Middle School Makeover: Improving the Way You and Your Child Experience the Middle School Years


Michelle Icard - 2014
    The book helps parents, teachers, and other adults in middle school settings to understand the social dilemmas and other issues that kids today face. Author Michelle Icard covers a large range of topics, beginning with helping us understand what is happening in the brains of tweens and how these neurological development affects decision-making and questions around identity. She also addresses social media, dating, and peer exclusion. Using both recent research and her personal, extensive experience working with middle-school-aged kids and their parents, Icard offers readers concrete and practical advice for guiding children through this chaotic developmental stage while also building their confidence.

The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else


Daniel Coyle - 2009
    Whether you're coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism.Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world's talent hotbeds—from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York—Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything. • Deep Practice--Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn't know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice.• Ignition--We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development.• Master Coaching--What are the secrets of the world's most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these "talent whisperers" to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students.These three elements work together within your brain to form myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movements and thoughts. Scientists have discovered that myelin might just be the holy grail: the foundation of all forms of greatness, from Michelangelo's to Michael Jordan's. The good news about myelin is that it isn't fixed at birth; to the contrary, it grows, and like anything that grows, it can be cultivated and nourished. Combining revelatory analysis with illuminating examples of regular people who have achieved greatness, this book will not only change the way you think about talent, but equip you to reach your own highest potential.

The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics


Tim Harford - 2020
    That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics—we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us.” If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly—understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray—statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter.As “perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world” (New Statesman), Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated ideas and untangling them for millions of readers. In The Data Detective, he uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the world. As a result, The Data Detective is a big-idea book about statistics and human behavior that is fresh, unexpected, and insightful.

How to Behave So Your Preschooler Will, Too!


Sal Severe - 2002
    Sal Severe, the parenting guru and bestselling author of "How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too!" Based on Dr. Severe's philosophy that a child's behavior is often a reflection of parents' behavior, "How to Behave So Your Preschooler Will, Too!" will teach parents with children between the ages of three and six to adjust their behavior to better handle: * Fussing at bedtime * How to set limits * Tantrums * Crying scenes when leaving a play date * Sibling rivalry * Preparing to start school * Toilet training * And more With practical and easy-to-implement suggestions, this book shows parents how to manage anger, prevent arguments, and promote their child's physical, emotional, and language development. It is certain to become a bible for stressed-out, exhausted parents everywhere.

Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning


Mike Schmoker - 2011
    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.

The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives


William Stixrud - 2018
    Its message is one every parent needs to hear." --Tina Payne Bryson, co-author of The Whole Brain Child "Read it. Your children will thank you." - Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed A few years ago, Bill Stixrud and Ned Johnson started noticing the same problem from different angles: Even high-performing kids were coming to them acutely stressed and lacking any real motivation. Many complained that they had no control over their lives. Some stumbled in high school or hit college and unraveled. Bill is a clinical neuropsychologist who helps kids gripped by anxiety or struggling to learn. Ned is a motivational coach who runs an elite tutoring service. Together they discovered that the best antidote to stress is to give kids more of a sense of control over their lives. But this doesn't mean giving up your authority as a parent. In this groundbreaking book they reveal how you can actively help your child to sculpt a brain that is resilient, stress-proof and ready to take on new challenges.The Self-Driven Child offers a combination of cutting-edge brain science, the latest discoveries in behavioral therapy, and case studies drawn from the thousands of kids and teens Bill and Ned have helped over the years to teach you how to set your child on the real road to success. As parents, we can only drive our kids so far. At some point, they will have to take the wheel and map out their own path. But there is a lot you can do before then to help them find their passion and tackle the road ahead with courage and imagination.

Hacking Project Based Learning: 10 Easy Steps to PBL and Inquiry in the Classroom


Ross Cooper - 2016
    When done right, though, PBL and Inquiry are challenging, inspiring and fun for students. Best of all, when project-based learning is done right, it actually makes the teacher's job easier.Now, you can demystify project-based learningAs questions and mysteries around PBL and inquiry continue to swirl, experienced classroom teachers and school administrators Ross Cooper and Erin Murphy have written a book that will empower those intimidated by PBL to cry, "I can do this!" while at the same time providing added value for those who are already familiar with the process. Hacking Project Based Learning demystifies what PBL is all about with 10 hacks that construct a simple path that educators and students can easily follow to achieve success.Hacking Project Based Learning provides a simple blueprint for PBL that helps you: Establish a culture of inquiry and creativity in your classroom Teach the kind of collaboration skills that harness dissonance Turn High Impact Takeaways (HITs) into a project based plan Create Umbrella questions that drive the project Build a Progress Assessment Tool (PAT) that helps students inform and assess their learning Use formative assessment throughout the entire PBL experience Seamlessly integrate direct instruction to enhances the process, rather than interfere with it Practice the patience that inspires a productive struggle, which leads to better understandingTeach and embrace reflection during and at the end of the project Publish work the right way, so all stakeholders can see it Experts rave about Hacking Project Based Learning"HACKING PROJECT BASED LEARNING is a classroom essential. Its ten simple "hacks" will guide you through the process of setting up a learning environment in which students will thrive from start to finish."-Daniel H. Pink, New York Times Bestselling author of DRIVE"Ross Cooper and Erin Murphy have researched PBL from every angle and offer practical steps to make the PBL experience highly beneficial to students because they are practitioners who use it. This book is a very important "How-to" for every teacher and leader who is interested in PBL. -Peter DeWitt, author/consultant, Finding Common Ground blog (Education Week)"The challenge for educators with project and inquiry based learning is finding the time and having the knowledge to implement effectively. Cooper and Murphy provide a much-needed resource that addresses both of these pain points in a concise, clear manner.-Eric Sheninger, Senior Fellow, International Center for Leadership in EducationAre you ready for an amazing productive struggle in your classroom?Start Hacking Project Based Learning today.

