Advancing equity in our schools and society requires deep thought and honest conversations about tough topics. These conversations about emotionally charged subjects, including race, class, and culture, can be daunting. Authors Brenda CampbellJones, Shannon Keeny, and Franklin CampbellJones, experts in research and equitable practices, guide you through a meaningful framework for thinking about, preparing for, and having such critical conversations. They invite you to ponder your own cultural identity and assumptions, reflect and deeply consider values and beliefs, and then understand how these factors affect your conversations and interactions with others. They provide essential information about the types of conversations and behaviors we all consciously and subconsciously exhibit and witness, with authentic stories and experiences from people who have used the authors' framework to enrich their communities. As you explore the information and activities in this book that are specifically designed to help you scaffold new ideas into practice, you and your colleagues will examine biases and begin to build equitable experiences for all students. The book's field-tested approach enables every educator to grow professionally by using the power of conversation to develop trust, ask powerful questions, really hear the answers-and learn together in ways that strengthen and invigorate the school and community.

Aimed at the growing number of educators who are looking to move beyond covering the curriculum, Designing Authentic Performance Tasks and Projects provides a comprehensive guide to ensuring students' deeper learning-in which they can transfer their knowledge, skills, and understandings to the world beyond the classroom. Readers will learn how to: Create authentic tasks and projects to address both academic standards and 21st century skills. Apply task frames to design performance tasks that allow voice and choice for students. Design and use criterion-based evaluation tools and rubrics for assessment, including those for students to use in self-assessment and peer assessment. Incorporate performance-based instructional strategies needed to prepare students for authentic performance. Differentiate tasks and projects for all students, including those needing additional support or challenge. Effectively manage the logistics of a performance-based classroom. Use project management approaches to facilitate successful implementation of tasks and projects. Develop performance-based curriculum at the program, school, and district levels. Authors Jay McTighe, Kristina J. Doubet, and Eric M. Carbaugh provide examples and resources across all grade levels and subject areas. Teachers can use this practical guidance to transform their classrooms into vibrant centers of learning, where students are motivated and engaged and see relevance in the work they are doing.

Making is a dynamic and hands-on learning experience that directly connects with long-established theories of how learning occurs. Although it hasn't been a focus of traditional education or had a prominent place in the classroom, teachers find it an accessible, exciting option for their students. The maker movement brings together diverse communities dedicated to creating things through hands-on projects. Makers represent a growing community of builders and creators-engineers, scientists, artists, DIYers, and hobbyists of all ages, interests, and skill levels-who engage in experimentation and cooperation. Transferring this innovative, collaborative, and creative mindset to the classroom is the goal of maker education. A makerspace isn't about the latest tools and equipment. Rather, it's about the learning experiences and opportunities provided to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as a school workshop with high-tech tools (e.g., 3D printers and laser cutters) or as small and low-tech as the corner of a classroom with bins of craft supplies. Ultimately, it's about the mindset-not the ""stuff.""In Learning in the Making, Jackie Gerstein helps you plan, execute, facilitate, and reflect on maker experiences so both you and your students understand how the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of maker education transfer to real-world settings. She also shows how to seamlessly integrate these activities into your curriculum with intention and a clearly defined purpose.

Winner of AM&P EXCEL Gold Award ""They don't care about their education."" ""They are not capable of learning."" ""I can't work with them."" ""I can't get through to them."" Just as you may have thought these things about your students, they, too, may have similar thoughts about you: ""She doesn't care about my education."" ""He is not capable of understanding me."" ""I can't work with her."" ""I can't get through to him."" While all students in your class, building, or school district need your support, the Black and Latino male students-the most underserved, suspended, and expelled students in education-need you to understand them as you support them so that they can thrive academically. In Becoming the Educator They Need, former professional athlete turned educator Robert Jackson reminds teachers and administrators that although ""a great majority of all the stories in the news about Black and Latino males are negative,"" these young men-the most likely to be incarcerated, drop out of school, and become victims of homicide-need you to work through any biases you may have and internalize and employ the five core beliefs and mindsets necessary to best serve your Black and Latino male students, the six core values for teaching Black and Latino males, and the 11 characteristics of strong, healthy relationships and become the educator that these students need.

