Search results for ""Harvard Educational Publishing Group""

Cutting Through the Hype: The Essential Guide to School Reform is a revised, expanded, and updated version of the classic work by Jane L. David and Larry Cuban. It offers balanced analyses of 23 currently popular school reform strategies, from teacher performance pay and putting mayors in charge to turnaround schools and data-driven instruction. Avoiding the heated rhetoric and exaggerated claims that accompany many education reforms, each chapter explains clearly and concisely what each reform intends to do, what happens in reality, and what it takes to make it work. Written by two savvy and experienced educator-researchers, Cutting Through the Hype is a book for expert and nonexpert readers alike—policymakers, researchers, school leaders, teachers, and concerned citizens and parents—indeed, for all who are committed to schools and have a stake in their success.

Read more less

Provides a blueprint to scale up the Data Wise process for continuous improvement, extending it from classrooms and schools to broader educational contexts. The System Wise approach highlights the adaptability of the Data Wise protocols, which promote agency among students and teachers, data literacy, and capacity building within organisations.

Read more less

An affirming resource for leaders and practitioners forwarding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on campus. In Restorative Resistance in Higher Education, diversity researcher and educator Richard J. Reddick shares the wisdom gained from three decades of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work in educational settings. Reddick centers DEI efforts as challenging yet essential components of college life, recognizing campus environments not just as mirrors reflecting societal values and biases but also as crucibles for social change. Creating a more equitable college campus, Reddick argues, is a complex task that should be met by all members of the university community. He discusses many measures that promote wider involvement, including campus cultural orientations, professional development for faculty and staff, and frameworks to help institutional leaders respond to inequity and exclusion on campus. Delivering a trove of best practices for equity advancement, Reddick offers DEI professionals, and all members of the higher education community, the tools to engage in the work on professional, academic, and personal levels. He advocates developmental relationships such as mentoring, role modeling, and coaching as a means for historically marginalized students to access hidden educational pathways. He also encourages frank discussion of the social and emotional tax on persons who participate in or lead work on these highly charged issues. Throughout this crucial work, Reddick emphasizes the importance of restorative and sustaining approaches: those that promote practitioner well-being and challenge unjust structures.

Read more less

Science in the City examines how language and culture matter for effective science teaching. Author Bryan A. Brown argues that, given the realities of our multilingual and multicultural society, teachers must truly understand how issues of culture intersect with the fundamental principles of learning. This book links an exploration of contemporary research on urban science teaching to a more generative instructional approach in which students develop mastery by discussing science in culturally meaningful ways. The book starts with a trenchant analysis of the 'black tax,' a double standard at work in science language and classrooms that forces students of color to appropriate and express their science knowledge solely in ways that accord with the dominant culture and knowledge regime. Because we are in an interactive, multimedia world, the author also posits the necessity of applying what is known about best practices in science teaching to best practices in technology. The book then turns to instruction, illustrating how science education can flourish if it is connected to students' backgrounds, identities, language, and culture. In this empowered-and inclusive-form of science classroom, the role of narrative is key: educators use stories and anecdotes to induct students into the realm of scientific thinking; introduce big ideas in easy, familiar terms; and prioritize explanation over mastery of symbolic systems. The result is a classroom that showcases how the use of more familiar, culturally relevant modes of communication can pave the way for improved science learning.

Read more less

Supervising Principals for Instructional Leadership specifies the conditions that district leaders can implement to help principal supervisors take a teaching and learning approach to their work. In particular, Meredith I. Honig and Lydia R. Rainey explore how these supervisors can most effectively support principals in becoming instructional leaders and developing the capacity to lead their own learning. The authors argue for a shift in supervisors' focus from a compliance and evaluation orientation to one in which they serve as learning partners for these principals. The professional development the supervisors offer principals must advance from group meetings focused on the delivery of information to intensive coaching differentiated to meet principals' needs. Using extended cases and detailed examples, the authors illustrate how supervisors associated with positive results teach rather than tell. These successful supervisors guide principals' learning with specific teaching moves such as modeling how to think and act like an instructional leader. Based on extensive research of district central offices, Supervising Principals for Instructional Leadership advocates for a transformation to the role of principal supervisors.

Read more less

“Public education is in crisis - and it has been for some time. The problem is, no one can agree on the problem, and when there is no agreement on the problem, developing solutions is nearly impossible.” Thus writes Matthew T. Lambert in this study of present-day public higher education, which is currently plagued by momentous challenges.In Privatization and the Public Good, Lambert examines a range of developments related to the “privatization” of public higher education in the United States, including increasing “institutional autonomy, higher tuition, diminishing appropriations, alternative revenue sources such as philanthropy and new business ventures, and modified governance relationships.” These developments, in turn, have resulted in an uncertain future for public academic institutions across the country, posing unprecedented questions and challenges for them.Through a wide-ranging analysis of the current situation and detailed case studies that focus on prominent public universities in Virginia, North Carolina, and California, Privatization and the Public Good provides a panoramic account of the challenges faced by public institutions. Insightful and essential, this book makes a crucial contribution to the current reassessment of higher education in the United States.

