Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools


Diane Ravitch - 2013
    assistant secretary of education, "whistle-blower extraordinaire" (The Wall Street Journal), author of the best-selling The Death and Life of the Great American School System ("Important and riveting"--Library Journal), The Language Police ("Impassioned . . . Fiercely argued . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating"--The New York Times), and other notable books on education history and policy--an incisive, comprehensive look at today's American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools.​In Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch argues that the crisis in American education is not a crisis of academic achievement but a concerted effort to destroy public schools in this country. She makes clear that, contrary to the claims being made, public school test scores and graduation rates are the highest they've ever been, and dropout rates are at their lowest point.​She argues that federal programs such as George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama's Race to the Top set unreasonable targets for American students, punish schools, and result in teachers being fired if their students underperform, unfairly branding those educators as failures. She warns that major foundations, individual billionaires, and Wall Street hedge fund managers are encouraging the privatization of public education, some for idealistic reasons, others for profit. Many who work with equity funds are eyeing public education as an emerging market for investors.​Reign of Error begins where The Death and Life of the Great American School System left off, providing a deeper argument against privatization and for public education, and in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, putting forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve it. She makes clear what is right about U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how we can fix it.​For Ravitch, public school education is about knowledge, about learning, about developing character, and about creating citizens for our society. It's about helping to inspire independent thinkers, not just honing job skills or preparing people for college. Public school education is essential to our democracy, and its aim, since the founding of this country, has been to educate citizens who will help carry democracy into the future.

Reading Reminders: Tools, Tips, and Techniques


Jim Burke - 2000
    Designed to be read on the run and make every minute count in your classroom, Reading Reminders features Jim Burke's one hundred best techniques for teaching reading, complete with tools and tips on how to implement them. Jim wrote this book to help teachers like himself whose often large and always diverse classrooms contain a wide range of reading abilities and needs. All of the strategies have been tested and tested again with his students, and each one has achieved significant gains in student performance, confidence, and engagement. Together, the reminders will challenge your best students and support struggling ones. This book will help you:teach students to read a variety of types of texts, including websites, tests, literature, and textbooksuse a wide range of teaching and reading strategies based on current reading researchanchor your teaching in state and national reading standardsestablish and maintain a comprehensive reading program that includes Sustained Silent Reading and direct instructionplan your lessons, select your texts, and assess students' learning with tools and techniques specifically designed for those purposesimprove your students' ability to discuss and understand what they readdevelop a community of reflective readers within your classroomincrease the amount of writing your students do.

The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education


Curtis J. Bonk - 2009
    To help educators and others understand what's possible, Curt Bonk employs his groundbreaking "WE-ALL-LEARN" model to outline ten key technology and learning trends, demonstrating how technology has transformed educational opportunities for learners of every age in every corner of the globe. The book is filled with inspiring stories of ordinary learners as well as interviews with technology and education leaders that reveal the power of this new way of learning.Captures the global nature of open education from those who are creating and using new learning technologies Includes a new Preface and Postscript with the latest updates A free companion web site provides additional stories and information Using the dynamic "WE-ALL-LEARN" model, learners, educators, executives, administrators, instructors, and parents can discover how to tap into the power of Web technology and unleash a world of information.

The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers


Nancie Atwell - 2007
    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.

Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect


Matthew D. Lieberman - 2013
    It is believed that we must commit 10,000 hours to master a skill.  According to Lieberman, each of us has spent 10,000 hours learning to make sense of people and groups by the time we are ten.  Social argues that our need to reach out to and connect with others is a primary driver behind our behavior.  We believe that pain and pleasure alone guide our actions.  Yet, new research using fMRI – including a great deal of original research conducted by Lieberman and his UCLA lab -- shows that our brains react to social pain and pleasure in much the same way as they do to physical pain and pleasure.  Fortunately, the brain has evolved sophisticated mechanisms for securing our place in the social world.  We have a unique ability to read other people’s minds, to figure out their hopes, fears, and motivations, allowing us to effectively coordinate our lives with one another.  And our most private sense of who we are is intimately linked to the important people and groups in our lives.  This wiring often leads us to restrain our selfish impulses for the greater good.  These mechanisms lead to behavior that might seem irrational, but is really just the result of our deep social wiring and necessary for our success as a species.   Based on the latest cutting edge research, the findings in Social have important real-world implications.  Our schools and businesses, for example, attempt to minimalize social distractions.  But this is exactly the wrong thing to do to encourage engagement and learning, and literally shuts down the social brain, leaving powerful neuro-cognitive resources untapped.  The insights revealed in this pioneering book suggest ways to improve learning in schools, make the workplace more productive, and improve our overall well-being.

Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture


Thomas Newkirk - 2002
    This complex, contested intersection has led to censorship and worse-alarm, irrationality, and a failure to examine our ways of teaching, particularly teaching literacy to boys. In this book Tom Newkirk takes an up-close and personal look at elementary boys and their relationship to sports, movies, video games, and other venues of popular culture. Unlike the alarmists, he sees these media not as enemies of literacy, but as resources for literacy.Through a series of extraordinary interviews, Newkirk listens to young boys, and girls, who describe the pleasure they take in popular culture. They explain the ways in which they use visual narratives in their writing. They even defend their use of violence in their work. Newkirk disproves the simplistic stereotype of boys who are primed to imitate the violence they see. He shows that, rather than mimic, boys most often transform, recombine, and participate in story lines, and resist, mock, and discern the unreality of icons of popular culture.Using a mixture of memoir, research project, cultural analysis, and critique of published findings, Newkirk encourages schools to ask questions about what counts as literacy in boys and what doesn't, to allow in their literacy programs boys' diverse tastes, values, and learning styles. In other words, if we want boys to join the literacy club, then we have to invite them in with genres of their own choosing.

