Use technology to focus on your students!In this step-by-step guide, teacher and education blogger Catlin Tucker outlines the process for integrating online discussion with face-to-face instruction in a way that empowers teach

    Instead of teaching students to be critical thinkers and problem-solvers, we are asking them to memorize facts for multiple choice tests. This problem isn’t limited to low-income school districts: even our top schools aren’t teaching or testing the skills that matter most in the global knowledge economy. Our teens leave school equipped to work only in the kinds of jobs that are fast disappearing from the American economy. Meanwhile, young adults in India and China are competing with our students for the most sought-after careers around the world.Education expert Tony Wagner has conducted scores of interviews with business leaders and observed hundreds of classes in some of the nation’s most highly regarded public schools. He discovered a profound disconnect between what potential employers are looking for in young people today (critical thinking skills, creativity, and effective communication) and what our schools are providing (passive learning environments and uninspired lesson plans that focus on test preparation and reward memorization).He explains how every American can work to overhaul our education system, and he shows us examples of dramatically different schools that teach all students new skills. In addition, through interviews with college graduates and people who work with them, Wagner discovers how teachers, parents, and employers can motivate the “net” generation to excellence.An education manifesto for the twenty-first century, The Global Achievement Gap is provocative and inspiring. It is essential reading for parents, educators, business leaders, policy-makers, and anyone interested in seeing our young people succeed as employees and citizens.For additional information about the author and the book, please go to www.schoolchange.org

    The author explains what a classroom number talk is; how to follow students’ thinking and pose the right questions to build understanding; how to prepare for and design purposeful number talks; and how to develop grade-level specific thinking strategies for the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Number Talks includes connections to NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics as well as reference tables to help you quickly and easily locate strategies, number talks, and video clips. Includes a Facilitator’s Guide and DVD.

    Most young writers are not intimidated by personal narrative, fiction, or even poetry, but when they try to put together a "teaching book," report, or persuasive essay, they often feel anxious and frustrated.JoAnn Portalupi and Ralph Fletcher believe that young nonfiction writers supply plenty of passion, keen interest, and wonder. Teachers can provide concrete strategies to help students scaffold their ideas as they write in his challenging genre.Like the authors' best-selling Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8, this book is divided into sections for K-2, 3-4, and middle school (grades 5-8) students. These divisions reflect various differences between emerging, competent, and fluent writers. In each section you'll find a generous collection of craft lessons directed at the genre that's most appropriate for that particular age. In the K-2 section, for example, a number of craft lessons focus on the all-about or concept book. In the 3-4 section there are several lessons on biography. In the 5-8 section a series of lessons addresses expository writing. Throughout the book each of the 80 lessons is presented on a single page in an easy-to-read format.Every lesson features three teaching guidelines:Discussion--A brief look at the reasons for teaching the particular element of craft specifically in a nonfiction context.How to Teach It--Concrete language showing exactly how a teacher might bring this craft element to students in writing conferences or a small-group setting.Resource Material--Specific book or text referred to in the craft lesson including trade books, or a piece of student writing in the Appendixes.This book will help students breathe voice into lifeless "dump-truck" writing and improve their nonfiction writing by making it clearer, more authoritative, and more organized. Nonfiction Craft Lessons gives teachers a wealth of practical strategies to help students grow into strong writers as they explore and explain the world around them.Be sure to look at the When Students Write videotapes too.

    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.

    

    It covers the rationale and research on the major models of teaching and applies the models by using scenarios and examples of instructional materials. Because it deals with the major psychological and philosophical approaches to teaching and schooling, Models of Teaching provides a direct link between educational foundations and student teaching. Therefore, the book can provide substantial support to programs taking a reflective teaching or constructivist approach.

    (Just think about all those New Year’s resolutions that revert to status quo by January 5th!) But real change is possible, sustainable, and even easy when it happens little by little. In Shift This! educator and speaker Joy Kirr identifies how to make gradual shifts—in your thinking, teaching, and approach to classroom design—that will have a massive impact in your classroom. You’ll learn how to… Shift learning to make it authentic and student-led. Shift the classroom environment to make it a space in which students thrive. Shift conversations and classwork to get kids thinking rather than repeating. Shift away from homework and grades to keep the focus on learning. Shift the way you spend your time at school so you have more time to enjoy life at home. You can create the kind of classroom you’ve always dreamed of. Make the first shift today!

