Search results for ""Association for Supervision Curriculum Development""

This timely resource for teachers, leaders, and policymakers provides breakthrough insights into how to improve students' well-being in schools.Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, students' well-being was an increasingly prominent concern among educators, as issues related to mental health, global crises, and social media became impossible to ignore. But what, exactly, is well-being? What does it look like, why is it so important, and what can school systems do to promote it? How does it relate to student achievement and social and emotional learning?World-renowned education experts Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley answer these questions and more in this in-depth exploration of the underlying ideas and research findings related to well-being, coupled with examples of policies and implementations from around the globe. The authors make the case for putting well-being ahead of other priorities, such as scores on high-stakes assessments, and explain the three powerful forces that educators can leverage to set up effective well-being policy and practice: prosperity for all, ethical technology use, and restorative nature.Inspiring, thoughtful, and provocative, Well-Being in Schools: Three Forces That Will Uplift Your Students in a Volatile World offers hope in a time of unprecedented challenges. Looking within and beyond the classroom, it charts a path toward a lofty but achievable goal: improved well-being not only for students but also for society as a whole.

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This book explores the effects of trauma on newcomer students and presents stress-mitigating strategies that empower these multilingual students as they transition to a new environment.Diverse insights and experiences bring high-powered learning spaces to life. However, the cultural backgrounds of newcomer students and their families can be very different from the dominant norms of the new community, resulting in misalignments that constitute a persistent challenge. In addition, the process of arriving can exacerbate stress. Entering a new school or classroom means situating oneself within a new context of language, culture, community, and shifting personal identities.This transition shock contributes to a sense of diminished power.In serving these students, we can't afford to leave transition shock out of our conversations about trauma. We must not only stitch together pieces of culturally responsive practice and trauma-informed care but also become practitioners of stress-mitigating strategies that empower newcomer students. We must focus instruction on our students' unique identities. We must restore their power.In Restoring Students' Innate Power, newcomer educator and cultural competency expert Louise El Yaafouri presents An understanding of transition shock and how stress and trauma affect recent arrivers.The four pillars of transition shock and how they affect learning.How students see themselves and how the cultural aspects of their identities inform teachers' work in mitigating transition shock.How social-emotional learning links to trauma-informed practice.This book isn't exclusively about trauma; it's about restoring power. The distinction is critical. Focusing on the trauma or traumatic event roots us in the past. Restoration of power moves us forward.

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Even under ideal conditions, teaching is tough work. Facing unrelenting pressure from administrators and parents and caught in a race against time to improve student outcomes, educators can easily become discouraged (or worse, burn out completely) without a robust coaching system in place to support them. For more than 20 years, perfecting such a system has been the paramount objective of best-selling author and coaching guru Jim Knight and his team of researchers at the Instructional Coaching Group (ICG). In The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching, Knight offers a blueprint for establishing, administering, and assessing an instructional coaching program laser-focused on every educator's ultimate goal: the academic success of students.Organized around ICG's seven "Success Factors" for great instructional coaching, this book offers: An in-depth guide to the Impact Cycle, ICG's research-based and field-tested model for coaching teachers through issues that matter most to them; Detailed guidance on how to create a "playbook" of instructional strategies to share with collaborating teachers—and how to model those strategies under different conditions; Practical advice on preparing for and engaging in substantive, reflective, and teacher-centered coaching conversations; Best practices for gathering, analyzing, and responding to data for improved teaching and learning; and Real-life anecdotes and testimonies from educators and coaches who have reaped the benefits of the Impact Cycle in a diverse array of schools.In addition, each chapter of the book contains a learning map to help orient you and a list of valuable additional resources to complement the text. Whether you're new to coaching or well versed in the practice, The Definitive Guide to Instructional Coaching will no doubt prove a cornerstone of your coaching library for years to come.

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Now in its 3rd edition, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching is the definitive guide to the gradual release of responsibility—an instructional framework any teacher can use to help students to be more successful and self-directed learners.To gradually release responsibility is to equip students with what they need to master content and develop new competencies. On a day-to-day basis, it means delivering lessons intentionally structured to incorporate four interrelated phases:* Focused Instruction ("I do it") that sets students up for cognitive apprenticeship by establishing lesson purpose, modeling strategies and skills, and sharing information and insight.* Guided Instruction ("We do it together") that incorporates targeted prompts, cues, and questions to scaffold understanding.* Collaborative Learning ("You do it together") that allows students to consolidate and extend understanding through accountable group tasks built on discussion and cooperative problem solving.* Independent Learning ("You do it alone") that provides students opportunities to practice and apply the skills and knowledge they've acquired to create authentic products and ask new questions.Authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey detail the components of each phase, sharing proven strategies and real-life examples. You'll find a variety of useful tips for classroom implementation, along with new guidance on teacher credibility, social-emotional learning, and embedding assessment throughout all four phases. No matter what grade level or subject you teach, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching is an essential resource for improving your practice and empowering your students.

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Old habits die hard, particularly when they are part of the unexamined norms of schooling. In Why Are We Still Doing That?, the best-selling authors of Total Participation Techniques lead a teacher-positive, empathetic inquiry into 16 common educational practices that can undermine student learning:* Round robin reading* Teaching to learning styles* Homework as the default* Using interim assessments as "formative assessments"* Asking, "Does everybody understand?"* Traditional Q&A* Data-driven everything* Publicly displayed data walls* Content breadth over depth* Adhering to rigid pacing guides* Teaching to test samplers* An analysis-only approach to reading* Elevating English language arts and mathematics over all other subjects* Ignoring curriculum experts* Using behavior charts* Withholding recessPÉrsida Himmele and William Himmele provide straightforward, research-informed accounts of what makes each of these practices problematic. And they share easy-to-implement instructional, assessment, and classroom management strategies you can use to meet the goals those problematic practices are intended to achieve . . . without the downsides or the damage.This book is for K–12 teachers at all stages of their career, including preservice teachers who will be educating the next generation of students. Read it and reflect on it with colleagues. Use it to focus your own inquiry into what is and is not working for your students and to replace ineffective and potentially harmful habits with more positive and effective ones.