Read more less

Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning presents a clear and carefully tested blueprint for school leaders. It shows how examining test scores and other classroom data can become a catalyst for important schoolwide conversations that will enhance schools abilities to capture teachers knowledge, foster collaboration, identify obstacles to change, and enhance school culture and climate.This revised and expanded edition captures the learning that has emerged in integrating the seven steps of the Data Wise process into school practice over the past eight years. The authors introduce the “ACE Habits of Mind” for cultivating accountability, collaboration, and evidence, and show how the habits can be woven into each step of the process. A new concluding chapter focuses on how people learn to do the work of improvement, addressing common questions such as “Where do I start?” and “How long will it take?” The edition also brings the book up-to-date with recent developments in education and technology. It includes new protocols and a complete list of resources for professional learning available through the Data Wise Project.

Read more less

How can an understanding of adolescent development inform strategies and practices for supporting first-generation college goers? In Ready, Willing, and Able, Mandy Savitz-Romer and Suzanne Bouffard focus on the developmental tasks and competencies that young people need to develop in order to plan for and succeed in higher education. These include identity development, articulating aspirations and expectations, forming and maintaining strong peer and adult relationships, motivation and goal-setting, and self-regulatory skills, such as planning. The authors challenge the predominant approach of giving young people information and leaving it to them to figure out how to apply it. They show how well-intended college-access efforts can miss the mark—for instance, by focusing on students who already see themselves as college material, rather than working to help all students develop a “college-going identity.” In addition, most college-access programs and practices focus almost exclusively on providing academic preparation and financial support. In Ready, Willing, and Able, Savitz-Romer and Bouffard call for a new approach: one that emphasizes the key developmental tasks and processes of adolescence and integrates them into existing college-access practices in meaningful ways. Rather than treating young people as passive recipients of services, they argue, adults can engage them as active agents in the construction of their own futures.

Read more less

The inspiration for this timely book is the pressing need for fresh ideas and innovations in U.S. higher education. At the heart of the volume is the realisation that higher education must evolve in fundamental ways if it is to respond to changing professional, economic, and technological circumstances, and if it is to successfully reach and prepare a vast population of students—traditional and non-traditional alike—for success in the coming decades.This collection of provocative articles by leading scholars, writers, innovators, and university administrators examines the current higher education environment and its chronic resistance to change; the rise of for-profit universities; the potential future role of community colleges in a significantly revised higher education realm; and the emergence of online learning as a means to reshape teaching and learning and to reach new consumers of higher education.Combining trenchant critiques of current conditions with thought-provoking analyses of possible reforms and new directions, Reinventing Higher Education is an ambitious exploration of possible future directions for revitalised American colleges and universities.

Read more less

Social Network Theory and Educational Change offers a provocative and fascinating exploration of how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform. Drawing on the work of leading scholars, the book comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders, contrasting formal and informal organizational structures, and exploring the mechanisms by which ideas, information, and influence flow from person to person and group to group. The case studies provided in the book reflect a rich variety of approaches and methodologies, showcasing the range and power of this dynamic new mode of analysis. An introductory chapter places social network theory in context and explains the basic tools and concepts, while a concluding chapter points toward new directions in the field. Taken together, they make a powerful statement: that the success or failure of education reform ultimately is not solely the result of technical plans and blueprints, but of the relational ties that support or constrain the pace, depth, and direction of change. This unique volume provides an invaluable introduction to an emerging and increasingly important field of education research.

Read more less

An insightful inside perspective on the implementation of instructional improvement measures in a large urban K12 district. In this book, Jonathan A. Supovitz and contributors examine the qualities that make ambitious educational reforms impactful and identify common tensions that can thwart continuous improvement.

Read more less

A revised and expanded edition that promotes inquiry and teaching practices to help students gain the discipline-specific literacy skills they need to succeed in college, the workplace, and the society of tomorrow.