    In Real Revision, award-winning author and teacher Kate Messner demystifies the revision process for teachers and students alike and provides tried-and-true revision strategies, field tested by students' favorite authors. Kate takes us on a behind-the-scenes look at how more than thirty-five authors—including Julie Berry, Watt Key, Loree Griffin Burns , Jane Yolen, Lisa Schroeder, Suzanne Selfors, Eric Luper, Danette Haworth, and Kathi Appelt—revise their works, often many times over, before they appear on library and bookstore shelves. Using successful strategies from her own classroom, Kate teaches how authors use research, brainstorming, and planning as revision tools; how they revise to add detail and make characters stronger; and how students can use those same techniques for all kinds of writing in the classroom. Real Revision features dozens of reproducible “mentor author” pages, with quotes from the authors about their revision processes, and includes related classroom-ready activities.For any teacher who wants to produce strong real-world writers, Real Revision will infuse the classroom with new energy as students use mentor authors as models for their own revision and writing.

    Real hard. In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher she takes on the common concerns, struggles, and roadblocks that we all face in writing instruction and helps us engage in the process of problem solving each one.From dealing with writing workshop skeptics to working with students both gifted and challenged, and of course combating that eternal barrier-lack of time-Colleen offers tried-and-true strategies to address and overcome obstacles.For the struggles unique to you, she includes a "Name Your Monster" section that helps you identify your own individual roadblocks and even offers sustainable support through her blog, colleencruz.com. "We can't solve all the problems we're faced with in writing instruction," Colleen promises, "but we can choose how to respond to them. And our responses will make all the difference."What makes you unstoppable, or what's stopping you? Connect with Colleen on her blog at www.colleencruz.com/blog.htm or on Twitter, #unstoppablewritingteacher.

    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.

    The authors--a mental health therapist and a veteran principal--provide proven, reliable strategies to help youUnderstand what trauma is and how it hinders the learning, motivation, and success of all students in the classroom. Build strong relationships and create a safe space to enable students to learn at high levels. Adopt a strengths-based approach that leads you to recalibrate how you view destructive student behaviors and to perceive what students need to break negative cycles. Head off frustration and burnout with essential self-care techniques that will help you and your students flourish.Each chapter also includes questions and exercises to encourage reflection and extension of the ideas in this book. As an educator, you face the impact of trauma in the classroom every day. Let this book be your guide to seeking solutions rather than dwelling on problems, to building relationships that allow students to grow, thrive, and--most assuredly--learn at high levels.

     Empower Your Students - This book will teach you how to allow students to show their thinking, demonstrate their learning, and share their work with authentic audiences - to use technology in meaningful ways that prepare them for the future! Start with 20 Simple Tools - This book focuses on 20 essential tools that will help teachers to easily make student thinking visible, give every student a voice and allow them to share their work. Examples You Can Use Tomorrow - With instructions for incorporating twenty of the best Google-friendly tools, including a special bonus section on Digital Portfolios

    With a HyperDoc you can repackage your lesson plans on a Google Doc to engage students in innovative ways! The HyperDoc Handbook is a practical reference guide for all K-12 educators looking to transform their teaching into blended learning environments. This book strikes a perfect balance between pedagogy and how-to tips, while also providing several lesson plans to get you going. After reading this handbook, educators will feel equipped to design their own HyperDocs using both Google Apps and the myriad of web tools available online. Let this book become your guide to: Explore the pedagogy behind digital lesson design Follow step-by-step directions on how to create a HyperDoc Reflect and revise digital lessons using a checklist to “hack” your own HyperDocs Select tech tools best suited for lessons Connect and share with other educators Copy and customize sample HyperDocs to use in your own classroom HyperDocs will improve collaboration and instruction between all education stakeholders, including: students, teachers, administrators, instructional coaches, professional developers, and families. After reading The HyperDoc Handbook you will be inspired to create and share!