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Megan Kortlandt, Carly Stone, and Samantha Keesling have developed a flexible structure for collaborative professional learning that they call the principal lab, in which K–12 principals learn with and from each other to become better instructional leaders. Each chapter walks through the foundational components of a successful principal lab—relationship building, anchoring experiences, observations, and feedback—and then discusses how to lay the groundwork, figure out logistics, and plan and structure labs.Principal Labs: Strengthening Instructional Leadership Through Shared Learning combines the latest research in adult learning with the authors' practical experience to discuss the qualities of a successful principal lab and provide the tools to build your own. It's easy to get started with downloadable reflection and observation templates based on the examples in each chapter.As a school principal you have many responsibilities, and finding time for your own professional development can be a challenge. The approach in this book will help you effectively use your time to connect with other principals, practice and develop feedback skills, and ultimately make informed decisions for instructional improvement in your school.

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You are a school administrator-a principal or maybe a district leader. You're doing everything "right"-poring over data, trying new strategies, launching annual initiatives, bringing in outside trainers. So why do the outcomes you seek still seem so far away? The problem isn't you; it's that you were trained in school leadership, and school leadership just isn't up to the challenge.Each year, Robyn R. Jackson helps thousands of administrators stop wasting time and energy on flawed leadership approaches that succeed only with the right staff, students, parents, budget, and boss. As they have discovered, it's possible to transform your school with the people and resources you already have. The secret? Stop leading and start building!In this book, you'll learn to use Jackson's breakthrough Buildership Model™ to escape the "school improvement hamster wheel" and finally create the school your students and teachers deserve. The work involves a handful of simple shifts in how you approach . . . Purpose: Instead of chasing tiny gains or the "next new thing" every year, you'll establish and use an ambitious vision, mission, and set of core values to galvanize your staff, keep everyone focused, and create true accountability for achieving your goals. People: You'll discover new ways to help every teacher grow one level in one domain in one year or less and, ultimately, develop high levels of both will and skill. Pathway: Instead of trying to tackle every problem at once, you'll identify the biggest obstacle standing in your way right now and figure out exactly how to remove it once and for all. Plan: You'll learn a new process for solution implementation that is iterative, cyclical, and capable of powering both short-term wins and ongoing transformation, year over year. When you stop leading and start building, you let go of the idea that you need to work harder to make your school "work better." You no longer settle for incremental improvement when what you really want is dramatic change and better learning outcomes for all. It's time to make the shift from leadership to buildership. Get ready to turn your school into a success story.

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Student learning communities (SLCs) are more than just a different way of doing group work. Like the professional learning communities they resemble, SLCs provide students with a structured way to solve problems, share insight, and help one another continually develop new skills and expertise.With the right planning and support, dynamic collaborative learning can thrive everywhere. In this book, educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Almarode explain how to create and sustain student learning communities by: Designing group experiences and tasks that encourage dialogue. Fostering the relational conditions that advance academic, social, and emotional development. Providing explicit instruction on goal setting and opportunities to practice progress monitoring. Using thoughtful teaming practices to build cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional regulation skills. Teaching students to seek, give, and receive feedback that amplifies their own and others' learning. Developing the specific leadership skills and strategies that promote individual and group success. Examples from face-to-face and virtual K–12 classrooms help to illustrate what SLCs are, and teacher voices testify to what they can achieve. No more hoping the group work you're assigning will be good enough—or that collaboration will be its own reward. No more crossing your fingers for productive outcomes or struggling to keep order, assess individual student contributions, and ensure fairness. Student Learning Communities shows you how to equip your students with what they need to learn in a way that is truly collective, makes them smarter together than they would be alone, creates a more positive classroom culture, and enables continuous academic and social-emotional growth.

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In Forces of Influence, Fred Ende and Meghan Everette contend that schoolwide success starts with relationships—not only between students and adults, but also among all adults up and down the education hierarchy. It's by leveraging these relationships that educators can influence outcomes and effect real change.But how can educators make sure they exert their influence astutely and sensitively, navigating education's priorities and pressures while keeping their work focused on the mission? This thought-provoking book helps readers navigate this tricky terrain, introducing four ""forces,"" or levels, of influence and explaining how educators can use them to support one another's practice and push for positive outcomes for all learners. The authors: Explore each of the four forces—the pull, the push, the shove, and the nudge—and explain why they work and what research shows about their effectiveness. Introduce the Forces of Influence Leadership Matrix (FILM), a framework that identifies how the four forces connect and helps readers determine when to use which force, with whom, and how. Provide advice on how to course-correct by switching and layering the forces for positive results—and how to recover from setbacks. Offer copious tools to support this work, including role-plays, self-assessments, templates, and questions to spur reflection and action taking. Everything educators do requires them to build, sustain, and leverage relationships. With this guide, they no longer have to wing it.

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Within today's multilingual communities, a growing percentage of students are emergent bilinguals—bringing to school a home language other than English and thus poised to become bilingual as they acquire the new language. As a result, school leaders need to have essential background knowledge and a wealth of strategies at their fingertips to ensure that all students are prepared for college, career, and civic engagement.In Learning in a New Language, author Lori Helman offers educational leaders a comprehensive and accessible guide to best practices for supporting students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in a school environment that embraces equity. Helman discusses: Changing demographics that require educational leaders to enlarge and enhance their approaches. The importance of engaging families in forming a cohesive school community that contributes to student success. Fundamental approaches to creating equity for linguistically diverse students in the school change process. The role of language in academic learning and what makes learning in a new language unique. Evidence-based strategies for literacy and content-area classrooms. Practical tips for where to start in supporting emergent bilinguals in the classroom, and presents dozens of online resources for further exploration. The responsibilities of educational leaders continue to expand as they work toward managing school sites and ensuring equity of student opportunity and achievement. Helman provides a one-stop resource for the foundational knowledge and practical guidance needed to strategically take on these responsibilities.

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What will it take to create equitable educational opportunities for all students? According to veteran educator Vernita Mayfield, teachers and school leaders need to learn how to recognize culturally embedded narratives about racial hierarchy and dismantle the systems of privilege and the institutions that perpetuate them with knowledge, action, and advocacy.Cultural Competence Now provides a structure to begin meaningful conversations about race, culture, bias, privilege, and power within the time constraints of an ordinary school. The 56 exercises include activities, discussions, and readings in which to engage during each of the four quarters of the school year. School leaders will discover how to facilitate learning through the four steps—awaken and assess; apply and act; analyze and align; advocate and lead—as you and your colleagues: Increase your awareness of privilege and bias. Adapt your professional practices to meet the needs of all students. Examine policies and practices that inhibit opportunities for marginalized populations. Align resources to eradicate inequity in your school. Mayfield offers advice on establishing a safe environment for professional conversations, setting goals for cultural competency, overcoming resistance, reviewing school data and the school's vision and mission through the lens of race and culture, and strategically managing what can be a transformative yet uncomfortable change process. Cultural Competence Now responds to the urgent need to build the cultural competency of educators—for the sake of children and in the interest of supporting and retaining all educators.