This book is a road map for teachers and school leaders who need to meet the needs of increasing numbers of Newcomers and other English Learners (ELs). The authors draw from years of experience in working with, listening to, and coaching administrators, teachers, and coaches nationwide to help you develop and implement an effective plan for your school. Beginning with the core belief that ""getting to know the student is pivotal,"" the authors show how to address both the academic and the social needs of Newcomers to help them integrate and excel-from their first day of school. The main components of the plan are the following: Identifying your students and assessing educational and socioemotional needs. Identifying qualified teachers and staff. Developing highly effective programs for Newcomers and other ELs. Accelerating English learners' acquisition of language, literacy, and knowledge through proven classroom teaching techniques. Supporting Newcomers' socioemotional well-being through classroom and administrative structures. Designing, implementing, and sustaining professional development for all staff. If you already have a plan for integrating Newcomers and ELs, you can use the information in this book to assess and strengthen it and to learn more about resources for continued coaching and growth. Whether your school has a formal plan or not, the information in this practical guide can help your staff better collaborate to attend to the needs and build on the strengths of Newcomers and ELs in your school.

What is play and why is it important? Worldwide, the role and significance of play-based learning as opposed to an academic curriculum is under scrutiny. Rethinking learning through play focuses on the role of play in young children in the early years and how it encourages optimal learning. Rethinking learning through play examines various theories and approaches to play, and explores a range of strategies and techniques to integrate play successfully in the learning environment and daily programme. With its strong theoretical foundation, it explains in practical terms what and how children learn through play, and how to support learning through play in different contexts. Rethinking learning through play is aimed at pre-service teachers as well as those who are already working in the field and who value the development and optimal learning of young children.

Summarization. Just when we thought we knew everything about it, the doors to divergent thinking open and summarization-no longer something that students must endure until you get to the ""cool"" stuff-takes on an exciting new role in student success!In this second edition of Summarization in Any Subject, Dedra Stafford joins Rick Wormeli in adding fresh depth and creative variations to the basics, including changes to all 50 techniques from the first edition and brand new summarizing techniques that can be differentiated for multiple disciplines and levels of student readiness. Personably written, with a sense of humor and a commitment to students' substantive engagement with curriculum, this new edition provides practical, ""show me what it looks like"" tools and descriptions as well as QR codes and tech integrations for many of the techniques. The book provides:A clear rationale for summarization in any subject along with an explanation of the cognitive science that powers its positive effects, including the influence of background knowledge and primacy-recency, plus the benefits of metaphors, chunking, timing, maintaining objectivity, and the efficacy that comes when students process content. Practical tips for teaching students note taking, paraphrasing, and text structure. Nine easy strategies that teachers can use to help students begin to understand what they need to know in order to summarize. Detailed descriptions of 60 strategies and critical thinking variations that provide students with memorable learning experiences, plus targeted support materials that assist in teaching and learning. It's time to revitalize learning and shatter the tedium associated with summarization, and this new edition of Summarization in Any Subject can help you do just that.

In this latest installment to his series of best-selling self-reflection guides, celebrated educator, author, and motivational speaker Baruti Kafele offers school leaders 35 thought-provoking questions to ponder from one fundamental overarching query: ""Is my school a better school because I lead it?"" Musing deeply on discrete leadership matters is an essential component of success for anybody overseeing the day-to-day operations of a school, and doubly so in communities plagued by drugs, violence, or other markers of societal dysfunction. In this book, Kafele offers those seeking to improve the quality of instruction in their institutions hard-won wisdom on such critical issues as ensuring an optimal culture and climate, engaging in parent and community outreach, confirming emergency preparedness, rallying staff, and much more. Because the sheer volume of responsibilities for a principal or assistant principal can leave you with very little time for developing an effective and consistent self-reflection regimen, Kafele has done the work for you. You need only open the book and begin reading to embark upon a penetratingly insightful journey destined to transform your practice, boost teacher satisfaction, and-most important of all-inspire students to excel academically.

For students to be successful in school, they first have to be in school.""With that simple statement, Jessica Sprick and Randy Sprick launch a compelling case for prioritizing student attendance. This comprehensive guide provides school and district-level administrators and teams with the background information, strategies, and tools needed to implement a multitiered approach to improving attendance and preventing chronic absence. The authors use the results of their work in schools throughout the United States to dispel the myth that educators have little control over student attendance and provide success stories from elementary and secondary schools that have reversed longstanding patterns of absenteeism. Citing extensive research, Sprick and Sprick share details about the shocking prevalence of chronic absence in U.S. schools and its effects on students, teachers, families, and the school community. They explain how to replace punitive approaches to absenteeism with effective methods that begin with universal supports and continue through Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions for students with more persistent problems. Specifically, they explain how to: Build an effective school team to address absenteeism. Create systems to collect accurate data and set priorities. Develop an attendance initiative that generates student enthusiasm as well as staff, parent, and community support. Design and implement strategies that are tailored to specific schoolwide concerns and demographics that reach all students. Equipped with the information and tools presented in this book, educators can ensure wise use of staff and other resources-and create a culture of attendance that is the foundation of successful schools. This book is a copublication of ASCD and Ancora Publishing.

