Gathered over 10 years in the classroom, this handbook of tried-and-tested techniques shifts the emphasis away from the teaching and onto the learning, and makes life as a teacher so much easier in the process.

    Many students are bored and disengaged Teachers are handcuffed by outdated textbooks, standardized curriculum, and disinterested students. What if you could solve these problems immediately and excite even your most reluctant learners daily? Read it Today and Engage tomorrow! 33-year veteran teacher, author, presenter, and engagement guru James Alan Sturtevant makes it easy, with incredible teacher tips and tools for both the veteran and student teacher--50 engagement tools that you can begin using right now, with no special training or boring professional development. Easily rebrand your class and connect with all students Are you the teacher students "hate"? Do kids groan when they walk into your classroom? Engaging learners is all about connecting and making education fun. With Sturtevant's education tips and creative teaching tools, students will rebrand you and your class as their favorites. Best of all, they'll engage with every lesson you teach, every single day! 50 Tips and Tools Unlike other education books that weigh you down with archaic research and impossible-to-implement strategies, Hacking Engagement, the 7th book in the popular Hack Learning Series, provides 50 unique, exciting, and actionable tips and tools that you can apply right now. And there's something here for every teacher--no matter what grade or subject you teach. Try one of these amazing engagement strategies tomorrow: Engage the Enraged Create Celebrity Couple Nicknames Hash out a Hashtag Empower Students to Help You Uncover Your Biases Avoid the Great War on Yoga Pants Let Your Freak Flag Fly Become a Proponent of the Exponent Trade Blah, Blah, Blah for Zen Transform Your Class into a Focus Group Commit to Engagement Try at least one tip or tool now and witness an amazing transformation in your classroom and school. Are you ready to engage? Scroll up and grab your copy of Hacking Engagement now.

    Now, you can easily stop reducing students to a number, letter, or any label that misrepresents learning and assessment in education. Now, you can help children see the value in every single assignment. Today, you can make assessment a rich, ongoing conversation that inspires learning for the sake of learning, rather than as a punishment or a reward. All you have to do is go gradeless. Throw out your grade book tomorrow! In Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School, award-winning teacher and world-renowned formative assessment expert Starr Sackstein unravels one of education's oldest mysteries: how to assess learning without grades -- even in a school that uses numbers, letters, GPAs, and report cards. While many educators can only muse about the possibility of a world without grades, teachers like Sackstein are reimagining education. In this unique, eagerly-anticipated book, Sackstein shows you exactly how to create a remarkable no-grades classroom like hers, a vibrant place where students grow, share, thrive, and become independent learners who never ask, "What's this worth?" Learn what formative assessment really looks like. Summative assessment is typically an end-of-unit exam or standardized test, but what is formative assessment? Many teachers struggle with the concept. Hacking Assessment not only explains what formative assessment is, it provides blueprints for implementation and examples from educators around the world, who use this strategy successfully every day. Read It and You Can Take These Actions Immediately: Shift everyone's mindset away from grades Track student progress without a grade book Communicate learning to all stakeholders in real time Maximize time while providing meaningful feedback Teach students to reflect and "self-grade" Deliver feedback in a digital world Create e-portfolios and cloud-based learning archives Inspire Students to share their work openly This is not your average assessment book Hacking Assessment won't bore you with outdated research or unrealistic strategies. In her captivating, conversational style, Sackstein provides practical ideas woven into a user-friendly success guide with actionable steps for creating an amazing conversation about learning that does not require a traditional grade. Each chapter is neatly wrapped in this simple Hack Learning Series formula: The Problem (an assessment issue that plagues education) The Hack (a ridiculously easy solution that you've likely never considered) What You Can Do Tomorrow (no waiting necessary) Blueprint for Full Implementation (a step-by-step action plan for capacity building) The Hack in Action (yes, someone has actually done this)

    The theory of eight multiple intelligences (linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist) developed by Howard Gardner at Harvard University provides a foundation for the six-step MASTER-Mind system to facilitate learning (an acronym for Mind, Acquire, Search, Trigger, Exhibit, and Review), and is enhanced by the latest findings on the value of emotion and memory on the process of learning.Combined with motivational stories of success applying these principles, and putting forth a clear vision of how the United States can dramatically improve the education system to remain competitive in the next century, Accelerated Learning into the 21st Century is a dynamic tool for self-improvement by individuals as diverse as schoolchildren and corporate executives.

    KEY TOPICS: Specific, practical strategies include ways to get students active from the start through activities that build teamwork and immediately get them thinking about the subject matter. 101 activities include ice-breakers for the beginning of class, strategies for the middle of a lesson, and concluding exercises to foster student reflection and future application. In addition, these activities are designed to enliven learning, deepen understanding, and promote retention. Designed for the preservice and inservice teacher, this book is effective for anyone teaching in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and centers for adult education. For professionals working in middle school/secondary school education.

    

    This practical book explains how this incredible thinking tool works and how you can use it to achieve your full potential.

    And when his Oprah appearance shot the book onto the New York Times bestseller list, he kept the heat on. We can expect the same tenacious commitment to promoting his follow-up book, The Excellent 11.The Excellent 11 contains eleven sections, with each one focusing on a theme directly related to teaching and raising children. Ron Clark draws from his own experience to give advice, telling personal stories that demonstrate the significance of each theme within the learning environment--an environment that extends beyond the classroom and into the larger world. Using themes ranging from Adventure, Ingenuity, and Humor to Dedication, Creativity, and Love, Clark provides a road map for both parents and teachers who want to enrich their children's learning experiences.

