Research-based insights and practical advice about effective learning strategies In this new edition of the highly regarded Why Don't Students Like School? cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham turns his research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning into workable teaching techniques. This book will help you improve your teaching practice by explaining how you and your students think and learn. It reveals the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences. With a treasure trove of updated material, this edition draws its themes from the most frequently asked questions in Willingham's "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" column in the American Educator. How can you teach students the skills they need when standardized testing just requires facts? Why do students remember everything on TV, but forget everything you say? How can you adjust your teaching for different learning styles? Read this book for the answers to these questions and for practical advice on helping your learners learn better. Discover easy-to-understand, evidence-based principles with clear applications for the classroom Update yourself on the latest cognitive science research and new, teacher-tested pedagogical tools Learn about Willingham's surprising findings, such as that you cannot develop "thinking skills" without facts Understand the brain's workings to help you hone your teaching skills Why Students Don't Like School is a valuable resource for both veteran and novice teachers, teachers-in-training, and for the principals, administrators, and staff development professionals who work with them.

Throughout the 20th century, grade-school teachers were trained in schools of education where progressive theories largely held sway and were licensed by state bureaucracies philosophically compatible with the education schools. Vested education interests now seek to make the monopoly even more controlling by requiring that all teachers be products of education schools accredited by a single national agency dedicated to progressive ideals.

Holland proposes an alternative vision compatible with the emerging 21st-century paradigm of a competitive education industry: Lower unnecessary barriers to teaching so that bright persons of diverse background and disposition can become teachers. Set up an alternative track--as in New Jersey--so that bright liberal arts graduates or persons with valuable real-world experience can be hired as teachers and put under the supervision of experienced mentors. Apply value-added assessment--as in Tennessee--to these new teachers, and to veteran teachers as well, so that principals can see how much each teacher has helped each child progress academically--or not--from school year to school year. Holland's plan to break up the teacher-prep monopoly is bound to be controversial, and, as such, should be of great interest to all--from parents and administrators to teachers and policy makers--concerned with improving the state of American education.

Course Design and Assessment offers design strategies, educator-in-action perspectives, and real-world suggestions for engaged educators, creating inclusive and meaningful learning opportunities and developmental student growth. With a brief history situating engaged learning among educational models, the book shows the vital and practical connections between an educator's overall learning philosophy and their pedagogical choices. The authors unpack the definitions and practices common to engaged learning, exploring the assumptions educators make about students, teaching, learning, and instructional contexts that underlie engaged educators' pedagogical decisions. Ultimately a vehicle for inclusive learning and transparent design, the book outlines pre-course planning steps, suggestions for adjusting the course mid-stream, and a thorough discussion of assessment activities with planning and implementation steps. For beginning and advanced instructors worldwide, this book serves as a real-world workbook and resource for engaged course design and assessment practices.

Packed with practical strategies you can use to create a culture of self-motivation in your school!Teachers use traditional incentive and reward systems with the best of intentions. We're trying to support students' positive behavior and learning. We're hoping to motivate and inspire students to work hard and do well in school. If everyone behaves, we'll have a pizza party. The more books you read, the more stickers you'll receive. On the surface, these systems seem to make sense. They may even seem to work. But in the long term, they do not foster intrinsic motivation or a love of learning. In fact, they often have the opposite effect. In Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems, award-winning educator and best-selling author Mike Anderson explains * The damage done by extrinsic motivation systems and why they are so hard for us to give up. * What intrinsic motivation looks like and the six high-impact motivators-autonomy, belonging, competence, purpose, fun, and curiosity-that foster it. * How to teach the self-management and self-motivation skills that can make a difference for kids. * How to use intrinsic motivation in curricula and instructional strategies, feedback and assessment, and discipline and classroom management. Ultimately, our job as teachers is not to motivate our students. It's to make sure that our classrooms and schools are places that inspire their intrinsic motivation and allow it to flourish. Anderson shows how you can better do that right away-no matter what grade level or subject area you teach.

