This book reminds us teachers about all the little things we can do to be more student-centric. It shows teachers how to "walk the walk," and shows teacher educators how to guide colleagues along a student-centered path. The book examines why we should and how we can promote student-student interaction to enable students to learn more and enjoy the process. It also offers simple but effective strategies for enhancing student motivation, a factor that many experts consider to be the most important determinant of success in educational endeavors. In addition, it examines diversity, particularly the many differences that exist among students, and explains simple, easy strategies for how this diversity can be not only taken into consideration, but actively celebrated.

"Reorienting the East "explores the Islamic world as it was encountered, envisioned, and elaborated by Jewish travelers from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. The first comprehensive investigation of Jewish travel writing from this era, this study engages with questions raised by postcolonial studies and contributes to the debate over the nature and history of Orientalism as defined by Edward Said.Examining two dozen Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic travel accounts from the mid-twelfth to the early sixteenth centuries, Martin Jacobs asks whether Jewish travelers shared Western perceptions of the Islamic world with their Christian counterparts. Most Jews who detailed their journeys during this period hailed from Christian lands and many sailed to the Eastern Mediterranean aboard Christian-owned vessels. However, Jacobs finds that their descriptions of the Near East subvert or reorient a decidedly Christian vision of the region. The accounts from the crusader era, in particular, are often critical of the Christian church and present glowing portraits of Muslim-Jewish relations. By contrast, some of the later travelers discussed in the book express condescending attitudes toward Islam, Muslims, and Near Eastern Jews. Placing shifting perspectives on the Muslim world in their historical, social, and literary contexts, Jacobs interprets these texts as mirrors of changing Jewish self-perceptions. As he argues, the travel accounts echo the various ways in which premodern Jews negotiated their mingled identities, which were neither exclusively Western nor entirely Eastern.

Saint Agnes of Montepulciano is one of the few canonized nuns of the Order of Preachers. Never before has her Life by Blessed Raymond of Capua been translated into the English language. An historically important prototype of the penitential mysticism practiced by Dominican women in the Middle Ages, Agnes is referred to by Saint Catherine of Siena in her letters as "our glorious mother Agnes." It is the task of today's reader to discover what the Life of Agnes has to reveal to us about our journey to holiness, to conformity to Christ. Agnes' administrative feats as Abbess at only fifteen, her admirable compassion and heroic perseverance, the impact of her life on those around her, and the progeny of the mystics who followed in her footsteps reveal to us a sanctity that can still be aspired to today.