With Doing Poorly on Purpose, veteran educator James R. Delisle dispels the negative associations and stereotypes connected to underachievement. By focusing on smart kids who get poor grades not because they're unable to do better in school but because they don't want to Delisle presents a snapshot of underachievement that may look far different from what you envision it to be. There is no such thing as a ""classic underachiever."" Students (and their reasons for underachieving) are influenced by a wide range of factors, including self-image, self-concept, social-emotional relationships, and the amount of dignity teachers afford their students. Helping ""smart"" students achieve when they don't want to is not an easy task, but you can reengage and inspire students using Delisle's insights and practical advice on these topics: Autonomy. Access. Advocacy. Alternatives. Aspirations. Approachable Educators. Smart, underachieving students need the reassurance that they are capable, valuable, and worth listening to despite their low academic performance. If these students who are otherwise academically capable don't feel they are getting respect from those in charge of their learning, then the desire to conform and achieve is minimized. In a word, they want dignity. Don't we all? This book is a joint publication of ASCD and Free Spirit Publishing.

Why do some schools succeed while others struggle? Why do policies and programs often fail to deliver what they promise? In this follow-up to their insightful School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform It, authors Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker offer practical advice and strategies that help you build positive energy to reinvigorate your school's culture and staff. Written as a standalone guide, School Culture Recharged clarifies the difference between culture and climate and zeroes in on key school improvement efforts, including: Moving from the culture you have to the culture you want. Using the school's culture to improve teaching, job satisfaction, and morale. Maximizing the intentions of professional learning communities. Developing organizational habits-rules and rituals-that can contribute to positive change. For education leaders at all levels, this book delivers a compelling message: Understanding and harnessing the transformative power of school culture can propel your school into the kind of place where teachers want to work, administrators can focus on what matters most, and students can thrive.

Students taught with a social justice framework will ideally have a stronger sense of what is just and fair and choose careers and lifestyles that support their communities. Over time, students look at current and historical events-even their own actions-through the lens of social justice, promoting better decision-making. Building trust impacts the bottom line for global companies, and multilingual communication is a core pillar for effective growth. It is essential to promote this trust through social justice and educate learners on intercultural and multilingual communication. The Handbook of Research on Fostering Social Justice Through Intercultural and Multilingual Communication explores innovative teaching, learning, and assessment practices that foster social justice and enhance intercultural and multilingual communication in primary, secondary, post-secondary, and higher education. It demonstrates the value of adopting a social justice lens in education by broadening and strengthening the evidence base of the impact that this can make for students, educators, and society as a whole. Covering topics such as game-based assessment, social adaptation, and plurilingual classroom citizenship, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for educators and administrators of both K-12 and higher education, librarians, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, government officials, educational managers, linguists, researchers, and academicians.

Educators' most important work is to help students develop the intellectual and social strength of character necessary to live well in the world. The way to do this, argue authors Bena Kallick and Allison Zmuda, is to increase the say students have in their own learning and prepare them to navigate complexities they face both inside and beyond school. This means rethinking traditional teacher and student roles and re-examining goal setting, lesson planning, assessment, and feedback practices. It means establishing classrooms that prioritize: Voice-Involving students in "the what" and "the how" of learning and equipping them to be stewards of their own education. Co-creation-Guiding students to identify the challenges and concepts they want to explore and outline the actions they will take. Social construction-Having students work with others to theorize, pursue common goals, build products, and generate performances. Self-discovery-Teaching students to reflect on their own developing skills and knowledge so that they will acquire new understandings of themselves and how they learn. Based on their exciting work in the field, Kallick and Zmuda map out a transformative model of personalization that puts students at the center and asks them to employ the set of dispositions for engagement and learning known as the Habits of Mind. They share the perspectives of educators engaged in this work; highlight the habits that empower students to pursue aspirations, investigate problems, design solutions, chase curiosities, and create performances; and provide tools and recommendations for adjusting classroom practices to facilitate learning that is self-directed, dynamic, sometimes messy, and always meaningful.

