grade levels Educators who loved the ideas presented in Disrupting Class now have a field guide to making it work in a real-world school, with expert advice for making the transition smoother for students, parents, and teachers alike. For educational leaders seeking more student-centered schools, Blended provides the definitive roadmap.

    He begins by taking to task the perception of urban youth of color as unteachable, and he challenges educators to embrace and respect each student’s culture and to reimagine the classroom as a site where roles are reversed and students become the experts in their own learning.Putting forth his theory of Reality Pedagogy, Emdin provides practical tools to unleash the brilliance and eagerness of youth and educators alike—both of whom have been typecast and stymied by outdated modes of thinking about urban education. With this fresh and engaging new pedagogical vision, Emdin demonstrates the importance of creating a family structure and building communities within the classroom, using culturally relevant strategies like hip-hop music and call-and-response, and connecting the experiences of urban youth to indigenous populations globally. Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, Emdin demonstrates how by implementing the “Seven C’s” of reality pedagogy in their own classrooms, urban youth of color benefit from truly transformative education.Lively, accessible, and revelatory, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y’all Too is the much-needed antidote to traditional top-down pedagogy and promises to radically reframe the landscape of urban education for the better.

    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 it, Jennifer Serravallo narrows the distance between assessment and instruction. She maps the four fiction and four nonfiction comprehension goals she presented in The Reading Strategies Book to fourteen text levels and shares sample responses that show what to expect from readers at each.Jen simplifies text complexity and clarifies comprehension instruction. She begins by untangling the many threads of comprehension: Levels, engagement, stamina, the relevance of texts, and much more. Then level by level she:calls out with precision how plot and setting, character, vocabulary and figurative language, and themes and ideas change as fiction across levels specifies how the complexity of main idea, key details, vocabulary, and text features increases in nonfiction texts points out what to expect from a reader as text characteristics change provides samples of student responses to texts at each level shares progressions across levels to support instructional planning. Even if you haven't read the book your reader is responding to, you'll have the background necessary to make great teaching decisions for all your readers. Understanding subtle shifts and increases in demands from level to level, writes Jennifer Serravallo, can guide what a teacher asks a student, what the teacher expects of the student, and what the teacher, therefore, teaches the student.Want to become a master of matching kids to books? Looking to take the difficult out of differentiation? Or do you want to dramatically increase the power and responsiveness of Jen's Reading Strategies Book? Understanding Texts & Readers shows you how to move forward when students need to make progress.

    This brown girl dancing is me, Reeny announces, as her crayoned figures flit across the classroom walls. Soon enough we are drawn into Reeny's remarkable dance of self-revelation and celebration, and into the literary turn it takes when Reeny discovers a kindred spirit in Leo Lionni--a writer of books and a teller of tales. Led by Reeny, Paley takes us on a tour through the landscape of characters created by Lionni. These characters come to dominate a whole year of discussion and debate, as the children argue the virtues and weaknesses of Lionni's creations and his themes of self-definition and an individual's place in the community.The Girl with the Brown Crayon tells a simple personal story of a teacher and a child, interweaving the themes of race, identity, gender, and the essential human needs to create and to belong. With characteristic charm and wonder, Paley discovers how the unexplored territory unfolding before her and Reeny comes to mark the very essence of school, a common core of reference, something to ponder deeply and expand on extravagantly.

    But how do we know what today's learners will really need to know in the future? Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World is a toolkit for approaching that question with new insight. There is no one answer to the question of what's worth teaching, but with the tools in this book, you'll be one step closer to constructing a curriculum that prepares students for whatever situations they might face in the future.K-12 teachers and administrators play a crucial role in building a thriving society. David Perkins, founding member and co-director of Project Zero at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, argues that curriculum is one of the most important elements of making students ready for the world of tomorrow. In Future Wise, you'll learn concepts, curriculum criteria, and techniques for prioritizing content so you can guide students toward the big understandings that matter.Understand how learners use knowledge in life after graduation Learn strategies for teaching critical thinking and addressing big questions Identify top priorities when it comes to disciplines and content areas Gain curriculum design skills that make the most of learning across the years of education Future Wise presents a brand new framework for thinking about education. Curriculum can be one of the hardest things for teachers and administrators to change, but David Perkins shows that only by reimagining what we teach can we lead students down the road to functional knowledge. Future Wise is the practical guidebook you need to embark on this important quest.

    In this thought-provoking book, the author presents a compelling case for why contemporary American educators are the greatest generation in history. He carefully explains why current national reform policies have failed and presents specific steps policymakers, administrators, and teachers must take to transform American schools to meet student needs in the 21st century.

