Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College


Doug Lemov - 2010
    In this book, author Doug Lemov offers the essential tools of the teaching craft so that you can unlock the talent ond skill waiting in your students, no matter how many previous classrooms, schools, or teachers have been unsuccessful.

Learning Theories Simplified: ...and How to Apply Them to Teaching


Bob Bates - 2015
    Willingham on educational neuroscience? Written for busy teachers, trainers, managers and students, this dip-in dip-out guide makes theories of learning accessible and practical. It explores over 100 classic and contemporary learning theorists in an easy-to-use, bite-sized format with clear relevant illustrations on how each theory will benefit your teaching and learning.Each model or theory is explained in less than 350 words, many with accompanying diagrams, and the 'how to use it' sections, in less than 500 words. Every entry includes:Do it steps in order to apply the theory or modelReflection points & challenges to develop your understanding of how to apply itAnalogies & metaphors from which understanding and meaning can be drawnTips for the classroomFurther reading if you want to explore a theory in greater depth. More titles by Bob Bates: Educational Leadership Simplified A Quick Guide to Special Needs and Disabilities

Get Up or Give Up: How I Almost Gave Up on Teaching


Michael Bonner - 2017
    Poulson, inspired him. The professor’s passion and love for teaching prompted Michael to change his major and his life’s direction. But nothing prepared Michael for the reality of a Title One school. Teaching is fun until a 7-year-old is assaulting you or you’re dodging furniture being thrown at you. When you mix the craziness of a classroom with a marriage that was about to implode, anyone might want to quit. Smiling on the outside while feeling dead on the inside took this dedicated teacher to the breaking point. Michael knew he must change what was inside him, in his approach to life, or nothing would change anywhere else. So Michael took matters into his own hands to make four key paradigm shifts that helped him create a world of successful learning for his students and love within both the classroom and beyond. The result has been a transformation that’s taken Michael far beyond the classroom as he inspires thousands across the country. Many agree teaching is an amazing profession but there’s little discussion why so many teachers are leaving the profession. Get Up or Give Up: How I Almost Gave Up on Teaching shines a light into the internal battles and decisions educators face daily, and how we must make a conscious decision either to give in—or push through.

Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades


Mary Cowhey - 2006
    Her students learn to make connections between their lives, the books they read, the community leaders they meet, and the larger world. Black Ants and Buddhists  offers no easy answers, but it does include starting points for conversations about diversity and controversy in your classroom, as well as in the larger community. Students and teachers investigate problems and issues together, in a multicultural, antiracist classroom.

Breathing New Life Into Book Clubs: A Practical Guide for Teachers


Sonja Cherry-Paul - 2019
    Managing classroom book clubs can be hard. Real hard. But honestly, is there any better way to get students vested in reading? When book clubs work, don't they create a culture of reading unlike anything else? One that brings out the very best in our students?With both infectious enthusiasm and a realistic perspective, Sonja and Dana take on teachers' doubts and concerns about book clubs, and build a compelling case for their value in every classroom. They provide all the nuts and bolts for creating and managing successful book clubs, including:Dozens of pitfalls and pathways minilessons that address common roadblocks Tips for using technology to enhance book club work for deeper student engagement Suggested book bins for book club work, organized by grade level and genre. Whether you're looking to breathe new life into book clubs or begin implementing them in your classroom, Sonja and Dana give you essential strategies to make book clubs work. Because book clubs, they write, are where students fall in love with reading.

Buddha in the Classroom: Zen Wisdom to Inspire Teachers


Donna Quesada - 2011
    Rather than give into her frustration, she reached for Buddha’s teachings—the Zen wisdom that formed the basis of her own longtime spiritual practice. She survived the semester and gradually rediscovered the joy of teaching that had been progressively declining. In this wonderful book, she shares the lessons she learned—lessons that reveal time and again: No matter the situation, it’s always about getting your head in the right place first. Resolution begins in our own minds. Some days, some semesters, and even some years will be more challenging and more wearisome than others, she warns. But in Buddha in the Classroom, Quesada offers a lasting source of encouragement and inspiration. Although the book draws from Eastern teachings, the wisdom is for everyone, regardless of personal background, creed, or faith. With elements of The Last Lecture as well as Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul, this is the perfect gift for teachers—but also for anyone needing inspiration.

Saving the School: The True Story of a Principal, a Teacher, a Coach, a Bunch of Kids and a Year in the Crosshairs of Education Reform


Michael Brick - 2012
    Anabel Garza: No school board would have put her forward as a model principal. Pregnant and alone at sixteen, widowed by twenty-five, Anabel got along teaching English to Mexican immigrants, raising her son, and taking night school classes.But then no model candidate would have taken the job at John H. Reagan High School. Once known to sports fans across Texas as the great champion Big Blue, Reagan was collapsing. The kids were failing the standardized tests, failing on the basketball court, failing even to show up. Teenage pregnancy was endemic. If the test scores and attendance did not improve, the school was set to close at the end of the 2009-10 school year.Anabel took the assignment. Her first work was triage. She cruised the malls for dropouts. She fired ten teachers, including one who produced a ruler to bemoan the distance from the parking lot to her classroom door. She listened to angry lectures from union officials and angrier ones from black ministers. She kept going. She tailored each student's tutoring to the standardized tests. The numbers started to come up.But with the state education commissioner threatening to close the school, the real work began. Anabel set out to re-create the high school she remembered, with plays and dances, yearbooks and clubs, teachers who brought books alive and crowded bleachers to cheer on the basketball team. She reached out to the middle schools, the neighborhoods, and the churches. She gave good teachers free rein. She mixed love and expectations.The circumstances facing Reagan High are playing out all over the country. The get-tough crowd of education reformers, led by Obama's secretary of education, are redoubling their efforts to replace public schools with charter companies. But what happens when the centerpiece of a community is threatened? And what happens when one person just won't quit?For the first time, we can tally the costs of rankings and scores. In this powerful rejoinder to the prevailing winds of American education policy, Michael Brick examines the do-or-die year at Reagan High. Compelling, character-driven narrative journalism, Saving the School pays an overdue tribute to the great American high school and to the people inside.

Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions


Dan Rothstein - 2011
    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.

We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be


Cornelius Minor - 2018
    You want to make everything about reading or math. It's not always about that. At school, you guys do everything except listen to me. Y'all want to use your essays and vocabulary words to save my future, but none of y'all know anything about saving my now.In We Got This Cornelius Minor describes how this conversation moved him toward realizing that listening to children is one of the most powerful things a teacher can do. By listening carefully, Cornelius discovered something that kids find themselves having to communicate far too often. That my lessons were not, at all, linked to that student's reality.While challenging the teacher as hero trope, We Got This shows how authentically listening to kids is the closest thing to a superpower that we have. What we hear can spark action that allows us to make powerful moves toward equity by broadening access to learning for all children. A lone teacher can't eliminate inequity, but Cornelius demonstrates that a lone teacher can confront the scholastic manifestations of racism, sexism, ableism and classism by showing:exactly how he plans and revises lessons to ensure access and equity ways to look anew at explicit and tacit rules that consistently affect groups of students unequally suggestions for leaning into classroom community when it feels like the kids are against you ideas for using universal design that make curriculum relevant and accessible advocacy strategies for making classroom and schoolwide changes that expand access to opportunity to your students We cannot guarantee outcomes, but we can guarantee access Cornelius writes. We can ensure that everyone gets a shot. In this book we get to do that. Together. Consider this book a manual for how to begin that brilliantly messy work. We got this.

Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Culture of Success and Student Achievement in Schools


Mary Cay Ricci - 2013
    Inspired by the popular mindset idea that hard work and effort can lead to success, Mindsets in the Classroom provides educators with ideas for building a growth mindset school culture, wherein students are challenged to change their thinking about their abilities and potential. With the book's step-by-step guidance on adopting a differentiated, responsive instruction model, teachers can immediately use growth mindset culture in their classrooms. It also highlights the importance of critical thinking and teaching students to learn from failure. Includes a sample professional development plan and ideas for communicating the mindset concept to parents.

The Four O’Clock Faculty: A Rogue Guide to Revolutionizing Professional Development


Rich Czyz - 2017
    In The Four O'Clock Faculty, Rich identifies ways to make PD meaningful, efficient, and, above all, personally relevant. This book is a practical guide that reveals why some PD is so awful and what you can do to change the model for the betterment of you and your colleagues.

Educating Ruby: What our children really need to learn


Guy Claxton - 2015
    It is for everyone who cares about education in an uncertain world and explains how teachers, parents and grandparents can cultivate confidence, curiosity, collaboration, communication, creativity, commitment and craftsmanship in children, at the same time as helping them to do well in public examinations. Educating Ruby shows, unequivocally, that schools can get the right results in the right way, so that the Rubys of tomorrow will emerge from their time at school able to talk with honest pleasure and reflective optimism about their schooling. Featuring the views of schoolchildren, parents, educators and employers and drawing on Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas’ years of experience in education, including their work with Building Learning Power and the Expansive Education Network, this powerful new book is sure to provoke thinking and debate. Just as Willy Russell’s Educating Rita helped us rethink university, the authors of Educating Ruby invite fresh scrutiny of our schools.

Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students by Their Brains


LouAnne Johnson - 2005
    This indispensable book is filled with no-nonsense advice, checklists, and handouts as well asA step-by-step plan to make the first week of school a success Approaches for creating a positive discipline plan Methods for motivating students, especially reluctant readers Strategies for successful classroom management Suggestions for creating and grading student portfolios

Closing the Vocabulary Gap


Alex Quigley - 2018
    But what if there were 50,000 small solutions to help us bridge that gap?In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, the author explores the increased demands of an academic curriculum and how closing the vocabulary gap between our 'word poor' and 'word rich' students could prove the vital difference between school failure and success.This must-read book presents the case for teacher-led efforts to develop students' vocabulary and provides practical solutions for teachers across the curriculum, incorporating easy-to-use tools, resources and classroom activities.

Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships


Anne T. Henderson - 1986
    Beyond the Bake Sale shows how to form these essential partnerships and how to make them work.Packed with tips from principals and teachers, checklists, and an invaluable resource section, Beyond the Bake Sale reveals how to build strong collaborative relationships and offers practical advice for improving interactions between parents and teachers, from insuring that PTA groups are constructive and inclusive to navigating the complex issues surrounding diversity in the classroom.Written with candor, clarity, and humor, Beyond the Bake Sale is essential reading for teachers, parents on the front lines in public schools, and administrators and policy makers at all levels.