Read more less

In Systems for Instructional Improvement, Paul Cobb and his colleagues draw on their extensive research to propose a series of specific, empirically grounded recommendations that together constitute a theory of action for advancing instruction at scale. The authors outline the elements of a coherent instructional system; describe productive practices for school leaders in supporting teachers’ growth; and discuss the role of district leaders in developing school-level capacity for instructional improvement.Based on the findings of an eight-year research-practice partnership with four large urban districts investigating their efforts to enhance middle school math instruction, the authors seek to bridge the gap between the literature on improving teaching and learning and the literature on policy and leadership. They look at the entire education system and make recommendations on improvement efforts with a focus on student learning and teachers’ instructional vision. In particular, the authors offer insights on the interplay among various supports for teacher learning, including pullout professional development, coaching, collaborative inquiry, the most instructionally productive uses of principals’ time, and the tensions that tend to emerge at the district level. They provide a guide for district-level leaders in organizing their work to support significant teacher learning.Systems for Instructional Improvement provides an invaluable resource for school and district leaders, while outlining a clearly focused agenda for future research.

Read more less

In Character Compass, Scott Seider offers portraits of three high-performing urban schools in Boston, Massachusetts that have made character development central to their mission of supporting student success, yet define character in three very different ways. One school focuses on students’ moral character development, another emphasises civic character development, and the third prioritises performance character development. Drawing on surveys, interviews, field notes, and student achievement data, Character Compass highlights the unique effects of these distinct approaches to character development as well as the implications for parents, educators, and policymakers committed to fostering powerful school culture in their own school communities.

Read more less

For many students, making their way to higher education requires more than hard work and determination. Low-income minority students who overcome obstacles to achieve academic success have usually encountered at least one college-educated adult in their schooling who took the initiative to reach out to them and provide concrete academic guidance.In this book, sociologist Roberta Espinoza introduces the idea of “pivotal moments”—interventions that point the way toward college, particularly for students from working-class or ethnic minority backgrounds. These pivotal encounters and the relationships that spring from them can help students accumulate procedural knowledge about attending college (cultural capital) and interpersonal support (social capital).Pivotal Moments introduces a diverse group of students whose experiences highlight how teachers, counselors, academic outreach professionals, and professors can help students circumvent the barriers they encounter in attaining school success. It shows how the timing, duration, and impact of pivotal moments can redirect students’ educational trajectories. The book also translates the theory of pivotal moments into concrete practices that educators at all levels can use to intervene more effectively in the lives of working-class minority students.

Read more less

What Are Preschoolers Thinking? dispels common misconceptions about the cognitive abilities of preschoolers and demonstrates how effective early instruction can help eradicate achievement gaps.Judith A. Schickedanz, Molly F. Collins, and Catherine Marchant, educators and researchers with combined decades of experience in early childhood education, argue that preschool-aged children are more cognitively competent than they are often given credit for. Drawing upon real-life examples from their extensive research and experience, the authors identify more than 20 misunderstandings that our youngest students commonly develop. They then show how these errors of thought reveal preschoolers' means of knowledge acquisition and patterns of thinking.Better understanding of how our youngest students' minds work, the authors assert, leads to better instruction. They make the case that achievement gaps are caused not by differences in cognitive capacity but by knowledge gaps between students with demographic differences, such as those between students from low-income and high-income families. The authors demonstrate that well-designed, developmentally appropriate preschool activities not only in still beginning literacy and basic numeracy skills for all students but can also set the foundations for greater knowledge content and afford opportunities for higher-level thinking. This broader and deeper approach to early learning is crucial to sustaining later elementary progress.What Are Preschoolers Thinking? enables readers to fully understand PreK students so they may help nurture their cognitive potential. This enlightening book confirms that preschool matters.

Read more less

In Diverse Families, Desirable Schools, Mira Debs offers a richly detailed study of public Montessori schools, which make up the largest group of progressive schools in the public sector. As public Montessori schools expand rapidly as alternatives to traditional public schools, the story of these schools, Debs points out, is a microcosm of the broader conflicts around public school choice. Drawing on historical research, interviews with public Montessori educators, and ethnographic case studies, Debs explores the forces that pull intentionally diverse, progressive schools toward elitism. At the heart of Debs's book is a thoughtful analysis of the notion of ""fit"" between parents and schools—an idea that is central to school choice, which is often marketed as an opportunity for parents to find the perfect fit for their kids. By exploring parents' varied motivations in choosing these schools and observing how families experience—or fail to experience—a ""good fit"" after having chosen a particular school, Debs makes an original contribution to the literature on school choice and sheds light on the dilemmas entailed in maintaining diversity in progressive charter and magnet schools.

