You’ll discover how to make fundamental changes to your classroom so learning becomes an exciting challenge rather than a frustrating ordeal. Based on the author’s personal experience of transforming her approach to teaching, this book outlines how to:• Build a working relationship with your students based on mutual trust, respect, and appreciation.• Be attentive to your students’ needs and share ownership of the classroom with them.• Break out of the vicious cycle of punishment and reward to control student behaviour.• Use innovative and creative lesson plans to get your students to become more engaged and intellectually-invested learners, while still meeting your state standards.• Limit homework and abandon traditional grading so that your students can make the most of their learning experiences without unnecessary stress.New to the second edition, you’ll find practical tools, such as teacher and student reflection sheets, parent questionnaires, and parent conference tools--available in the book and as eResources on our website (http://www.routledge.com/978113891692... help you build your own classroom of passionate learners.

    Now, in Disrupting Thinking they take teachers a step further and discuss an on-going problem: lack of engagement with reading. They explain that all too often, no matter the strategy shared with students, too many students remain disengaged and reluctant readers. The problem, they suggest, is that we have misrepresented to students why we read and how we ought to approach any text - fiction or nonfiction.With their hallmark humor and their appreciated practicality, Beers and Probst present a vision of what reading and what education across all the grades could be. Hands-on-strategies make it applicable right away for the classroom teacher, and turn-and-talk discussion points make it a guidebook for school-wide conversations. In particular, they share new strategies and ideas for helping classroom teachers:--Create engagement and relevance--Encourage responsive and responsible reading--Deepen comprehension--Develop lifelong reading habits“We think it’s time we finally do become a nation of readers, and we know it’s time students learn to tell fake news from real news. It’s time we help students understand why how they read is so important,” explain Beers and Probst. “Disrupting Thinking is, at its heart, an exploration of how we help students become the reader who does so much more than decode, recall, or choose the correct answer from a multiple-choice list. This book shows us how to help students become the critical thinkers our nation needs them to be."

     In EXPLORE LIKE A PIRATE, Matera serves as your experienced guide to help you apply the most motivational techniques of gameplay to your classroom using strategies that work with and enhance (rather than replace) your current curriculum. Part I debunks common myths and fears about gamification and explains why and how game-based learning effectively engages students in any subject or grade level. Part II focuses on how you can empower students to take control of their learning. You’ll also learn all about the different kinds of players in your classroom—and how to inspire them to set and achieve big goals. Part III is an all-in-one treasure chest, tool box, and field guide. Packed with ideas and examples that can be applied or adapted to any classroom—from badges and points, to mini-games and yearlong adventures—this is a resource you’ll return to again and again. Join the adventure with EXPLORE LIKE A PIRATE and discover how gamification can enrich your classroom!

    They lie on their beds and study while listening to mp3 players, texting and chatting online with friends, and reading and posting Facebook messages. How does the new, charged-up, multitasking generation respond to traditional textbooks and lectures?  Are we effectively reaching today’s technologically advanced youth?  Rewired is the first book to help educators and parents teach to this new generation’s radically different learning styles and needs.  This book will also help parents learn what to expect from their “techie” children concerning school, homework, and even socialization. In short, it is a book that exposes the impact of generational differences on learning while providing strategies for engaging students at school and at home.

    This collection of templates, design tools, examples, and exercises helps you give all staff members a firm grasp of key UbD principles, includingHow to use backward design to align curriculum with assessment and instruction.Why to focus curriculum on the big ideas in your content standards.Which learning activities are more apt to enable students to achieve desired results.Give staff members at all levels clear action steps they need in every stage of the UbD process, including Drafting curriculum units based on essential questions.Creating performance tasks and rubrics for assessing student understanding in any subject.Organizing, sequencing, and guiding classroom learning experiences.Included are steps for conducting a peer review of unit designs plus process steps to guide your implementation of UbD systemwide.

    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.