Teach Like a Champion 3.0 is the long-awaited update to Doug Lemov's highly regarded guide to the craft of teaching. This book teaches you how to create a positive and productive classroom that encourages student engagement, trust, respect, accountability, and excellence. In this edition, you'll find new and updated teaching techniques, the latest evidence from cognitive science and culturally responsive teaching practices, and an expanded companion video collection. Learn how to build students' background knowledge, move learning into long-term memory, and connect your teaching with the curriculum content for tangible improvement in learning outcomes. The new version of the book includes: An introductory chapter on mental models for teachers to use to guide their decision-making in the classroom. A brand new chapter on Lesson Preparation. 10 new techniques Updated and revised versions of all the technique readers know and use A brand new set of exemplar videos, including more than a dozen longer "keystone" videos which show how teachers combine and balance technique over a stretch of 8 to 10 minutes of teaching. Extensive discussion of research in social and cognitive science to support and guide the use of techniques. Additional online resources, and supports Read this powerful update to discover the techniques that leading teachers are using to put students on the path to success.

The recent imperative for online teaching has brought many educational challenges to the fore. Featuring current topics such as accessibility, diversity, and mobile access, this guide contains everything a teacher needs to make a great online course in one read. The author provides step by step instructions for coding classes, appendices with relevant laws and a copyright checklist, a resource list for online course design and a bibliography of theory and applied pedagogy. In addition, she shares techniques to improve engagement for both students and instructors. Professors, instructors, and librarians in higher education teaching online, hybrid or flex courses that are looking for ways to build interesting classes for a diverse student body will find inspiration and direction in Creating Inclusive and Engaging Online Courses.

Today's teachers are expected to meet the needs of a range of diverse and multicultural learners in their classrooms, ensuring that they create favourable conditions for learning. This can be a daunting task, particularly for beginners, as it is only through teaching practice that student teachers develop important professional knowledge about themselves, fellow teachers, learners, their communities and the teaching profession as a whole. Teaching practice in an African context is an essential guide for both students and experienced teachers, providing the insight and skills they need to navigate South African schools. Teaching practice in an African context is informed by the principles of Africanisation and ubuntu, and is written in a clear, conversational style. It encourages reflection on the various practical aspects of teaching, leading to better education practice and thus improving performance. Teaching practice in an African context is aimed at undergraduate education students as well as qualified teachers already in practice.

"As departments...scramble to decolonize their curriculum, Givens illuminates a longstanding counter-canon in predominantly black schools and colleges." -Boston Review "Informative and inspiring...An homage to the achievement of an often-forgotten racial pioneer." -Glenn C. Altschuler, Florida Courier "A long-overdue labor of love and analysis...that would make Woodson, the ever-rigorous teacher, proud." -Randal Maurice Jelks, Los Angeles Review of Books "Fascinating, and groundbreaking. Givens restores Carter G. Woodson, one of the most important educators and intellectuals of the twentieth century, to his rightful place alongside figures like W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells." -Imani Perry, author of May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem Black education was subversive from its inception. African Americans pursued education through clandestine means, often in defiance of law and custom, even under threat of violence. They developed what Jarvis Givens calls a tradition of "fugitive pedagogy"-a theory and practice of Black education epitomized by Carter G. Woodson-groundbreaking historian, founder of Black History Month, and legendary educator under Jim Crow. Givens shows that Woodson succeeded because of the world of Black teachers to which he belonged. Fugitive Pedagogy chronicles his ambitious efforts to fight what he called the "mis-education of the Negro" by helping teachers and students to see themselves and their mission as set apart from an anti-Black world. Teachers, students, families, and communities worked together, using Woodson's materials and methods as they fought for power in schools. Forged in slavery and honed under Jim Crow, the vision of the Black experience Woodson articulated so passionately and effectively remains essential for teachers and students today.

Participation in a short sensory motor circuit prepares children to engage effectively with the day ahead. Behavioural clues such as fidgeting, poor concentration, excessive physical contact or overall lethargy can indicate that a child is finding it difficult to connect with the learning process. "Sensory Circuits" are a great way to energise or settle children into the school day.