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We want students to master academic standards, and we want them to be confident, adaptive, and socially responsible. Above all, we want them to find meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Achieving these goals requires a concerted focus on the social-emotional skills that empower students in and beyond the classroom.In Teaching to Empower, Debbie Zacarian and Michael Silverstone explore what an empowered student looks like in our increasingly diverse contemporary schools and prompt educators to examine their own relationship to empowerment. The book's evidence-based strategies and authentic examples show you how to foster an inclusive culture of agency, self-confidence, and collaboration that will give each of your students—regardless of race, culture, language, socioeconomic status, abilities, sexuality, or gender—the opportunity, responsibility, and tools to become an active learner, thoughtful community member, and engaged global citizen. Whether you're a preservice teacher, a classroom novice, or a veteran, you'll find the practical guidance you'll need to: Create inclusive and empowering physical learning spaces. Set up self-directed learning and promote positive interdependence. Promote student self-reflection. Teach the skills of collaboration. Foster the self-advocacy that fuels deeper, more autonomous learning. Partner more effectively with families and the community to support student empowerment.

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Winner of AM&P EXCEL Gold Award""They don't care about their education."" ""They are not capable of learning."" ""I can't work with them."" ""I can't get through to them."" Just as you may have thought these things about your students, they, too, may have similar thoughts about you: ""She doesn't care about my education."" ""He is not capable of understanding me."" ""I can't work with her."" ""I can't get through to him.""While all students in your class, building, or school district need your support, the Black and Latino male students—the most underserved, suspended, and expelled students in education—need you to understand them as you support them so that they can thrive academically.In Becoming the Educator They Need, former professional athlete turned educator Robert Jackson reminds teachers and administrators that although ""a great majority of all the stories in the news about Black and Latino males are negative,"" these young men—the most likely to be incarcerated, drop out of school, and become victims of homicide—need you to work through any biases you may have and internalize and employ the five core beliefs and mindsets necessary to best serve your Black and Latino male students, the six core values for teaching Black and Latino males, and the 11 characteristics of strong, healthy relationships and become the educator that these students need.

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Winner of AM&P EXCEL Bronze AwardYour Students, My Students, Our Students explores the hard truths of current special education practice and outlines five essential disruptions to the status quo. Authors Lee Ann Jung, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Julie Kroener show you how to: Establish a school culture that champions equity and inclusion. Rethink the long-standing structure of least restrictive environment and the resulting service delivery. Leverage the strengths of all educators to provide appropriate support and challenge. Collaborate on the delivery of instruction and intervention. Honor the aspirations of each student and plan accordingly. To realize authentic and equitable inclusion, we must relentlessly and collectively pursue change. This book—written not for ""special educators"" or ""general educators"" but for all educators—addresses the challenges, maps out the solutions, and provides tools and inspiration for the work ahead. Real-life examples of empowerment and success illustrate just what's possible when educators commit to the belief that every student belongs to all of us and all students deserve learning experiences that will equip them to live full and rewarding lives.

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In this book, eCoaching pioneer Marcia Rock draws on best-practice research and decades of experience to offer a blueprint for professional development that maximizes teacher and student growth.The eCoaching Continuum for Educators provides teachers, administrators, and other school professionals a step-by-step guide to the four connected, coordinated components of technology-enabled professional development: (1) studying theory and practice to build knowledge of specific content and pedagogy; (2) observing theory and practice to aid in the transfer of new knowledge to classroom practice; (3) one-on-one coaching to give teachers the feedback they need to improve classroom practice; and (4) group coaching to build capacity for identifying and solving problems of professional practice.Rock offers a practical approach for putting professional development where it can do the most good—in the classroom. You'll learn: Why technology is so well suited for authentic, job-embedded professional development. How to cultivate a culture in which the eCoaching continuum can have the greatest impact. Which technologies are the most useful for carrying out eCoaching in a variety of settings. How to capture and evaluate the impact of eCoaching on teachers and students. The eCoaching Continuum for Educators integrates best practice in coaching for professional development with a detailed account of how teachers and other school professionals can use today's technologies to improve their practice and ensure their students are fully engaged and learning.

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Making is a dynamic and hands-on learning experience that directly connects with long-established theories of how learning occurs. Although it hasn't been a focus of traditional education or had a prominent place in the classroom, teachers find it an accessible, exciting option for their students.The maker movement brings together diverse communities dedicated to creating things through hands-on projects. Makers represent a growing community of builders and creators—engineers, scientists, artists, DIYers, and hobbyists of all ages, interests, and skill levels—who engage in experimentation and cooperation.Transferring this innovative, collaborative, and creative mindset to the classroom is the goal of maker education. A makerspace isn't about the latest tools and equipment. Rather, it's about the learning experiences and opportunities provided to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as a school workshop with high-tech tools (e.g., 3D printers and laser cutters) or as small and low-tech as the corner of a classroom with bins of craft supplies. Ultimately, it's about the mindset—not the ""stuff.""In Learning in the Making, Jackie Gerstein helps you plan, execute, facilitate, and reflect on maker experiences so both you and your students understand how the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of maker education transfer to real-world settings. She also shows how to seamlessly integrate these activities into your curriculum with intention and a clearly defined purpose.

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Students need to connect to the real world, be engaged, and learn deeply. But how are teachers supposed to ensure that students meet these objectives in the current school system? In The Relevant Classroom, Eric Hardie presents six strategies derived from his two decades of experience as an elementary and secondary teacher and principal to show teachers ways to foster real-world connections, genuine engagement, and deeper learning: 1. Make meaning central to student work. 2. Contextualize the curriculum. 3. Create space to learn. 4. Connect student work to the community. 5. Follow the (student) leaders. 6. Reenvision feedback and evaluation. This practical volume includes advice on how to get started, vivid examples, reflection questions, and tips on how to overcome common obstacles. The Relevant Classroom is about recognizing that teachers who tap into students' capacities for creativity, collaboration, and innovation can create learning experiences that are truly meaningful for students.

