It's not about how much students do. It's about how they spend that time. A long overdue look inside the practice room - what works, what doesn't and why, from the founder of and chief writer for PracticeSpot.com, the world's largest website for music teachers and students.

    A series of dialogues between a novice and a master teacher and between a new and a seasoned principal demonstrate how framing--and then reframing--challenges brings clarity.

    Marshall proposes a broader framework for supervision and evaluation that enlists teachers in improving the performance of all students. Emphasizing trust-building and teamwork, Marshall's innovative, four-part framework shifts the focus from periodically evaluating teaching to continuously analyzing learning. This book offers school principals a guide for implementing Marshall's framework and shows how to make frequent, informal classroom visits followed by candid feedback to each teacher; work with teacher teams to plan thoughtful curriculum units rather than focusing on individual lessons; get teachers as teams involved in low-stakes analysis of interim assessment results to fine-tune their teaching and help struggling students; and use compact rubrics for summative teacher evaluation.This vital resource also includes extensive tools and advice for managing time as well as ideas for using supervision and evaluation practices to foster teacher professional development.

    Jim Burke has created a Common Core Companion for you, too. This time positioning the grades 9-10 standards alongside 11-12, it's every bit the roadmap to what each standard says, what each standard means, and how to put that standard into practice across subjects. Jim clearly lays out:Key distinctions across grade levels Different content-area versions of each standard Explanations of each standard, with student prompts Content to cover, lesson ideas, and instructional techniques Glossary and adaptations for ELL students

    Here is a brief overview of each part: Part 1, Seeing the Big Picture Connections First, defines curriculum in terms of rigor, provides the background of this model, connects curriculum design to the big picture of standards, assessments, instruction, and data practices, previews the step-by-step design sequence, and introduces end-of-chapter reader assignments. Part 2, Building the Foundation for Designing Curricular Units, explains the five steps that must first be taken to lay the foundation upon which to build the curricular units of study, and provides explicit guidelines for applying each step. Part 3, Designing the Curricular Unit of Study From Start to Finish, gives the nuts and bolts directions for designing a rigorous curricular unit of study, from beginning to end, and concludes with an overview of how to implement the unit in the classroom or instructional program. Formatively assessing students along the way, educators analyze resulting student data to diagnose student learning needs and then adjust ongoing instruction accordingly. Part 4, Organizing, Monitoring, and Sustaining Implementation Efforts, addresses the role of administrators in beginning and continuing the work of implementation. These final three chapters provide first-person narra - tives and advice to administrators from administrators who have personally led the implementation and sustainability efforts of curriculum redesign and related practices within their own school systems. I have endeavored to pull together all of the elements necessary for designing a rigorous curriculum, to position these elements in a sequential order, and to provide a step-by-step approach for constructing each one. My hope is that this road map will not only show you the way to design your own curriculum, but also allow you the flexibility of customizing it to fit your own purpose and needs. As with the realization of any lofty vision, it will take a great deal of time, thought, energy, and collaboration to create and revise a single curriculum, let alone multiple curricula. The best advice I can offer is to regard whatever you produce as a continual work in progress, to be accomplished over one, two, or three years, or even longer. As my friend and colleague Robert Kuklis points out, curriculum designers shape and modify the process as they move through it. It is important that they know this is not a rigid, prescriptive procedure, but rather an opportunity for learning, adapting, and improving. This preserves fidelity to the process, encourages flexibility, and promotes local ownership. Whenever people s spirits need lifting because the work seems so demanding, remind everyone that it is a process, not a one-time event. You are creating something truly significant a comprehensive body of work that is going to serve your educators, students, and parents for years to come!"

    "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.

    

    The book is divided into three parts: Out of the Gate contains easy ideas to help you get started, More Reasons to Write shows you how to teach across genre, both fiction and nonfiction writing, and Refining Writing addresses everything you need to know about revision, grammar, punctuation, and assessment. In every chapter you'll find two running features: 1) “Try This”, ready-to-use lessons for you and your students; and 2) “Yeah But” where Barry answers the real questions and concerns he's collected from teachers around the country.