An effective sixth grade workbook that provides daily social and emotional learning (SEL) activities to help students explore emotions, actions, relationships, and decision making. The daily activities connect to the CASEL competencies, mindfulness, and key affective education initiatives. This SEL workbook makes at-home learning, whole class instruction, or small group support, quick and easy. Help students build self-awareness, analyze relationships, discover diverse perspectives, and apply what they have learned with engaging lessons. The use of fiction and nonfiction text allows for self-reflection and growth. Parents appreciate the teacher-approved activity books that keep their child engaged and learning. Great for homeschooling, to reinforce learning at school, and build connections between home and school. Teachers rely on the daily practice workbooks to save them valuable time. The ready to implement activities are perfect to introduce SEL topics for discussion.

How do you take the passion and chatter that K-5 students bring to the classroom and turn it into conversation skills that make them better learners? Academic conversation can help hone speaking and listening, critical thinking, and social-emotional skills, as well as deepen content knowledge. But despite its effectiveness, this kind of purposeful, student-led discussion is rarely taught or used at the elementary level. The mystery for teachers is how to support students at various stages of development and build an environment of trust that lets them cultivate these skills. In Demystifying Discussion, veteran teacher Jennifer Orr gives elementary school teachers a primer on teaching students to engage in student-led academic conversation. The strategies, sample assessments, and example conversations in this book show you how to help young learners get better at sharing, exploring, and synthesizing their individual and collective thinking. You'll also learn how to manage different perspectives and disagreements among students. This is a book to use all year long to improve classroom discussion, hone students' skills (and your own), and enhance students' overall learning throughout their time in school and beyond.

It's time to make your mental bandwidth work for you. Being an educator is more stressful than ever, and teachers and administrators must constantly shift gears to stay on top of the newest initiatives and students' ever-changing needs. Educator Bandwidth: How to Reclaim Your Energy, Passion, and Time provides the tools and strategies to reduce stress, avoid burnout, and regain the time that gets lost to interruptions, temptations, competing demands, and task-switching. The first step is to understand how much stress is weighing on your own mental bandwidth. Professional development experts Jane A. G. Kise and Ann Holm have developed the Brain Energy and Bandwidth Survey to help you self-assess the six key factors that contribute to bandwidth: Balance between priorities Filtering through possibilities Mental habits that improve focus Physical habits that fuel the brain Connection with others Workload and time management Kise and Holm combine the latest neuroscience research with their own extensive experience working with educators to bring the most effective strategies and habits that help you manage your mental bandwidth and prioritize drains on mental energy. When you can establish good habits, focus on what's possible within your locus of control, and balance priorities, you can improve your educator bandwidth and feel more engaged, centered, and effective in your work.

What if you had a collaborative process of looking at student data that could pinpoint student gaps in learning and suggest effective strategies to close those gaps? What if you knew not only what you should start doing to enhance student learning, but also what you should stop doing because it hasn't given you the hoped-for results? Enter Achievement Teams. This is not another program that's here today and gone tomorrow; it's a timeless approach that any school or district can replicate that focuses on the most significant variable in student achievement: teaching. In Achievement Teams, Steve Ventura and Michelle Ventura offer a framework based on John Hattie's Visible Learning research that makes teacher collaboration more efficient, rigorous, satisfying, and effective. Think of it as a systematic treasure hunt for best practices using real data on your students. The authors walk you through the Achievement Teams four-step meeting protocol: In Step 1, teams focus on the evidence from a pre-assessment to provide specific feedback to students and teachers about concepts and skills that students did and did not learn. In Step 2, teams use that evidence to establish SMART goals for both teachers and students. In Step 3, teams summarize the collected data and make inferences around students' mastery levels. In Step 4, teachers select high-impact strategies directly targeted to student needs. A post-assessment reveals what did and didn't work. The authors provide a plethora of resources along the way, including reflection activities to extend your thinking and a variety of helpful downloadable templates designed to facilitate the work. If you're a teacher or leader who is interested in maximizing student achievement, this book is for you.

