The authors give teachers criteria for evaluating books of all genres.

    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

    In his new book, Well Spoken, veteran teacher and education consultant Erik Palmer shares the art of teaching speaking in any classroom. Teachers will find thoughtful and engaging strategies for integrating speaking skills throughout the curriculum. Palmer stresses the essential elements of all effective oral communication, including: • Building a Speech: Audience, Content, Organization, Visual Aids, and Appearance • Performing a Speech: Poise, Voice, Life, Eye Contact, Gestures, and Speed • Evaluating a Speech: Creating Effective Rubrics,  Guiding Students to ExcellenceWell Spoken contains a framework for understanding the skills involved in all effective oral communication, offers practical steps and lesson ideas that any teacher needs to successfully teach speaking in a variety of situations—from classroom discussions to  formal presentations—and includes a set of tools for students—from how to grab the audience’s attention to how to use emphatic hand gestures and adjust speed for effect.Discover why, year after year, students returned to Palmer’s classroom to thank him for teaching them how to be well spoken. You may find, after reading this book, that you have become a better speaker, too.

    In Intentional Talk: How to Structure and Lead Productive Mathematical Discussions , authors Elham Kazemi and Allison Hintz provide teachers with a framework for planning and facilitating purposeful math talks that move group discussions to the next level while achieving a mathematical goal.Through detailed vignettes from both primary and upper elementary classrooms, the authors provide a window into how teachers lead discussions and make important pedagogical decisions along the way. By creating equitable opportunities to share ideas, teachers can orient students to one another while enforcing that all students are sense makers and their ideas are valued. They examine students’ roles as both listeners and talkers, offering numerous strategies for improving student participation. Intentional Talk includes a collection of lesson planning templates in the appendix to help teachers apply the right structure to discussions in their own classrooms.

    The author writes in a conversational, humorous manner as he offers his own anecdotes and reflections to help readers uncover their professional impact and foster productive, heart-centered classrooms and schools.Part 1 addresses Happiness having passion, purpose, and a positive impact in education. In part 2, Engagements, readers explore the engagement teachers must have in their work to put forth the needed energy and effort. Part 3, Alliances, asks readers to be open to forming alliances with their fellow educators so they can collaborate effectively. Next, part 4, Risk Taking, demonstrates for readers why teachers should engage in vision-focused risk taking to create sustainable change in their schools. Finally, part 5, Thought, focuses on the knowledge capacity educators should have to fulfill the heart of the teaching profession.BenefitsExamine five unique HEART aspects of your professional life: Happiness, Engagement, Alliances, Risk, and Thought. Examine your distinctive heartprint as an educator and the magnified impact your professional life has on students and colleagues.Gain wisdom and inspirational insights for your work life from Dr. Kanold as well as dozens of thought leaders and researchers inside and outside of the educational profession. Take advantage of the opportunity to connect your professional life to each chapter and embed your personal and professional story into the book. Use the book as part of a professional group book study with your colleagues and friends at your school.Connect and reconnect to the emotion, passion, energy, growth, and collaborative intimacy expected when you choose to become part of the education profession. ContentsPart 1: Developing HEART H Is for HappinessPart 2: Developing HEART E Is for EngagementPart 3: Developing HEART A Is for AlliancesPart 4: Developing HEART R Is for RiskPart 5: Developing HEART T Is for ThoughtClean CSS files are essential for an optimized website. Free online tool by HTML Cleaner."

    . . but many are also avid readers. What motivates some of these "typical teens" to become lifelong readers and others to slide by with the minimum amount of assigned reading? Teri Lesesne says the key is finding the books that get them hooked in the first place.In Making the Match she focuses on three distinct areas that will assist teachers and librarians in steering students to the literature they love:Knowing the readers: discussion of important theories in the development of adolescents (mentally, physically, morally, socially) and how that information helps educators to reach these kids with books. This background information is brought home through the book's “snapshots” which profile many of the adolescents the author has worked with.Knowing the books: examination of the various forms, formats, and genres that YA literature has to offer, as well as what special challenges educators face when selecting quality nonfiction or realistic fiction, and the role picture books can play in this process.Knowing the strategies: an overview of concrete ideas for motivating students to read as well as follow-up activities for post-reading assessment. Strategies discussed include reading aloud, booktalking, alternatives to traditional book reports, and literature circles.A delightful feature of the book that will help inspire teachers and students alike—as well as underscore the concepts contained in the text—is a series of vignettes by popular, award-winning YA authors that offer glimpses into their own feelings and memories of books and reading. Authors include: Sharon Creech, Jack Gantos, Chris Crutcher, Mel Glenn, Paul Janeczko, and others.The book concludes with an invaluable set of appendices providing an FAQ on YA literature, bibliographies of professional materials, books by the vignette authors, and over twenty booklists with hundreds of books organized by genre or topic, all with suggested grade levels.

