Book Description

In March of 2020, when the world was struck by COVID-19, Glen Coleman's high school in New Jersey became one of the thousand schools nationwide that were forced to pivot to online instruction. While so much about this new reality was unknown, Glen was certain of two things: 1) The year ahead would be an epic disruption. 2) He would write a book to help his fellow teachers not just survive but thrive. The result of his year-long effort is 100 or Nothing: Reimagining Success in the Classroom. Part memoir, part field guide, and part toolbox for the disheartened, Glen builds upon his extensive experience and exhaustive research during the most consequential year of our lifetime. As an educator who understood the need to exploit the power of digital technology with the introduction of laptops in the classroom in 2006, Glen reinvented his teaching. He now harnesses failure, teaches from the back of the classroom, puts students at the front of the classroom, and challenges them with "impossible" tests. With critical thinking as the goal, students workshop their responses to difficult questions in order to connect the classroom to the outside world. Readers will come to understand the need to think outside the box. When we create a system in which students learn from and support one another "all boats rise." "Glen's book is a must-read for anyone who wants to reclaim their love for teaching. It's also a manual for rethinking basic approaches. He is honest in his outlook, compelling in his insights, and creative in his use of technology." - Bill Librera, former NJ Commissioner of Education. "Glen has leveraged his 20-plus years of experience in the classroom, his innovations as an HP Teaching Fellow, and his epiphanies during COVID to craft compelling new teaching strategies that have applications far beyond the classroom. His insights that students fail their way to mastery, learn best collaboratively, and motivate each other to success are just as relevant for startups as they are for students: 100 or Nothing should be on every entrepreneur's desk." - Tony Coretto, NYSERDA Entrepreneur-in-Residence and 4-time Inc 5000 award-winning CEO "Teaching's been around since the dawn of civilization, so it's quite a feat to break new ground in pedagogy, yet Coleman seems to have done just that. His solutions to common classroom situations are innovative, and the evidence he presents to back up his points is persuasive. As someone who spent two decades in classrooms of one sort or another, I highly recommend his book to anyone ready for a fresh take on teaching." - Vincent Czyz, W. Faulkner-@. Wisdom Prize Winner for Short Fiction Excerpts I believe to ask is human, to pursue, divine. Great questions have the power to open minds, especially when we stop, listen, and engage in conversation with our students... Yes, I feel the stress of a society whose ties are fraying, but the question "What do you think?" still has the power to awaken young people. If we've become robots, perhaps a surviving corpuscle will remind our circuitry of when we were human: teaching meant deepening human bonds with course material, especially with young people. But if you're hankering to teach has not yet been crushed-may it never!-let this book spark your reinvention. Page 9 I try to instill in my students that learning requires not perfection but failure, not depression but a sense of humor. Learning checkmates everyone. Laugh. Try again. Finding the strength to get back up is the lesson. Page 14 It's not about the answer. It's not about the grade. It's not about technology. It's about students' voices, the challenge, and what results. Page 99