This exciting book explores how leaders have implemented, sustained, and pushed innovative, deeper learning opportunities in their school settings. Across the United States and around the world, the concept of a school is growing more action-oriented, performance-focused, digitally relevant, and democratically infused. In this book, you'll hear from real schools and leaders about practices that are changing schools and leading to deeper learning experiences across seven categories of innovative practice-including vision, agency in learning, trust in teachers, openness to new ideas, over-communicating change, equity mindedness, and courage to live outside norms. Leadership for Deeper Learning looks at how school leaders change the status quo and create different learning environments for students and teachers. Rich in stories and strategies, this book will provide you with the ideas and tools to rethink and reignite learning for the future.

This exciting book explores how leaders have implemented, sustained, and pushed innovative, deeper learning opportunities in their school settings. Across the United States and around the world, the concept of a school is growing more action-oriented, performance-focused, digitally relevant, and democratically infused. In this book, you'll hear from real schools and leaders about practices that are changing schools and leading to deeper learning experiences across seven categories of innovative practice-including vision, agency in learning, trust in teachers, openness to new ideas, over-communicating change, equity mindedness, and courage to live outside norms. Leadership for Deeper Learning looks at how school leaders change the status quo and create different learning environments for students and teachers. Rich in stories and strategies, this book will provide you with the ideas and tools to rethink and reignite learning for the future.

Reshape educational technology integration in classrooms to build truly transformative learning spaces. This concise, reader-friendly guide outlines a clear approach for properly and skillfully using digital learning tools to promote deeper, personalized learning across subjects and grade levels. The authors impart tips and strategies for avoiding common missteps, overcoming implementation challenges, and redesigning instruction that is both meaningful and engaging. This quick guide will help you integrate educational technology in the classroom and create digital learning spaces: Consider the challenge educators face when integrating technology in the classroom and current technology-integration frameworks, such as SAMR, RAT, and TPACK. Discover how to create a successful digital learning space or environment that encourages academic growth. Explore the authors' 4 Shifts Protocol (formerly trudacot), which focuses on the four big shifts that schools are making toward (1) deeper thinking and learning, (2) authentic work, (3) student agency and personalized learning, and (4) technology infusion. Learn how the 4 Shifts Protocol can help teachers adjust and improve their current lessons and activities. Study specific scenarios on how to utilize the 4 Shifts Protocol across multiple subjects and grade levels. Contents: About the Authors Foreword Introduction: Framing the Challenge Chapter 1: Seeking a New Approach Chapter 2: Introducing the 4 Shifts Protocol Chapter 3: Redesigning Elementary School Lessons and Units Chapter 4: Redesigning Secondary Lessons and Units Chapter 5: Designing From Standards Chapter 6: Implementing the Protocol -- Tips, Strategies, and Other Suggestions Epilogue: Staying in Touch References and Resources Books in the Solutions for Creating the Learning Spaces Students Deserve series: Embracing a Culture of Joy Creating a Culture of Feedback Reimagining Literacy Through Global Collaboration Making Learning Flow Different Schools for a Different World Personalizing Learning Through Voice and Choice Harnessing Technology for Deeper Learning

Equipping you with the knowledge and tools to become an effective case manager for your child, this book provides straightforward, practical instructions to create a comprehensive guide to your child's unique ASD profile. The individualized guide will: - Provide information about your child's unique profile for anyone who needs it - Serve as a toolbox and teaching template for your child's teachers and support team, with effective strategies to use with him or her - Be an instruction booklet for your child, helping him or her to thrive at home, school and in the community - Act as a case management road map to help you support your child and collaborate with teachers and service providers. The book includes checklists and worksheets, which can also be accessed online, so that you can easily create a personalized guide for your child with autism aged 5-14.