Much has been written about children's literature as a genre; but very little material exists on how to use it in diverse South African classrooms where teachers prepare young learners in literacy skills. Introducing Children's Literature equips the prospective teacher with a strong theoretical introduction to the genre and details how children can be encouraged to become enthusiastic readers. This books also provides insight into the developmental stages of a child; the history of South African literature, with particular reference to the oral tradition; the role of the adult in establishing a reading culture; practicalities of introducing stories and literature to children in different phases from diverse contexts; the use of illustrations and technology to enhance other literacies; techniques of storytelling and selecting appropriate texts; the influence of the hidden curriculum in terms of moral development, stereotyping, sanitising and representation. The authors collectively have decades of experience in teacher education, teaching at the chalkface and raising their own children to enjoy reading. Many practical suggestions for using children's literature in the classroom makes this book a necessity for teachers, student teachers and parents.

Teacher leadership holds great promise for improving the quality of teaching and ensuring student success. But for co-performance of leadership among teacher leaders and principals to be effective, they must learn to lead in sync. Leading In Sync: Teacher Leaders and Principals Working Together for Student Learning provides principals, assistant principals, coaches, department leaders, grade-level and content team leaders, mentors, professional development leaders, and in fact all teachers with the strategies and tools needed to: Examine their own thinking about what constitutes high-quality teaching so they can work toward a shared vision. Identify teachers' many strengths as potential assets for achieving the shared vision. Recognize ways in which most teachers are already leading. Support leadership collaboration through efficient, effective communication. Develop trust required to learn to lead together. Jill Harrison Berg offers thought-provoking context and reflection questions that enable educators to examine their unique settings; real-world examples of teachers and principals co-performing leadership to improve student success; and dozens of strategies, tools, and templates to facilitate leading in sync. This book includes a link to free downloadable tools.

In today's modern world, it is crucial to ensure diversity and inclusion are present in all forms of education. This can be particularly difficult to achieve in virtual learning environments as educators and students adjust to this new way of teaching and learning. Further study on how schools and institutions across the globe are promoting diversity in online environments is necessary to discover the best practices and ensure education as a whole remains inclusive. Comparative Research on Diversity in Virtual Learning: Eastern vs. Western Perspectives collects lived experiences of stakeholders from different countries regarding their experiences with teaching in diverse virtual learning environments. The book identifies characteristics of diversity in virtual online learning and explores the best practices of teaching and learning in said environments. Importantly, the reference covers experiences from both Eastern and Western countries and compares the challenges and opportunities afforded to both. Covering topics such as student engagement, computational thinking, and diverse environments, this reference work is ideal for teachers, administrators, policymakers, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

Today's changed education landscape demands leaders who will provide society with capable South Africans who are able to fulfil their life-roles as citizens and as productive, well-adjusted human beings. An educator's guide to school management skills aims at providing education leaders and managers with practical, school-based directives. This title focuses on four particularly relevant aspects in our schools today: How to develop excellence in schools; leadership and management skills; motivational skills; current school management issues (i.e. effective teaching personnel; management of information and time; school's finances; managing of the instructional programme; community involvement; legal aspects of employment; and gender equity).

Why aren't more schools seeing significant improvement in students' reading ability when they implement Response to Intervention (RTI) or Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS) in their literacy programs? These frameworks serve as a way for educators to identify struggling readers and provide the small-group instruction they need to improve their skills. But the success stories are too few in number, and most schools have too little to show for their efforts. What accounts for the difference? What are successful schools doing that sets them apart? Author and education consultant Susan Hall provides answers in the form of 10 success factors for implementing MTSS. Based on her experience in schools across the United States, she explains the ""whys"" and ""hows"" of: Grouping by skill deficit and using diagnostic assessments to get helpful data for grouping and regrouping. Implementing an instructional delivery model, including the ""walk-to-intervention"" model. Using intervention time wisely and being aware of what makes intervention effective. Providing teachers with the materials they need for effective lessons and delivering differentiated professional development for administrators, reading coaches, teachers, and instructional assistants. Monitoring progress regularly and conducting nonevaluative observations of intervention instruction. Practical, comprehensive, and evidence-based, 10 Success Factors for Literacy Intervention provides the guidance educators need to move from disappointing results to solid gains in students' literacy achievement.

