Author: Brenda Tate Groat
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453548114
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 91

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Book Description
Teaching Thirty Years of My Life I think I wanted to be a teacher because I thought it was important. I wanted to do something important. I stayed teaching because much of the time it was fun, and I was I never bored! Think about the times you have watched a little kid do something miraculous, amazing, or hilarious. Kids are fun to watch! They surprise you and keep you young. You cannot help but remember the good and hard times of growing up without actually having to do it over. The flip side to this is the number of times you may have been annoyed with your own child, teenager, adult daughter or son and of course the times you were so angry you couldn't function? Well, multiply that feeling by seventy-five kids each year for thirty years. I'd like to say a thing or two about state and federal mandated tests. Actually, I'd like to say a lot. Thus far, no one has asked for my opinion, but here it is! The feds and the states want the public schools to be accountable. Our society wants assurances the tax dollars they spend will produce educated kids. I get it! Side note: The conspiracy part of my brain cannot help but wonder if the anti-public school fringe has found a way to target the public school system and reduce tax dollars going to this endeavor. Is it possible the people doling out the funds and the mandates for public schools are hoping for failure? Or maybe they just have no clue as to what is needed to educate all of America's children (not just a very few privileged children)? All our children must receive a great education if America wants to remain a worldwide powerhouse. It's amazing to me all the talk about evaluating teachers on student test scores, especially if that measurement is based on an arbitrary cut score; 80 percent, pass, 79 percent, fail. Students are not piece parts. Students cannot and should not be measured like bolts on an assembly line; in-tolerance, out-of-tolerance. People are multi-dimensional. A test will never tell us all that a child knows or doesn't know. In the kindest words, this idea of measuring students and evaluating teachers on a single, high-stakes test is very misguided. More to the point, this is a really stupid idea and a very dangerous practice! Whatever happened to the notion "All kids can learn, but not always at the same time or same rate." When did we ever want people in America to be the same? We all benefit from our differences! When I look over and reflect on the variety and diversity (new buzz word of the decade) of my fellow teachers, not one of us is like the other. Our teaching styles are vastly different. We relate to students differently. We relate with each other differently. We all work together to teach and maximize our students' time with us. I might be less annoyed if student improvement was used as a measure of teacher effectiveness. Even this approach has major flaws. A teacher has a student for nine months. In my case, students are thirteen or fourteen years old. They have had thirteen or fourteen years of prior experiences and baggage before getting to me. Five of those years, school was not even a part of their lives. Research tells us when kids come to school in kindergarten the variances are huge. The thought is, as a school, we should be able to narrow the variances. What actually happens is these variances increase. Is the school or the teachers responsible for this? No! What is going on? Teachers usually have students for about six to seven hours a day and 180 days a year. In the state of Kansas this equates to at least 1116 hours each year. Even if we as a nation ever went to year-round school, the number of days probably wouldn't increase significantly; the days would just be spread out. This might help, might not. Most of the research I've read is not conclusive one way or the other. Time allocated for school learning amounts to just under twenty percent of the hours in a year, 365 days. Teachers can te

Author: The Freedom Writers
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767928334
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The twentieth anniversary edition of the classic story of an incredible group of students and the teacher who inspired them, featuring updates on the students’ lives, new journal entries, and an introduction by Erin Gruwell Now a public television documentary, Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart In 1994, an idealistic first-year teacher in Long Beach, California, named Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. She had intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust. She was met by uncomprehending looks—none of her students had heard of one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. So she rebooted her entire curriculum, using treasured books such as Anne Frank’s diary as her guide to combat intolerance and misunderstanding. Her students began recording their thoughts and feelings in their own diaries, eventually dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers.” Consisting of powerful entries from the students’ diaries and narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an unforgettable story of how hard work, courage, and determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students. In the two decades since its original publication, the book has sold more than one million copies and inspired a major motion picture Freedom Writers. And now, with this twentieth-anniversary edition, readers are brought up to date on the lives of the Freedom Writers, as they blend indispensable takes on social issues with uplifting stories of attending college—and watch their own children follow in their footsteps. The Freedom Writers Diary remains a vital read for anyone who believes in second chances.

Author: Randy Pausch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780340978504
Category : Cancer
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Author: Grant P. Wiggins
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 1416600353
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

Author: Richard Garner
Publisher: John Catt
ISBN: 1398383953
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 139

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Book Description
Richard Garner has spent 36 years reporting on education, working for the Times Educational Supplement, The Mirror, and The Independent. In The Thirty Years War, he retraces the steps of his career, examining the policies, personalities, success stories and outright failures of the UK education scene from the 1980s to the present day. Richard gives his verdict on the 16 Education Secretaries he has seen come and go, and offers an insider's view of the major issues and events of his time in office, ranging from the fight to abolish corporal punishment to the rise of the academy movement, and now the Government's move to open new grammar schools. It is a story of power, policies and personalities, and how the events of the past three decades have shaped the education sector in the UK today.

Author: Matthew Johnson
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1071803131
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Beat burnout with time-saving best practices for feedback For ELA teachers, the danger of burnout is all too real. Inundated with seemingly insurmountable piles of papers to read, respond to, and grade, many teachers often find themselves struggling to balance differentiated, individualized feedback with the one resource they are already overextended on—time. Matthew Johnson offers classroom-tested solutions that not only alleviate the feedback-burnout cycle, but also lead to significant growth for students. These time-saving strategies built on best practices for feedback help to improve relationships, ignite motivation, and increase student ownership of learning. Flash Feedback also takes teachers to the next level of strategic feedback by sharing: How to craft effective, efficient, and more memorable feedback Strategies for scaffolding students through the meta-cognitive work necessary for real revision A plan for how to create a culture of feedback, including lessons for how to train students in meaningful peer response Downloadable online tools for teacher and student use Moving beyond the theory of working smarter, not harder, Flash Feedback works deeper by developing practices for teacher efficiency that also boost effectiveness by increasing students’ self-efficacy, improving the clarity of our messages, and ultimately creating a classroom centered around meaningful feedback.

Author: Carol S. Dweck
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345472322
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
From the renowned psychologist who introduced the world to “growth mindset” comes this updated edition of the million-copy bestseller—featuring transformative insights into redefining success, building lifelong resilience, and supercharging self-improvement. “Through clever research studies and engaging writing, Dweck illuminates how our beliefs about our capabilities exert tremendous influence on how we learn and which paths we take in life.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes “It’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.” After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment. In this edition, Dweck offers new insights into her now famous and broadly embraced concept. She introduces a phenomenon she calls false growth mindset and guides people toward adopting a deeper, truer growth mindset. She also expands the mindset concept beyond the individual, applying it to the cultures of groups and organizations. With the right mindset, you can motivate those you lead, teach, and love—to transform their lives and your own.

Author: Maia Heyck-Merlin
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118238885
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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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.

Author: Linda Christensen
Publisher: Rethinking Schools
ISBN: 0942961439
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Presents a collection of essays and practical advice, including lesson plans and activities, to promote writing in all aspects of the curriculum.

Author: Diane Ravitch
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465014917
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Discusses how school choice, misapplied standards of accountability, the No Child Left Behind mandate, and the use of a corporate model have all led to a decline in public education and presents arguments for a return to strong neighborhood schools and quality teaching.