This Second Edition includes a new facilitator's guide for use in leading staff development meetings, book groups, and other small group discussions, or to serve as an instructor's manual for classroom instruction. How To Deal With Parents Who Are Angry, Troubled, Afraid, Or Just Plain Crazy is a practical, quick-read resource to help school headteachers and other educators at any level gain the skills needed to deal with disgruntled and unhappy parents. Readers will learn why so many parents today are unhappy with what's happening in schools and how they can defuse these feelings and solve the most common school problems.
Working With Teachers, Parents, Students, and the Community
"Educational administrators will find the book to be an easily applicable tool for solving many of the dilemmas they face in their schools." Theron Schutte, Middle School Principal Boone Community School District, IA "The book provides a theoretical base for practical application of strategies that will strengthen beliefs and attitudes that support behaviors that can move a school toward the fulfillment of its educational mission." David Erlandson, Professor Texas A&M University "This book keeps its promises: it is truly a guide for action that will be used by educators, especially educational change agents. Each of the authors comes out of an unusual blend of theoretical sophistication and practical experience that make this book a stimulating intellectual read and a solid manual for practice." Steven Tozer, Professor of Education University of Illinois Why do people behave as they do? What makes them take a stand on a specific issue? Solving school problems and making policy decisions require that we anticipate how people will feel about an issue or how they will behave. School leaders must understand the values, attitudes, and beliefs brought to different situations. The School Leader's Guide to Understanding Attitude and Influencing Behavior makes it possible for educators to scientifically understand and influence the attitudes and behaviors of diverse constituencies, both inside and outside the school. Using the Model of Reasoned Action (MORA) enables readers to understand how people form attitudes and make decisions about a wide variety of future behaviors. Armed with this information, educators can change attitudes and influence behavior of teachers, staff, parents, and the community. This excellent resource includes: Examples of attitude scales A sample questionnaire A checklist of steps through an attitude-behavior study Tables to organize and report data Data analysis presented in an easily-applied manner When you must know how best to influence the attitudes or behaviors of others, this remarkable book will show you. Make a positive difference in your school or district!
Mentoring New Special Education Teachers will help mentors and schools better develop, prepare, and retain special education teachers, reducing high turnover rates. It focuses specifically on special education programs, including coverage of IEPs, transition plans, referrals, behaviour planning, assistive and augmented technology, teaching ......
Creating Professional Learning Communities That Target Student Learning
"This third edition from Murphy and Lick is a superb resource and a must read for all educators involved in the improvement of education. It should be in the hands of individuals from the state department of education to the classroom teacher, for it speaks to all layers of the system, and to the role that each person must play to assure successful learning for all students." -From the Foreword by Shirley Hord, Scholar Emerita Southwest Educational Development Laboratory "Planning is an important thing. What Whole-Faculty Study Groups has done for us is to ensure that we never forget that implementation is the only thing." Jack Ernst, Superintendent Springfield Public Schools, Springfield, MO One of the most successful and exciting approaches to staff development, school reform, and systemic change in education today! Used by hundreds of schools and school districts across the country, the Whole-Faculty Study Group (WFSG) System is a student-driven, holistic process for facilitating major staff development and schoolwide change. While providing a step-by-step methodology for the development and implementation of successful WFSGs, this newest edition of Murphy and Lick's groundbreaking bestseller incorporates the most current theoretical concepts on change, the latest refinements to change management procedures, and a wealth of new experiences from more than two thousand individual study groups. Other significant revisions to this edition include: Three additional chapters: the research foundation for WFSGs, how to recognize and understand school culture, and fourteen key findings A reorganization of chapters to make the book even more reader-friendly New material on timely topics such as "learning communities" and "learning teams" An increased focus on assessment of student results Updated sets of resources and illustrations in the appendix WFSGs are a proven way to successfully reform, improve, and transition schools to meet tomorrow's needs. Filled with real-world examples and illustrative cases, this book provides both the practical knowledge and the theoretical foundation necessary to negotiate the societal, organizational, and cultural barriers affecting education. This new edition is essential for administrators, teachers, and staff in K-12 schools, as well as district level administrators, teachers of education, and anyone interested in increasing student learning.
This book is the result of nearly two decades of research and development into providing educational researchers with a set of reliable and valid measures to study the nature of middle schools, and practitioners with a set of tools to evaluate their school climate with an aim towards organizational improvement.
Raising Test Scores and Writing Effectiveness Through Poetry and Fiction
A teacher's guide to teaching middle school and high school English and building literacy skills in even the most reluctant readers. Lorraine LaCroix shows the reader how carefully chosen poems and fiction can "hook" otherwise apathetic English students - by making an emotional connection, the teacher makes her lessons personally relevant and ......
This thoughtful volume about becoming a teacher is structured as a series of reflective conversations between a young woman about to begin her first year as a school teacher. Readers will find themselves effortlessly drawn into these fascinating dialogues that encourage them to reflect on, reexamine, and refine what they believe to be the elements of good teaching and the characteristics of good teachers: Mission and Vision; Expectations; Caring; Commitment; Respect; Observation; Cultural Awareness; Balance; Teambuilding; Growth and Knowledge. The writing style is highly readable and engaging, and the conversations extend from educational theory through practical classroom strategies and teaching models. This volume will challenge beginning teachers to think about how they can become the teachers they want to be and will revitalize veteran teachers by reminding them of the reasons and desires that compelled them to teach in the first place. An eclectic list of suggested readings rounds out the volume and a detailed index allows access to core topics covered throughout the text.
Both research and common sense verify that teachers make a difference not only in what students learn about content but in what students learn about life. Grounded in theory and research on adolescent growth and development and teacher-student interactions, this important new book gives classroom teachers guidelines, strategies, and real-life examples of how to build and enrich close and trusting teacher-student relationships based on dignity and respect. Key topics include setting high expectations for students, conveying confidence in student capabilities, creating classroom rituals and traditions, networking with family and community, developing strong interpersonal skills, identifying relational resources, and communicating appropriate caring and respect in the classroom in ways that elicit positive student response. Features teacher quotes, conversations, profiles, resources, and an inventory for assessing teacher-student relationships