    That makes it by far the world's biggest selling books, outside the Bible, for 1999! This new edition, now available in America, is completely revised and tells the story of the learning revolution that is need to match the revolution in communications and technology. It presents the world's best research on how every one of us, at any age, can make that revolution happen now. And it tells it in a language that is as easy to read as The Reader's Digest. Among the topics covered: * How to learn anything much faster, better and more easily. * How to read four books a day and remember what you read. * How to learn the basics of a new language in 8 weeks. * How to bridge a 5 year reading gap in 10 weeks. * How to read and write before starting school. * How to make the most of your amazing brain. * How to Mind Map your way to better grades. * How to create successful, profitable ideas. * How to use the world's best learning technology.

    That was in 2001; but even today, this tiny Nordic nation continues to amaze. How does Finnish education—with short school days, light homework loads, and little standardized testing—produce students who match the PISA scores of high-powered, stressed-out kids in Asia?When Timothy D. Walker started teaching fifth graders at a Helsinki public school, he began a search for the secrets behind the successes of Finland’s schools. Walker wrote about several of those discoveries, and his Atlantic articles on this subject became hot topics of conversation. Here, he gathers all he learned and reveals how any teacher can implement many of Finland's best practices.Remarkably, Finland is prioritizing the joy of learning in its newest core curricula and Walker carefully highlights specific strategies that support joyful K-12 classrooms and integrate seamlessly with educational standards in the United States.From incorporating brain breaks to offering a peaceful learning environment, this book pulls back the curtain on the joyful teaching practices of the world's most lauded school system. His message is simple but profound: these Finland-inspired strategies can be used in the U.S. and other countries. No educator—or parent of a school-aged child—will want to miss out on the message of joy and change conveyed in this book.

    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.

    Designed to be read on the run and make every minute count in your classroom, Reading Reminders features Jim Burke's one hundred best techniques for teaching reading, complete with tools and tips on how to implement them. Jim wrote this book to help teachers like himself whose often large and always diverse classrooms contain a wide range of reading abilities and needs. All of the strategies have been tested and tested again with his students, and each one has achieved significant gains in student performance, confidence, and engagement. Together, the reminders will challenge your best students and support struggling ones. This book will help you:teach students to read a variety of types of texts, including websites, tests, literature, and textbooksuse a wide range of teaching and reading strategies based on current reading researchanchor your teaching in state and national reading standardsestablish and maintain a comprehensive reading program that includes Sustained Silent Reading and direct instructionplan your lessons, select your texts, and assess students' learning with tools and techniques specifically designed for those purposesimprove your students' ability to discuss and understand what they readdevelop a community of reflective readers within your classroomincrease the amount of writing your students do.

    Be the leader who creates this environment. UnCommon Learning shows you how to transform a learning culture through sustainable and innovative initiatives. It moves straight to the heart of using innovations such as Makerspaces, Blended Learning and Microcredentials. Included in the book: Vignettes to illustrate key ideas Real life examples to show what works Graphs and data to prove initiatives’ impact

    Every educator faces constraints—from budget restrictions to predetermined curriculum to “one-size-fits-all” mandatory assessments. The question is, how can you, as a teacher or administrator, ensure that regulations and limitations don’t impede authentic learning?In Innovate Inside the Box, George Couros and Katie Novak provide informed insight on creating purposeful learning opportunities for all students. By combining the power of the Innovator's Mindset and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), they empower educators to create opportunities that will benefit every learner. Couros and Novak show you how to . . . Leverage the Core of Innovative Teaching and Learning with a focus on developing meaningful relationships. Develop the 8 Characteristics of the Innovator’s Mindset in your students—and yourself. Use UDL to proactively design learning experiences that foster voice and choice while addressing barriers that impede learning. Create learner-driven, evidence-informed learning experiences that provide all students with options and choices to maximize success. “If you’re looking to bring creativity to student learning amid all the constraints educators face, this is the book for you.”—Daniel Pink, author of Drive“No one articulates a more compelling, a more urgent, or a more motivating vision of education—for both teachers and their students—than George Couros. No one articulates how that vision can be reached—for every student and teacher—more daringly, more practically, and more inclusively, than Katie Novak. Having them together in one book not only helps us reimagine the goals and practices of education, it reminds us of why we ever wanted to be teachers at all.”—David Rose, PhD, CAST's cofounder and chief education officer, emeritus“An incredible book! Innovate Inside the Box speaks to educators who are the change agents in their sphere of influence.”—Sarah Thomas, PhD, founder of EduMatch“George and Katie's combined talents as spectacular storytellers drive this book. You will feel like you are flying through it and then realize how deeply you are learning.”—Loui Lord Nelson, PhD, author of Design and Deliver, and podcast host of UDL in 15 Minutes

    It's not enough to just "do projects." Today's projects need to be rigorous, engaging, and in-depth, and they need to have student voice and choice built in. Such projects require careful planning and pedagogical skill. The authors -- leaders at the respected Buck Institute for Education -- take readers through the step-by-step process of how to create, implement, and assess PBL using a classroom-tested framework.