IN THE MISTS OF THE MORNING, I HAVE MET MY DEATH A samurai spirit with a blade of words, I have roamed plains of consciousness, seeking truth and slaying illusions. All is impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete. In the vast river of existence, there is a serene melancholy and a spiritual longing which pervades all. Yet all is not lost, for it is only in being lost, that we are found. It is only in imperfection, that we find perfection; in brokenness, the unbroken. We are necessarily confused, before we are clear. That which is lasting, and perfect, and beautiful surrounds us, all of the time. As a young man in Japan, I learned the great philosophy of Wabi-Sabi: rustic simplicity, quietness, and understated elegance combined with the patina of beauty and serenity that comes with age. Wisdom is to be found in natural simplicity; beauty in that which is flawed. May you find them, too, my good friend, here in these words: The Bushido Poems of a Samurai Warrior of The Spirit.

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO GIVE UP FOR LOVE? He's a lonely waiter. She's a rich heiress. He's younger, twenty-eight, and she's a little bit older, but not too much older. He doesn't know what he's doing with his life. He's lost; he's been struggling. There is some hole within him, some void, which he knows has everything to do with how he was raised and with the fact that he was adopted. Some deep sense of rejection; of not being wanted. Would he be rejected again, as he was rejected by his biological mother when he was so young? He feels like he carries this within him, a memory from that very early rejection. It makes him fear people, and not let them close. Will they attack me, as his adoptive father was so attacking and critical? Will they reject me, as his biological mother rejected him? This is how he feels, what he fears, about other people. This is why it is hard for him to let people close. What does it mean to be intimate? What does it mean to be loved, and to love? Can he learn to overcome his fears and let someone in close to him, in his life? There's some chemistry there between them, something inexplicable. He knows it, almost immediately it seems, from the first moment she comes in the restaurant. From the first moment he talks with her. She's beautiful, and engaging, and he can't help but to feel himself falling into the scary territory of vulnerability; that scary territory of falling in love. Can we ever hope to find a permanent and lasting love, or is that just something for fairy tales? Thomas McAllister decides to risk everything and bare all of the scary uncertainty and vulnerability of love to find out if he is lovable, and if this woman, Jezebel, might be the one who loves him. 'All That Is Unspoken' will draw you into what it means to love, and be loved, leaving you touched, inspired, and surprised by the capacities of the human heart.

HOW MANY LIVES HAVE YOU LIVED? A child, an adolescent, a man. A student, a cadet, a beat cop. A homicide detective, a husband, a father. And now a widower, and a father who had lost his child. So many different lives. The pain of it, the images, I don't want to see them again, but there they are: how I imagine it happened. What I imagine it was like. Putting them together, because this is what I do. I've seen it before, I know, and you always think it's going to be someone else, you never think it's going to be someone you know. You think the odds are too far against it. You tell yourself, things like demographics. Areas. But anything, can happen, anywhere. And odds are odds because things do happen to people. Isabelle is on the swing. I am pushing her. 'Isabelle' because she is, is a beautiful. It's an idyllic moment: the sun shining, her golden hair streaming back. How old would she be, in that memory? How many times had that moment occurred: me, pushing her on a swing? In my mind she is five years old, six years old. Somewhere between four and eight, maybe even ten. I can't choose an age. Her age changes, shifts in my mind, when I try to see her. How old are you? Where did you go? It's like a pain in my heart which I shut my eyes to feel more deeply. This loss, my daughter, gone. Once, and then again: to love again. How could you want something and not want it at the same time? Why was it my fate to lose everyone I love? "I lost my daughter," he says to himself, "to a homicide." Could he bring himself to love again? Would he find his daughter's killer? What new life would he create for himself? Life did go on. Once, and then again. It just kept going on and on, and he felt like he'd lived so many different lives now. Riding this mysterious journey which is fate, in his search for redemption, justice, and forgiveness Thomas McAllister finds himself being dragged into the darkness which resides in his own soul.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO LIVE? Surely he must be some kind of fool. Trying to prove his manhood; trying to fit in? Coming because Theresa had come. Sweet and beautiful, Theresa. Wanting to be near her; wanting to be with her. Not wanting to be the one person who said, "No, no thank you. I'm afraid. I don't like tight places. Always been a touch claustrophobic." "Spelunking? What's spelunking?" Theresa asks. The steps, all of the pieces that had to fall into place to get them where they were, they flash through his mind - an ocean of panic, held back by a barrier which was breaking, into terror. "Exploring caves," Maxo The Maximizer says. There were caves here, on campus? Yeah, for sure. All of the coastal mountains, they were interlaced with them. Like catacombs, honeycomb. Swiss cheese. There was laughter then. Joe and Danny and Max and Brian and Theresa and Jezebel laughing, maybe because of the way Max had said it. The way he'd articulated, 'Swiss cheese, ' saying it in a funny way. Everyone laughing as if it was a light and laughable affair, going down into caves, then crawling around in the earth. Spelunking. You could already see it, that they were all going, and Thomas would be going, too, because he was a sucker for Theresa. "Yeah, sure, alright," he'd said. "I'll come." Famous last words. An earthquake. A tunnel collapse. Holy, holy, crap. Trapped beneath the earth. That panic, that fear, that terror. Buried alive. Was there another way out? Limited food, limited water. Limited battery on the lights. No cell service. Venturing further into the darkness, then getting separated from his friends, Thomas McAllister is pressed up against his greatest fears and his very own will to survive. Would he die down there like a worm in the earth? How long would he continue through these tunnels, in complete darkness, before giving up? Caught in a pit of terror and wrestling with despair, then slipping into a strange delirium half-way between life and death, Thomas McAllister discovers something extraordinary in the darkness, and within himself. He discovers just how far he's willing to go to live.