    Moss and Susan M. Brookhart contend that improving student learning and achievement happens in the immediacy of an individual lesson--what they call today's lesson--or it doesn't happen at all.The key to making today's lesson meaningful? Learning targets. Written from students' point of view, a learning target describes a lesson-sized chunk of information and skills that students will come to know deeply. Each lesson's learning target connects to the next lesson's target, enabling students to master a coherent series of challenges that ultimately lead to important curricular standards.Drawing from the authors' extensive research and professional learning partnerships with classrooms, schools, and school districts, this practical book- Situates learning targets in a theory of action that students, teachers, principals, and central-office administrators can use to unify their efforts to raise student achievement and create a culture of evidence-based, results-oriented practice. - Provides strategies for designing learning targets that promote higher-order thinking and foster student goal setting, self-assessment, and self-regulation. - Explains how to design a strong performance of understanding, an activity that produces evidence of students' progress toward the learning target. - Shows how to use learning targets to guide summative assessment and grading. Learning Targets also includes reproducible planning forms, a classroom walk-through guide, a lesson-planning process guide, and guides to teacher and student self-assessment.What students are actually doing during today's lesson is both the source of and the yardstick for school improvement efforts. By applying the insights in this book to your own work, you can improve your teaching expertise and dramatically empower all students as stakeholders in their own learning.

    Now, they will be able to buy a version of this national bestseller written specifically for teachers.What do great teachers do differently? What separates the top teachers from all the rest? As educators — and American society in general — continue to struggle with how to improve schools in the U.S., these questions become more pressing than ever before. At the heart of any education system — beyond principals, administrators and school boards — is the teacher. Their role is so essential that Gallup has, for decades, directed some of the leading thinkers in education and psychology to uncover what makes a teacher great. Written by two educators with a combined 70 years of experience in both classroom teaching and consulting with leaders of America’s schools, Teach With Your Strengths reveals the essential truths Gallup’s research has uncovered. But it zeroes on these monumental findings: While their styles and approaches may differ, all great teachers make the most of their natural talents. And, great teachers don’t strive to be well-rounded. They know that “fixing their weaknesses” doesn’t work — it only produces mediocrity. Worse, it diverts time and attention from what they naturally do well. In Teach With Your Strengths, readers will hear from great teachers — what they do differently, how they handle problem students, how they battle intractable school bureaucracies, and how they break through and inspire even the most troubled young people. The book also shows that the best teachers take unorthodox approaches to education that are sure to stir controversy and attention — especially among other educators. Teach With Your Strengths includes access to Gallup’s online CliftonStrengths assessment that reveals the reader’s top five strengths, and the book explains how they can put those strengths to work in the classroom. As America’s educators read this groundbreaking book, they’ll discover their own innate talents as teachers. And they’ll learn how to liberate those talents to inspire the next generation of students.

    Veteran educator Allen Mendler organizes the discussion around four core challenges:Managing difficult students.Working with unappreciative and irritating adults.Making the best of an imperfect environment.Finding time to take top-notch care of yourself.When Teaching Gets Tough is there when you need help to reclaim and sustain your energy and enthusiasm for teaching. Written with a deep understanding of the issues that teachers face every day, the book also includes sections for administrators who want to help teachers stay at the top of their game.

    A groundbreaking and absolutely essential book." -- Tom NewkirkAllison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell invite you to join them on a transformational journey. Out of the dark tunnel of boring literary analysis assignments, they lead you into a world where students learn to write fresh, compelling, authentic arguments based on their own unique interests. “There is a place for analysis of literature in our classrooms,” they write. “But we think there is more. In this book, we invite you to explore your teaching of analytical writing from a new perspective. To open your mind to the real world of analytical writing, and challenge traditional notions about what students should be analyzing and how they should write it.”Allison and Rebekah offer a broadened definition of analysis for the 21st century classroom. “Analysis is everywhere,” they argue. “It’s about video games and athletes’ seasons, and the latest album, or the new Netflix series.” This new definition of “text” allows students to tap into their passions—and learn to write with expertise on topics that matter to them. “No matter where your students begin as writers—full of confidence or full of avoidance—unleashing them to explore the topics and texts they are passionate about can transform your classroom and transform their writing.”With samples throughout the book, you’ll see what students of all levels and experiences can do when they’re supported with mentor texts, targeted writing instruction, and the opportunity to write beyond literary analysis.