Read more less

Jim Crow’s Pink Slip exposes the decades-long repercussions of a too-little-known result of the Brown v. Board of Education decision: the systematic dismissal of Black educators from public schools.In 1954, the Supreme Court’s Brown decision ended segregated schooling in the United States, but regrettably, as documented in congressional testimony and transcripts, it also ended the careers of a generation of highly qualified and credentialed Black teachers and principals. In the Deep South and northern border states over the decades following Brown, Black schools closed and Black educators were displaced en masse. As educational policy and leadership expert Leslie T. Fenwick deftly demonstrates, the effects of these changes stand contrary to the democratic ideals of an integrated society and equal educational opportunity for all students.Jim Crow’s Pink Slip provides a trenchant account of how tremendous the loss to the US educational system was and continues to be. Despite efforts of the NAACP and other civil rights organizations, congressional hearings during the Nixon administration, and antiracist activism of the 21st century, the problems fomented after Brown persist. The book draws the line from the past injustices to problems that the educational system grapples with today: not simply the underrepresentation of Black teachers and principals, but also salary reductions, teacher shortages, and systemic inequality.By engaging with the complicated legacy of the Brown decision, Fenwick illuminates a crucial chapter in education history. She also offers policy prescriptions aimed at correcting the course of US education, supporting educators, and improving workforce quality and diversity.

Read more less

In The Critical Advantage, noted scholar and early childhood expert William T. Gormley, Jr. takes a wide-ranging look at the important role of critical thinking in preparing students for college, careers, and civic life.Drawing on research from psychology, philosophy, business, political science, neuroscience, and other disciplines, he offers a contemporary definition of critical thinking and its relationship to other forms of thinking, including creative thinking and problem solving. When defined broadly and taught early, he argues, critical thinking is a “potential cure for some of the biggest problems we face as a nation,” including education deficits, employment deficits, and the recent surge of partisanship in democratic politics. While there are encouraging signs—the Common Core State Standards have drawn attention to the importance of critical thinking—recent efforts have been too narrowly focused on improving textual analysis in high school. Those who might benefit the most from curricula prioritizing critical thinking, including disadvantaged students, are less likely to be represented in courses and other activities that encourage this skill.Gormley argues for prioritizing critical thinking skills in PreK–12. He takes readers into innovative classrooms around the country, including schools in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Virginia, and offers specific recommendations for promoting critical thinking and embedding it across the curriculum.The Critical Advantage is an insightful and fascinating account of an intellectual journey culminating in a fresh vision for the future of US schooling.

Read more less

In Why Knowledge Matters, influential scholar E. D. Hirsch, Jr., addresses critical issues in contemporary education reform and shows how cherished truisms about education and child development have led to unintended and negative consequences.Hirsch, author of The Knowledge Deficit, draws on recent findings in neuroscience and data from France to provide new evidence for the argument that a carefully planned, knowledge-based elementary curriculum is essential to providing the foundations for children's life success and ensuring equal opportunity for students of all backgrounds. In the absence of a clear, common curriculum, Hirsch contends that tests are reduced to measuring skills rather than content, and that students from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot develop the knowledge base to support high achievement. Hirsch advocates for updated policies based on a set of ideas that are consistent with current cognitive science, developmental psychology, and social science.The book focuses on six persistent problems of recent US education: the over-testing of students; the scapegoating of teachers; the fadeout of preschool gains; the narrowing of the curriculum; the continued achievement gap between demographic groups; and the reliance on standards that are not linked to a rigorous curriculum. Hirsch examines evidence from the United States and other nations that a coherent, knowledge-based approach to schooling has improved both achievement and equity wherever it has been instituted, supporting the argument that the most significant education reform and force for equality of opportunity and greater social cohesion is the reform of fundamental educational ideas.Why Knowledge Matters introduces a new generation of American educators to Hirsch's astute and passionate analysis.

Read more less

What does it look like when a school uses data wisely? Data Wise in Action, a new companion and sequel to our bestselling Data Wise, tells the stories of eight very different schools following the Data Wise process of using assessment results to improve teaching and learning. Data Wise in Action highlights the leadership challenges schools face in each phase of the eight-step Data Wise cycle and illustrates how staff members use creativity and collaboration to overcome those challenges. Data Wise in Action builds on the work of leading faculty and graduate students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who joined with exemplary practitioners in 2005 to produce Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning. Since its publication, Data Wise has been read by thousands of school leaders, many of whom have shared the book with colleagues and staff. The success of the original book has generated a new demand among school leaders: to hear real stories from schools that are implementing the Data Wise process. Data Wise in Action answers that need. It offers both inspiration and practical guidance for school leaders.

