This book provides data and uses stories and personal insights gleaned from nearly 6,000 observations in real classrooms across the nation. The mix of data and descriptions provide a clear picture of the rich interaction of teacher and student behaviors - and how one predicts the other. Graphs and tables provide concrete visual representations of the often surprisingly low rates of effective instructional practices used in the average classroom. In addition to a description of how the large dataset was developed, there are descriptions of what it is like to visit multiple classrooms in different schools, what the data tells us about teaching and learning in our public school system, and what the implications are for pre-service teacher training, school professional development, research, and understanding interaction effects.

For years crisis management has been synonymous with reactive leadership. This stems from a belief that crisis is both unpredictable and unexpected; but this is simply not true. Crisis develops as an organization's values, beliefs, culture, or behavior becomes incongruent with its operating environment. A leader, who is "tuned-in" to the signals of impending crisis and understands how to harness the urgency brought on by the situation, can minimize the potential dangers and maximize the resulting opportunities. This paper presents the "Crisis Lifecycle Model" as a generic representation of crisis. It illustrates that crisis can be broken into three unique phases. In the first or preparation phase, the organization is typically mired in the comfort zone. Here, leaders struggle when introducing any change or learning, as the organization prefers to avoid conflict and sustain equilibrium. However, as crisis hits, the organization is jolted into the emergency phase, often threatening its very existence. Once the immediate threat is eliminated, the organization enters the adaptive phase. In this phase, the leader has the attention and urgency to solve the underlying issue that caused the crisis in the first place. Unfortunately, many leaders don't take advantage of this opportunity and push the organization back toward the original status-quo, ensuring that the crisis will return. The study of crisis leadership is becoming increasingly important as leaders in all walks of life face varying degrees of crisis, spawning numerous recent books and articles. From this extensive body of work, we found seven essential strategies that are crucial for success. They are to: Lead from the Front, Focus on the Core Purpose, Build the Team, Conduct Continuous Planning, Mitigate the Threat, Tell the Story, and Profit from the Crisis.

This book contains a compilation of the most profound quotes from many inspirational figures in history. Twenty-five centuries of wisdom are contained in the words of this incredibly diverse group of men and women. Each of the nineteen chapters is organized chronologically by birthdate to give the reader an idea of the evolution of the authors' mindsets through time. This book contains hundreds of powerful quotations from the sixth century B.C. to the second century A.D. This includes the thoughts of many of the great ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers. Beginning in the middle of the fifteenth century, and spanning each preceding century to the present date, there are many more inspiring quotes found in this book. The reader can get a glimpse into the minds of the great inventors, world leaders, and other influential men and women who have reshaped history.

This book provides data and uses stories and personal insights gleaned from nearly 6,000 observations in real classrooms across the nation. The mix of data and descriptions provide a clear picture of the rich interaction of teacher and student behaviors - and how one predicts the other. Graphs and tables provide concrete visual representations of the often surprisingly low rates of effective instructional practices used in the average classroom. In addition to a description of how the large dataset was developed, there are descriptions of what it is like to visit multiple classrooms in different schools, what the data tells us about teaching and learning in our public school system, and what the implications are for pre-service teacher training, school professional development, research, and understanding interaction effects.

Renewed ethnic and nationalist strife, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, rogue states that disregard elementary norms of international conduct, brutal regimes that torture their own citizens, the widespread use of terrorism, and other trends demonstrate the dangerous and unpredictable nature of international politics in the Post-Cold War Era. The prominent contributors to this edition reassess these problems from a moral-philosophical perspective in an effort to move beyond familiar ways of thinking. These insightful essays draw on a long and rich tradition of Christian political reflection to cast a moral light on international politics and to enrich public discourse on these pressing matters. Sovereignty at the Crossroads? is important reading for everyone concerned about the political stability, economic development, and ecological integrity of the post-cold war world. Sponsored by the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.