    Less gear. Less anxiety. Less stress. Less fear. A Lesser Photographer is the missing guide you've always wanted to the only gear that really matters: the gear between your ears. In under an hour, you’ll be able to identify the myths you’ve been taught about photography and embrace useful creative habits that will set you apart. Praise for previous editions: “For something beautiful and well-said, check out A Lesser Photographer.” — David duChemin “Amazing read…I really recommend everyone get a copy.” — Chris Marquardt “CJ Chilvers reevaluates what it means to be a photographer in this manifesto. Most of the points apply to virtually any creative endeavor or obsession. ‘The real show is outside the viewfinder.’” — Jim Coudal “I have to say, CJ has a great attitude. If you care at all about photography, he’s a must read.” — Patrick Rhone “Every photographer should follow CJ Chilvers.” — Eric Kim

    Now, in Leading with Focus, he shows administrators, principals, and other education leaders how to apply his model to the work of running schools and districts. In this companion to his previous book, Schmoker offers* An overview of the case for simple, focused school and district leadership--demonstrating its power for vastly improving the work of teachers and leaders.* Examples of real schools and districts that have embraced focused leadership--and the incredible results for student learning.* A practical, flexible, and easy-to-follow implementation guide for ensuring focused leadership in schools and districts.All students deserve to learn in schools where educators eschew distractions and superfluous activities to concentrate on what's most important. To that end, this book is an essential resource for leaders ready to streamline their practice and focus their efforts on radically improving student learning.

    An easy-to-learn overview of the theorist opens each chapter. The author then distills the theorists’ work to reveal how it relates to child care and children.

    Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby examine the evidence behind what makes great teaching and explore how to implement this in the classroom to make a difference to learning. They distil teaching and learning down into six core principles - challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning - and show how these can inspire an ethos of excellence and growth, not only in individual classrooms but across a whole school too. Combining robust evidence from a range of fields with the practical wisdom of experienced, effective classroom teachers, the book is a complete toolkit of strategies that teachers can use every lesson to make that lesson count. There are no gimmicky ideas here - just high impact, focused teaching that results in great learning, every lesson, every day. To demonstrate how attainable this is, the book contains a number of case studies from a number of professionals who are successfully embedding a culture of excellence and growth in their schools. Making Every Lesson Count offers an evidence-informed alternative to restrictive Ofsted-driven definitions of great teaching, empowering teachers to deliver great lessons and celebrate high-quality practice. Suitable for all teachers - including trainee teachers, NQTs, and experienced teachers - who want quick and easy ways to enhance their practice and make every lesson count.

    Bruce Lesh believes that this is due to the way we teach history—lecture and memorization. Over the last fifteen years, Bruce has refined a method of teaching history that mirrors the process used by historians, where students are taught to ask questions of evidence and develop historical explanations. And now in his new book “Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?” he shows teachers how to successfully implement his methods in the classroom.Students may think they want to be given the answer. Yet, when they are actively engaged in investigating the past—the way professional historians do—they find that history class is not about the boring memorization of names, dates, and facts. Instead, it’s challenging fun. Historical study that centers on a question, where students gather a variety of historical sources and then develop and defend their answers to that question, allows students to become actual historians immersed in an interpretive study of the past.Each chapter focuses on a key concept in understanding history and then offers a sample unit on how the concept can be taught. Readers will learn about the following: • Exploring Text, Subtext, and Context: President Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal • Chronological Thinking and Causality: The Rail Strike of 1877 • Multiple Perspectives: The Bonus March of 1932 • Continuity and Change Over Time: Custer’s Last Stand • Historical Significance: The Civil Rights Movement • Historical Empathy: The Truman-MacArthur DebateBy the end of the book, teachers will have learned how to teach history via a lens of interpretive questions and interrogative evidence that allows both student and teacher to develop evidence-based answers to history’s greatest questions.

    The one who went the extra mile to truly affect lives, whose lessons carried as much importance outside the classroom as inside. This book is a celebration of those teachers who continue to make an impact. A collection of stories from some of the country's top educators, this book is a celebration of teachers' work, and motivation for them to continue. Joseph Underwood has collected stories from each of the twenty-eight 2004 Disney Teacher™ of the Year honorees. And every story celebrates a different obstacle they overcame, the power and know-how needed to triumph, and the reward granted upon beating the odds. Today I Made a Difference is the perfect gift for anyone in or considering the profession.

    Prone to fantasy and unruffled by inconsistency, preschool children are frequently baffled by the first lessons of early schooling. Trained to gently resist the child's illogic, teachers sometimes create just the incomprehension and anxiety they mean to avoid. In Wally's Stories, Vivian Paley shows that none of this need be so.Wally's Stories is itself a story: the story of the evolution of a kindergarten classroom in which Paley learned to stop fighting childish fantasy and instead make use of it to stimulate the very best brand of thinking her five-year-olds can muster. Stories also lie at the heart of her classroom: stories that are first told by one of the children, then transcribed by the teacher, and then acted out by the class in dramatic productions of their own design. Paley shows that in the course of creating their own dramatic world, five-year-olds are capable of thought and language far in advance of what they accomplish in traditional classroom exercises. The children's stories also become a vehicle that they can use to explain themselves to their teacher and to one another. Together, teacher and children develop an unusual environment, one that is logical and literate, based on rules of fairness, friendship, and fantasy.Vivian Paley's book is as refreshing as her teaching method--a new kind of book about a new kind of classroom.