The world today needs mindful leaders who care for the holistic well-being of their students and staff, inspiring all to renew schools with compassion, creativity and courage. But what is mindful leadership, and how can leaders create and sustain mindful schools? Mindful Leadership for Schools draws on the educational thought of Confucius and explores how Confucian mindful leadership (CML) can offer a solution. This book shows how a Confucian mindful leader is one who attends to self, others, things and events respectfully, promoting the virtues of love, harmony and social justice through personal cultivation, role-modelling, community-building, coaching and initiating reforms. Tan explores how this approach complements and strengthens authentic, instructional, distributed and transformational leadership strategies, offering a novel and practical leadership approach that combines ancient wisdom and modern educational research.

Design is the rendering of intent."" What if education leaders approached their work with the perspective of a designer? This new perspective of seeing the world differently is desperately needed in schools and begins with school leadership. Alyssa Gallagher and Kami Thordarson, widely recognized experts on Design Thinking, educational leadership, and innovative strategies, call this new perspective design-inspired leadership-one of the most powerful ways to ignite positive change and address education challenges using the same design and innovation principles that have been so successful in private industry.Design Thinking for School Leaders explores the changing landscape of leadership and offers practical ways to reframe the role of school leader using Design Thinking, one step at a time. Leaders can shift from ""accidental designers"" to ""design-inspired leaders,"" acting with greater intention and achieving greater impact. You'll learn how viewing the world through a more empathetic lens-a critical first step on the path to becoming a design-inspired leader-can raise your awareness of the uniqueness of your teachers and students and prompt you to question the ways in which they experience your school. Gallagher and Thordarson detail five specific roles to help you identify opportunities for positively impacting students, teachers, districts, parents, and the community: Opportunity Seeker. Shifts from problem solving to problem finding. Experience Architect. Designs and curates learning experiences. Rule Breaker. Challenges the way things are ""always"" done. Producer. Gets things done and creates rapid learning cycles for teams. Storyteller. Captures the hearts and minds of a community. Full of examples of Design Thinking in action in schools across the country, Design Thinking for School Leaders can help you guide your school to the forefront of the new design and education movement, one that will move traditional education into the modern world and drive the future of learning.

In this revised and updated 4th edition, Discipline with Dignity provides in-depth guidance for implementing a proven approach to classroom management that can help students make better choices and teachers be more effective. Emphasizing the importance of mutual respect and self-control, the authors offer specific strategies and techniques for building strong relationships with disruptive students and countering the toxic social circumstances that affect many of them, including dysfunctional families, gangs, and poverty. Educators at all levels can learn: The difference between formal and informal discipline systems and when to use each. The role of values, rules, and consequences. How to address the underlying causes of discipline problems that occur both in and out of school. What teachers can do to defuse or prevent classroom disruptions and disrespectful behavior without removing students from the classroom. Why traditional approaches such as threats, punishments, and rewards are ineffective-and what to do instead. How to use relevance, teacher enthusiasm, choice, and other elements of curriculum and instruction to motivate students. How to reduce both teacher and student stress that can trigger power struggles. With dozens of specific examples of student-teacher interactions, Discipline with Dignity illustrates what you can do-and not do-to make the classroom a place where students learn and teachers maintain control in a nonconfrontational way. The goal is success for all, in schools that thrive.

Everyone has the right to education. The main objective of any education system in a democratic society is to provide quality education for all learners, including those with physical, mental and socioeconomic challenges, so that they will be able to reach their full potential and contribute meaningfully to society throughout their lives. With the publication of the Education White Paper 6 in 2001, South Africa proclaimed its policy of inclusive education; however, this policy is not always clearly understood by educators. Addressing barriers to learning provides relevant and in-depth knowledge to prepare educators to teach all the learners in their class groups to the best of their ability. Addressing barriers to learning covers the complete continuum of barriers to learning as reflected in Education White Paper 6, including the most vulnerable of them: those who are economically and educationally disadvantaged; those with physical, sensory, intellectual, and/or learning impairment; those who are subjected to xenophobic behaviour and those displaying challenging behaviour who are at risk of exclusion. This latest edition also includes a new section on discrimination and sociocultural injustice towards LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and intersex) learners. Case studies offer practical examples and activities provide opportunities for hands-on experience with classroom practice and management, collaboration with all role players and mobilisation of community involvement, which is at the heart of true inclusion. Addressing barriers to learning is aimed at both prospective and current educators and other support professionals, including psychologists and therapists.

