Proven practices to rescue struggling education initiatives... or prevent a crisis before it starts. Insufficient planning, unclear outcomes, missing data--for leaders overseeing education initiatives, it can often seem like there's a crisis around every corner. Drawing on decades of experience in assessment, evaluation, and data-driven decision-making, author and Professor of Educational Leadership James Marshall offers a combination of evidence-based practices and real-life experiences that provide practical solutions to the diverse challenges school leaders encounter as they implement new initiatives. Exploring oft-encountered challenges such as poor outcomes, waning interest or support from leadership, public relations issues, scaling and sustainability roadblocks, and other implementation-related obstacles--the book identifies six types of crises confronted by education leaders and offers valuable insights and solutions for each. Features include: Guidance to recognize the six types of education initiative crises and strategies for resolution tailored to each type 24 unique tools to positively impact challenges, such as the "Triage Tool" to prioritize crisis intervention and the "Don't Swamp the Boat" tool to explore the complement of initiatives in your school Two case studies and real world examples illustrating the application of selected tools across a range of crisis types Whether you're an education leader dealing with a program or initiative in crisis or proactively looking to prevent a crisis, Fixing Education Initiatives in Crisis provides practical solutions to navigate troubled initiatives and guidance for the design and implementation of healthy initiatives that yield predictable results.
Coordination Strategies for Tough Student Situations
Uncover innovative and effective ways to confront challenging behavior Complicated and intense student behavior often requires coordinated and powerful support, but that support need not be overwhelming or difficult to implement. Success with the most challenging students requires a team approach. Optimistic Teaming is your ultimate guide to building and sustaining healthy interactions as teams working with challenging students. Drs. Ben Springer and Ben Belnap share humorous insights and critical strategies that help build successful school teams and rally those teams around your students. You'll discover how to: Remain optimistic and coordinate the best response to even the most aggressive student behaviors Identify the research and evidence base of leveraging optimism individually and in teams Use principles of positive psychology to produce successful outcomes for students and educators alike With this guide, you will discover the framework and strategies to not only remain optimistic, but make lasting, positive changes in the lives of students and their families.
Implement evidence-based feedback practices that move learners forward Feedback is essential to successful instruction and improved student performance, but learners often dread and dismiss feedback and its effectiveness can vary. Thus, sharing intentions, clarifying success criteria, knowing what type of feedback to provide and when, and activating students as owners of their learning are essential feedback functions. Instructional Feedback presents a comprehensive summary of the most recent research on instructional feedback and describes its successful implementation. With a focus on evidence-based approaches adapted to specific contexts, the authors use common classroom situations to demystify feedback and place it within a broad instructional context, along with definitions, characteristics, and precautions about its effect on students' emotions and behaviors. Inside you'll find: Coverage of all grades and concentrations, including math, language arts, music, art, and science Peer feedback, self-assessment, and subject-specific nuances Student and teacher examples of feedback and suggestions for improvement Engaging and concise, Instructional Feedback discusses why feedback is so powerful, how it is promising, and what it looks like in practice.
Twenty Years of Research and Practice in UK and US Classrooms
Focused on student-centeredness and rich with classroom examples, this book is a 'sounding board' for educators to explore and reflect on their own AfL practices and beliefs.
Programs and policies that can hurt students and learning abound. School accountability plans, educator evaluation programs, standardization of curriculum and assessment, contradictory policy-maker expectations, and influences from international testing programs are just some of the current issues that exert pressure on public school leaders via rhetoric and education reform policy proposals. School leaders need to be able to make accurate judgments about the ethics and efficacy of education reforms so they can decide whether they must defend students and educators from practices and policies built on nothing more than rhetoric, junk-science, and anti-intellectual ideology, or whether they should support a proposal or program founded on evidence of positive outcomes.
The Empirical, Moral, and Experiential Foundations
Evidence increasingly points to a direct link between the curriculum leadership provided by educational leaders and the overall effectiveness of schools. Written by the primary architect of PSEL, educational leadership expert Joseph F. Murphy, this authoritative guide to understanding and applying the standards explores the new emphasis on leadership of learning, school culture and diversity, professional norms of educational leadership as well as teacher quality and caring support. Written for higher education faculty, professional development providers, and school and district leaders, this comprehensive manual will power the educational leadership profession through the challenges of the next decade and beyond.
Stretch student thinking with performance-based tasks. With waves of high-stakes assessments rolling through the education waters, many educators feel tied to teaching to the test. But there is a bright side. With the increased attention on assessment outlined in The Every Student Succeeds Act comes a surge of interest in designing performance-based tasks-an important key in unlocking your students' readiness for career and college. Designing and Using Performance Tasks: Enhancing Student Learning and Assessment walks you step-by-step through the process of incorporating performance tasks as a tool to teach, monitor, and extend student learning. This book will help you Make instructional decisions based on student performance of learning tasks Learn all about the different kinds of performance tasks and the benefits of each Incorporate learning progressions as an integral part of planning performance tasks Close the "knowing-doing" gap by focusing on considerations for successful implementation If you're ready to engage your students in unique and innovative ways, grab a copy of this book to guide you and your students in applying their learning-and your teaching-to real-world situations. "Teaching using performance tasks was, by far, was the most difficult type of teaching strategy for me to learn. When I began my teaching career, not many people were using this strategy, but I was fortunate to have a mentor who understood the process and was willing to teach me, two very rare occurrences in the teaching world. Thank heavens for Tracey Shiel, who has the ability to communicate the process so well and in such a manner that you enjoy reading about it at the same time - another rare event in education! I know from experience, students who learn using this strategy retain the information for longer periods of time giving teachers a stronger base upon which to build." Pamela L. Opel, Teacher Gulfport School District
Many, perhaps even most schools, are not reaching their potential to be places of collective learning. The authors believe that one of the greatest impediments to realizing this vision is the deleterious effect of traditional systems of teacher evaluation. Rather than infantilizing teachers, we need to empower them. Traditional forms of teacher ......
Even with great teachers, student achievement hinges on an effective principal. Behind every high-quality principal is an airtight system of leadership evaluation that consistently rewards excellence and remedies deficits. While teacher evaluation methods have improved, instructional leadership evaluation has often stood still-and student learning and achievement have paid the price. This book identifies the major problems in this process and articulates clear solutions. The result is a blueprint for ensuring the best person for the job is occupying the principal's chair. Content includes: Extensive data, presented in a user-friendly manner Clear connections to the new ISLLC Standards for School Leaders A suite of interactive tools including sample self-assessments, mid-year and final evaluation forms, and professional growth plans
