Buzzing Communities: How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Online Communities


Richard Millington - 2012
    This book combines a century of proven science, dozens of real-life examples, practical tips, and trusted community-building methods.This step-by-step guide includes a lifecycle for tracking your progress and a framework for managing your organization's community efforts. This Book Will Help You toUnderstand what the members of your community really want.Dramatically increase the number of newcomers that become regulars.Avoid the mistakes most organizations make when they try to build online communities.Develop a fantastic, user-friendly website for your members.Grow your online community to critical mass and beyondKeep members engaged and active in your community.Measure the community's return on investment and explain the benefits to your organization.

Courageous Conversations about Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools


Glenn E. Singleton - 2005
    Through these courageous conversations, educators will learn how to create a learning community that promotes true academic parity. Practical features of this book include:Implementation exercises Prompts, language, and tools that support profound discussion Activities and checklists for administrators Action steps for creating an equity team

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery


Garr Reynolds - 2007
    Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.--back cover

Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere


Tsedal Neeley - 2021
    This book provides a blueprint for how to build and maintain that trust and connection in a digital environment.” —Eric S. Yuan, founder and CEO of ZoomA Harvard Business School professor and leading expert in virtual and global work provides remote workers and leaders with the best practices necessary to perform at the highest levels in their organizations.   The rapid and unprecedented changes brought on by Covid-19 have accelerated the transition to remote working, requiring the wholesale migration of nearly entire companies to virtual work in just weeks, leaving managers and employees scrambling to adjust. This massive transition has forced companies to rapidly advance their digital footprint, using cloud, storage, cybersecurity, and device tools to accommodate their new remote workforce.Experiencing the benefits of remote working—including nonexistent commute times, lower operational costs, and a larger pool of global job applicants—many companies, including Twitter and Google, plan to permanently incorporate remote days or give employees the option to work from home full-time. But virtual work has it challenges. Employees feel lost, isolated, out of sync, and out of sight. They want to know how to build trust, maintain connections without in-person interactions, and a proper work/life balance. Managers want to know how to lead virtually, how to keep their teams motivated, what digital tools they’ll need, and how to keep employees productive.Providing compelling, evidence-based answers to these and other pressing issues, Remote Work Revolution is essential for navigating the enduring challenges teams and managers face. Filled with specific actionable steps and interactive tools, this timely book will help team members deliver results previously out of reach. Following Neeley’s advice, employees will be able to break through routine norms to successfully use remote work to benefit themselves, their groups, and ultimately their organizations.

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization


Peter M. Senge - 1990
    As Senge makes clear, in the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. The leadership stories in the book demonstrate the many ways that the core ideas in The Fifth Discipline, many of which seemed radical when first published in 1990, have become deeply integrated into people’s ways of seeing the world and their managerial practices. In The Fifth Discipline, Senge describes how companies can rid themselves of the learning “disabilities” that threaten their productivity and success by adopting the strategies of learning organizations—ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create results they truly desire. The updated and revised Currency edition of this business classic contains over one hundred pages of new material based on interviews with dozens of practitioners at companies like BP, Unilever, Intel, Ford, HP, Saudi Aramco, and organizations like Roca, Oxfam, and The World Bank. It features a new Foreword about the success Peter Senge has achieved with learning organizations since the book’s inception, as well as new chapters on Impetus (getting started), Strategies, Leaders’ New Work, Systems Citizens, and Frontiers for the Future. Mastering the disciplines Senge outlines in the book will:• Reignite the spark of genuine learning driven by people focused on what truly matters to them• Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity• Free you of confining assumptions and mindsets• Teach you to see the forest and the trees• End the struggle between work and personal time

101 Sample Write-Ups for Documenting Employee Performance Problems: A Guide to Progressive Discipline & Termination


Paul Falcone - 1998
    But with 101 prewritten disciplinary write-ups at a manager's fingertips, there is a way to escape the headaches, anxiety, and potential legal trouble of performance review or counseling sessions. Completely updated and covering the latest developments in employment law, the second edition of "101 Sample Write-Ups for Documenting Employee Performance Problems" explains the disciplinary process from beginning to end and provides ready-to-use model documents in print and on disk that eliminate the stress and second-guessing about what to do and say. Expertly written, the write-ups cover every kind of problem substandard work quality, absenteeism, insubordination, e-mail misuse, sexual harassment, drug or alcohol abuse, and more. Readers will also find new information on laying the ground work for a tidy dismissal; tying progressive discipline to annual performance reviews; formally addressing intermittent FMLA abuse; ways to avoid drafting documentation that could later be used against their company; and much more. There is perhaps no more dreaded managerial task than communicating with an employee about a disciplinary problem, but this one-of-a-kind guide helps managers handle any scenario fairly, constructively, and, most importantly legally.

Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community


Alfie Kohn - 1996
    Some may advocate the use of carrots rather than sticks; some may refer to punishments as "logical consequences." But virtually all take for granted that the teacher must be in control of the classroom, and that what we need are strategies to get students to comply with the adult's expectations.Alfie Kohn challenged these widely accepted premises, and with them the very idea of classroom "management," when the original edition of Beyond Discipline was published in 1996. Since then, his path-breaking book has invited hundreds of thousands of educators to question the assumption that problems in the classroom are always the fault of students who don't do what they're told; instead, it may be necessary to reconsider what it is that they've been told to do--or to learn. Kohn shows how a fundamentally cynical view of children underlies the belief that we must tell them exactly how we expect them to behave and then offer "positive reinforcement" when they obey.Just as memorizing someone else's right answers fails to promote students' intellectual development, so does complying with someone else's expectations for how to act fail to help students develop socially or morally. Kohn contrasts the idea of discipline, in which things are done to students to control their behavior, with an approach in which we work with students to create caring communities where decisions are made together.Beyond Discipline has earned the status of an education classic, a vital alternative to all the traditional manuals that consist of techniques for imposing control. For this 10th anniversary edition, Kohn adds a new afterword that expands on the book's central themes and responds to questions from readers. Packed with stories from real classrooms around the country, seasoned with humor and grounded in a vision as practical as it is optimistic, Beyond Discipline shows how students are most likely to flourish in schools that have moved toward collaborative problem solving--and beyond discipline.

The Practical Pocket Guide to Account Planning


Chris Kocek - 2013
    Filled with real world examples, amusing anecdotes, and useful techniques for getting to better insights, The Practical Pocket Guide provides a clear path for how Account Planners can collaborate with Creatives to produce great work that is insightful, engaging, and culturally infectious. Whether you're a Client, a Creative, an Account Manager, or an aspiring Account Planner, this book will help you understand how Planners think and what great Planning can really do.

Mission Drift: The Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities, and Churches


Peter Greer - 2014
    It's that simple. It will happen. Slowly, silently, and with little fanfare, organizations routinely drift from their purpose, and many never return to their original intent. Harvard and the YMCA are among those that no longer embrace the Christian principles on which they were founded. But they didn't drift off course overnight. Drift often happens in small and subtle ways. Left unchecked, it eventually becomes significant. Yet Mission Drift is not inevitable. Organizations such as Compassion International and InterVarsity have exhibited intentional, long-term commitment to Christ. Why do so many organizations--including churches--wander from their mission, while others remain Mission True? Can drift be prevented? In "Mission Drift," HOPE International executives Peter Greer and Chris Horst tackle these questions. They show how to determine whether your organization is in danger of drift, and they share the results of their research into Mission True and Mission Untrue organizations. Even if your organization is Mission True now, it's wise to look for ways to inoculate yourself against drift. You'll discover what you can do to prevent drift or get back on track and how to protect what matters most.

Students at the Center: Personalized Learning with Habits of Mind


Bena Kallick - 2017
    The way to do this, argue authors Bena Kallick and Allison Zmuda, is to increase the say students have in their own learning and prepare them to navigate complexities they face both inside and beyond school. This means rethinking traditional teacher and student roles and re-examining goal setting, lesson planning, assessment, and feedback practices. It means establishing classrooms that prioritizeVoice--Involving students in "the what" and "the how" of learning and equipping them to be stewards of their own education.Co-creation--Guiding students to identify the challenges and concepts they want to explore and outline the actions they will take.Social construction--Having students work with others to theorize, pursue common goals, build products, and generate performances.Self-discovery--Teaching students to reflect on their own developing skills and knowledge so that they will acquire new understandings of themselves and how they learn.Based on their exciting work in the field, Kallick and Zmuda map out a transformative model of personalization that puts students at the center and asks them to employ the set of dispositions for engagement and learning known as the Habits of Mind. They share the perspectives of educators engaged in this work; highlight the habits that empower students to pursue aspirations, investigate problems, design solutions, chase curiosities, and create performances; and provide tools and recommendations for adjusting classroom practices to facilitate learning that is self-directed, dynamic, sometimes messy, and always meaningful.