This book focuses on teaching and learning in distance learning virtual universities. The emergence of distance learning virtual universities has provided increased opportunities for adult learners to obtain higher education degrees in a remote teaching-learning environment. During the pandemic, for-profit online learning institutions experienced increases in enrollment while face-to-face institutions experienced decreasing enrollments. Increasing learner enrollments, increasing numbers of courses delivered, and an increasingly competitive environment forces influence how higher education institutions will respond to the anticipated growth in distance learning. Higher education accreditation bodies have legitimized distance learning virtual universities as sites for adult learners, especially part-time adult learners, and made distance education an accepted way to receive a higher education degree. Virtual universities are challenging the supremacy of the land-based university as the only legitimate form of educational delivery. However, little has been published concerning how virtual universities have addressed access, availability, quality, retention, and better life opportunities. As the educational marketplace becomes predominately adult-dominated and higher education institutions compete for adult enrollment, understanding how virtual distance learning institutions are changing the higher education landscape will be an increasingly important issue. This book explores, describes, and questions the role of these institutions in the higher education landscape. Can for-profit education (education as a commodity) also be high quality and serve a societal function of providing adult learners access and opportunity? When critiquing the value and place of the for-profit university, one must ask, is the concern for the profit motive justified, or is it a move by traditional universities to reduce the influence of the virtual university? For-profit distance learning institutions were initially developed to provide access to higher education for adult learners who may experience barriers to attending a traditional university and, as such, tend to address better the needs of working adult learners. These institutions provided increased accessibility and availability for learners who may not otherwise pursue higher education. It is also important to note that distance education is not exclusive to for-profit universities. However, little is known about how learners learn and how teachers teach in these institutions. While sometimes neglected in publications and research, these institutions have been and continue to be disruptive while driving innovations in distance education.

Excellence Through Equity is an inspiring look at how real-world educators are creating schools where all students are able to thrive. In these schools, educators understand that equity is not about treating all children the same. They are deeply committed to ensuring that each student receives what he or she individually needs to develop their full potential and succeed. To help educators with what can at times be a difficult and challenging journey, Blankstein and Noguera frame the book with five guiding principles of Courageous Leadership: Getting to your core. Making organizational meaning. Ensuring constancy and consistency of purpose. Facing the facts and your fears. Building sustainable relationships. They further emphasize that the practices are grounded in three important areas of research that are too often disregarded: (1) child development, (2) neuroscience, and (3) environmental influences on child development and learning. You'll hear from Carol Corbett Burris, Michael Fullan, Marcus J. Newsome, Paul Reville, Susan Szachowicz, and other bold practitioners and visionary thinkers who share compelling and actionable ideas, strategies, and experiences for closing the achievement gap in your classrooms and school. Ensuring that all students receive an education that cultivates their talents and potential is in all our common interest. As Andy Hargreaves writes in the coda: ""The opportunity for all Americans is to articulate and believe in an inspiring vision of educational change that is about what the next generation of America and Americans should become, not about a target or ranking that the nation should attain."" From the Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu: ""Letting go of a system of winners and losers in favor of what is proposed in this book is a courageous leap forward that we all must take together. Let this bold, practical book be a guide; and may you travel into this new exciting vista, in which every child can succeed.

How can we ensure that all students, regardless of cultural background or socioeconomic status, are granted equitable opportunities to succeed in the classroom and beyond? In Keeping It Real and Relevant: Building Authentic Relationships in Your Diverse Classroom, author and veteran educator Ignacio Lopez offers hard-won lessons that educators at all levels can apply to teaching, assessing, counseling, and designing interventions for learners from all walks of life. These insights are all rooted in the same core principle: building deep and meaningful relationships with students is the key driver of their success. In addition to examining the pivotal role of relationship-building among teachers and students in preparing the latter to perform at the highest level, this book offers: Real-life examples of challenging classroom situations, each with a detailed breakdown of how they were peacefully and non-punitively resolved. Strategies for designing learning environments suited to the individual needs of students and reflective of their cultural backgrounds. Ideas for scaffolding students as they experience and internalize epiphanies about what works and what doesn't, both academically and behaviorally. Activities and reflection questions for use in professional development. Many teachers find balancing the needs of increasingly diverse classrooms made up of learners from increasingly diverse backgrounds to be a difficult and often thankless task-and one that takes precious time away from instructional planning. Here, Lopez outlines simple but ingenious steps for addressing these needs holistically, in a way that takes no extra time yet amply enhances the learning experience for students. Clear, practical, and much-needed, Keeping It Real and Relevant is the ultimate blueprint for creating a harmonious and successful classroom for kids of all colors, creeds, and cultures.