The First Days of School: How to Be An Effective Teacher [with CD]


Harry K. Wong - 1991
    The book walks a teacher, either novice or veteran, through structuring and organizing a classroom for success that can be applied at any time of the year at any grade level, pre-K through college.The book is used in thousands of school districts, in over 116 countries, and in over 2,027 college classrooms. Its practical, yet inspiring. But most important, it works The new 4th edition includes updated research, photos, and more examples of "how-to" along with an implementation DVD, "Using The First Days of School" featuring Chelonnda Seroyer.This is the most requested book for what works in the classroom for teacher and student success.

Nothing's Impossible: Leadership Lessons From Inside And Outside The Classroom


Lorraine Monroe - 1999
    Lorraine Monroe founded the Frederick Douglass Academy, a public school in Harlem, in the belief that caring instructors, a disciplined but creative environment, and a refusal to accept mediocrity could transform the lives of inner-city kids. Her experiment was a huge success. Today the Academy is one of the finest schools in the country, sending graduates to Ivy League colleges and registering the third highest SAT scores in New York City. The key to its success: a unique leadership method Monroe calls the "Monroe Doctrine," which she developed through decades as a teacher and principal in some of America's toughest schools. In this book Monroe tells her own remarkable story and explains her "Doctrine" through pithy, memorable rules and observations and a host of wonderful true stories. This is an inspiring read for both new and experienced educators—and for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers


Penny Kittle - 2012
    It's never too late."-Penny KittlePenny Kittle wants us to face the hard truths every English teacher fears: too many kids don't read the assigned texts, and some even manage to slip by without having ever read a single book by the time they graduate. As middle and high school reading declines, college professors lament students' inability to comprehend and analyze complex texts, while the rest of us wonder: what do we lose as a society when so many of our high school graduates have no interest in reading anything?In Book Love Penny takes student apathy head on, first by recognizing why students don't read and then showing us that when we give kids books that are right for them, along with time to read and regular response to their thinking, we can create a pathway to satisfying reading that leads to more challenging literature and ultimately, a love of reading. With a clear eye on the reality of today's classrooms, Penny provides practical strategies and advice on:increasing volume, capacity, and complexity over time creating a balance of independent reading, text study, and novel study helping students deepen their thinking through writing about reading building a classroom library with themes that matter to 21st century kids. Book Love is a call to arms for putting every single kid, no exceptions allowed, on a personal reading journey. But much more than that, it's a powerful reminder of why we became English teachers in the first place: our passion for books. Books matter. Stories heal. The right book in the hands of a kid can change a life forever. We can't wait for anyone else to teach our students a love of books-it's up to us and the time is now. If not you, who? For information about the Book Love Foundation, which provides classroom libraries to deserving teachers and schools, visit booklovefoundation.org.

The Teacher's Guide to Self-Care: Build Resilience, Avoid Burnout, and Bring a Happier and Healthier You to the Classroom


Sarah Forst - 2020
    

Becoming a Literacy Leader: Supporting Learning and Change


Jennifer Allen - 2006
    The book is rooted in Jennifer's belief that teachers know what they need when it comes to professional development in literacy, and the best literacy leaders are those who listen to and respect the educators in their midst. Grounded in research but thoroughly practical, Jennifer shares advice on:organizing a literacy room with resources for classroom teachers, including book lists, bins of children's books tied to craft and strategy lessons, bulletin board ideas, and files with instructional materials;developing intervention classrooms for struggling readers and writers built on collaboration between teachers and literacy specialists;setting up assessment notebooks for teachers, and preparing new and veteran teachers for student assessments across grades;creating model programs for dealing with schoolwide problems like reading fluency, and then moving from the pilot to implementation in many classrooms;coaching new and veteran teachers in the latest literacy practices, without taking on the role of expert;analyzing and using books, videos and journals in professional development programs;infusing routine staff meetings with discussions of new literacy curricula;leading teacher study groups using a variety of formats;finding and budgeting money for professional development programs in literacy;protecting time and scheduling priorities, to ensure the literacy specialist position doesn't become a “catch-all” for the random needs of teachers or administrators.At a time when all administrators are urged to be literacy leaders, this insider's view helps to define what leadership looks like and shows how to create an environment that fosters professional development. Jennifer Allen shares the balance leaders struggle with, as they strive to support and honor the fine practices of teachers, even as they nudge colleagues to improve their literacy instruction. Ultimately, Becoming a Literacy Leader is a hopeful book, an optimistic and realistic portrait of life in schools among teachers committed to doing their jobs well.