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Did you know that close to half of today's jobs in the U.S. could be done by robots and that proportion is rapidly increasing? It is quite possible that about half of today's high school graduates will not have the knowledge or skills needed to get a decent job when they graduate. Tomorrow's high school graduates will be able to thrive in this environment, but only if school superintendents, central office executives, and principals use the strategies employed by the world's top-performing education systems to build the high-performance education systems today's students will need to succeed tomorrow.In Leading High-Performance School Systems: Lessons from the World's Best, Marc Tucker, a leading expert on top-performing school systems with more than 30 years of experience studying the global economy and education systems worldwide, details how top-performing school systems have met head-on the challenges facing school leaders today. You'll learn why our current system is obsolete, explore the knowledge and skills needed to design and build first-rate education systems, and gain a solid understanding of the key elements of high-performance school systems, including the following: A powerful, coherent instructional system with school-leaving certifications that mean much more than today's high school diploma. Partnerships with first-rate universities to ensure a steady supply of highly capable, well-educated, and well-trained teachers. Schools reorganized around highly qualified professional teachers with a career ladder they can climb. High expectations and personalized support to ensure that children arrive at each grade level ready to learn. An equitable system that closes the gaps in student performance. Vocational education for talented youth seeking an applied, academically rigorous education. Leading High-Performance School Systems is an invaluable resource for school leaders preparing today's students for tomorrow's world.This book is a copublication of ASCD and NCEE.

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Among the many models of school reform that have emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, one has endured for more than 50 years: the School Development Program (SDP). Established in 1968 by renowned child psychiatrist James P. Comer and the Yale Child Study Center, the SDP is grounded in the belief that successful schooling—particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds—must focus on the whole child. With that in mind, the SDP encompasses both academics and social-emotional development, and it is founded on positive and productive relationships among students, teachers, school leaders, and parents.With the Whole Child in Mind describes the SDP's six developmental pathways (cognitive, social, psychological, physical, linguistic, and ethical) and explains how the program's nine key components (in the form of mechanisms, operations, and guiding principles) create a comprehensive approach to educating children for successful outcomes. Firsthand recollections by Comer, school leaders and teachers, and SDP staff members provide an inside look at the challenges and successes that eventually transformed severely underperforming schools into models of excellence.Linda Darling-Hammond, one of the country's foremost experts on K-12 education, and her colleagues argue persuasively for the continuing relevance of the SDP. Far too many schools still operate in a high-pressure environment that emphasizes testing and standardized curricula while ignoring the fundamental importance of personal connections that make a profound difference for students. Fifty years on, the SDP is still just as powerful as ever.

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Summarization. Just when we thought we knew everything about it, the doors to divergent thinking open and summarization—no longer something that students must endure until you get to the ""cool"" stuff—takes on an exciting new role in student success!In this second edition of Summarization in Any Subject, Dedra Stafford joins Rick Wormeli in adding fresh depth and creative variations to the basics, including changes to all 50 techniques from the first edition and brand new summarizing techniques that can be differentiated for multiple disciplines and levels of student readiness.Personably written, with a sense of humor and a commitment to students' substantive engagement with curriculum, this new edition provides practical, ""show me what it looks like"" tools and descriptions as well as QR codes and tech integrations for many of the techniques. The book provides:A clear rationale for summarization in any subject along with an explanation of the cognitive science that powers its positive effects, including the influence of background knowledge and primacy-recency, plus the benefits of metaphors, chunking, timing, maintaining objectivity, and the efficacy that comes when students process content.Practical tips for teaching students note taking, paraphrasing, and text structure.Nine easy strategies that teachers can use to help students begin to understand what they need to know in order to summarize.Detailed descriptions of 60 strategies and critical thinking variations that provide students with memorable learning experiences, plus targeted support materials that assist in teaching and learning. It's time to revitalize learning and shatter the tedium associated with summarization, and this new edition of Summarization in Any Subject can help you do just that.

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In this updated edition, Cathy Vatterott examines the role homework has played in the culture of schooling over the years; how such factors as family life, the media, and ""homework gap"" issues based on shifting demographics have affected the homework controversy; and what recent research as well as common sense tell us about the effects of homework on student learning. She also explores how the current homework debate has been reshaped by forces including the Common Core, a pervasive media and technology presence, the mass hysteria of ""achievement culture,"" and the increasing shift to standards-based and formative assessment.The best way to address the homework controversy is not to eliminate homework. Instead, the author urges educators to replace the old paradigm (characterized by long-standing cultural beliefs, moralistic views, and behaviorist philosophy) with a new paradigm based on the following elements: Designing high-quality homework tasks. Differentiating homework tasks. Deemphasizing grading of homework. Improving homework completion. Implementing homework support programs. Numerous examples from teachers and schools illustrate the new paradigm in action, and readers will find useful new tools to start them on their own journey. The end product is homework that works—for all students, at all levels.

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In this 2nd edition of Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, Mike Schmoker extends and updates the case that our schools could be on the cusp of swift, unparalleled improvements. But we are stymied by a systemwide failure to simplify and prioritize; we have yet to focus our limited time and energy on the most essential, widely acknowledged, evidence-based practices that could have more impact than all other initiatives combined. They are: simple, coherent curricula; straightforward, traditional literacy practices; and lessons built around just a few hugely effective elements of good teaching. As Schmoker demonstrates, the case for these practices—and the need for them—has grown prodigiously.In every chapter, you'll find late-breaking discoveries and practical advice on how to simplify the implementation of new state standards in the subject areas; on the hidden pitfalls of our most popular, but unproven instructional fads and programs; and on simple, versatile strategies for building curriculum, planning lessons, and integrating literacy into every discipline. All of these strategies and findings are supported with exciting new evidence from actual schools. Their success confirms, as Michael Fullan writes, that a focus on the best ""high-leverage practices"" won't only improve student performance; they will produce ""stunningly powerful consequences"" in our schools.

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What is assessment literacy? It's a handful of fundamental understandings about the testing concepts and procedures that influence educational decisions. And it just might be the most cost-effective means of real school improvement.With characteristic humor and aplomb, assessment expert W. James Popham strips away the psychometrician-speak and condenses the complexities of educational testing to six practical and action-oriented understandings about validity, reliability, fairness, score reporting, formative assessment, and affective assessment.This book is for busy educators at the classroom and leadership levels who want: Tests that are worth the valuable time they take to administer. Tests that accurately measure what student have learned. Tests that fairly reflect teacher and school effectiveness. Tests that provide the instructionally useful data that will help students learn faster and better. Assessment Literacy for Educators in a Hurry is the fastest route to acquiring the measurement moxie necessary to understand and advocate for better assessment practices and build a case for stopping ineffective and harmful ones. In just a few hours' time, you can pick up the knowledge you need to do a whole lot of good—for your students, yourself, and our schools.

