Are your students poised for success? Need a clear roadmap for achieving the college and career readiness goals of the Common Core and 21st century learning? Grounded in Costa and Kallick's groundbreaking habits of mind work, and informed by current research, this book helps educators: Build consensus around what attributes and abilities all students should possess by the time they graduate Develop a common language around these dispositions so that students will encounter them daily Integrate these dispositions into curriculum design, instruction, and assessment Create school cultures that value dispositional learning
Research-Based Strategies for Teaching Male and Female Students
Because motivation is the key to scientific literacy Within every science classroom there are students waiting to be inspired. All these students need is the right motivation. That's exactly what this one-of-a kind guide will help you provide. And along the way, you'll quickly learn that the motivational tools that are most effective with adolescent boys don't always work with adolescent girls-and vice versa. At the heart of Enhancing Adolescents' Motivation for Science is a collection of research-proven strategies on how best to motivate students in science-and once students are motivated, scientific literacy soon follows. Across chapters, Shumow and Schmidt * Detail key motivational constructs specific to science with illustrative vignettes * Address gender differences that influence how girls and boys are motivated * Describe how to make science learning relevant, accessible, and enjoyable * Reduce science anxiety and build student confidence, especially among girls * Offer motivational strategies that are consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Much more than a professional book, Enhancing Adolescents' Motivation for Science also includes a companion website packed with video clips, links, and tutorials. All in all, there's no better resource for fueling the student motivation so central to science literacy. "This is an impressive book. . . .One of the greatest challenges you face as a teacher is how to motivate all of your students-girls and boys-to learn science. In this book, Shumow and Schmidt help you to meet this challenge." - Shawn M. Glynn, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Georgia "If you want to help your students succeed in science and could use some help achieving this goal, this book is for you. It is practical, driven by research, and has something for every science teacher to use." - Randy Cook, Science Teacher Tri County Area Schools, Howard City, MI
Because nonfiction and young readers are a natural fit! Common Core or not, providing our youngest readers with a thorough grounding in nonfiction is just good teaching. There's no better way to ensure our students acquire the background knowledge and vocabulary so essential to their understanding of subjects like science and social studies. Helen Patrick and Panayota Mantzicopoulos have written this book to assist you with this all-important effort. What makes Engaging Young Children so unique? Above all else it's realistic. It describes immediately useable strategies for using informational reading and writing to both enrich and expand the curriculum. Taking their lead from the Common Core, the authors provide: * Criteria for choosing books * Strategies for shared reading and reading aloud * Informational writing activities * Ways to guide parent involvement * Real-life classroom success stories Read the book, try out some of the strategies, and you'll quickly see for yourself just how engaging, informative, and formative nonfiction can be. " I am very grateful to Patrick and Mantzicopoulos for reminding me how essential informational reading and writing are, not only to the development of language arts skills, but to the reintroduction of science and social studies to daily elementary education." -Nina Orellana, Title I Teacher Palm Bay Academy Charter School, Palm Bay, FL "This book is a must have for elementary educators, teachers, and professional faculty. It illustrates the power of reading while also introducing the whole idea of students and how others interpret success with them." -Robert E. Yager, Professor of Science Education University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Gain confidence, lower stress, and raise your TExES exam scores! Testing for certification can be a stressful experience. State exams are rigorous and cover numerous domains and competencies. Test scores can impact both special education certification and teacher preparation programs. You may find there is simply too much material to study, or that test-prep books hammer you with too many random questions. Understanding what will be on the test and why is a key to success. With artful prose, TExES test prep veteran Elaine Wilmore breaks down the EC-12 and Supplemental special education test so you can feel calm and confident on test day. Built on her successful test-prep training seminars, she navigates each special education domain and competency and covers * Philosophies behind the test questions * Teaching stories that improve answer recall * Tips for analyzing test questions * Ways to use key words and concepts to improve test results * Hints for managing time while testing * Tips for before, during, and after the exam * Techniques for in-state and out-of-state test takers With its empowering approach, this book shows you how to think like the test was developed and improve your test results. "Dr. Elaine Wilmore has, once again, created the must-have educator preparation resource-this time for special education instructors. Packed with real-world examples, sparkling wit, and expert subject knowledge, Passing the Special Education TExES Exam is the gold standard resource for Texas educators." -Richard W. Kincaid, Director, Career and Technical Education Round Rock ISD, Round Rock, TX "This is much more than a test preparation manual... Teachers will refer to it long after they have become certified." -La Vonda Loney, Assistant Principal Killeen ISD, Killeen, TX
Strategies and Techniques to Create a Safe Learning Environment for All
Bullying is a growing issue of concern and a harsh reality facing many of today's schools. Teachers, parents, and administrators are all grappling with how best to address the problem and create a nurturing and inclusive school culture. In Bullying and Students With Disabilities, Barry McNamara presents both the relevant research and the practical tools that educators and families need to understand bullying, identify bullies and their victims, learn how to cope with bullies, and take part in the implementation of an inclusive schoolwide bullying prevention program that truly meets the needs of all students.
