The Big Collection of Teacher Tips


Book Description

A collection of teacher-tested ideas compiled from the primary, intermediate and pre-K editions of The mailbox magazine.




Bad Teacher! How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture


Book Description

In his latest book, leading educator and author Kevin Kumashiro takes aim at the current debate on educational reform, paying particular attention to the ways that scapegoating public school teachers, teacher unions, and teacher educators masks the real, systemic problems. He convincingly demonstrates how current trends, like market-based reforms and fast-track teacher certification programs are creating overwhelming obstacles to achieving an equitable education for all children. Bad Teacher! highlights the common ways that both the public and influential leaders think about the problems and solutions for public education, and suggests ways to help us see the bigger picture and reframe the debate. Compelling, accessible, and grounded in current initiatives and debates, this book is important reading for a diverse audience of policymakers, school leaders, parents, and everyone who cares about education. Kevin K. Kumashiro is director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education and president-elect (2010–2012) of the National Association for Multicultural Education. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the author of The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on America's Schools. Praise for Bad Teacher! “This book could be a springboard for teachers . . . to become more actively involved in advocating for a paradigm shift in our concept of education.” —Grace Lee Boggs, The Boggs Center “Kumashiro is a remarkable sleuth who … shows us how the deck is stacked, how the game is played, who gains, and who loses. Join him in a clarion call to build a Movement to reclaim public education.” —Robert P. Moses, The Algebra Project “Courageous, blunt, and hopeful, Bad Teacher! offers a democratic vision for true educational change.” —Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts at Amherst “Anyone seeking to understand why so many of the reforms we have pursued have failed will benefit from reading this book.” —Pedro A. Noguera, New York University “Kumashiro explains why we should think differently about the prescriptions that are now taken for granted—and wrong.” —Diane Ravitch, New York University, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education “Kumashiro expertly examines the many forces working against public education, and how and why these forces are at play.” —Dennis Van Roekel, President, National Education Association “Bad Teacher! is oh-so-smart and timely. . . . This book attacks head-on the ragged patchwork of ‘school reform’ that has left us without even the vocabulary to frame what’s gone wrong.” —Patricia J. Williams, Columbia Law School 2012 Must-read book about K–12 education in the U.S., Christian Science Monitor




A Quick Guide to Making Your Teaching Stick, K-5


Book Description

Recognizing that there is a vast difference between children getting it and children holding on to what they have learned, Shanna lays out the universal principles of "stickiness" and describes how they can be used to tweak your teaching for a more lasting impact on young writers. A Quick Guide to Making Your Teaching Stick is part of the Workshop Help Desk series. About the Workshop Help Desk series The Workshop Help Desk series is designed for teachers who believe in workshop teaching and who have already rolled up their sleeves enough to have encountered the predictable challenges. If you've struggled to get around quickly enough to help all your writers, if you've wondered how to tweak your teaching to make it more effective and lasting, if you've needed to adapt your teaching for English learners, if you've struggled to teach grammar or nonfiction writing or test prep...if you've faced these and other specific, pressing challenges, then this series is for you. Provided in a compact 5" x 7" format, the Workshop Help Desk series offers pocket-sized professional development. For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, videos, frequently asked questions and more, visit UnitsofStudy.com.




Making Good Teaching Great


Book Description

Every good teacher strives to be a great teacher - and this must-have book shows you how! It's filled with practical tips and strategies for connecting with your students in a meaningful and powerful way. Learn how to improve student learning with easy-to-implement daily activities designed to integrate seamlessly into any day of the school year. This is a readable, hands-on guide for both new and seasoned teachers - complete with "20-Day Reality Checks" so you can reflect on your progress and identify areas for improvement.