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU DIE? Life is too good for Michael Sojourner to stop and think about it. He's got it all: a home in the hills, fancy cars, a nice bank account. Producing movies in Hollywood, he even gets to date a lot of hopeful starlets. Life couldn't be better for Michael Sojourner, at least until, after a long night of drinking, he wakes up and, where the hell is he? On a dirt floor, in a hallway. The last thing he remembers, he'd been going home with another hopeful starlet. Maybe she'd slipped him something then dumped him. His Rolex was missing, his iPhone was missing, his wallet was missing, maybe she'd taken his Ferrari, too. But where'd she dump him? Michael got up and wiped the dirt from his hands. In the distance there was some kind of a faint roar, like from a furnace. There was also a distinct smell of sulfur in the air, like rotten eggs. Maybe he was in Chinatown. That hopeful starlet, she'd had a Euro-Asian quality to her, so maybe she had connections in Chinatown, too. Maybe that noise up ahead was a laundry. This was going to make for a great story, if nothing else. Maybe he'd make a movie out of this. He was already getting ideas, and that hopeful starlet, well, that bitch would never work in this town again. Hell, she was going to serve jail time for this. Walking towards the noise and the light, Michael Sojourner embarks on a journey which will teach him about redemption, forgiveness, karma, and empathy; leaving him forever changed.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY LIFE? He's on a cruise. Thirty-eight. Joe McAllister. He has hopes and dreams for the future. He's with his girlfriend, who he's thinking of making his fiancee. Proposing to her. If she'll accept. The first night on the cruise, with their two friends Marlo and Roger who have come along, also, Joe excuses himself and goes to the bathroom, then, when he comes out, everything has changed. He's an old man now; he's lost forty years of his life. He no longer remembers them, those forty years. They take him to the infirmary; they do tests. A DNT scan, which is, apparently, some piece of medical technology in the future. It can see everything in your body, and nothing is wrong with him - except for the fact, that he can't remember, the last forty years of his life. All he knows is that he went to the bathroom, and then he came out, and now forty years have gone past. He's forty years older, seventy-eight, and he's on his anniversary cruise with his wife, now, Theresa, celebrating forty years of marriage, once again on this cruise with their friends, Roger and Marlo. A mind bending adventure, being thrown into old age, Joe begins a journey to discover who he is now, and how he has lived in the past. In the process, he also discovers what he'd been searching for all along - what it means to truly live.

