What I Saw in the Teachers' Lounge


Book Description

When an imaginative child peeks inside a teachers lounge, he embarks on a wild, funny adventure you'll never forget!




Tales from the Teachers' Lounge


Book Description

From the critically acclaimed author of Daddy Needs a Drink—hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “consistently hilarious”—comes a series of irreverent, wickedly observant essays about what it really means to be a teacher today. With his trademark wit and wisdom, Robert Wilder dissects the world’s noblest profession—whether he’s taming a classroom full of hormonal teenagers or going one-on-one with the school bully. Wilder was twenty-six when he found his true calling. Leaving a lucrative advertising career in New York, he got a job as an assistant first-grade teacher at a Santa Fe alternative school—and never looked back. Now he brings his unique perspective—as a teacher, parent, and former student—to a series of laugh-out-loud essays that show teaching at its most absurd…and most rewarding. With brutal candor he chronicles his own lively adventures in modern education, from navigating cutthroat kindergarten sign-ups to subbing for a class experiment gone wrong–and dares to tell about it. He shares the surprising lessons he’s learned in the trenches of his profession, including how to bribe a four-year-old (his own) to stop swearing in a Lutheran preschool and the best way to teach moody teenagers…manage “helicopter” parents…and cope with bullies—whether of the school-yard, Internet, or parental kind. And he offers tough love for cheaters who log on to www.SchoolSucks.com, then puts to rest forever the question of why new teachers gain weight (hint: the free donuts don’t help). In Tales from the Teachers’ Lounge, Robert Wilder charts life’s learning curve with a warmth and humor you don’t find in textbooks. By turns heartwarming, eye-opening, and uproariously funny, these pitch-perfect essays offer priceless lessons in life, family, learning, and teaching from a true lover of education.




Miss Nelson Has a Field Day


Book Description

Librarian from the black lagoon: A class plans their first visit to the library.




The Together Teacher


Book Description

An essential guide for over-scheduled teachers Maia Heyck-Merlin helps teachers build the habits, customize the tools, and create space to become a Together Teacher. This practical resource shows teachers how to be effective and have a life! Author and educator Maia Heyck-Merlin explores the key habits of Together Teachers—how they plan ahead, organize work and their classrooms, and how they spend their limited free time. The end goal is always strong outcomes for their students. So what does Together, or Together Enough, look like? To some teachers it might mean neat filing systems. To others it might mean using time efficiently to get more done in fewer minutes. Regardless, Together Teachers all rely on the same skills. In six parts, the book clearly lays out these essential skills. Heyck-Merlin walks the reader through how to establish simple yet successful organizational systems. There are concrete steps that every teacher can implement to achieve greater stability and success in their classrooms and in their lives. Contains templates and tutorials to create and customize a personal organizational system and includes a companion website: www.thetogetherteacher.com Recommends various electronic or online tools to make a teacher's school day (and life!) more efficient and productive Includes a Reader's Guide, a great professional development resource; teachers will answer reflection questions, make notes about habits, and select tools that best match individual needs and preferences Ebook customers can access CD contents online. Refer to the section in the Table of Contents labeled, Download CD/DVD Content, for detailed instructions.




Miss Malarkey Leaves No Reader Behind


Book Description

Award-winning duo Judy Finchler and Kevin O'Malley are back with another book in the best-selling Miss Malarkey series that makes reading fun! Principal Wiggins has promised to dye his hair purple and sleep on the school roof if the students read 1,000 books this year, and Miss Malarkey is determined to find the right book for every student, including this story's reluctant-reader narrator. Winning her students over book by book, Miss Malarkey will have students loving to read in no time. As the best-selling series continues in paperback, no teacher, librarian, or parent should leave this book behind! Principal Wiggins promises to dye his hair purple and sleep on the school roof if the students read 1,000 books this year. Miss Malarkey is determined to find the right book for each student so they'll participate in the school program, and learn to love reading. She's got a tough audience - video game fanatics, artists, sports lovers - nonreaders all. But she won't give up until Principal Wiggins can flip his purple wig. With all the new pressures being put on teachers these days, the one thing everyone agrees about is the need for all children to learn to love reading. Now, the best-selling Miss Malarkey series uses all the programs and initiatives developed to help children read as fodder for the humor mill, keeping everyone laughing about this important topic. No teacher, librarian or parent should leave this book behind!