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Marvel at the neuroscientific reasons why smart teens make dumb decisions!Behold the mind-controlling power of executive function!Thrill to a vision of a better school for the teenage brain!Whether you're a parent interacting with one adolescent or a teacher interacting with many, you know teens can be hard to parent and even harder to teach. The eye-rolling, the moodiness, the wandering attention, the drama. It's not you, it's them. More specifically, it's their brains.In accessible language and with periodic references to Star Trek, motorcycle daredevils, and near-classic movies of the '80s, developmental molecular biologist John Medina, author of the New York Times best-seller Brain Rules, explores the neurological and evolutionary factors that drive teenage behavior and can affect both achievement and engagement. Then he proposes a research-supported counterattack: a bold redesign of educational practices and learning environments to deliberately develop teens' cognitive capacity to manage their emotions, plan, prioritize, and focus.Attack of the Teenage Brain! is an enlightening and entertaining read that will change the way you think about teen behavior and prompt you to consider how else parents, educators, and policymakers might collaborate to help our challenging, sometimes infuriating, often weird, and genuinely wonderful kids become more successful learners, in school and beyond.

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In this fully revised and expanded third edition of the bestselling Reciprocal Teaching at Work, Lori D. Oczkus provides both tried-and-true and fresh solutions for teaching reading comprehension.Reciprocal teaching is a scaffolded discussion technique that builds on the Fab Four strategies that good readers use to understand text: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing.With a focus on these four evidence-based and classroom-tested strategies, Oczkus presents new ways to use reciprocal teaching to improve students' comprehension while actively engaging them in learning and encouraging independence. Appealing to students and teachers alike, reciprocal teaching encompasses social aspects of teaching and learning with modeling, think-alouds, and discussion.This helpful guide is packed with fresh material, including: More than 40 new and updated step-by-step lessons and minilessons that reflect current thinking and best practice. Dozens of rich suggestions for diving into informational texts. Updated research and relevant results that show the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching. Creative and targeted tips that capitalize on the specific benefits of whole-class settings, guided reading groups, and literature circles. Ideas for differentiating instruction for struggling readers and English language learners. New and newly designed support materials, including reproducibles, posters, bookmarks, and a lesson planning menu. With a wealth of ideas to get you started and keep you going this is the all-inclusive resource you need to help students become active, engaged, and independent readers who truly comprehend what they read.Copublished by ASCD and the International Literacy Association (ILA).

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Students learning math are expected to do more than just solve problems; they must also be able to demonstrate their thinking and share their ideas, both orally and in writing. As many classroom teachers have discovered, these can be challenging tasks for students. The good news is, mathematical communication can be taught and mastered.In Teaching Students to Communicate Mathematically, Laney Sammons provides practical assistance for K–8 classroom teachers. Drawing on her vast knowledge and experience as a classroom teacher, she covers the basics of effective mathematical communication and offers specific strategies for teaching students how to speak and write about math. Sammons also presents useful suggestions for helping students incorporate correct vocabulary and appropriate representations when presenting their mathematical ideas.This must-have resource will help you help your students improve their understanding of and their skill and confidence in mathematical communication.

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With Doing Poorly on Purpose, veteran educator James R. Delisle dispels the negative associations and stereotypes connected to underachievement. By focusing on smart kids who get poor grades not because they're unable to do better in school but because they don't want to Delisle presents a snapshot of underachievement that may look far different from what you envision it to be.There is no such thing as a ""classic underachiever."" Students (and their reasons for underachieving) are influenced by a wide range of factors, including self-image, self-concept, social-emotional relationships, and the amount of dignity teachers afford their students.Helping ""smart"" students achieve when they don't want to is not an easy task, but you can reengage and inspire students using Delisle's insights and practical advice on these topics: Autonomy. Access. Advocacy. Alternatives. Aspirations. Approachable Educators. Smart, underachieving students need the reassurance that they are capable, valuable, and worth listening to despite their low academic performance. If these students who are otherwise academically capable don't feel they are getting respect from those in charge of their learning, then the desire to conform and achieve is minimized.In a word, they want dignity. Don't we all?This book is a joint publication of ASCD and Free Spirit Publishing.

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Drawing upon decades of research and myriad authentic classroom experiences, Kathleen M. Budge and William H. Parrett dispel harmful myths, explain the facts, and urge educators to act against the debilitating effects of poverty on their students. They share the powerful voices of teachers—many of whom grew up in poverty—to amplify the five classroom practices that permeate the culture of successful high-poverty schools: (1) caring relationships and advocacy, (2) high expectations and support, (3) commitment to equity, (4) professional accountability for learning, and (5) the courage and will to act. Readers will explore classroom-tested strategies and practices, plus online templates and exercises that can be used for personal reflection or ongoing collaboration with colleagues. Disrupting Poverty provides teachers, administrators, coaches, and others with the background information and the practical tools needed to help students break free from the cycle of poverty.

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As professional learning communities become more widespread, educators have learned that they can’t simply form grade-level or subject-area teams and call it a day. To profoundly affect teacher practice and student learning, PLCs need strong and knowledgeable leadership.In Facilitating Teacher Teams and Authentic PLCs, Daniel R. Venables draws on his extensive experience helping schools and districts implement effective PLCs to explore this crucial but often-overlooked need. Taking a two-pronged approach to PLC facilitation, Venables offers targeted guidance both for leading the people in teacher teams and for facilitating their work. This practical resource provides: Strategies for facilitating interactions among colleagues in PLCs and building trust and buy-in. Field-tested, user-friendly protocols to focus and deepen team discussions around texts, data, teacher and student work, teacher dilemmas, and collaborative planning time. Tips for anticipating and addressing interpersonal conflicts and obstacles that commonly arise during use of protocols. Current and prospective PLC facilitators at every grade level will find this book an essential guide to navigating the challenging and rewarding endeavor of leading authentic PLCs. Build your skills, and help your team rise to the next level.