IN NATIONAL PROVENCE IS FANTASTIC WONDERFUL WRITING The Great People love poetry and celebrate The National Pride. We eat time and steep in soul while body laboriously. All is not effort but many opportunity of growing and encountering rigorous exploits in beauty. Ice cream memories in the park with hands sticky from punctuation. Reminders of points sharp and important. Laments of sorrows not overdone. Choirs of triumphs for winning great defeats. Pure liquid honey drooling from the brandywine of existence. The magistrate of writing is spoken and kindly received like ripples on water magnificent. You realize all when you realize nothing. In the golden economy of our success, we party the country booster which ferments this book. For many moons we linger in the currency of these reflections.

A dream, surreal. All the people I've know'd. Every moment, gone - here then gone. Spent so much of my life, complaining, what is there to complain about - wanting a different life - not leaning into this life, not living this life. Live your destiny. And this, too. This, too. This too. Did I define my life, or did I default into it? NOT IN CONTROL / NOT KNOWING RELEASING CONTROL / RELEASING KNOWING The HALL OF SOULS - maybe I did choose this life Making a baby - RIDGE wheezing DESPERADOS No hope, without hope can't be redeemed - nothing to lose What are they going to do - sentence me to death? Kill the president if I wanted. Falling - nothing to hold onto, nothing onto which I could hold - just, a freefall. The emptiness of thought. Thoughts, here, then gone - just ideas - nothing compared to the reality of experience - something I'm watching - not me. So I'm gonna die. I'm going to my death. Acceptance. Being with others, not being alone. It happened to everyone, this wasn't just you; everyone would go through it. Grieving and crying being a normal part of the process. "I'm going to kill myself," I read. "Kill myself. Blow my brains, no, do something else. Die spectacularly. Instead of chemotherapy. Better to burn out, then fade away."

IS THERE A WILD ANIMAL WITHIN YOU? He's a high school PE teacher. A water-polo player, a surfer, a swimmer. He spends his winters in San Francisco, working and living in the city, and his summers in the mountains, backpacking and hunting and fishing and living off the land. Engaged to be married now, Toby McAllister knows that being gone all summer is off the table. How long is he going to be gone? A couple of weeks. A couple of weeks? Toby can't give his fiancee a definitive answer. "That's exactly the opposite of what this is all about," he explains to her. He's going to get away from things: going to get away from schedules, going to get away from tasks, going to get away from having to do certain things by certain times. He's returning to the wilds where he can just live for a while, the way man was meant to live, though in the end he finally consents to be gone for no more than three weeks. What can he do about it? He loves her, and he's moving into a new phase of life now. Heading off on the trail, glad to be on the trail, Toby can't shake the feeling that someone is watching him. Someone, or something. Watching him, and following him. He turns around several times and looks back, but maybe this is just getting used to the wilds again. Or maybe it's a bobcat tracking him, like he'd been tracked by a bobcat once before. What Toby doesn't know is that he's about to embark on the greatest adventure that he's ever been on in his life --- an adventure from which he may never return.

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING Bob's got a magic cup. When he drinks his green tea from it in the morning, for the rest of the day, he can hear people's thoughts. If he doesn't drink from it, then he gets splitting headaches that feel as if somebody's driving a sledgehammer into his head. Seriously incapacitating. It's a good thing he doesn't own a gun, because he might just use it to end this pain. It's as if the cup is demanding of him, "Drink from me, drink from me." And then when Bob does drink from the cup: Ahh, sweet peace. Sweet Peace. What does it want, this magic cup? Maybe it's the evil cup. Hearing other people's thoughts, it's incredibly cool, and it's also incredibly terrible. People are horrible, the things they think. Learning to work with it, to dial it down and to hone it in, it's as if the universe has given Bob Dawson an awesomely powerful tool, one that was a bit unwieldy at first, but now that he's getting the hang of it, it's a skill that he can probably use to change the world for the better, though first he's going to Vegas. Imagine how well he'll be able to do at the card table, being able to read people's thoughts ... and as for dating, well, the phrase "unfair advantage" doesn't even begin to apply. Join Bob Dawson as he ventures into the dark territory of other people's minds, and his own mind, embarking on a journey from the stable shores of how he once viewed the world, and entering new territory from which he will emerge forever changed.