    Probst explore why independent reading is vital to the intellectual and developmental growth of students as citizens of our world and as architects of the future. Forged by Reading explores historic and timely topics through the context of literacy—literacy being the gateway to power and privilege—while serving as nothing short of a call to action. One that reminds educators of their critical hand in empowering readers to think, to seek curiosity and skepticism, to shape themselves and their ideas through evidence and reason, vision and imagination, and in doing so to forge themselves and our world through reading. “This book will open the door to an understanding of literacy like no other. But, it’s not a how-to-use-literature-to-empower-our-kids-book. It’s a why-haven’t-we book. It’s a we-must book. Forged by Reading is filled with hard truths, and the inspiration needed to walk towards a new world—one where relevant reading rules. So, put your walking shoes on, get ready for the hard, necessary work, and let Kylene and Bob show us the way.” —Kwame Alexander, poet, educator, and New York Times bestselling author of Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope   “If you haven’t read a single Beers & Probst educational bible to date, read Forged by Reading. It’s all right here…at the time of American education’s greatest need. There may well be no creative power greater than that of language…reading language, writing language, understanding language, embracing language. With Forged by Reading, Kylene and Bob hand us a roadmap to unleashing that power. Read it. Revel in it. Use it.” —Chris Crutcher, bestselling author and recipient of the American Library Association Margaret Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement and the NCTE Intellectual Freedom Award.   “Forged by Reading is scholarship that shows us not only how our literacies link us to each other, but also, how reading links to our uniquely human souls.”–Jennifer Ochoa, middle school teacher, NYC Public Schools, and award-winning educator    “Beers and Probst, who explore the moral imperative of liberatory pedagogy, remind us that those who read and discuss books hone literate minds—the key to transforming their own their lives, as well as our greatest hope for transforming our democracy—bending its arc toward equity and justice for all.” —Ernest Morrell, Coyle Professor of Literacy Education, University of Notre Dame    “This timely book is a call to action for educators to embrace the languages, cultures, and identities of our students, disrupt the oppressive reading and writing practices in classrooms across this nation—and replace them with humane, equitable instruction for all.” —Yalitza Vasquez, VP of Multilingual Education, Trinity Education Group, and Former Senior Executive Director Division of English Language Learners, NYC Department of Education   “Literacy is an essential element of freedom and the ways in which it is withheld contributes to oppression. This book will shift how you regard your teaching: abolish harmful pedagogies, confirm just practices, and travel with your colleagues on an epic journey of literacy justice.” —Kate Roberts, author, consultant, and guest teacher    “Kylene and Bob show us why student compliance is not our goal and why testing and standards too often interfere with our bigger goals for literacy. They also ask us to be brave and to anchor our work in these understandings so we can achieve the ultimate aim: students who live the power of reading.” —Franki Sibberson, teacher, librarian, author, past president of NCTE  “Consider the intimate connection between education and our democratic ideals. Forged by Reading is a powerful and timely reminder that when we are equipped with insight and the truth of who we are, we can be what’s right.” —Cornelius Minor, educator and author of We Got This: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be

    Arguing persuasively for this new conception of intelligence, the author uses vivid classroom vignettes to explore the foundations of intellectual character and describe how teachers can enculturate productive patterns of thinking in their students. Intellectual Character presents illustrative, inspiring stories of exemplary teachers to help show how intellectual traits and thinking dispositions can be developed and cultivated in students to promote successful learning. This vital book provides a model of authentic and powerful teaching and offers practical strategies for creating classroom environments that support thinking.

    The practice of reading aloud to children may be viewed by some educators as an “extra”—a bit of fluff used solely for the purposes of enjoyment or filling a few spare minutes, but researchers and practitioners stand in solidarity: the practice of reading aloud throughout the grades is not only viable but also best practice.  In Defense of Read-Aloud: Sustaining Best Practices, author Steven Layne reinforces readers’ confidence to continue the practice of reading aloud and presents the research base to defend the practice in grades K–12. Layne also offers significant practical insights to strengthen instructional practice—answering the questions of “Why should we?” and “How should we?”—and provides practical advice about how to use read-alouds most effectively. Leading researchers in the field of literacy provide position statements, authors of professional books share insights on books they have loved, leaders of the largest literacy organizations in the United States write about their favorite read-alouds, award-winning authors of children’s and young adult book (Katherine Paterson, Andrew Clements, Lois Lowry, to name a few) share the powerful behind-the-scenes stories of their greatest books, and real classroom teachers and librarians speak about books that have “lit up” their classrooms and libraries around the world. Last but not least, In Defense of Read-Aloud features many great recommendations of books to share with children.Read-aloud is an essential practice in teaching literacy in grades K–12. In this book, Steven Layne has provided everything needed to support, sustain, and celebrate the power of read-aloud.

    The point is, it's a level of understanding that students of any age can achieve with the right kind of instruction. In Rigorous Reading, Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher articulate an instructional plan so clearly, and so squarely built on research, that teachers, schools, and districts need look no further:Purpose & Modeling Close & Scaffolded Reading Instruction Collaborative Conversations An Independent Reading Staircase Performance