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If the three r’s define education’s past, there are five i’s—information, images, interaction, inquiry, and innovation—that forecast its future, one in which students think for themselves, actively self-assess, and enthusiastically use technology to further their learning and contribute to the world.What students need, but too often do not get, is deliberate instruction in the critical and creative thinking skills that make this vision possible. The i5 approach provides a way to develop these skills in the context of content-focused and technology-powered lessons that give students the opportunity to: Seek and acquire new information. Use visual images and nonlinguistic representations to add meaning. Interact with others to obtain and provide feedback and enhance understanding. Engage in inquiry—use and develop a thinking skill that will expand and extend knowledge. Generate innovative insights and products related to the lesson goals. Jane E. Pollock and Susan Hensley explain the i5 approach’s foundations in brain research and its links to proven instructional principles and planning models. They provide step-by-step procedures for teaching 12 key thinking skills and share lesson examples from teachers who have successfully “i5’ed” their instruction. With practical guidance on how to revamp existing lessons, The i5 Approach is an indispensable resource for any teacher who wants to help students gain deeper and broader content understanding and become stronger and more innovative thinkers.

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As Manny Scott travels the world speaking to students and educators, he meets young people whose stories sound a lot like his own a childhood that was marked by poverty, instability, violence, and despair until a few caring educators showed him how to find meaning in the classroom and gave him a glimpse of his own possibilities. So many kids he meets today need this kind of hope and practical assistance. But with all that is already on educators' plates, what can an individual teacher do to help traumatized children believe in themselves, succeed in school, and graduate prepared for work and life?Here, you'll find answers. With the same passion that inspires so many who hear him speak, Scott presents an approach informed by the teachers who helped him and honed through years of connecting with kids who desperately need someone to show them a path to a more positive future. He shares the little things you can do to prepare yourself for the hard work of making a difference and offers advice for bridging cultural divides, earning students' trust, and equipping them to take responsibility for their own success.This book is a reminder of the incredible power every teacher has to help young people rewrite their destinies and it's a call to action for all who read it.

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As a school administrator, instructional coach, or teacher-leader, you know that reflective teachers are effective teachers. But how can you help teachers become self-reflective practitioners whose thoughtful approach translates into real gains for student achievement?In Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice — a companion volume to their teacher-oriented book Teach, Reflect, Learn — authors Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral draw on lessons learned from educators across grade levels, content areas, and district demographics to present a definitive guide to developing a culture of reflective practice in your school.Hall and Simeral expand on ideas originally presented in Building Teachers' Capacity for Success to help you gain a clear understanding of your role and responsibilities — and those of your teachers — within each stage of the Continuum of Self-Reflection. Armed with the book's real-life examples and research-based tools, you'll learn how to determine the current location of all stakeholders on the continuum and how teacher-leadership activities, transformational feedback, and strategic coaching can move them forward.The end result? A schoolwide culture that both values reflection and uses it to ensure that teachers — and their students — reach their fullest potential.

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In this thoughtful guide for novice and veteran educators alike, Baruti K. Kafele takes readers on a reflective journey designed to reignite their passion for teaching. Kafele's 50 questions and penetrating insights reveal how you can: Inspire students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds to strive for academic excellence. Develop strong relationships with students, their parents, and the greater community. Address the challenges and promises presented by millennial learners. Boost your motivation and excitement about teaching despite entrenched obstacles and daily frustrations. Replete with ideas for strengthening your practice and investing in student success, this book is an indispensable companion for teachers who want to give their absolute best in the classroom at all times and under all circumstances.

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For every teacher it's different, but you know who they are for you—the students who are "hard to teach." Maybe they're reading far below grade level. Maybe they're English learners. Maybe they have diagnosed learning disabilities or behavioral issues. Maybe they're underachieving for reasons that are unknown. They have been overlooked or underserved or frustrated, and they're not learning as they should. Until now. Until you.How to Reach the Hard to Teach presents a thoughtful and practical approach to achieving breakthrough success with linguistically and culturally diverse students who struggle in school. Combining elements of the SIOP® Model and the FIT Teaching® approach, authors Jana Echevarria, Nancy Frey, and Douglas Fisher take stock of what we know about excellent instruction and distill it into five guiding principles: Set high expectations. Provide access to the core curriculum. Use assessment to inform instruction. Attend to language development—both English and academic. Create a supportive classroom climate. You'll learn specific practices associated with each principle and see how real-life teachers are employing these practices in their classrooms so that all students have the opportunity to learn and receive optimal support for that learning.Every teacher has had the experience of seeing a "hard to teach" student in a new light and realizing all he or she might achieve. This book is about shining that light of possibility on the students who challenge us most, interrogating our beliefs, and taking action to ensure they receive the best instruction we have to offer.

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What type of questioning invigorates and sustains productive discussions?That's what Jackie Acree Walsh and Beth Dankert Sattes ask as they begin a passionate exploration of questioning as the beating heart of thoughtful discussions. Questioning and discussion are important components of classroom instruction that work in tandem to push learning forward and move students from passive participants to active meaning-makers.Walsh and Sattes argue that the skills students develop through questioning and discussion are critical to academic achievement, career success, and active citizenship in a democratic society. They also have great potential to engage students at the highest levels of thinking and learning.The extent to which this potential is realized, of course, depends on individual teachers who embrace these practices, make them their own, and realize that this process requires a true partnership with students.With that in mind, Questioning for Classroom Discussion presents and analyzes the DNA of productive discussions—teacher-guided, small-group, and student-driven.

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In this book, Erik M. Francis explores how one of the most fundamental instructional strategies—questioning—can provide the proper scaffolding to deepen student thinking, understanding, and application of knowledge. You'll learn: Techniques for using questioning to extend and evaluate student learning experiences. Eight different kinds of questions that challenge students to demonstrate higher-order thinking and communicate depth of knowledge. How to rephrase the performance objectives of college and career readiness standards into questions that engage and challenge students. Francis offers myriad examples of good questions across content areas and grade levels, as well as structures to help teachers create and use the different kinds of questions. By using this book to fine-tune your approach to questioning, you can awaken the spirit of inquiry in your classroom and help students deepen their knowledge, understanding, and ability to communicate what they think and know.

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Classroom management is traditionally a matter of encouraging good behavior and discouraging bad by doling out rewards and punishments. But studies show that when educators empower students to address and correct misbehavior among themselves, positive results are longer lasting and more wide reaching. In Better Than Carrots or Sticks, longtime educators and best-selling authors Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey provide a practical blueprint for creating a cooperative and respectful classroom climate in which students and teachers work through behavioral issues together. After a comprehensive overview of the roots of the restorative practices movement in schools, the authors explain how to: Establish procedures and expectations for student behavior that encourage the development of positive interpersonal skills. Develop a nonconfrontational rapport with even the most challenging students. Implement conflict resolution strategies that prioritize relationship building and mutual understanding over finger-pointing and retribution. Rewards and punishments may help to maintain order in the short term, but they're at best superficially effective and at worst counterproductive. This book will prepare teachers at all levels to ensure that their classrooms are welcoming, enriching, and constructive environments built on collective respect and focused on student achievement.