Student learning communities (SLCs) are more than just a different way of doing group work. Like the professional learning communities they resemble, SLCs provide students with a structured way to solve problems, share insight, and help one another continually develop new skills and expertise. With the right planning and support, dynamic collaborative learning can thrive everywhere. In this book, educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Almarode explain how to create and sustain student learning communities by: Designing group experiences and tasks that encourage dialogue. Fostering the relational conditions that advance academic, social, and emotional development. Providing explicit instruction on goal setting and opportunities to practice progress monitoring. Using thoughtful teaming practices to build cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional regulation skills. Teaching students to seek, give, and receive feedback that amplifies their own and others' learning. Developing the specific leadership skills and strategies that promote individual and group success. Examples from face-to-face and virtual K-12 classrooms help to illustrate what SLCs are, and teacher voices testify to what they can achieve. No more hoping the group work you're assigning will be good enough-or that collaboration will be its own reward. No more crossing your fingers for productive outcomes or struggling to keep order, assess individual student contributions, and ensure fairness. Student Learning Communities shows you how to equip your students with what they need to learn in a way that is truly collective, makes them smarter together than they would be alone, creates a more positive classroom culture, and enables continuous academic and social-emotional growth.

A clear and comprehensive guide to evaluating and supporting instructional coaches and coaching programs, including how to recruit, hire, and retain effective coaches. With sound practices in place to evaluate coaching programs, instructional coaches will become better partners, teachers will become better mentors, and students will become better learners.Few evaluation systems are specifically geared toward coaching roles. Ensuring that school districts have accurate information about both coaches and coaching programs is crucial to guide improvement in supporting classrooms, as well as in ensuring accountability. With sound evaluation processes in place, districts can effectively evaluate instructional coaches and coaching programs and use data to set goals. A joint publication of ASCD and One Fine Bird Press.

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.

An effective first grade workbook that provides daily social and emotional learning (SEL) activities to help students explore emotions, actions, relationships, and decision making. The daily activities connect to the CASEL competencies, mindfulness, and key affective education initiatives. This SEL workbook makes at-home learning, whole class instruction, or small group support, quick and easy. Help students build self-awareness, analyze relationships, discover diverse perspectives, and apply what they have learned with engaging lessons. The use of fiction and nonfiction text allows for self-reflection and growth. Parents appreciate the teacher-approved activity books that keep their child engaged and learning. Great for homeschooling, to reinforce learning at school, and build connections between home and school. Teachers rely on the daily practice workbooks to save them valuable time. The ready to implement activities are perfect to introduce SEL topics for discussion.

We want students to master academic standards, and we want them to be confident, adaptive, and socially responsible. Above all, we want them to find meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Achieving these goals requires a concerted focus on the social-emotional skills that empower students in and beyond the classroom. In Teaching to Empower, Debbie Zacarian and Michael Silverstone explore what an empowered student looks like in our increasingly diverse contemporary schools and prompt educators to examine their own relationship to empowerment. The book's evidence-based strategies and authentic examples show you how to foster an inclusive culture of agency, self-confidence, and collaboration that will give each of your students-regardless of race, culture, language, socioeconomic status, abilities, sexuality, or gender-the opportunity, responsibility, and tools to become an active learner, thoughtful community member, and engaged global citizen. Whether you're a preservice teacher, a classroom novice, or a veteran, you'll find the practical guidance you'll need to: Create inclusive and empowering physical learning spaces. Set up self-directed learning and promote positive interdependence. Promote student self-reflection. Teach the skills of collaboration. Foster the self-advocacy that fuels deeper, more autonomous learning. Partner more effectively with families and the community to support student empowerment.