Read more less

A toolkit of strategies for postsecondary instructors to use to cultivate safe, inclusive learning spaces and improve teaching.Based on work conducted through the Instructional Moves project at Harvard University, Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education outlines the many ways in which good college and graduate school teaching is rooted in deliberate pedagogical choices that support active learning. Jeremy T. Murphy and Meira Levinson distill good instruction to its essential components, analyzing the careful steps successful instructors take to create learning spaces that encourage all students to do ambitious work.Profiling professors in a range of contexts and disciplines, Murphy and Levinson take readers on deep dives into individual instructors’ teaching methods in actual classrooms. Each real-world example is accompanied by a set of practical action points that can be adopted by both new and experienced instructors, communities of practice, and educational developers and coaches.Collectively, the examples underscore how students with differing abilities, diverse identities, and disparate worldviews can all benefit from student-centered learning environments, in which collaboration is valued and students are afforded opportunities to apply what they have learned. Murphy and Levinson spotlight inclusive instructional moves such as community-building exercises, interactive lectures, and discussion facilitation that nurture a sense of belonging and encourage student engagement in both in-person and online settings. They also explore the benefits of innovative teaching formats such as flipped classrooms, simulations, and virtual learning. Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education illustrates how pedagogical shifts small and large can improve college teaching powerfully.

Read more less

Sister Resisters advances a robust model of mentorship in support of young Black women on campus. The book offers a multifaceted approach to cross-racial mentoring in higher education that promises growth and change for both mentees and their mentors.Janie Victoria Ward and Tracy L. Robinson-Wood, experts in the developmental and identity challenges of young people of color, provide guidance for the faculty, advisors, and administrators (typically white women) who invest in the success of this historically underserved student group. Through case studies, student narratives, and research findings, the authors document the specific deterrents young Black women face daily on campus, from cultural pressures and class bias to racist and misogynistic microaggressions.Ward and Robinson-Wood call on campus mentors to increase their own cultural competencies so that they may better support, work with, and advocate for their student mentees. This Sister Resister mentorship model emphasizes the acquisition of cultural knowledge, the power of intersectionality, and the critical role of resistance in the lives of Black (and white) women as they navigate interpersonal and institutional bias and discrimination.Sister Resisters highlights the dual and interactive developmental processes that transpire in both halves of the mentor–mentee relationship. The book provides anti-racist, consciousness-raising self-assessments, and other growth-enhancing recommendations for women who endeavor to mentor as staunch supporters.Suggesting evidence-based strategies that promote healthy resistance to negative social and political experiences, Sister Resisters equips both mentors and mentees with thoughtfully designed, culturally informed skills that can further educational, racial, and gender equality on campus.

Read more less

This practical and forward-focused book presents a framework that uses social infrastructure to produce effective and inclusive professional development options in education.Although technology has increased our capacity for social networking both in the digital space and face-to-face, Kira J. Baker-Doyle contends that most professional development opportunities for educators are still fundamentally asocial. She calls for the adoption of humanizing network practices to create meaningful continuing education experiences that leverage the collective knowledge, expertise, and social capital of educators to spark educational change.Baker-Doyle shows how the critical network literacy (CNL) framework overlays critical theory, multiliteracies theory, and social network theory in a way that encourages critical reflection and collaboration among participants. She draws from sources including empirical studies of teacher educators and teacher activists, meta-analytical studies of social network research in education, and professional experience with collective organizing efforts, to detail the many benefits of cultivating CNL in educational spaces. Baker-Doyle provides evidence of how the framework’s practices and protocols can increase transparency, improve representation, and incorporate affirmation and restoration discourse. Her work demonstrates how CNL helps create environments that honor teachers’ social identities, their social networks, and the broader social context in which they work.This thought-provoking book is filled with exercises that reinforce social competencies, questions that prompt dialogue and understanding, and real-world examples that underscore the framework's relevance to key educational practices. The generous guidance offered in Critical Network Literacy can be used as a launching point to promote innovation and leadership in teaching.

Read more less

An incisive study of the mechanisms reinforcing the underrepresentation of women of color in STEM fields and a call for systemic change to address the imbalance.In a detailed exploration of inclusion in physics, social scientist Maria Ong makes the case for far-reaching higher education reform, noting that despite diversity efforts to recruit more women and students of color into science and mathematics programs, many leave the STEM pipeline. The Double Bind in Physics Education takes readers inside the issue by following 10 women of color from their entrance into the undergraduate physics program at a large research university through their pursuit of various educational and career paths. Candid interviews with these women, their instructors and mentors, and their peers, conducted over 25 years, allow Ong to trace how pervasive challenges, such as navigating the intersectionality of race and gender discrimination, have shaped their academic opportunities and career choices.Despite the ideals of objectivity promoted in STEM disciplines, the women profiled here encounter continued patterns of systemic oppression within their departments. In their stories, Ong identifies overt behaviors and microaggressions that harass, exclude, and otherwise disadvantage women of color and members of other minoritized groups.Ong also shows how aids such as student support programs, peer groups, allies, and mentors, which are centered on the individual, can go only so far toward a sustainable solution. In order to provide equitable opportunities, she argues, greater work must be done to dismantle institutional norms and replace them with a culture of inclusion.