The study of learning versus teaching development has a significant impact on facilitating learners' development to use ICT-based digital technology. As innovation has developed, it has also changed how instructors connect with their understudies and study halls. To better understand these technological developments, further study is required. Facilitating Learning in Language Classrooms Through ICT-Based Digital Technology considers technology from the fields of ICT-based digital technology, facilitating learning, teaching development, language, and linguistics. This book also assesses the effectiveness of technology uses in ICT-based digital technology and language classrooms as well as considers the successful methods of teaching and language topics in the teaching-learning phase through technology. Covering key topics such as artificial intelligence, gamification, media, and technology tools, this premier reference source is ideal for computer scientists, administrators, principals, researchers, academicians, practitioners, scholars, instructors, and students.

In this lively and practical book, seasoned educator Jonathan Cassie shines a spotlight on gamification, an instructional approach that's revolutionizing K-12 education. Games are well known for their ability to inspire persistence. The best ones feature meaningful choices that have lasting consequences, reward experimentation, provide a like-minded community of players, and gently punish failure and encourage risk-taking behavior. Players feel challenged, but not overwhelmed. A gamified lesson bears these same hallmarks. It is explicitly gamelike in its design and fosters perseverance, creativity, and resilience. Students build knowledge through experimentation and then apply what they've learned to fuel further exploration at higher levels of understanding. In this book, Cassie covers: What happens to student learning when it is gamified. Why you might want to gamify instruction for your students. The process for gamifying both your classroom and your lessons. If you want to see your students engaged, motivated, and excited about learning, join Jonathan Cassie on a journey that will add a powerful new set of ideas and practices to your teaching toolkit. The gamified classroom-an exciting new frontier of 21st century learning-awaits you and your students. Will you answer the call?

A principal's job is astonishingly complex, and its competing demands can be overwhelming, especially in the first few years. In this book, Jen Schwanke, a principal herself, provides a mentor's guidance to steer new principals through the period of adjustment and set the foundation for a long and rewarding career. The topics you wish your graduate program had covered are covered here-directly, practically, and without the jargon. Drawing on her own experience, Schwanke provides strategies for tackling the most common yet most daunting challenges of the principalship, including: Establishing productive professional relationships. Building and maintaining a positive school culture. Resolving conflict among staff and parents. Providing effective instructional leadership. Supporting students' social-emotional needs. Conducting staff evaluations and delivering feedback. Keeping up with district, state, and federal mandates. Managing the facility and the budget. Providing focused and effective professional development. Prioritizing responsibilities. Learning from student and schoolwide data. Planning for growth and change. Working through behavior and discipline issues. Hiring high-quality teachers and supporting new ones. Leading effective meetings. Maintaining balance. The standalone chapters provide easy access to the solutions you need for the situations you face. Along with real-life scenarios and critical tips for success, you'll find helpful models of what to do, what to say, and how to say it. This book is a source for ideas any time you encounter a problem and think, "Now what?" It's the beginning of an ongoing conversation about the wonderful and rewarding work of being a principal.

Aspects of education law provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the laws that currently inform, prescribe and influence the activities of educators and education managers, whether on the sports fields or in the boardroom, at the blackboard or behind a desk. This revised fourth edition of Aspects of education law places emphasis on the legal aspects that pertain to learner misconduct in South African schools, with extended chapters on human rights and school governance, and has been thoroughly updated in terms of new legislation and case law. It includes discussions of the position of the child as legal subject, the educator's duty of care and the administrative aspects of school management. Aspects of education law has become an essential resource for educators, lawyers, members of governing boards and parents, and all of those who are interested in ensuring high-quality schooling in South Africa. Previous editions have been hailed as being "among the highest in the international community" and "a must for ...scholars throughout the world with an interest in comparative education law" by American academics.

Transitioning from secondary to higher education is not a natural step for many first-year students in higher education institutions. There is a considerable difference between being a student at school and university, and previous research has highlighted the difficulties faced by first-year university students during their transition phase. Higher education institutions and their departments acknowledge the challenges faced by new students, and they differ in their approach to coping with the issue; each seeks to find the most effective solution for its students. To reduce the withdrawal rate during the first year of college, higher education providers are expected to apply transition programs to help students transition. Coping Mechanisms for First-Year Students Transitioning to Higher Education presents a comprehensive account of the dynamics in higher education institutions and culture shock for new students and analyzes models and theories of adjustment of new students in higher education institutions. Covering key topics such as gender, institutional support, and success factors, this reference work is ideal for administrators, higher education professionals, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.

