Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool: language. Throughout, Peter Johnston provides examples of apparently ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the orchestration of the classroom. Grounded in a study by accomplished literacy teachers, the book demonstrates how the things we say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for what children learn and for who they become as literate people. Through language, children learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely learning the literacy strategies. In addition, Johnston examines the complex learning that teachers produce in classrooms that is hard to name and thus is not recognized by tests, by policy-makers, by the general public, and often by teachers themselves, yet is vitally important.This book will be enlightening for any teacher who wishes to be more conscious of the many ways their language helps children acquire literacy skills and view the world, their peers, and themselves in new ways.

    In The Accidental Library Manager, author Rachel Singer Gordon provides support and background for new managers, aspiring managers, and those who find themselves in unexpected management roles. Gordon fills in the gaps left by brief and overly theoretical library school coursework, showing library managers how to be more effective in their positions and how to think about their work in terms of the goals of their larger institutions. Included are insights from working library managers at different levels and in various types of libraries, addressing a wide range of management issues and situations. Not to be missed: comments from library staff about the qualities they appreciate-- and the styles and attitudes they find counterproductive-- in their own bosses.

    Richard Milner IV provides educators with a crucial understanding of how to teach students of color who live in poverty. Milner looks carefully at the circumstances of these students’ lives and describes how those circumstances profoundly affect their experiences within schools and classrooms. In a series of detailed chapters, Milner proposes effective practices—at district and school levels, and in individual classrooms—for school leaders and teachers who are committed to creating the best educational opportunities for these students.   Building on established literature, new research, and a number of revelatory case studies, Milner casts essential light on the experiences of students and their families living in poverty, while pointing to educational strategies that are shaped with these students' unique circumstances in mind. Milner’s astute and nuanced account will fundamentally change how school leaders and teachers think about race and poverty—and how they can best serve these students in their schools and classrooms.

    - Christine Hertz and Kristine MrazThe classroom of your dreams starts with one big idea. From the first days of school to the last, Kids First from Day One shares teaching that puts your deepest teaching belief into action: that children are the most important people in the room.Christine Hertz and Kristi Mraz show how to take that single, heartfelt value and create a cohesive, highly effective approach to teaching that addresses today's connected, collaborative world. With infectious enthusiasm, hard-won experience, and a generous dose of humor, Kids First from Day One shows exactly how Christine and Kristi build and maintain a positive, cooperative, responsive classroom where students engage deeply with their learning and one another.Kids First from Day One strengthens and deepens the connections between your love of working with kids, your desire to impact their lives, and your teaching practice. It shares:plans for designing beautiful classroom spaces that burst with the fun of learning positive language and classroom routines that reduce disruptive behavior-without rewards and consequences suggestions for matching students' needs to high-impact teaching structures a treasury of the Christine and Kristi's favorite teacher stuff such as quick guides for challenging behavior, small-group planning grids, and parent letters links to videos that model the moves of Christine's and Kristi's own teaching. Just starting out and want to know what really works in classrooms? Curious about how to make your room hum with learning? Or always on the lookout for amazing teaching ideas? Read Kids First from Day One. You'll discover that the classroom of your dreams is well within your reach.

    In A New Culture of Learning, Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown pursue an understanding of how the forces of change, and emerging waves of interest associated with these forces, inspire and invite us to imagine a future of learning that is as powerful as it is optimistic. Typically, when we think of culture, we think of an existing, stable entity that changes and evolves over long periods of time. In A New Culture, Thomas and Brown explore a second sense of culture, one that responds to its surroundings organically. It not only adapts, it integrates change into its process as one of its environmental variables. By exploring play, innovation, and the cultivation of the imagination as cornerstones of learning, the authors create a vision of learning for the future that is achievable, scalable and one that grows along with the technology that fosters it and the people who engage with it. The result is a new form of culture in which knowledge is seen as fluid and evolving, the personal is both enhanced and refined in relation to the collective, and the ability to manage, negotiate and participate in the world is governed by the play of the imagination. Replete with stories, this is a book that looks at the challenges that our education and learning environments face in a fresh way. PRAISE FOR A NEW CULTURE OF LEARNING "A provocative and extremely important new paradigm of a 'culture of learning', appropriate for a world characterized by continual change. This is a must read for anyone interested in the future of education." James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus, University of Michigan "Thomas and Brown are the John Dewey of the digital age." Cathy Davidson, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Duke University "A New Culture of Learning may provide for the digital media and learning movement what Thomas Paine's Common Sense did for the colonists during the American Revolution- a straightforward, direct explanation of what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against." Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor, USC "A New Culture of Learning is at once persuasive and optimistic - a combination that is all too rare, but that flows directly from its authors' insights about learning in the digital age. Pearls of wisdom leap from almost every page." Paul Courant, Dean of Libraries, University of Michigan "Brilliant. Insightful. Revolutionary." Marcia Conner, author of The New Social Learning "Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown portray the new world of learning gracefully, vividly, and convincingly." Howard Gardner, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education "Thomas and Brown make it clear that education is too often a mechanistic, solo activity delivered to the young. It doesn't have to be that way-learning can be a messy, social, playful, embedded, constant activity. We would do well to listen to their message." Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus "Anyone who fears, as I do, that today's public schools are dangerously close to being irrelevant must read this book. The authors provide a road map-and a lifeline-showing how schools can prosper under the most difficult conditions. It is a welcome departure from all the school bashing." John Merrow, Education Correspondent, PBS NewsHour "American education is at a crossroads. By illuminating how play helps to transform both information networks and experimentation, and how collective inquiry unleashes the power of imagination, A New Culture of Learning provides an irresistible path to the future." Joel Myerson, Director, Forum for the Future of Higher Education.

