Search results for ""harvard educational publishing group""

Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades shows how teachers in grades 5–8 can leverage the use of personalized learning plans (PLPs) to increase student agency and engagement, helping youth to establish learning goals aligned with their interests and assess their own learning—particularly around essential skills that cut across disciplines. Drawing on their research and work with fifty schools in Vermont, where PLPs are used statewide, the authors show how personalized learning aligns with effective middle grades practice and provide in-depth examples of how educators have implemented PLPs in a wide range of schools representing different demographics and grade configurations. They also highlight five critical roles for teachers in personalized learning environments—as empowerer, scaffolder, scout, assessor, and community builder—and illustrate how teachers can adapt the PLP process for their own unique contexts. Grounded in experience and full of engaging examples, artifacts, and tools, the book builds on the emerging field of personalized learning and connects it with the developmental needs of middle schoolers to provide a unique and valuable resource for individual classroom teachers, teacher teams, school leaders, teacher‐educators, and others.

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With a visionary approach to school improvement, Equity-Based Leadership proposes a framework to support system leaders seeking to organize change and achieve more equitable education.In this ambitious yet pragmatic work, Joshua P. Starr makes the case that intentional and attentive district leadership can bring about continuous improvement in schools. When district reforms are conceived with social justice in mind, Starr explains, schools move toward fulfilling the longstanding promise of equitable education in America.Starr asserts that the essential goal of good system leadership lies in designing, implementing, and sustaining comprehensive strategies for school reform, in collaboration with school leaders, educators, and community shareholders. Drawing on his own experiences and those of other distinguished superintendents, he offers core practices that system leaders can use to ensure that the mission of their district is upheld throughout any change process and that precious time and funding are used judiciously.Recognizing that there is no single path to transformation, Starr sets forth a flexible, customizable agenda for district reform that concentrates on six elements, or entry points. Starr's first entry point is curriculum content, as teaching and learning are the fundamental goals of a school system. But he goes further to advocate for a deep dive into the organization and alignment of the system itself, via deliberate support of shared values; explicit and transparent decision-making; resource allocation in line with vision and need; talent management to achieve new levels of educator performance; and nourishment of school culture.Additionally, Starr brings together a wide range of real-world examples, evidence-based practices, and sensible advice to guide district leaders in aligning their systems around a coherent equity strategy.This bold new approach to transforming educational systems confidently guides the higher-level decision-making of leaders—not only superintendents but also school board members, cabinet members, and central office administrators—within the context of district-wide efforts to make education better for all students.

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Teaching Students About the World of Work argues that educational institutions - especially two-year and four-year public institutions serving low-income students - need to make the topic of employment a central element in their educational offerings. Indeed, the book demonstrates that a far greater emphasis on teaching students about the work world will be necessary if colleges are to give disadvantaged students a realistic chance for professional and economic success. The recommendation is a reconfiguration of postsecondary education that represents a paradigm shift in career preparation and learning. Editors Nancy Hoffman and Michael Lawrence Collins and their authors provide a rich and comprehensive view of both today's work world and the challenges facing many young people who are determined to find a place within it. The book offers detailed accounts of how several community colleges have put employment at the center of the curriculum; provides practical insights into the twenty-first century labor market and ways to improve the choices and outcomes for low-income job seekers; and explores the daunting structural barriers to securing successful and satisfying employment. Throughout all its chapters, the book highlights increasing inequalities - in both opportunities and outcomes - within our society. In order to redress those disparities, it argues, postsecondary educators will need to offer enhanced insights and sophistication to disadvantaged young people preparing to enter and navigate the work world. An urgent but unfailingly reasonable book for our times, Teaching Students About the World of Work will be required reading for educators determined to create practical opportunities for young people in search of good employment and better lives.

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In Race on Campus, Julie J. Park argues that there are surprisingly pervasive and stubborn myths about diversity on college and university campuses, and that these myths obscure the notable significance and admirable effects that diversity has had on campus life.Based on her analysis of extensive research and data about contemporary students and campuses, Park counters these myths and explores their problematic origins. Among the major myths that she addresses are charges of pervasive self-segregation, arguments that affirmative action in college admissions has run its course and become counterproductive, related arguments that Asian Americans are poorly served by affirmative action policies, and suggestions that programs and policies meant to promote diversity have failed to address class-based disadvantages. In the course of responding to these myths, Park presents a far more positive and nuanced portrait of diversity and its place on American college campuses.At a time when diversity has become a central theme and goal of colleges and universities throughout the United States, Race on Campus offers a contemporary, research-based exploration of racial dynamics on today’s college campuses.

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Pathways to Personalization offers an innovative five-step framework to help school leaders and teacher teams design and implement blended and personalized learning initiatives based on local needs and interests. The book draws on principles of improvement science and change management, as well as work in nearly five hundred classrooms, to help educators define their own rationale for personalized learning; it guides them as they establish small pilot initiatives, determine criteria for success, evaluate their efforts, and create a path for replication and scale. Filled with activities and templates for organizing information and student feedback, the book also includes many examples of how district leaders, school principals, and teachers have successfully navigated the change process to create more student-centered classrooms.Shifting a school or district to offer more personalized learning requires a great deal of commitment, passion, and energy, but it also demands a strategic process. Pathways to Personalization meets this need by providing a field-tested road map for educators seeking ways to meet the academic and emotional needs of all students, and to empower them to take charge of their own learning.

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“What’s going on in this picture?” With this one question and a carefully chosen work of art, teachers can start their students down a path toward deeper learning and other skills now encouraged by the Common Core State Standards. The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) teaching method has been successfully implemented in schools, districts, and cultural institutions nationwide, including bilingual schools in California, West Orange Public Schools in New Jersey, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It provides for open-ended yet highly structured discussions of visual art, and significantly increases students’ critical thinking, language, and literacy skills along the way. Philip Yenawine, former education director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and cocreator of the VTS curriculum, writes engagingly about his years of experience with elementary school students in the classroom. He reveals how VTS was developed and demonstrates how teachers are using art—as well as poems, primary documents, and other visual artefacts—to increase a variety of skills, including writing, listening, and speaking, across a range of subjects. The book shows how VTS can be easily and effectively integrated into elementary classroom lessons in just ten hours of a school year to create learner-centred environments where students at all levels are involved in rich, absorbing discussions.

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