Engaging Learners


Andy Griffith - 2012
    A class can be skilled and motivated to learn without a teacher always having to lead. Engaging learners in this way unpicks intrinsic motivation, the foundation that underpins a productive learning environment and helps to develop independent learning.Based on five years of intensive research through Osiris Education's award-winning Outstanding Teaching Intervention program this book is packed with proven advice and innovative tools that were developed in these successful outstanding lessons. Written in the same humorous, thought-provoking style with which they both teach and train, the authors aim to challenge all who teach, from newly qualified teachers to seasoned professionals, to reflect on their day-to-day practice and set an agenda for sustainable improvement.

Voice Lessons: Classroom Activities to Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax, and Tone


Nancy Dean - 2000
    Each of the 100 sharply focused, historically and culturally diverse passages from world literature targets a specific component of voice, presenting the elements in short, manageable exercises that function well as class openers. Includes teacher notes and discussion suggestions.

The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation


Elena Aguilar - 2013
    Established coaches will find numerous ways to deepen and refine their coaching practice. Principals and others who incorporate coaching strategies into their work will also find a wealth of resources.Aguilar offers a model for transformational coaching which could be implemented as professional development in schools or districts anywhere. Although she addresses the needs of adult learners, her model maintains a student-centered focus, with a specific lens on addressing equity issues in schools.Offers a practical resource for school coaches, principals, district leaders, and other administrators Presents a transformational coaching model which addresses systems change Pays explicit attention to surfacing and interrupting inequities in schools The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation offers a compendium of school coaching ideas, the book's explicit, user-friendly structure enhances the ability to access the information.

Worlds of Making: Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School (Corwin Connected Educators Series)


Laura Fleming - 2015
    Nationally recognized expert Laura Fleming provides all the answers in this breakthrough guide. From inception through implementation, you’ll find invaluable guidance for creating a vibrant Makerspace on any budget. Practical strategies and anecdotal examples help you: Create an action plan for your own personalized Makerspace Align activities to standards Showcase student creations Use this must-have guide to painlessly build a robust, unique learning environment that puts learning back in the hands of your students!

The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction


Margo A. Mastropieri - 1999
    The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction provides a wealth of practical and proven strategies for successfully including students with disabilities in general education classrooms. The text is unique for its three-part coverage of fundamentals of teaching students with special needs (including legal and professional issues, and characteristics of students with special needs); effective general teaching practices (including such topics as strategies for behavior management, improving motivation, increasing attention and memory, and improving study skills); and inclusive practices in specific subject areas (including literacy, math, science and social studies, vocational and other areas). This approach allows readers to understand students with special learning needs, effective general practices for inclusive instruction, and content-specific strategies. The overall approach is one of effective instruction, those practices that are most closely aligned with academic success.

The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way


Amanda Ripley - 2013
    Through their adventures, Ripley discovers startling truths about how attitudes, parenting, and rigorous teaching have revolutionized these countries’ education results.In The Smartest Kids in the World, Ripley’s astonishing new insights reveal that top-performing countries have achieved greatness only in the past several decades; that the kids who live there are learning to think for themselves, partly through failing early and often; and that persistence, hard work, and resilience matter more to our children’s life chances than self-esteem or sports.Ripley’s investigative work seamlessly weaves narrative and research, providing in-depth analysis and gripping details that will keep you turning the pages. Written in a clear and engaging style, The Smartest Kids in the World will enliven public as well as dinner table debates over what makes for brighter and better students.