The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need: Top Grant Writers and Grant Givers Share Their Secrets


Ellen Karsh - 2003
    Written by two authors who have won millions of dollars in grants -- and updated to include vital information and advice accumulated since The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need first appeared -- this new edition provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for grant writers, demystifying the process while offering indispensable advice from funders and grant recipients. It includes the following. Guidance on developing a realistic, cost-effective, collaborative program Concrete suggestions (with practice exercises and examples) for approaching each section of a grant so that the proposal is absolutely clear to the funder A glossary of terms with any word, phrase, or concept a grant writer may need, plus fifty tips for writing a winning proposal Funders roundtables put you inside the minds of the people who award grants

Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas


Seymour Papert - 1980
    We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers.

Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School


Theodore R. Sizer - 1992
    A plan for school reform that respects the best traditions of secondary schooling and urges us to do far more in preparing adolescents for the future.

Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology


Michelle D. Miller - 2014
    But the dizzying pace of innovation, combined with a dearth of evidence on the effectiveness of new tools and programs, challenges educators to articulate how technology can best fit into the learning experience. Minds Online is a concise, nontechnical guide for academic leaders and instructors who seek to advance learning in this changing environment, through a sound scientific understanding of how the human brain assimilates knowledge.Drawing on the latest findings from neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Michelle Miller explores how attention, memory, and higher thought processes such as critical thinking and analytical reasoning can be enhanced through technology-aided approaches. The techniques she describes promote retention of course material through frequent low‐stakes testing and practice, and help prevent counterproductive cramming by encouraging better spacing of study. Online activities also help students become more adept with cognitive aids, such as analogies, that allow them to apply learning across situations and disciplines. Miller guides instructors through the process of creating a syllabus for a cognitively optimized, fully online course. She presents innovative ideas for how to use multimedia effectively, how to take advantage of learners' existing knowledge, and how to motivate students to do their best work and complete the course.For a generation born into the Internet age, educational technology designed with the brain in mind offers a natural pathway to the pleasures and rewards of deep learning.

A Teacher's Guide to Writing Conferences: The Classroom Essentials Series


Carl Anderson - 2018
    With clear and accessible language, Carl guides you through the three main parts of a writing conference, and shows you the teaching moves and intentional language that can be used in each one. He helps you understand: - how to get started with conferring, or improve your existing conferences - how to use conferences to meet the diverse needs of your student writers - how to fit conferences into your busy writing workshop schedule. More than 25 videos bring the content to life, while Teacher Tips, Q&A's, and Recommended Reading lists provide everything you need to help you become a better writing teacher.

Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day


Aaron Sams - 2012
    From there, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams began the flipped classroom-students watched recorded lectures for homework and completed their assignments, labs, and tests in class with their teacher available. What Bergmann and Sams found was that their students demonstrated a deeper understanding of the material than ever before. This is the authors story, and they're confident it can be yours too. Learn what a flipped classroom is and why it works and get the information you need to flip a classroom. You'll also learn the flipped mastery model, where students learn at their own pace-furthering opportunities for personalized education. This simple concept is easily replicable in any classroom, doesn't cost much to implement, and helps foster self-directed learning. Once you flip, you wont want to go back! The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is the trusted source for professional development, knowledge generation, advocacy and leadership for innovation. ISTE is the premier membership association for educators and education leaders engaged in improving teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in PK-12 and teacher education. Home of the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), the Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology (CARET), and ISTE's annual conference (formerly known as the National Educational Computing Conference, or NECC), ISTE represents more than 100,000 professionals worldwide. We support our members with information, networking opportunities, and guidance as they face the challenge of transforming education. Some of the areas in which we publish are: -Web. 2.0 in the classroom-RSS, podcasts, and more -National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) -Professional development for educators and administrators -Integrating technology into the classroom and curriculum -Safe practices for the Internet and technology -Educational technology for parents

Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Master's or Ph.D.


Robert L. Peters - 1992
    It will also help graduate students finish in less time, for less money, and with less trouble.Based on interviews with career counselors, graduate students, and professors, Getting What You Came For is packed with real-life experiences. It has all the advice a student will need not only to survive but to thrive in graduate school, including: instructions on applying to school and for financial aid; how to excel on qualifying exams; how to manage academic politics--including hostile professors; and how to write and defend a top-notch thesis. Most important, it shows you how to land a job when you graduate.

Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level


Sally E. Shaywitz - 2003
    Now a world-renowned expert gives us a substantially updated and augmented edition of her classic work: drawing on an additional fifteen years of cutting-edge research, offering new information on all aspects of dyslexia and reading problems, and providing the tools that parents, teachers, and all dyslexic individuals need. This new edition also offers:- New material on the challenges faced by dyslexic individuals across all ages - Rich information on ongoing advances in digital technology that have dramatically increased dyslexics' ability to help themselves - New chapters on diagnosing dyslexia, choosing schools and colleges for dyslexic students, the co-implications of anxiety, ADHD, and dyslexia, and dyslexia in post-menopausal women - Extensively updated information on helping both dyslexic children and adults become better readers, with a detailed home program to enhance reading - Evidence-based universal screening for dyslexia as early as kindergarten and first grade - why and how - New information on how to identify dyslexia in all age ranges - Exercises to help children strengthen the brain areas that control reading - Ways to raise a child's self-esteem and reveal her strengths - Stories of successful men, women, and young adults who are dyslexic

The Race Between Education and Technology


Claudia Goldin
    The authors propose that the 20th century was not only the American century, but also the century of human capital. That is, her educational system made America the richest nation on earth.