Increasingly as important to educators as the Common Core State Standards, the new national anchor for curriculum, instruction and assessment have set a high bar of rigorous and challenging content. While most educational researchers and practitioners agree that that mastery of academic language is the key to students' academic success, many teachers are not well-versed in its major components and need to learn how to integrate them into curriculum and instructional assessment. One of a seven book series, this text gives guidance to educators in how to target academic language in planning for student learning. It provides a concise, logical, and practical approach to identifying grade-level academic language associated with the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, academic content standards, as well as English Language Proficiency Standard, to readily incorporate into teaching and learning.
Increasingly as important to educators as the Common Core State Standards, the new national anchor for curriculum, instruction and assessment have set a high bar of rigorous and challenging content. While most educational researchers and practitioners agree that that mastery of academic language is the key to students' academic success, many teachers are not well-versed in its major components and need to learn how to integrate them into curriculum and instructional assessment. One of a seven book series, this text gives guidance to educators in how to target academic language in planning for student learning for grades 6-8. It provides a concise, logical, and practical approach to identifying grade-level academic language associated with the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, academic content standards, as well as English Language Proficiency Standard, to readily incorporate into teaching and learning.
Facilitating students' unique paths towards identity development is the key to teaching young teens. Students face pressures that undermine the development of a solid sense of self, jeopardizing success in school and in life: Family issues, economic concerns, media influences, social pressures, physical changes, and more influence how students feel about themselves. When these go unnoticed, even the best teaching methods fall short. Reach Before You Teach shows educators how to form the nurturing, individualized connections that make students feel worthy, fulfilled, and ready to flourish as learners. The book details: Practical, empowering information about how a sense of self comes to be, and what threatens it. Interventions that soften the myriad defenses students develop to protect themselves. How to address the often-overlooked connections between physical, social, and emotional health and classroom performance. Packed with real-life examples and results-delivering exercises, Reach Before You Teach supplies educators with the all-important skills to connect with students so academic and life success feels more attainable. "In our present education system that seems to be caught up with numbers and standardization, this book is a welcomed read. Education will never improve if we don't make the social-emotional skills of children our first priority." -Peter DeWitt, Principal Poestenkill Elementary School, NY "This book is a must-read for all who want to encourage self-awareness and self-reflection during classroom instruction and help students feel more connected, curious, and confident! Students no doubt will achieve emotionally and academically with help from the strategies in this book." -Dr. Ann Marie Dargon, Assistant Superintendent of Schools Westport Community Schools, MA
"This book is a wonderful tool and reference for any teacher. In my work of providing professional development to teachers of elementary science, one of the hardest areas for the teachers to grasp is assessment. Especially helpful for these teachers are the chapters on writing short-answer and essay items, performance-based assessment, and portfolios." -Cindy Pulkowski, Program Manager Science: It's Elementary, Pittsburgh, PA A practical guide for creating standards-based objectives and assessments aligned with Bloom's Taxonomy! This user-friendly resource provides clear, step-by-step guidelines for writing measurable objectives and developing appropriate formative and summative assessments to guide instruction in the elementary classroom. Designed around an easy-to-follow model, this book helps teachers develop unit and daily instructional objectives based on state and national content standards for each level of Bloom's Taxonomy, including synthesis and evaluation. The subsequent chapters cover the main forms of assessment and provide many detailed examples of assessment items drawn from each of the major subject areas. Elementary school teachers will discover how to: Deconstruct the standards and write measurable objectives Create true-false, fill-in-the-blank, matching, and multiple choice exercises Write short-answer questions and essay items Use performance-based assessments and portfolios This resource guides teachers through the process of designing specific objectives based on content standards and helps them develop the right assessments to measure their students' development!