School Law and the Public Schools: A Practical Guide for Educational Leaders


Nathan L. Essex - 1999
    today. An essential reference for all teachers, educational leaders, and policymakers at all levels, the book is organized and written in a style that is accessible to all, even those with little or no knowledge of the legal issues in education.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard


Chip Heath - 2010
    Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems - the rational mind and the emotional mind - that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort - but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people - employees and managers, parents and nurses - have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results:- The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients (see page 242)- The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping (see page 130)- The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service (see page 199)In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

Pyramid Response to Intervention: RTI, Professional Learning Communities, and How to Respond When Kids Don't Learn


Chris Weber - 2008
    Written by award-winning educators from successful PLC schools, this book demonstrates how to create three tiers of interventions from basic to intensive to address student learning gaps. You will understand what a successful program looks like, and the many reproducible forms and activities will help your team understand how to make RTI work in your school."

From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership


Kevin Eikenberry - 2011
    Perhaps the most challenging leadership experience anyone will face isn't one at the top, but their first promotion to leadership. They must deal with the change and uncertainty that comes with a new job, requiring new skills, and they've been promoted from peer to leader. While the book addresses the needs of any manager, supervisor, or leader, it pulls from the best leadership and management thinking, and puts the focus on the difficulties that new leaders experience.Includes practical information for new managers who must supervise friends and former peers Authors are expert consultants who work with leaders at all levels Shows how to adopt the mindset of a leader, including: communicating change, giving feedback, coaching employees, leading productive teams, and achieving goals This much-needed book can help new leaders get beyond the stress and fear to focus on becoming the most effective leader they can be-starting right now.

That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms That Read, Write, and Think


Samantha Bennett - 2007
     Cris Tovani Twenty-five years after Donald Graves popularized workshop teaching, the concept is widely implemented but not always deeply understood. That Workshop Book changes all that. It shows a new generation of teachers how the systems, structures, routines, and rituals that support successful workshops combine with thinking, planning, and conferring to drive students growth, inform assessment and instruction, and increase teachers professional satisfaction. And it shows those already using the workshop how to increase its instructional power by seeing its big ideas and its component parts in fresh, dynamic ways. In That Workshop Book, Samantha Bennett, a veteran instructional coach, takes you on a tour of six classrooms from first grade through eighth grade to see the techniques and thought processes master teachers use to make their workshops work. In each class she offers tangible evidence of these teachers practices, demonstrating how they listen to students and use that information to build lessons that propel children into deeper thinking. She documents these teachers moves for you with: classroom observations in the form of coaching emails from Bennett to each with commentary that highlights the important practices seen in each workshop transcripts of minilessons, worktimes, and debriefs specific, explicit reflection by each teacher about their workshop examples of student work produced in the workshop and over time student reflections on their development as readers, writers, thinkers, and learners. Youll come to understand firsthand how the setup of the workshop allows students the breathing room to think deeply about ideas, topics, and resources. Youll also see how it creates a framework within which you can not only listen in as children express what they learn but also think deeply yourself about how best to use the information you gather for subsequent instruction. Bennett even demonstrates how the workshop can be flexible enough to fit any learning situation and how to solve common problems as they arise. Benefit from the wisdom of one of the countrys foremost staff developers. Step inside workshop classrooms where teachers and students work side by sidewhere students develop literacy skills through a combination of doing what readers and writers do and purposeful, sensitive interactions with their teacher. Visit workshops where teachers learn about their students, use careful one-to-one assessment to inform their teaching, and reflect on their own practice as well. Then enter the best workshop classroom of allthe one youll be ready and excited to launch when you read That Workshop Book.