    One essential role librarians play is that of a leader who works collaboratively to build relationships, mold culture and climate, and advocate for the needs of students and the community. In this book, a librarian and an education leader team up to reflect on the librarian's ability to build connections in two ways. First, they discuss the benefits of bringing the outside world into the library through the use of social media, videoconferencing and other tools that allow librarians to partner with others. Then they expand upon these connections by addressing how librarians can lead in the greater educational community by sharing resources and strategies, and partnering with school leaders to tell the story of the school community. Through this book, librarians will discover the influence they can have on the school community as the library becomes the heart of the school, a place where problems are solved, content is explored, connections are made and discovery happens.

    The book establishes the top ten conditions for making engaged classroom reading possible for students at all levels and provides the practical support and structures necessary for achieving them.

    If online learning has not already rocked your local school, then it will soon. Michael Horn and his" Disrupting Class" collaborators made that prediction in 2008 when they calculated that by 2019, 50% of high school courses would be online in some form or fashion. Years later, that prediction continues to appear accurate, if not conservative. People may debate the timing, but the more important question is how to channel the indisputable emergence of online learning across elementary, middle, and high schools into a positive force that makes life better for students and their teachers. How can leaders unlock the benefits of online learning and mitigate the risks? Five years after the first publication of" Disrupting Class," the field is ready for a companion guide that provides the "how to" guidance for which educators are clamoring. "Blended: The Field Guide" "to Disrupting Class" will help leaders, teachers, and other stakeholders interested in a more student-centered system understand how to begin. It provides a step-by-step framework, responsive to the frequently asked questions from education leaders who are trying to implement blended learning. The goal is for every reader to have the necessary expertise to go forth with confidence and build the next generation of K-12 learning environments.

    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.

    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.

    But you will also see a high degree of variability among classrooms—much higher than in most other industrialized countries. Today we are asking schools to do something they have never done before—educate all students to high levels—yet we don’t know how to do that in every classroom for every child.Inspired by the medical-rounds model used by physicians, the authors have pioneered a new form of professional learning known as instructional rounds networks. Through this process, educators develop a shared practice of observing, discussing, and analyzing learning and teaching.

    But what does this look like in practice? This book shows you the day-to-day coaching moves that build powerful coaching relationships. Readers will find:Coaching moves that can be used before, during, and after lessons An abundance of field-tested tools and practices that can be put to immediate use Original video clips that depict and unpack key moves Richly detailed anecdotes from practicing coaches

    The latest research shows not only that brains can change, but that teachers and other providers have the power to boost students' effort, focus, attitude, and even IQs. In this book bestselling author Eric Jensen and co-author Carole Snider offer teacher-friendly strategies to ensure that all students graduate, become lifelong learners, and ultimately be successful in school and life. Drawing on cutting-edge science, this breakthrough book reveals core tools to increase student effort, build attitudes, and improve behaviors.Practical, teacher-tested, and research-supported strategies that will empower educators to make lasting and rapid changes Powerful academic evidence showing that every teacher can make a significant--and lasting--difference in student effort, behavior, attitude, and achievement Specific tools for making and managing the student's goal-seeking process and helping to develop a winner's mindset From the very first chapter, educators will learn how to help their struggling students become excited, lifelong learners. Eric Jensen is a noted authority on brain-based learning and student engagement. Carole Snider is an expert in both adolescent success and adult learning.

    You've heard the complaints too many times: When am I ever going to use this in the real world? Why are we learning this? When are we going to learn about something interesting? But what if your students came to class excited? What if they were passionate about their projects? What if they grasped the connection between today's work and tomorrow's careers? In classrooms across the nation, innovative teachers are employing passion-based, open-source learning to improve their student's education. In Pure Genius, Don Wettrick encourages teachers and administrators to collaborate--with experts, students, and one another--to create interesting, and even life-changing opportunities for learning. You'll discover: Innovation brings a fresh approach to solving real problems Creative ways to work within the constraints your current budget and system Courses that offer relevant content can inspire students to learn beyond the classroom Collaborating with experts and mentors improves the learning experience for students and teachers Students must be taught and entrusted to appropriately use social media Social media is an incredible resource for inspiration and professional development Innovation is the key to equipping today's students for tomorrow's marketplace. By incorporating the concepts Don explains in Pure Genius, you can empower the next generation to be free thinkers who can create new concepts and products that can change the way we live.