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Project based learning (PBL) is gaining renewed attention with the current focus on college and career readiness and the performance-based emphases of Common Core State Standards, but only high-quality versions can deliver the beneficial outcomes that schools want for their students. It's not enough to just ""do projects."" Today's projects need to be rigorous, engaging, and in-depth, and they need to have student voice and choice built in. Such projects require careful planning and pedagogical skill. The authors—leaders at the respected Buck Institute for Education—take readers through the step-by-step process of how to create, implement, and assess PBL using a classroom-tested framework. Also included are chapters for school leaders on implementing PBL systemwide and the use of PBL in informal settings.Examples from all grade levels and content areas provide evidence of the powerful effects that PBL can have, including: Increased student motivation and preparation for college, careers, and citizenship. Better results on high-stakes tests. A more satisfying teaching experience. New ways for educators to communicate with parents, communities, and the wider world. By successfully implementing PBL, teachers can not only help students meet standards but also greatly improve their instruction and make school a more meaningful place for learning. Both practical and inspirational, this book is an essential guide to creating classrooms and schools where students—and teachers—excel.

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""Why do I lead?"" With this deceptively simple question, best-selling author Baruti K. Kafele begins a powerful examination of what it takes to make a school community achieve the greatest success in the classroom and beyond. In The Principal 50: Critical Leadership Questions for Inspiring Schoolwide Excellence, Kafele, a veteran school administrator, guides motivated school leaders through 50 self-reflection exercises designed to yield a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the work that they do. Along with many other insights, this book shows how best to: Inspire and motivate students, teachers, and other school staff to approach their work with vigor and purpose. Ensure that all students, regardless of color, creed, or origin, are valued and represented in the school culture. Focus mission and vision statements to address students' most critical needs and integrate shared values and objectives into the fabric of the school. Engage parents and other community members so that they feel a stake in the school's success. Brimming with passion, written from the heart, and informed by hard-earned experience, this transformative book is essential reading for principals and other building-level administrators determined to reinvigorate their practice, revitalize their staff, and—most importantly—guarantee the strongest outcomes for students.

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A teacher presents a lesson, and at the end asks students if they understand the material. The students nod and say they get it. Later, the teacher is dismayed when many of the students fail a test on the material. Why aren't students getting it? And, just as important, why didn't the teacher recognize the problem?In Checking for Understanding, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey show how to increase students' understanding with the help of creative formative assessments. When used regularly, formative assessments enable every teacher to determine what students know and what they still need to learn. Fisher and Frey explore a variety of engaging activities that check for and increase understanding, including interactive writing, portfolios, multimedia presentations, audience response systems, and much more.This new 2nd edition of Checking for Understanding has been updated to reflect the latest thinking in formative assessment and to show how the concepts apply in the context of Fisher and Frey's work on gradual release of responsibility, guided instruction, formative assessment systems, data analysis, and quality instruction.

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How can you create an authentic learning environment—one where students ask questions, do research, and explore subjects that fascinate them—in today's standards-driven atmosphere? Author Larissa Pahomov offers insightful answers based on her experience as a classroom teacher at the Science Leadership Academy, a public high school in Philadelphia that offers a rigorous college-prep curriculum and boasts a 99 percent graduation rate. Pahomov outlines a framework for learning structured around five core values: inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. For each value, she presents: A detailed description of how the value can transform classroom practice and how a ""digital connection"" can enhance its application. A step-by-step outline for how to implement the value, with examples from teachers in all subject areas. Solutions to possible challenges and roadblocks that teachers may experience. Suggestions for how to expand the value beyond the classroom to schoolwide practice. Anecdotes from students, offering their perspectives on how they experienced the value in the classroom and after graduation. The framework is a guide, not a prescription, and middle and high school teachers—individually or as a team—can use it to structure whatever content and skills their current school or district requires. The book also includes suggestions for how to integrate technology into inquiry-based education, but the principles and approaches it describes can be applied successfully even in places without abundant technology. Both practical and inspiring, Authentic Learning in the Digital Age is an indispensable handbook for reinvigorating teaching and learning in a new era.

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In this galvanizing follow-up to the best-selling Teaching with Poverty in Mind, renowned educator and learning expert Eric Jensen digs deeper into engagement as the key factor in the academic success of economically disadvantaged students.Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind reveals: Smart, purposeful engagement strategies that all teachers can use to expand students' cognitive capacity, increase motivation and effort, and build deep, enduring understanding of content. The (until-now) unwritten rules for engagement that are essential for increasing student achievement. How automating engagement in the classroom can help teachers use instructional time more effectively and empower students to take ownership of their learning. Steps you can take to create an exciting yet realistic implementation plan. Too many of our most vulnerable students are tuning out and dropping out because of our failure to engage them. It's time to set the bar higher. Until we make school the best part of every student's day, we will struggle with attendance, achievement, and graduation rates. This timely resource will help you take immediate action to revitalize and enrich your practice so that all your students may thrive in school and beyond.

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Join Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher as they outline a clear-cut, realistic, and rewarding approach to formative assessment. They explain how four discrete steps work in tandem to create a seamless, comprehensive formative assessment system—one that has no beginning and no end. This ongoing approach enhances an active give-and-take relationship between teachers and students to promote learning.Where am I going?Step 1: Feed-up ensures that students understand the purpose of an assignment, task, or lesson, including how they will be assessed.Where am I now?Step 2: Checking for understanding guides instruction and helps determine if students are making progress toward their goals.How am I doing?Step 3: Feedback provides students with valuable and constructive information about their successes and needs.Where am I going next?Step 4: Feed-forward builds on the feedback from step 3 and uses performance data to facilitate student achievement.Dozens of real-life scenarios demonstrate how to apply these steps in your classroom, always focusing on the presence or absence of student learning to guide the action. By enabling teachers and students alike to see more clearly what they need to do for learning to be successful, this approach builds students' competence, confidence, and understanding.No matter what grade level you teach, The Formative Assessment Action Plan will help you make better use of assessment data so you can more quickly adjust instruction to keep every student on the path to success.