Forged by Reading: The Power of a Literate Life


Kylene Beers - 2020
    Probst explore why independent reading is vital to the intellectual and developmental growth of students as citizens of our world and as architects of the future. Forged by Reading explores historic and timely topics through the context of literacy—literacy being the gateway to power and privilege—while serving as nothing short of a call to action. One that reminds educators of their critical hand in empowering readers to think, to seek curiosity and skepticism, to shape themselves and their ideas through evidence and reason, vision and imagination, and in doing so to forge themselves and our world through reading. “This book will open the door to an understanding of literacy like no other. But, it’s not a how-to-use-literature-to-empower-our-kids-book. It’s a why-haven’t-we book. It’s a we-must book. Forged by Reading is filled with hard truths, and the inspiration needed to walk towards a new world—one where relevant reading rules. So, put your walking shoes on, get ready for the hard, necessary work, and let Kylene and Bob show us the way.” —Kwame Alexander, poet, educator, and New York Times bestselling author of Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope   “If you haven’t read a single Beers & Probst educational bible to date, read Forged by Reading. It’s all right here…at the time of American education’s greatest need. There may well be no creative power greater than that of language…reading language, writing language, understanding language, embracing language. With Forged by Reading, Kylene and Bob hand us a roadmap to unleashing that power. Read it. Revel in it. Use it.” —Chris Crutcher, bestselling author and recipient of the American Library Association Margaret Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement and the NCTE Intellectual Freedom Award.   “Forged by Reading is scholarship that shows us not only how our literacies link us to each other, but also, how reading links to our uniquely human souls.”–Jennifer Ochoa, middle school teacher, NYC Public Schools, and award-winning educator    “Beers and Probst, who explore the moral imperative of liberatory pedagogy, remind us that those who read and discuss books hone literate minds—the key to transforming their own their lives, as well as our greatest hope for transforming our democracy—bending its arc toward equity and justice for all.” —Ernest Morrell, Coyle Professor of Literacy Education, University of Notre Dame    “This timely book is a call to action for educators to embrace the languages, cultures, and identities of our students, disrupt the oppressive reading and writing practices in classrooms across this nation—and replace them with humane, equitable instruction for all.” —Yalitza Vasquez, VP of Multilingual Education, Trinity Education Group, and Former Senior Executive Director Division of English Language Learners, NYC Department of Education   “Literacy is an essential element of freedom and the ways in which it is withheld contributes to oppression. This book will shift how you regard your teaching: abolish harmful pedagogies, confirm just practices, and travel with your colleagues on an epic journey of literacy justice.” —Kate Roberts, author, consultant, and guest teacher    “Kylene and Bob show us why student compliance is not our goal and why testing and standards too often interfere with our bigger goals for literacy. They also ask us to be brave and to anchor our work in these understandings so we can achieve the ultimate aim: students who live the power of reading.” —Franki Sibberson, teacher, librarian, author, past president of NCTE  “Consider the intimate connection between education and our democratic ideals. Forged by Reading is a powerful and timely reminder that when we are equipped with insight and the truth of who we are, we can be what’s right.” —Cornelius Minor, educator and author of We Got This: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be

Literacy Is Not Enough: 21st Century Fluencies for the Digital Age


Lee Crockett - 2011
    If students are to thrive in their academic and 21st century careers, then independent and creative thinking hold the highest currency. The authors explain in detail how to add these new components of literacy:Solution Fluency Information Fluency Creativity Fluency Collaboration Fluency Students must master a completely different set of skills to succeed in a culture of technology-driven automation, abundance, and access to global labor markets. The authors present an effective framework for integrating comprehensive literacy or fluency into the traditional curriculum.

Con Respeto: Bridging the Distances Between Culturally Diverse Families and Schools: An Ethnographic Portrait


Guadalupe Valdés - 1996
    Guadalupe Vald�s examines what appears to be a lack of interest in education by Mexican parents and shows, through extensive quotations and numerous anecdotes, that these families are both rich and strong in family values, and that they bring with them clear views of what constitutes success and failure. The book's conclusion questions the merit of typical family intervention programs designed to promote school success and suggests that these interventions--because they do not genuinely respect the values of diverse families--may have long-term negative consequences for children.Con Respeto will be a valuable resource in graduate courses in foundations, ethnographic research, sociology and anthropology of education, multicultural education, and child development; and will be of particular interest to professors and researchers of multicultural education, bilingual education, ethnographic research methods, and sociology and anthropology of education.

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.