History and Geography are dynamic and diverse disciplines, but disciplines that always displayed integrative abilities and potential because human actions in spaces and places matter in both. In History, the human past concerns time and space. In Geography, space and spatiality dominate and can include humanity. Teaching and learning History and Geography in the South African classroom is the first textbook to consider History and Geography as interconnected disciplines in the South African education context. This book guides readers through developments in the History and Geography fields, new focus areas and some refreshed teaching and learning possibilities unlocked by technology. Drawing on prodigious research, experts in these fields impart recommendations for teaching, understanding, learning and assessing these subjects purposefully. Teaching and learning History and Geography in the South African classroom is aimed at educators and prospective educators in the Social Sciences, History and Geography programmes. Elize van Eeden is a professor at North-West University, and chairs the subject group History at the Vaal Triangle Campus. She served as chairperson of the South African Society for History Teaching (20092017) and is editor or assistant editor of three peer-reviewed journals accredited by the Department of Higher Education. She has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed articles, and has contributed chapters in 18 books as either co-writer or editor. Elize has authored 12 History books, one being the textbook, Didactical guidelines for teaching history in a changing South Africa (1999). Her main research interest is regional history in multidisciplinary research environments and its application in regional history in teaching. Pieter Warnich is a senior lecturer in History and Social Sciences Education at the North-West University. He is chairperson of the subject group History and Social Sciences Education at the Potchefstroom Campus. His main areas of specialisation are teaching, learning and assessment and History education curriculum studies development. Pieter has published widely in these fields where he authored peer-reviewed articles and chapters in books. He is co-editor of the book Outcomes-based assessment for South African teachers (2012). Currently he is editor of the accredited open-access History teaching journal, Yesterday&Today.

Want to make your instruction more equitable and effective, more interesting, and more fun? It's time to try flexible grouping. Unlike traditional grouping, which typically puts like with like or combines students without regard to the best way to promote their individual growth, flexible grouping is both purposeful and fluid, regularly combining and recombining different students in different ways to pursue a wide range of academic and affective goals. In this comprehensive guide to flexible grouping, author Kristina J. Doubet shares a staged implementation approach that takes students from simple partner set-ups designed to build cooperative skills to complex structures ideal for interest and readiness-informed academic exploration. She covers the key factors to consider when forming groups and highlights how this approach to organizing learning can help you disrupt rigid tracking, deliver targeted instruction, connect to student interests, boost collaboration, and build community.Focused, practical, and written for teachers of all subjects and grade levels, The Flexibly Grouped Classroom provides: Dozens of strategies to expand your instructional repertoire, along with links to additional models and resources; Guidance on setting the tone and expectations for group tasks, ideas for student role distribution, and tips for monitoring progress, noise, and time; A planning template and sample grouping plans for an elementary and secondary classroom; and Specific troubleshooting advice to help you navigate common complications. Choosing to make your classroom a flexibly grouped one means positioning every student to learn better-without feeling superior or inferior, without being overburdened or underchallenged-and to discover for themselves how much farther they can go together than they ever could alone.

In Forces of Influence, Fred Ende and Meghan Everette contend that schoolwide success starts with relationships-not only between students and adults, but also among all adults up and down the education hierarchy. It's by leveraging these relationships that educators can influence outcomes and effect real change. But how can educators make sure they exert their influence astutely and sensitively, navigating education's priorities and pressures while keeping their work focused on the mission? This thought-provoking book helps readers navigate this tricky terrain, introducing four ""forces,"" or levels, of influence and explaining how educators can use them to support one another's practice and push for positive outcomes for all learners. The authors: Explore each of the four forces-the pull, the push, the shove, and the nudge-and explain why they work and what research shows about their effectiveness. Introduce the Forces of Influence Leadership Matrix (FILM), a framework that identifies how the four forces connect and helps readers determine when to use which force, with whom, and how. Provide advice on how to course-correct by switching and layering the forces for positive results-and how to recover from setbacks. Offer copious tools to support this work, including role-plays, self-assessments, templates, and questions to spur reflection and action taking. Everything educators do requires them to build, sustain, and leverage relationships. With this guide, they no longer have to wing it.