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life


Marshall B. Rosenberg - 1999
    Nonviolent Communication partners practical skills with a powerful consciousness and vocabulary to help you get what you want peacefully.In this internationally acclaimed text, Marshall Rosenberg offers insightful stories, anecdotes, practical exercises and role-plays that will dramatically change your approach to communication for the better. Discover how the language you use can strengthen your relationships, build trust, prevent conflicts and heal pain. Revolutionary, yet simple, NVC offers you the most effective tools to reduce violence and create peace in your life—one interaction at a time.Over 150,000 copies sold and now available in 20 languages around the world. More than 250,000 people each year from all walks of life are learning these life-changing skills.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty


Ruby K. Payne - 1995
    The reality of being poor brings out a survival mentality, and turns attention away from opportunities taken for granted by everyone else. If you work with people from poverty, some understanding of how different their world is from yours will be invaluable. Whether you're an educator--or a social, health, or legal services professional--this breakthrough book gives you practical, real-world support and guidance to improve your effectiveness in working with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Since 1995 A Framework for Understanding Poverty has guided hundreds of thousands of educators and other professionals through the pitfalls and barriers faced by all classes, especially the poor. Carefully researched and packed with charts, tables, and questionnaires, Framework not only documents the facts of poverty, it provides practical yet compassionate strategies for addressing its impact on people's lives.

What Everyone Should Know About Super-efficient Learning


Jennifer April - 2015
     Super-efficient learning doesn’t need to be a trick to work well. It simply means recognizing what is actually going on when you reach a new level of insight and finding approaches to help you reach those stages consistently. It is possible to vastly enhance most learning. The old belief that one can be too old to learn, or a new skill requires years to learn, is toxic thinking. While it is true that mastery (top 1%) takes time and practice, it is likely that one can learn and become excellent at a lot of things in a matter of months (not years!), by applying proper learning strategies. This book will help you become a super-efficient learner. It presents 10 powerful learning principles that will super-charge your learning. You will find many helpful tips and actionable items in this book. Even only applying a handful of them to your learning will help you become more efficient. I promise!

Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages


Alex Wright - 2007
    Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Dark Age monasteries.Today, we stand at a precipice, as our old systems struggle to cope with what designer Richard Saul Wurman called a "tsunami of data." With some historical perspective, however, we can begin to understand our predicament not just as the result of technological change, but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.Spanning disciplines from evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology to the history of books, libraries, and computer science, writer and information architect Alex Wright weaves an intriguing narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. Finally, he pulls these threads together to reach a surprising conclusion, suggesting that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team Workshop Deluxe Facilitator′s Guide Package


Patrick Lencioni - 2007
    There is a "Facilitator's Guide" which has an introduction to the model, instructions for administering and debriefing the 38-item team assessment, and a script for presentation delivery. In addition, the package also contains a copy of the "Five Dysfunctions of a Team" book and the "Five Dysfunctions of a Team Video Presentation (DVD)," which comes with its own 27-page supplemental guide.Deluxe Facilitator's Guide contents: binder (with tabs and loose-leaf pages), hardcover book, paper assessment, sample participant workbook, poster, CD-ROM, and DVD.

Ace Your Teacher Interview: 149 Fantastic Answers to Tough Interview Questions


Anthony D. Fredericks - 2011
    "Ace Your Teacher Interview" offers specific questions and responses gathered from dozens of principals and administrators across the country, along with a creative range of inside information on what impresses interview committees. This book is designed to provide readers with practical and realistic advice that informs and illustrates without being dogmatic or professorial. Teachers and college students majoring in education as well as people entering teaching from other professions will find this book a valuable resource. Key Features 149 of the most frequently asked interview questions, including the one question you must be able to answer, 99 basic questions, and 39 zingers to watch out for Comprehensive information on preparing for job interviews 10 questions you should ask interviewers, etc.

Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection


Jia Jiang - 2015
    Despite early success in the corporate world, his first attempt to pursue his entrepreneurial dream ended in rejection. Jia was crushed and spiraled into a period of deep self-doubt. But he realized that his fear of rejection was a bigger obstacle than any single rejection would ever be, and he needed to find a way to cope with being told no without letting it destroy him. Thus was born his "100 days of rejection" experiment, during which he willfully sought rejection on a daily basis - from requesting a lesson in sales from a car salesman (no) to asking a flight attendant if he could make an announcement on the loudspeaker (yes) to his famous request to get Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the shape of Olympic rings (yes, with a viral video to prove it).Jia learned that even the most preposterous wish may be granted if you ask in the right way, and here he shares the secret of successful asking, how to pick targets, and how to tell when an initial no can be converted into something positive. But more important, he learned techniques for steeling himself against rejection and ways to develop his own confidence - a plan that can't be derailed by a single setback.Filled with great stories and valuable insight, Rejection Proof is a fun and thoughtful examination of how to overcome fear and dare to live more boldly.

Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading


G. Kylene Beers - 2012
    Beers and Probst offer insights into how to create text dependent questioning in assisting students to develop greater reading comprehension skills.