Read more less

In Districts That Succeed, long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts’ successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that helping more students achieve is not a matter of adopting a program or practice. Rather, it requires developing a district-wide culture where all adults feel responsible for the academic well-being of students and adopt systems and processes that support that culture. Chenoweth explores how districts, from urban Chicago, Illinois to suburban Seaford, Delaware, have organized themselves to look at data to guide improvement. Her research highlights the essential role of districts in closing achievement gaps and illustrates how successful outliers can serve as resources for other districts. With important lessons for district leaders and policy makers alike, Chenoweth offers the hard-won wisdom of educators who understand the power of schools to, as one superintendent says, “change the path of poverty.”

Read more less

Ambitious Science Teaching outlines a powerful framework for science teaching to ensure that instruction is rigorous and equitable for students from all backgrounds. The practices presented in the book are being used in schools and districts that seek to improve science teaching at scale, and a wide range of science subjects and grade levels are represented.The book is organized around four sets of core teaching practices: planning for engagement with big ideas; eliciting student thinking; supporting changes in students’ thinking; and drawing together evidence-based explanations. Discussion of each practice includes tools and routines that teachers can use to support students’ participation, transcripts of actual studentteacher dialogue and descriptions of teachers’ thinking as it unfolds, and examples of student work. The book also provides explicit guidance for “opportunity to learn” strategies that can help scaffold the participation of diverse students.Since the success of these practices depends so heavily on discourse among students, Ambitious Science Teaching includes chapters on productive classroom talk. Science-specific skills such as modeling and scientific argument are also covered.Drawing on the emerging research on core teaching practices and their extensive work with preservice and in-service teachers, Ambitious Science Teaching presents a coherent and aligned set of resources for educators striving to meet the considerable challenges that have been set for them.

Read more less

Six Shifts to Improve Special Education and Other Interventions offers a set of bold, new ideas for dramatically raising the achievement of students with mild to moderate disabilities and students experiencing serious academic, social and emotional, and behavioral difficulties. Despite much effort and caring on the part of educators, a new approach to supporting struggling students is critically needed so they can master grade-level skills and complete college, argues author Nathan Levenson. Combining research with evidence from his own implementation work in more than a hundred districts, Levenson makes the case for a wholesale rethinking of how interventions are delivered summarized by six essential 'shifts.' Designed to be practical and draw on the talents of existing staff, Levenson's shifts are paired with concrete advice and lessons learned from the field to improve special education and general education interventions such as Response to Intervention and Multi-Tiered Student Supports.Six Shifts to Improve Special Education and Other Interventions serves as both a call to action and a critical guide for administrators looking for more effective, affordable ways to close the achievement gap.

Read more less

As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than “implementing fast and learning slow,” they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to “learn fast to implement well.”Using ideas borrowed from improvement science, the authors show how a process of disciplined inquiry can be combined with the use of networks to identify, adapt, and successfully scale up promising interventions in education. Organized around six core principles, the book shows how “networked improvement communities” can bring together researchers and practitioners to accelerate learning in key areas of education. Examples include efforts to address the high rate of failure among students in community college remedial math courses and strategies forimproving feedback to novice teachers.Learning to Improve offers a new paradigm for research and development in education that promises to be a powerful driver of improvement for the nation’s schools and colleges.

Read more less

Safe Is Not Enough illustrates how educators can support the positive development of LGBTQ students in a comprehensive way so as to create truly inclusive school communities. Using examples from classrooms, schools, and districts across the country, Michael Sadowski identifies emerging practices such as creating an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum; fostering a whole-school climate that is supportive of LGBTQ students; providing adults who can act as mentors and role models; and initiating effective family and community outreach programs.While progress on LGBTQ issues in schools remains slow, in many parts of the country schools have begun making strides toward becoming safer, more welcoming places for LGBTQ students. Schools typically achieve this by revising antibullying policies and establishing GSAs (gay-straight student alliances). But it takes more than a deficit-based approach for schools to become places where LGBTQ students can fulfill their potential. In Safe Is Not Enough, Michael Sadowski highlights how educators can make their schools more supportive of LGBTQ students’ positive development and academic success.

Read more less

The Most Reasonable Answer is an innovative and comprehensive guide to using inquiry dialogue—a type of text-based classroom discussion featuring big, contested questions that has been shown to improve higher-order thinking and augment literacy. Based on years of research and work in nearly fifty classrooms, the book supports teachers in facilitating this type of classroom talk in upper-elementary grades, when children are developmentally ready to practice making rigorous, reasoned arguments based on evidence—a critical life skill.Reznitskaya and Wilkinson introduce a robust Argumentation Rating Tool, a rubric highlighting eleven strategies and corresponding talk moves that can be used by teachers and students to improve the quality of their arguments by clarifying meaning, considering alternative perspectives, and connecting ideas. The authors also include annotated transcripts that illustrate how teachers can effectively facilitate whole-group and small-group discussions using fiction, nonfiction, and multimodal texts.Packed with a rich array of field-tested resources, The Most Reasonable Answer is an essential resource for educators looking for new ways to teach critical thinking skills and engage students in high-quality discourse.

