All you need to make the shift to STEM a reality! Now more than ever, educational leaders are encouraged to implement STEM as the foundation for preparing students with the 21st century skills required for college and career readiness. This resource makes the process of shifting to a comprehensive, integrated STEM school or district within reach! Invaluable case studies featuring current STEM pioneers from across the country model how successful, STEM-centered learning takes place. You'll find process-specific best practices and strategies to help you: Understand, create, and lead the STEM change process Transform existing school programs Prepare the school community for STEM and plan for STEM integration Integrate 21st Century Skills, the arts, and humanities Create essential partnerships with business and higher education Includes step-by-step checklists and visual mapping guides for successfully navigating the STEM change process. Use this groundbreaking resource to systematically implement coherent and integrated STEM instruction that transforms learning and prepares students for the global economy!
Ownership of Learning offers a powerful framework to significantly accelerate student motivation and learning. This book provides teachers and leaders with the "how to" by focusing on the impact of building collaborative relationships, clarifying criteria for success, building learner capacity, embedded formative assessment, and using feedback to deepen and prove learning. The three sections in the book - Defining the Journey, Learning on the Journey, and Retracing and Extending the Journey - are used as signposts to anchor the partnering process to: Demonstrate how to develop the students' role as a full-fledged partners in the learning process Offer practical steps to empower and motivate students Provide multiple examples and visuals of key ideas and steps to develop partnerships in the classroom Align to the natural teaching and learning cycle in every classroom Download the flyer
Foster life-long teacher learning embedded in effective teaching practices and the science standards Science is a natural motivator and an academic engine for utilizing language, but it is the teacher who is the key to fostering the innate curiosity in each learner. Growing Language Through Science offers a model for contextualizing language and promoting academic success for all students, particularly English learners in the K-5 science classroom, through a highly effective approach that integrates inquiry-based science lessons with language rich hand-on experiences. You'll find A wealth of instructional tools to support and engage students, with links to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Presentation and assessment strategies that accommodate students' diverse needs, while encouraging them to use communicative language, speaking, listening, reading, and writing Ready-to-use templates and illustrations to enrich the textual discussion Field-tested teaching strategies framed in the 5Es used in monolingual and bilingual classrooms Reflection exercises that enhance teacher instructional decision making. Use this timely resource to build students' science and language skills simultaneously - while helping them find the joy in learning.
Tackle underlying issues to get to the root of bullying By reframing bullying prevention, you can make significant progress in addressing the underlying issues causing bullying and aggression in your school. In this resource, James Dillon digs into the work that busy educators often have little time for: translating rich and insightful research on the dynamics of change into practical terms. He probes deeply into the issues and why they persist in our schools to promote meaningful conversation among school staff and parents. Inside you'll find Vignettes, analogies, and real-life examples along with tools that illustrate the benefits of using alternative methods to prevent bullying Discussion on transforming the role of discipline to reframe bullying among teachers, administrators, and students Key ideas and concepts summarized in easy-to-understand bullet points and charts Guidance on how to establish a school climate that promotes empathy and compassion instead of fear Reframing bullying prevention will allow competent and caring educators, students, and parents to not just stop bullying, but to improve the learning environment for all students.
Practical Strategies to Prevent Failure, Recover Credits, and Increase Standards-Based/Referenced Grading
Enact innovative grading systems that more accurately describe student progress! This book challenges traditional grading practices and provides alternatives that can have direct impact on student success. By making subtle shifts toward standards based grading systems, schools can reduce unnecessary course failures, provide students and their families a more accurate picture of current progress, and increase opportunities for success. The author offers a range of grading reform strategies that are built from practical frameworks that are effective and simple to adapt. Among the many strengths of this book are: Practical application of existing research and evidence base for effective secondary grading reforms A framework for schools and districts to apply and adapt failure prevention strategies such as early failure detection, Amnesty Days, and meaningful stipulated second chance opportunities for students to reach mastery Functional strategies and actions for shifting toward standards-based (referenced) grading without entirely abandoning letter grades Countering resistance to change through a-clearly-articulated plan for conducting school-wide and classroom level action research around the effectiveness of new or adjusted grading practices "Informative and pragmatic, this book is spot on with analysis of this elephant in the room issue. Nagel uses both empathy and humor in getting to the heart of a process to generate real solutions while underscoring the ultimate need for teacher voice in any successful implementation. He provides ready-made strategies for real, impactful change. I'm left hopeful that feedback will rule the day!" -Bruce Potter, Superintendent Berkshire UFSD "Nagel offers an insightful and articulate voice to secondary improvement and alignment through grading practices. His tried and true methods through working with real districts provides a starting place and examples for others to follow. A must-read for anyone serious about ensuring student engagement through meaningful feedback." -Debra K. Howe, Superintendent Tri-Creek School Corporation ?
Learn to make the best decisions for your school! Essential to inspiring and improving schools, principals make complex decisions on a daily basis. This invaluable resource offers extensive case studies to explore how expert principals manage crises, navigate tough choices, and support school environments. You will find: Problem-solving strategies and cases focused on data analysis and competing stakeholders Easy-to-use checklists, robust reflection questions, and a framework to define your own professional core values Tools to coach and evaluate teachers, and bolster struggling students A former elementary and secondary school site administrator, the author presents a highly sensible, cohesive, and research-based approach to decision-making that will greatly benefit school principals at any career stage.
The first guide to teacher evaluation that is explictly designed for the full inclusion of all learners, this invaluable resource will ultimately increase quality access to the general education curriculum for English Learners and for students with disabilities.
Foreword Review's 2015 Indiefab Book of the Year Award Winner! Motivation is to learning as oxygen is to breathing Most experts agree that student motivation and engagement are critical components of teaching and learning. Yet both are vulnerable to distraction. Effective instructional planning is also motivational planning! Excited to Learn: Motivation and Culturally Responsive Teaching helps teachers leverage students' natural curiosity and academic potential, featuring: Over 50 strategies to enhance students' emotional safety, value for learning, engagement, and competence A field-tested and research-validated model to make instructional planning also motivational planning Abundant tools, templates, and protocols to strengthen student motivation and learning A clear rationale for intrinsic motivation, especially in culturally diverse classrooms Essential information for teaching linguistically diverse students and students who have been historically underserved Excited to Learn begins with background on intrinsic motivation. Next, it introduces the motivational framework for culturally responsive teaching, the foundation of award-winning schools throughout the United States and abroad. Then it provides specific strategies that can be adapted to different subject areas and developmental levels. The epilogue provides guidelines for adult learning and includes an activity to introduce the book to teachers. Support students' curiosity, engagement, and success as life-long learners! "How can you work with classroom dynamics to increase your culturally diverse students' investment in learning? In this theoretically sound and immensely practical guide, Margery Ginsberg offers teachers a clear framework loaded with wonderful hands-on activities that have the power to change how teachers and students relate to each other and to academic learning. This book is designed to enable teachers to unlock their students' inner motivation and reach the students teachers find most challenging." - Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita California State University Monterey Bay
50 More Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning
This book shows readers how to use assessment to inform instruction and learning in the science classroom. In the bestselling first volume, Page Keeley shared 75 techniques that help K-12 science teachers determine students' understanding of key concepts and design learning opportunities that will deepend students' mastery of content and standards. Volume 2 will present 50 new strategies linked to the Next Generation Science Standards. These flexible assessments can be used with any science curriculum. The assessments include: - a description of how each technique promotes student learning - considerations for design and implementation, such as required materials, timing, modeling the technique, and grouping students - modifications for different types of students or purposes - caveats for using each technique - ways the techniques can be used in other content areas