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In Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual, Robert J. Marzano and Debra J. Pickering give teachers a practical way to help students master academic vocabulary. Research has shown that when teachers, schools, and districts take a systematic approach to helping students identify and master essential vocabulary and concepts of a given subject area, student comprehension and achievement rises. In the manual, readers will find the following tools: A method to help teachers, schools, and districts determine which academic vocabulary terms are most essential for their needs. A six-step process for direct instruction in subject area vocabulary. A how-to to help students use the Building Academic Vocabulary: Student Notebook. The six-step method encourages students to learn critical academic vocabulary by connecting these terms to prior knowledge using linguistic and non-linguistic means that further encourage the refinement and deepening of their understanding.. Suggestions for tailoring academic vocabulary procedures for English Language Learners.. Samples and blackline masters for a variety of review activities and games that reinforce and refine student understanding of the academic terms and concepts they learn. The book also includes a list of 7,923 vocabulary terms culled from the national standards documents and other publications, organized into 11 subject areas and 4 grade-level categories. It puts into practice the research and ideas outlined in Marzano's previous book Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement. Using the teacher's manual and vocabulary notebooks, educators can guide students in using tools and activities that will help them deepen their own understanding of critical academic vocabulary, the building blocks for achievement in each discipline.

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Why do we assess reading? What do we assess when we assess reading? How, where, and when do we assess reading? Reading instruction and assessment expert Peter Afflerbach addresses these questions and much more in the 3rd edition of Understanding and Using Reading Assessment, K-12.Using the CURRV model to evaluate reading assessment methods—including reading inventories, teacher questioning, performance assessment, and high-stakes reading tests—Afflerbach considers the consequences and usefulness of each method, the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders, and the reliability and validity of the assessments. In addition, he examines four important but often overlooked aspects of reading assessment: Assessment accommodation for English-language learners and students with special needs. Assessment of noncognitive aspects of reading, such as motivation, engagement, self-concept, and self-efficacy. The use of formative and summative assessment. The importance of self-assessment in building reading independence. The book provides detailed case studies from all grade levels to illustrate reading assessment done well. It also includes 15 reproducible forms and checklists that teachers and administrators can use to optimize their reading assessment efforts.Students are expected to read increasingly complex texts and to complete increasingly complex reading-related tasks to demonstrate their growth as readers. This book offers teachers and administrators alike a clear path to helping students meet those expectations.This book is a co-publication of ASCD and ILA.New to the 3rd edition:: New chapter “Formative and Summative Assessment”. Three significantly revised chapters—Performance Assessment; Assessment Accommodation for English Learners and Students With Special Needs (“Accommodation and Reading Assessment” in 2nd edition); Assessing “the Other”: Important Noncognitive Aspects of Reading. Fifteen reproducible and downloadable forms and checklists.

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Although much has changed in schools in recent years, the power of differentiated instruction remains the same—and the need for it has only increased.Today's classroom is more diverse, more inclusive, and more plugged into technology than ever before. And it's led by teachers under enormous pressure to help decidedly unstandardized students meet an expanding set of rigorous, standardized learning targets. In this updated second edition of her best-selling classic work, Carol Ann Tomlinson offers these teachers a powerful and practical way to meet a challenge that is both very modern and completely timeless: how to divide their time, resources, and efforts to effectively instruct so many students of various backgrounds, readiness and skill levels, and interests.With a perspective informed by advances in research and deepened by more than 15 years of implementation feedback in all types of schools, Tomlinson explains the theoretical basis of differentiated instruction, explores the variables of curriculum and learning environment, shares dozens of instructional strategies, and then goes inside elementary and secondary classrooms in nearly all subject areas to illustrate how real teachers are applying differentiation principles and strategies to respond to the needs of all learners.This book's insightful guidance on what to differentiate, how to differentiate, and why lays the groundwork for bringing differentiated instruction into your own classroom or refining the work you already do to help each of your wonderfully unique learners move toward greater knowledge, more advanced skills, and expanded understanding. Today more than ever, The Differentiated Classroom is a must-have staple for every teacher's shelf and every school's professional development collection.

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A practical guide to the ins and outs of building, maintaining, and restoring positive and productive relationships in schools.Relationships are at the core of education. When teachers are intentional about all of their relationships, they can address burnout, increase their own effectiveness, and improve the learning environment for their students.In this thoughtful book, educators Michael Creekmore and Nita Creekmore introduce the build, maintain, and restore approach to relationships, focusing on six key types of relationships that K–12 teachers need to navigate in a school:* Teacher-to-self, highlighting the importance of self-care to ensure mental, emotional, and physical well-being.* Teacher-to-student, focusing on how strong student-teacher relationships can change the trajectory of a student's path.* Teacher-to-family, showing how a teacher's relationship with a student's family is essential to the student's school experience.* Teacher-to-teacher, addressing the critical and complex nature of relationships between teachers in teams.* Teacher-to-administrator, emphasizing the need for authentic relationships with those who are charged with observing and guiding teachers' growth in the profession.* Teacher-to-staff, discussing the value of relationships with support staff and ways these relationships can be built.Each chapter includes helpful guidance, tools, reflective questions, and ways you can build, maintain, and restore your relationships. Every Connection Matters will help you improve your daily connections and interactions at school—both in person and virtually—to build, maintain, and restore meaningful relationships that make a difference for you and your students.

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In this transformative narrative, Carlos R. Moreno explores what it means to develop Leadership Soul by approaching educational leadership with love, care, and vulnerability.In Finding Your Leadership Soul, Carlos Moreno shares his journey from a challenging childhood in the Bronx, to teaching and advising at an innovative high school, to serving as co-executive director for Big Picture Learning, an organization that works to advance equitable, student-centered education. Along the way, he introduces several young Black and Latino men he had the privilege to work with—students who came from backgrounds similar to his and who helped shape his philosophy of leadership. He mines lessons learned from his connections with these young men and distills those lessons into practical application. His aim is to inspire others to join him on the effortful but indescribably vital quest to develop Leadership Soul.Leadership Soul draws on three principles—lead with love, lead with care, and lead with vulnerability—to counter conventional leadership archetypes that promote inequity and fail to meet the needs of all students, especially those marginalized by systemic prejudice and socioeconomic circumstances. The book is a powerful and poignant guide to engaging in inclusive, equitable leadership—to developing your own Leadership Soul.

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