What is FIT Teaching? What is a FIT Teacher? The Framework for Intentional and Targeted Teaching (R)-or FIT Teaching (R)-is a research-based, field-tested, and experience-honed process that captures the essentials of the best educational environments. In contrast to restrictive pedagogical prescriptions or formulas, FIT Teaching empowers teachers to adapt the most effective planning, instructional, and assessment practices to their particular context in order to move their students' learning from where it is now to where it should be. To be a FIT Teacher is to make a heroic commitment to learning-not just to the learning of every student in the classroom, but to the professional learning necessary to grow, inspire, and lead. This book introduces the powerful FIT Teaching Tool, which harnesses the FIT Teaching approach and presents a detailed continuum of growth and leadership. It's a close-up look at what intentional and targeting teaching is and what successful teachers do to: Plan with purpose. Cultivate a learning climate. Instruct with intention. Assess with a system. Impact student learning. Designed to foster discussion among educators about what they are doing in the classroom, the FIT Teaching Tool can be used by teachers for self-assessment; by teacher peers for collegial feedback in professional learning communities; by instructional coaches to focus on the skills teachers need both onstage and off; and by school leaders to highlight their teachers' strengths and value. Join authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Stefani Arzonetti Hite for an examination of what makes great teachers great, and see how educators at all grade levels and all levels of experience are taking intentional steps toward enhanced professional practice.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused institutions to rethink traditional practices and consider new ways of learning and approaching students, faculty, and staff. Though not always embraced in the past, colleges and universities turned to online education in order to keep students enrolled as the health of students had to be prioritized. For institutions that may not have had health services on campus, such as community colleges, these needs called for more planning and options for referral of services. Education Reform in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic educates individuals regarding the impact of COVID-19 on higher education institutions internally and externally and considers the lessons learned as well as what could be next. The book also presents solutions to the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic wrought on universities and colleges and looks toward using those solutions for future applications. Covering a range of topics such as student engagement, enrollment, and virtual spaces, it is an ideal resource for administrators, educators, mental health professionals, faculty, universities, and students.

In his 2011 ASCD best-seller Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, author Mike Schmoker described a fresh approach to K-12 teaching built on three core elements: a focused and coherent curriculum; clear, prioritized lessons; and purposeful reading and writing, or authentic literacy. Now, in Leading with Focus, he shows administrators, principals, and other education leaders how to apply his model to the work of running schools and districts. In this companion to his previous book, Schmoker offers: An overview of the case for simple, focused school and district leadership-demonstrating its power for vastly improving the work of teachers and leaders. Examples of real schools and districts that have embraced focused leadership-and the incredible results for student learning. A practical, flexible, and easy-to-follow implementation guide for ensuring focused leadership in schools and districts. All students deserve to learn in schools where educators eschew distractions and superfluous activities to concentrate on what's most important. To that end, this book is an essential resource for leaders ready to streamline their practice and focus their efforts on radically improving student learning.

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.

The Canadian provinces have evolved quite different ways of responding to the policy problems posed by religious schools. Seeking to understand this peculiar reality, Faith, Rights, and Choice articulates the ways in which the provincial governance regimes developed for religious schools have changed over time. Covering nearly three centuries, the book begins with the founding of schooling systems in New France and continues into a variety of present-day conflicts that emerged over the question of religion in schools. James Farney and Clark Banack employ a method of process-tracing, drawing on 88 semi-structured interviews with key policy insiders. They also reference archival material documenting meetings, political speeches, and legislative debates related to government decisions around issues of religious education. Relying on the theoretical foundations of both historical institutionalism and Canadian political development, Faith, Rights, and Choice presents a new analytic framework to help make sense of the policy divergence witnessed across Canada.