A Teacher's Guide to Reading Conferences


Book Description

"With a focus on goal-directed, purpose-driven reading conferences, the author shows how form follows function--the structure of each conference is clearly designed to serve its purpose. Through "Researcher Spotlights" in each chapter, she'll also introduce you to a few of the teaching mentors and researchers who've had a profound influence on her work. The author describes different types of conferences, some designed for individuals, others for small groups. Some are used during independent reading time, others during partnership or club time. One can read the chapters in order or dip into the chapter that best suits their needs and purpose"--




Teaching Writing


Book Description

"Writing allows each of us to live with that special wide-awakeness that comes from knowing that our lives and our ideas are worth writing about." -Lucy Calkins Teaching Writing is Lucy Calkins at her best-a distillation of the work that's placed Lucy and her colleagues at the forefront of the teaching of writing for over thirty years. This book promises to inspire teachers to teach with renewed passion and power and to invigorate the entire school day. This is a book for readers who want an introduction to the writing workshop, and for those who've lived and breathed this work for decades. Although Lucy addresses the familiar topics-the writing process, conferring, kinds of writing, and writing assessment- she helps us see those topics with new eyes. She clears away the debris to show us the teeny details, and she shows us the majesty and meaning, too, in these simple yet powerful teaching acts. Download a sample chapter for more information.




First Year Teacher's Survival Guide


Book Description

The best-selling First Year Teacher's Survival Kit gives new teachers a wide variety of tested strategies, activities, and tools for creating a positive and dynamic learning environment while meeting the challenges of each school day. Packed with valuable tips, the book helps new teachers with everything from becoming effective team players and connecting with students to handling behavior problems and working within diverse classrooms. The new edition is fully revised and updated to cover changes in the K-12 classroom over the past five years. Updates to the second edition include: • New ways teachers can meet the professional development requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act • Entirely new section on helping struggling readers, to address the declining literacy rate among today’s students • Expanded coverage of helpful technology solutions for the classroom • Expanded information on teaching English Language Learners • Greater coverage of the issues/challenges facing elementary teachers • More emphasis on how to reach and teach students of poverty • Updated study techniques that have proven successful with at-risk students • Tips on working effectively within a non-traditional school year schedule • The latest strategies for using graphic organizers • More emphasis on setting goals to help students to succeed • More information on intervening with students who are capable but choose not to work • Updated information on teachers’ rights and responsibilities regarding discipline issues • Fully revised Resources appendix including the latest educational Web sites and software




Powerful Teaching


Book Description

Unleash powerful teaching and the science of learning in your classroom Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning empowers educators to harness rigorous research on how students learn and unleash it in their classrooms. In this book, cognitive scientist Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D., and veteran K–12 teacher Patrice M. Bain, Ed.S., decipher cognitive science research and illustrate ways to successfully apply the science of learning in classrooms settings. This practical resource is filled with evidence-based strategies that are easily implemented in less than a minute—without additional prepping, grading, or funding! Research demonstrates that these powerful strategies raise student achievement by a letter grade or more; boost learning for diverse students, grade levels, and subject areas; and enhance students’ higher order learning and transfer of knowledge beyond the classroom. Drawing on a fifteen-year scientist-teacher collaboration, more than 100 years of research on learning, and rich experiences from educators in K–12 and higher education, the authors present highly accessible step-by-step guidance on how to transform teaching with four essential strategies: Retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, and feedback-driven metacognition. With Powerful Teaching, you will: Develop a deep understanding of powerful teaching strategies based on the science of learning Gain insight from real-world examples of how evidence-based strategies are being implemented in a variety of academic settings Think critically about your current teaching practices from a research-based perspective Develop tools to share the science of learning with students and parents, ensuring success inside and outside the classroom Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning is an indispensable resource for educators who want to take their instruction to the next level. Equipped with scientific knowledge and evidence-based tools, turn your teaching into powerful teaching and unleash student learning in your classroom.




The Big Activity Book for Teacher People


Book Description

A hilarious, relatable way to honor the everyday heroes we all know and love, with illustrated laugh-out-loud activities and journaling prompts. Teachers: They’re basically superheroes. They’re educators, sure—but they’re also counselors, custodians, referees, detectives, party planners, epidemiologists, and traffic controllers (among the many, many other jobs that they don’t get paid for, but should). Part journal, part coloring book, part therapeutic outlet for those days when they actually cannot confiscate one more fidget spinner without screaming, The Big Activity Book for Teacher People is a hilarious celebration of those resourceful, creative, compassionate, exhausted humans who we entrust with the care and schooling of our children. Activities include: a word scramble of useless stuff you have to teach anyway draw the administrator in their natural habitat color in the break room of horrors things you do not want to receive from a parent, like, ever There is no teacher on the planet who needs another mug (seriously, just no).