What's Important? You're an old man and your days are numbered, so how do you live them? What's important? He's a young man, drunk, unlucky in love and heartbroken, breaking windows on Main Street when the limousine pulls to a stop and an old man gets out. "What are you doing?" The old man asks, and so begins the unexpected friendship between this young man, Boomer, and a group of old guys who live in a house together on Brewster Avenue. A big beautiful house. "We're like a fraternity, or a brotherhood, or a club," Kenneth, one of the old men, explains. "Each of us have been left behind by the one we loved, we've all been widowed, and now we live together for friendship and to look out for each other. We're The Brewster Avenue Dead Man's Club," Kenneth says with a laugh, "because at any moment, any of us could be dead." No longer wanting to live with his girlfriend who cheated on him, and not having anywhere else to go, Boomer accepts the offer from the old men to stay in their basement until he gets a place of his own. What Boomer doesn't know is that he's beginning one of the most transformative journeys of his life, that while living with these old men, they will mentor him and teach him all of the great wisdom they have garnered through the years, showing Boomer what it means to be a decent human being, how to live one's life with integrity, how to overcome difficulties, and how to enjoy and savor the precious time that you have while you're here - showing him the answer to the greatest question that any of us could ever ask: What's important?

What Is It That Leaves You Breathless? Moments of beauty; moments of loss. It was funny how both of these things could take your breath away: life's beauty, and life's losses. It was like getting punched in the gut, losing those that you loved. You found yourself on the ground, decimated and wondering if you could ever go on. How could you go on, but how could you not go on? What was the alternative, suicide? That was no alternative for Charlie McAllister, and so he was going on, day by day, moment by moment. The saddest book ever written, that's what his life would be, if he was to put it down into a book. Losing his parents, losing his brothers and sisters, and now losing his wife and his lovely daughters. The grief was immense, almost unbearable, but then Scoop came into his life - a kind and lovely dog which Charlie had scooped up from the road after she'd been hit by a car. Scoop, her name was appropriate, as she was now scooping Charlie back up, living with Charlie and showing Charlie that he could find joy again in life, and love again, too. Life doesn't always move in the ways which you envision, and "Breathless" is no exception. An unexpected friendship between a man and a dog, and a testament to the power of fate and the resilience of the heart to go on, this lyrical and heartfelt story with its surprising and compelling unfurling will show you what it means to find true and lasting love, then leave you as if in the arms of a lover, feeling breathless.

What Are You Willing To Do To Get What You Want? Perhaps the most important thing about Cory Boatright was that he had an affable personality. Life was hard, the odds were against him, but that was okay because he was still enjoying himself. He had an easy smile and a nice laugh. He joked around with people, he chatted easily, and he could also be serious. He was good looking, smart, cool, calm and collected. A Stanford graduate with top honors in literature, he was now working as a waiter in Los Angeles, trying to make it as an actor and meeting all kinds of people, like Howard - a bumbling old eccentric man with a scarred up face who was interesting, really brilliant, and a good tipper, too. It was no coincidence that Howard always asked for Cory as a waiter. He wanted to ask Cory a question, but how was he going to ask it? Look, I'm a genius. I've written a ton of books. All I've ever done in my life is write books, and now I need your help bringing them into the world. I can't do it on my own. I'm helpless with people. I get all tongue-tied. I'm ugly, scarred, old. Who wants to read my books? Who wants to hear that story? But imagine if you, Cory Boatright, were the golden boy of literature. A protege. Imagine that. Wrap your head around that story. That's a story that can be sold, that's a story that's presentable, desirable. Cory looked at the manuscript, then turned the page. "Hey, my name's on it," Cory said. "But this isn't my book." "Who says it's not your book?" Howard asked. An intriguing story which is beautifully and poignantly crafted; a story which examines the desires and fears which guide and drive us all; a story of two men pushing to realize their own unique dreams; "The Author, The Actor, & The Whore" will surprise you and touch you with its heartfelt unfurling, while also making you question just what you would be willing to do to live the life of your dreams.