    Pose the same question to students and many will use words like "boring", "useless", and even "humiliating". In  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had , author Tracy Zager helps teachers close this gap by making math class more like mathematics. Tracy has spent years working with highly skilled math teachers in a diverse range of settings and grades. You'll find this book jam-packed with new ideas from these vibrant classrooms.  How to Teach Student-Centered Mathematics: Zager outlines a problem-solving approach to mathematics for elementary and middle school educators looking for new ways to inspire student learningBig Ideas, Practical Application: This math book contains dozens of practical and accessible teaching techniques that focus on fundamental math concepts, including strategies that simulate connection of big ideas; rich tasks that encourage students to wonder, generalize, hypothesize, and persevere; and routines to teach students how to collaborateKey Topics for Elementary and Middle School Teachers:  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had  offers fresh perspectives on common challenges, from formative assessment to classroom management for elementary and middle school teachersAll teachers can move towards increasingly authentic and delightful mathematics teaching and learning. This important book helps develop instructional techniques that will make the math classes we teach so much better than the math classes we took.

    With richly evocative classroom vignettes provided by practicing teachers, as well as the most case studies - three per chapter - of any Introductory text, Santrock's Educational Psychology helps students think critically about the research basis for best practices. Additionally, Santrock's hallmark Learning System organizes the content into manageable chunks to support retention and mastery, and makes it much more likely that students will have an engaging and successful course experience.

    Grounded in historical essays, the volume provides context for the growing field of curriculum studies, reflects upon the trends that have dominated the field, and samples the best of current scholarship. This thoughtful combination of essays provides a survey of the field coupled with concrete examples of innovative curriculum, and an examination of contemporary topics like HIV/AIDS education and multicultural education.

    In sharing lessons, anecdotes, and cautionary tales from his own experiences revamping assessment procedures in the classroom, Dueck offers a variety of practical strategies for ensuring that grades measure what students know without punishing them for factors outside their control; critically examining the fairness and effectiveness of grading homework assignments; designing and distributing unit plans that make assessment criteria crystal-clear to students; creating a flexible and modular retesting system so that students can improve their scores on individual sections of important tests.Grading Smarter, Not Harder is brimming with reproducible forms, templates, and real-life examples of grading solutions developed to allow students every opportunity to demonstrate their learning. Written with abundant humor and heart, this book is a must-read for all teachers who want their grades to contribute to, rather than hinder, their students' success.

    A how-to guide to classroom inquiry that takes educators through the research process step by step, answering each critical question from where do I begin? through publishing the results.

    That is the fundamental message in The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, which extends the discussion begun in Fullan′s earlier publication, What's Worth Fighting for in the Principalship? The author examines the moral purpose of school leadership and its critical role in changing the context in which the role is embedded. In this bold step forward, Fullan calls for principals to become agents as well as beneficiaries of the processes of school change. Concepts explored in-depth include:Why changing the context should be the main agenda for the principalship Why barriers to the principalship exist Why the principal should be seen as the COO (chief operating officer) of a school Why the role of the principal should figure more prominently within the system

    But you will also see a high degree of variability among classrooms—much higher than in most other industrialized countries. Today we are asking schools to do something they have never done before—educate all students to high levels—yet we don’t know how to do that in every classroom for every child.Inspired by the medical-rounds model used by physicians, the authors have pioneered a new form of professional learning known as instructional rounds networks. Through this process, educators develop a shared practice of observing, discussing, and analyzing learning and teaching.

    Students will receive a grounding in areas that vary from treatment to organizational and community settings. This edition also includes of new case studies, practice examples and guiding principles.

    Rather than a set of fixed lessons, Visible Thinking is a varied collection of practices, including thinking routines, small sets of questions or a short sequence of steps as well as the documentation of student thinking. Using this process thinking becomes visible as the students' different viewpoints are expressed, documented, discussed and reflected upon. Helps direct student thinking and structure classroom discussion.Can be applied with students at all grade levels and in all content areas. Includes easy-to-implement classroom strategies.The book also comes with a DVD of video clips featuring Visible Thinking in practice in different classrooms.

    Reckless. Impractical. Insecure. Distracted. These are all words commonly used to describe adolescents. But what if we recast these traits in a positive light? Teens possess insight, passion, idealism, sensitivity, and creativity in abundance--all qualities that can make a significant positive contribution to society.In this thought-provoking book, Thomas Armstrong looks at the power and promise of the teenage brain from an empathetic, strength-based perspective--and describes what middle and high school educators can do to make the most of their students' potential.Thoroughly grounded in current neuroscience research, the book explains what we know about how the adolescent brain works and proposes eight essential instructional elements that will help students develop the ability to think, make healthy choices, regulate their emotions, handle social conflict, consolidate their identities, and learn enough about the world to move into adulthood with dignity and grace.Armstrong provides practical strategies and real-life examples from schools that illustrate these eight key practices in action. In addition, you'll find a glossary of brain terms, a selection of brain-friendly lesson plans across the content areas, and a list of resources to support and extend the book's ideas and practices.There is a colossal mismatch between how the adolescent brain has evolved over the millennia and the passive, rote learning experiences that are all too common in today's test-obsessed educational climate. See the amazing difference--in school and beyond--when you use the insights from this book to help students tap into the power of their changing brains.