    But sometimes it's better to be unconventional. In Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment, Maja Wilson offers a new perspective on rubrics and argues for a better, more responsive way to think about assessing writers' progress.Though you may sense a disconnect between student-centered teaching and rubric-based assessment, you may still use rubrics for convenience or for want of better alternatives. Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment gives you the impetus to make a change, demonstrating how rubrics can hurt kids and replace professional decision making with an inauthentic pigeonholing that stamps standardization onto a notably nonstandard process. With an emphasis on thoughtful planning and teaching, Wilson shows you how to reconsider writing assessment so that it aligns more closely with high-quality instruction and avoids the potentially damaging effects of rubrics.Stop listening to the conventional wisdom, and turn instead to a compelling new voice to find out why rubrics are often replaceable. Open Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment and let Maja Wilson start you down the path to more sensitive, authentic style of writing assessment.

    Sounds simple enough, right? Unfortunately, rubrics are commonly misunderstood and misused.The good news is that when rubrics are created and used correctly, they are strong tools that support and enhance classroom instruction and student learning. In this comprehensive guide, author Susan M. Brookhart identifies two essential components of effective rubrics: (1) criteria that relate to the learning (not the tasks) that students are being asked to demonstrate and (2) clear descriptions of performance across a continuum of quality. She outlines the difference between various kinds of rubrics (for example, general versus task-specific, and analytic versus holistic), explains when using each type of rubric is appropriate, and highlights examples from all grade levels and assorted content areas. In addition, Brookhart addresses* Common misconceptions about rubrics;* Important differences between rubrics and other assessment tools such as checklists and rating scales, and when such alternatives can be useful; and* How to use rubrics for formative assessment and grading, including standards-based grading and report card grades.Intended for educators who are already familiar with rubrics as well as those who are not, this book is a complete resource for writing effective rubrics and for choosing wisely from among the many rubrics that are available on the Internet and from other sources. And it makes the case that rubrics, when used appropriately, can improve outcomes by helping teachers teach and helping students learn.

    Useful reading for teachers who are eager to find stimulating ways to engage students' interests and boost academic performance, this volume outlines the principles of social emotional learning (SEL) that educators can follow to help all students to achieve in the math and science classroom.

    In ReadWriteTeach, Linda offers the what, how, and why of a year's worth of reading and writing for middle and high school students with a framework that is as flexible as it is comprehensive....This book isn't a compilation of tear-out reproducibles designed to help us replicate Linda's practices, writes Maja Wilson in the foreword. Instead, it's the most powerful gift that a master teacher can give us: the story of her thinking and feeling as she teaches. Linda's insights and beliefs are woven throughout a comprehensive overview of best literacy practices, which include:essentials in the reading-writing workshop grounding our choices in our beliefs getting to know ourselves and our students as readers and writers. Students' voices, through examples of their writing, drawing, and thinking, resonate throughout the book and characterize the thoughtful readers, writers, and citizens of the world that they become under Linda's guidance.Online companion resources include all of the handouts that Linda uses in her own classroom. Download a free sample chapter!

    Pez dispensers. Nerf balls. When we give students junk to reward reading, we are focusing their intention away from the act of reading and from their own independence as readers. Instead, we can create classrooms where reading is seen as its own reward. In this book, esteemed researcher Linda Gambrell provides a research-based context for cultivating children's intrinsic motivation to read and identifies three essential principles, the ARC of motivation:access: giving kids a wealth of reading materials and opportunities to discuss texts relevance: offering high interest, moderately challenging and authentic reading experiences choice: allowing students to self-select texts and reading activities What exactly do those principles look like in action? Reading specialist and researcher Barbara Marinak shares the strategies and techniques that make a difference for student readers' motivation, turning disengaged readers into passionate ones. Pizza and Pez dispensers are short lived, Linda and Barbara write, but confident and empowered readers are likely to remain motivated for life.