Read more less

A revolutionary proposal for a conceptual and organisational framework for US public education that benefits all citizens. In Educational Pluralism and American Democracy, education policy expert Ashley Rogers Berner envisions a K-12 education system that serves both the individual and the common good.

Read more less

Advances a fresh framework for making collective decisions about US schools. Elizabeth Grant argues that education policy itself can be made fundamentally better by improving education policymaking methods.

Read more less

Offers a shrewd examination and critique of an industry that exerts a far-reaching influence on college admissions in the United States. Stephen Burd brings together higher education journalists, researchers, and industry insiders to examine how this industry has evolved to shape US college admissions since its inception in the 1980s.

Read more less

Offers a fresh perspective on the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Noting that decades of flawed implementation have subverted Brown, the author's propose a bold framework for a new interpretation of the Supreme Court decision, one that is inclusive, identity affirming, and culturally sensitive.

Read more less

Paul LeBlanc has re-imagined higher education, with a focus on the most fundamental of functions: student learning. In Students First, he advocates for an entire higher education ecosystem in which students have the flexibility to gain, assess, and certify their knowledge on their own terms and timelines. In a perceptive analysis, LeBlanc provides a clear-eyed view of how and why higher education is failing to reach and serve a great many potential students. He then deftly explores how reform can address systemic inequities, improve college affordability, and broaden accessibility. Through case studies, he highlights alternative delivery models such as online, distance, and just-in-time learning, and envisions a learning environment that values competencies rather than credit hours. LeBlanc describes how these innovations and others will allow colleges and universities to help close the skills gap and respond to a rapidly evolving, technology-driven job market. Although a college education remains one of the great drivers of socioeconomic mobility, today's higher education industry has built financial, logistical, and practical barriers that keep out the very students who are most in need of opportunity. Students First makes a persuasive case that realigning US educational priorities will enable larger populations of graduates to enjoy return on investment in the form of good pay, meaningful work, and a stable future. As the book emphasizes, such change is imperative, for in better serving its students, higher education will better serve society.

Read more less

Written by two leading experts in education research and policy, Common-Sense Evidence is a concise, accessible guide that helps education leaders find and interpret data and research, and then put that knowledge into action. In the book, Nora Gordon and Carrie Conaway empower educators to address the federal Every Student Succeeds Act mandate that schools use evidence-based improvement strategies. Recommendations include utilizing existing research; generating evidence on the success of their own improvement efforts; and building an organizational culture of evidence use. The authors walk readers through the processes for determining whether research is relevant and convincing; explain useful statistical concepts; and show how to quickly search for and scan research studies for the necessary information. The book directs readers through case studies of typical scenarios including a superintendent trying to reduce chronic absenteeism; a middle school math department chair trying to improve student performance on exams; and a chief state school officer attempting to recruit teachers for rural schools.Common-Sense Evidence helps education leaders build capacity for evidence-based practice in their schools and districts.

Read more less

Weaves together a careful account of how faculty, staff, administrators, institutional researchers, and college leaders rapidly adjusted to crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic, while grappling with a new or renewed commitment to centering equity in their work.

Read more less

Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning answers an urgent call for teachers who educate children from diverse backgrounds to meet the demands of a changing world. In today's knowledge economy, teachers must prioritize problem-solving ability, adaptability, critical thinking, and the development of interpersonal and collaborative skills over rote memorization and the passive transmission of knowledge. Authors Linda Darling-Hammond and Jeannie Oakes and their colleagues examine what this means for teacher preparation and showcase the work of programs that are educating for deeper learning, equity, and social justice. Guided by the growing knowledge base in the science of learning and development, the book examines teacher preparation programs at Alverno College, Bank Street College of Education, High Tech High's Intern Program, Montclair State University, San Francisco Teacher Residency, Trinity University, and University of Colorado Denver. These seven programs share a common understanding of how people learn that shape similar innovative practices. With vivid examples of teaching for deeper learning in coursework and classrooms; interviews with faculty, school partners, and novice teachers; surveys of teacher candidates and graduates; and analyses of curriculum and practices, Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning depicts transformative forms of teaching and teacher preparation that honor and expand all students' abilities, knowledges, and experiences, and reaffirm the promise of educating for a better world.