Grading for Equity


Book Description

"Joe Feldman shows us how we can use grading to help students become the leaders of their own learning and lift the veil on how to succeed. . . . This must-have book will help teachers learn to implement improved, equity-focused grading for impact." —Zaretta Hammond, Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain Crack open the grading conversation Here at last—and none too soon—is a resource that delivers the research base, tools, and courage to tackle one of the most challenging and emotionally charged conversations in today’s schools: our inconsistent grading practices and the ways they can inadvertently perpetuate the achievement and opportunity gaps among our students. With Grading for Equity, Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms. Essential reading for schoolwide and individual book study or for student advocates, Grading for Equity provides A critical historical backdrop, describing how our inherited system of grading was originally set up as a sorting mechanism to provide or deny opportunity, control students, and endorse a "fixed mindset" about students’ academic potential—practices that are still in place a century later A summary of the research on motivation and equitable teaching and learning, establishing a rock-solid foundation and a "true north" orientation toward equitable grading practices Specific grading practices that are more equitable, along with teacher examples, strategies to solve common hiccups and concerns, and evidence of effectiveness Reflection tools for facilitating individual or group engagement and understanding As Joe writes, "Grading practices are a mirror not just for students, but for us as their teachers." Each one of us should start by asking, "What do my grading practices say about who I am and what I believe?" Then, let’s make the choice to do things differently . . . with Grading for Equity as a dog-eared reference.




Focus on Teaching


Book Description

“Video will completely change the way we do professional learning.” —Jim Knight Video recordings of teachers in action offer a uniquely powerful basis for improvement. Best-selling professional development expert Jim Knight delivers a surefire method for harnessing the potential of video to reach new levels of excellence in schools. Focus on Teaching details: Strategies that teachers, instructional coaches, teams, and administrators can use to get the most out of using video Tips for ensuring that video recordings are used in accordance with ethical standards and teacher/student comfort levels Protocols, data gathering forms, and many other tools to get the most out of watching video




The Dot


Book Description

Vashti believes that she cannot draw, but her art teacher's encouragement leads her to change her mind and she goes on to encourage another student who feels the same as she had.




This School Year Will Be the BEST!


Book Description

On the first day of school, new classmates are asked to share what they would most like to happen in the upcoming year. Some kids' hopes are familiar while others are off-the-wall. Whether it's looking good on picture day or skateboarding at school, everyone's wishes are shown in humorously exaggerated illustrations. As the first day draws to a close, there can be no doubt—this school year will definitely be the best!




How Learning Works


Book Description

Praise for How Learning Works "How Learning Works is the perfect title for this excellent book. Drawing upon new research in psychology, education, and cognitive science, the authors have demystified a complex topic into clear explanations of seven powerful learning principles. Full of great ideas and practical suggestions, all based on solid research evidence, this book is essential reading for instructors at all levels who wish to improve their students' learning." —Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice chancellor for educational development, University of California, Berkeley, and author, Tools for Teaching "This book is a must-read for every instructor, new or experienced. Although I have been teaching for almost thirty years, as I read this book I found myself resonating with many of its ideas, and I discovered new ways of thinking about teaching." —Eugenia T. Paulus, professor of chemistry, North Hennepin Community College, and 2008 U.S. Community Colleges Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education "Thank you Carnegie Mellon for making accessible what has previously been inaccessible to those of us who are not learning scientists. Your focus on the essence of learning combined with concrete examples of the daily challenges of teaching and clear tactical strategies for faculty to consider is a welcome work. I will recommend this book to all my colleagues." —Catherine M. Casserly, senior partner, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching "As you read about each of the seven basic learning principles in this book, you will find advice that is grounded in learning theory, based on research evidence, relevant to college teaching, and easy to understand. The authors have extensive knowledge and experience in applying the science of learning to college teaching, and they graciously share it with you in this organized and readable book." —From the Foreword by Richard E. Mayer, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; coauthor, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction; and author, Multimedia Learning