What Is Beyond Your Greatest Sorrow? Losing his parents when he was nineteen, Douglas now lives in the place of his sorrows: the house he'd lived in as a kid, his parents gone and his dreams broken. It's not all blight; not all darkness. He has his dogs, and his roommates, and a job, and he enjoys riding his bicycle, fast, through the streets of San Francisco. There is loss, there is grief, there are ways in which you wish life was different, but you go on, and you come to terms with things, and you still have good times. A beauty arises in the midst of your sorrows, you start to think that in the place of your sorrows, there is this, just an easy going life, a day to day existence, which is nice, and which you enjoy. But then life brings you, another twist. Riding fast to work, Douglas McAllister swerves to avoid a young kid, and ends up directly in front of a truck. A flash of light, that crumpling sound, the crinkling of breaking glass, his body on the hood of the truck, that was his body smashing into the truck, and then he was flying through the air, flying and flying and flying, towards another black unknown of a future. When Douglas awakes, he's in a hospital and everything about his world has changed. An exploration of loss, grief, and healing, the adventure which Douglas embarks upon will lead him to connection, redemption, spiritual transcendence, and the discovery of an all-pervasive love which is like a warm golden light permeating all things. Unexpected in its twists and turns, a story which is both heartfelt and inspiring, and extraordinary and beautiful, "In The Place Of My Sorrows" will show you the secret beauty which resides at the heart of all of life.

Who Is It That Lives With You? Brookstone, Colorado. Picturesque. Beautiful. The Rockies; a gorgeous lake. Winter skiing. It's an idyllic place to live, until someone begins murdering people, brutally. Who would do this kind of thing, and could it by my neighbor, that strange man who lives by himself two houses down? Could it be the janitor at work, or this man walking towards me on the street, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets? Who is it, that lives here amongst us? The twists and turns that life can take: after serving in the war then working homicide in Dallas, Terence Mosi ends up in his hometown assigned to the case. All around Terence are the ghosts of his past: his childhood, the people he killed during the war, the friends he lost in the war, an old high school buddy. What does it take to go crazy? Terence wrestles with his own psyche, trying to control his "post-traumatic stress disorder" PTSD, and wonders if he should get out of this line of work. But what else would he do, and who would stop this killer? Some things happen, and they change you, and never leave you. What do you see when you explore the personalities of those that you know, including yourself? Loose thresholds, shattered spirits, unmoored identities, poor foundations, tenuous holds on reality and sanity. A descent into the ravages which warp minds, and an exploration of the deep longing for love, safety, and belonging which resides in us all, "The Roommate" will forever change the way you see those with whom you live, including yourself.

WHAT ARE THE LESSONS I HAVE LEARNED IN MY LIFE? And what did I have to do, what did I have to go through, to learn them? What happens isn't as important as how we relate to what happens; the only true wealth any of us ever have is time; there is so much to be grateful for if you just stop and look; perspective is everything; the most important things in life aren't things at all; what you do to others, you do to yourself; treating other people decently and living with compassion and kindness and tolerance and consideration are all important; everyone around you, your whole life, is just a reflection of your consciousness - these are some of the things I have learned. Where is happiness to be found, and what does it take to find it? What gives meaning to life and makes you glad to be living it? Come with me and see how I discovered the answers. From the shores of Hawaii to the streets of California, from my childhood to my young adult years, from Pentecostalism to BurningMan, join me on the journeys I took to learn some of life's greatest lessons. An adventure which is insightful, tragic, laughable, and inspiring, "American Son" will touch you and leave you forever changed.