Read more less

In this practical guide, Thomas Fowler-Finn identifies the key ideas explored in each phase of instructional rounds and discusses how facilitators can skilfully guide a network of educators through the rounds process while gradually transferring agency to the network.He shows how to scaffold participant learning and model effective teaching practices, and explores potential facilitator responses to issues that arise at each step. The book includes new and tested protocols to advance the work of all facilitators, whether novice or experienced.Written by a leading instructional rounds consultant who worked closely with the Harvard team that pioneered instructional rounds, Leading Instructional Rounds in Education: A Facilitator’s Guide provides tools, suggestions, and reflections to ensure that facilitators—and the networks they lead—achieve maximum results.

Read more less

What’s the scarcest resource in schools? Almost any educator will answer, “Time.” The lack of time for colleagues to work together is one of the biggest barriers to improving teaching and learning. All too often, educators also say that the biggest waste of time ismeetings. People in schools attend dozens, if not hundreds, of meetings a year. How can that time be used wisely?This book, by two editors of Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning,attempts to bring about a fundamental shift in how educators think about the meetings they attend. The authors make the case that these gatherings are potentially the most important venue where adult and organizational learning can take place in schools, and that making more effective use of this time is an important key to increasing student achievement.In Meeting Wise, the authors show why planning meetings is a high-leverage strategy for changing how people work together in the service of school improvement. To this end, they have created a meeting-planning “checklist” to develop a common language for discussing and improving the quality of meetings. In addition, they provide guidelines for readers on “wise facilitating” and “wise participating,” and also include “top tips” and “common dilemmas.”Simple, succinct, and practical, Meeting Wise is designed to be read and applied at every level of the educational enterprise, from district leadership meetings and professional developmentsessions to teacher-team meetings and even teachers’ meetings with parents and students.

Read more less

Walk into any school in America and you will see adults who care deeply about their students and are doing the best they can every day to help students learn. 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. This book is intended to help education leaders and practitioners develop a shared understanding of what high-quality instruction looks like and what schools and districts need to do to support it. 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.

Read more less

A sober yet encouraging look at how urban public schools have confronted challenges, defied expectations, and continued to improve. Casserly expertly distills data on student performance, school enrollment, and the impact of strategic reforms to draw a balanced picture of progress and setbacks in urban schools.

Read more less

Five in-depth case studies reveal the innovative practices that position U.S. community colleges as pathways to quality employment.In America’s Hidden Economic Engines, editors Robert B. Schwartz and Rachel Lipson spotlight community and technical colleges as institutions uniquely equipped to foster more equitable economic growth across America’s regions. As Schwartz and Lipson show, these colleges are the best-placed institutions to reverse the decades-long rise in US economic inequality by race, class, and geography.In the book, Harvard Project on Workforce researchers introduce detailed case studies of five institutions—Lorain County Community College in Ohio, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, Pima Community College in Arizona, and San Jacinto Community College in Texas—that show what is possible when governments, employers, and communities invest in their community colleges’ economic and workforce development mission.These case studies reveal key institutional policies and practices, leadership behaviors, and organizational structures of successful collaborations between colleges and their regional partners in the public and private sector. Each case underscores how, although community colleges face distinct challenges based on local context, successful schools demonstrate a consistent focus on economic mobility and good jobs across all their programs and activities. In a concluding chapter, the editors champion community colleges as the most critical institutions for the future of US workforce development policy.

Read more less

Transgender Students in Elementary School offers guidance to educators who want to provide a supportive school culture and climate for transgender and gender-expansive students. The book provides recommendations for creating learning environments that facilitate all students' sense of belonging and reduce the constraints inherent in binary gender norms. Through this book, teachers and school leaders can deepen their understanding about why they need to make schools gender-inclusive and how to make it happen. Focusing on case studies of five schools, Melinda M. Mangin provides real-life quotes and vignettes that candidly illustrate the learning curve of leaders, staff, and families. These stories demonstrate both the successes and challenges of creating affirming school environments for transgender and gender-expansive students. Mangin argues that while educators are powerfully motivated by the desire to meet the needs of the transgender children in their care, change should not be limited to one-time efforts to meet one child's needs. Rather, the focus should be on creating a comprehensive school culture in which children of all gender expressions and identities can thrive.

Read more less

Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens goes beyond existing social emotional learning programs to introduce a new framework for integrating the development of key skills needed for academic success into daily classroom practice. The framework spells out the competencies, processes, and strategies that effective P-12 educators need to employ in order to build students' social and emotional learning. The book is based on a decade of pioneering work by the Center for Reaching and Teaching the Whole Child at San JosÉ State University, building on the work of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and on research about effective teaching and learning and culturally responsive practices.Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens serves as a critical roadmap for educators, whether they are university faculty searching for how to bring a social, emotional, and cultural lens into their methods or foundations course and field work experiences, or classroom teachers hoping to infuse critical skill building into the everyday academic learning that is the traditional focus of schools.

Read more less