Essential Questions


Book Description

What are "essential questions," and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What's so great about them? Why should you design and use essential questions in your classroom? Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students' discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content. Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards—local or Common Core State Standards—in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom. Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K-12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors *Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important; *Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs; *Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses; *Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and *Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions. Using essential questions can be challenging—for both teachers and students—and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested "response strategies" to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community—students, teachers, and administrators—benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.







Skills for Success


Book Description

This innovative handbook offers special education teachers, career counselors, and parents a comprehensive range of tested techniques and strategies to help youngsters who are blind or visually impaired begin to build the skills they need for successful careers. It introduces specific activities for preparing visually impaired children from preschoolers through middle school for the next level of schooling and to become independent in daily life, confident about their career choices, and skillful on their future jobs.







Effective Teaching Strategies that Accommodate Diverse Learners


Book Description

This popular book examines the teaching, instruction, and curricula required to meet the needs of diverse learners, who by virtue of their experiential, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, challenge traditional curriculum and instructional programs. The updated book provides a summary of the characteristics of students with diverse learning and curricular needs and a critical examination of current issues in education. Based on these analyses, recommendations for teaching reading, comprehension, writing, mathematics, science, social studies, and also teaching English language learners are given to ensure that diverse learners succeed in the classroom. FEATURES: Includes new "application and reflection" sections in each chapter that provide applied case studies, application activities, and questions for discussion and reflection-This new feature allows students to apply the six principles of effective instruction to real life situations, with the goal of facilitating the translation of research to practice. Includes a new chapter on teaching reading comprehension-With the addition of this new chapter, the book now better covers the complexities of teaching reading with chapters on both teaching code-based elements of reading such as phonemic awareness, alphabetic understanding, and fluency as well as teaching meaning-based elements of reading such as comprehension strategies. Provides recommendations for determining the critical curricular and instructional priorities for teaching students with diverse learning needs, who are typically behind their school-age peers in academic performace and content coverage. Concrete examples of how key concepts in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies are taught, integrated, and supported-Examples are provided across grade levels, from the elementary grades through high school. Guidelines for developing, selecting, and modifying curricula to meet the needs of diverse learners into each chapter.







Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor


Book Description

The Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor Passbook(R) prepares you for your test by allowing you to take practice exams in the subjects you need to study. It provides hundreds of questions and answers in the areas that will likely be covered on your upcoming exam, including but not limited to; Acquiring and maintaining employment; Principles and practices of employment counseling; Case histories of employment clients; Interviewing; Preparing written material; and more.




Research in Education


Book Description