Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students (Zaretta Hammond)This book is available for checkout in our office.
Hammond makes a strong case that an updated understanding of neuroscience and culture, and the effects they have on the way students - and teachers - think and behave, can build a foundation for a broader application of a culturally relevant teaching approach. While there is plenty of excellent information here, along with suggestions of strategies and ways to build community in the classroom, this is a title whose real power comes when educators read it with a reflective approach, thinking about how it can be applied in through greater warmth and rigor for all students, anchored by strong relationships.
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Teach Like a Champion 2.0 (Doug Lemov)This book is available for checkout in our office.
If you're looking for specific techniques in a wide range of instructional areas that you can put into action very soon, this is an excellent resource. In addition to providing 62 techniques, it includes a DVD with video examples of the techniques. The successor to the original Teach Like a Champion (2010), the book was developed by Lemov and his team observing a multitude of different teachers identified as the highest performing teachers (their students' growth was demonstrably strong) at multiple levels (elementary and secondary).
Particularly helpful are chapters 1 and 2 on formative assessment and creating a "culture of error" in your classroom (so that kids feel okay about making mistakes and understand it is a vital part of learning) and chapters 7 through 9 on ratio of student-to-teacher thinking and working through means of questioning, writing and discussing. That said, there is plenty to learn from the entire book. While Lemov focused on instantly actionable techniques, what lifts the book to another level is the way it thoroughly discusses multiple variations for implementation. It is imminently practical, but does not ignore theoretical background. |
Responsive Teaching: Cognitive Science and Formative Assessment in Practice (Harry Fletcher-Wood)Fletcher-Wood is a secondary teacher in the United Kingdom, and his book definitely references specific aspects of the UK schools at times. However, the overall ideas and applications of findings from neuroscience are applicable just about anywhere. One of the things that is so appealing about this book are the excellent chapter overviews that lay out the big picture ideas and points for application in the classroom with superb clarity. The book is largely engaging and does a good job, in most areas, of providing examples from classrooms. In fact, the book is organized around a set of perennial questions that we face as teachers planning for a school year, a unit, or a lesson: :"How can we plan a unit, when we want students to learn so much, and have so little time?" "How can we plan a lesson, when we want students to learn so much, and have so little time?" "How can we show students what success looks like?" "How can we tell what students learned in the lesson?" "How can we tell what students are thinking?" "How can we help every student improve?" "How can we make this work in reality?" Who hasn't asked questions like these? The author does a great job of pitching the book right at the places where teachers live.
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Visible Learning for Literacy, Grades K-12; Visible Learning for Mathematics, Grades K-12; Visible Learning for Science, Grades K-12 (Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and John Hattie) |
Embedded Formative Assessment (Dylan Wiliam)This book is available for checkout in our office.
The heart of Wiliam's book is the argument that formative assessment is not a tool, or collection of tools, that we use in a classroom but, rather, an ongoing process (in which gathering data using formative tools is the 2nd of 5 overall steps). This is an extremely valuable corrective to some of the more popular ways of discussing formative assessment, which sometimes are more in line with less deep-rooted "trend of the month" pitches, rather than appreciating it as a comprehensive way of understanding (and implementing) the learning process.
Wiliam offers many research-based insights along the way (including a compelling discussion about the essentially negative effect of grades on student performance, and the great importance of high-quality feedback to the learning process), but the best parts provide examples of ideas for practice (even though most teachers will probably need to make extensive adjustments to fit the ideas to their subject area). In the end, Wiliam's book is an essential read, offering a new way of looking at education, and helpful pointers on how to get there. |
Reading Nonfiction and Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading (Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst)These books are available for checkout in our office.
These are two of the very best books on close reading strategies. Beers and Probst really provide it all in Reading Nonfiction: a critical examination of what we mean by "nonfiction," a clear-headed explanation of why it is so important for our students (both now and in their adult future), and plenty of specific strategies for implementation. The applicable use of "Notice & Note," "Stances," "Signposts," and other strategy concepts is clear and often inspiring. This is an essential read for teachers of all subjects that include nonfiction reading, and makes a convincing case for expanded use of nonfiction reading, combined with reduced reliance on monologic lecture on those same topics. Notice & Note goes into greater detail about the specific strategies related to the "Notice & Note" approach. Both books are highly practical and can be referred to as a resource. However, Beers and Probst do an excellent job also of providing a comprehensive read about why we need these strategies in the first place.
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Assessment 3.0 (Mark Barnes)This book is available for checkout in our office.
Mark Barnes (a teacher, and also author of ROLE Reversal and co-author of Hacking Education) argues for dropping the use of grades in education. In its place, he proposes a system of narrative feedback (both written and spoken in class) built around a system called SE2R (a four step process in which teachers: Summarize, Explain, Redirect, and ask students to Resubmit).
The book is thought provoking and contains some ideas that may be adaptable without going all the way in. It is a potentially strong book for visioning discussion, though some may find it impractical for large high school classrooms. IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK AND WANT TO KNOW MORE, READ THIS NEXT: Hacking Assessment, by Starr Sackstein.
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How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students (Susan Brookhart)This book is available for checkout in our office.
Brookhart is a leading expert on feedback, and this ASCD-published book is packed full of excellent, directly applicable recommendations for written and oral feedback, along with delineating different types of feedback. There are clear examples to support points being made. This ASCD-published book covers a range of forms of feedback and when and how to deploy them. While the book sometimes leans a bit heavily on elementary school examples, there are sufficient secondary examples to make it more than worthwhile. The overall principles are applicable to all levels of education.
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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (Peter C. Brown, Henry Roediger III and Mark McDaniel)This book is available for checkout in our office.
A well-written exploration of research into learning, with some counterintuitive results regarding retention and understanding. Perhaps most memorable is the distinction between massed practice and spaced practice (with the latter being more effective, according to research). The authors use stories to hook readers into the background information (in a style somewhat reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell's). While it does not spell out clear strategies to implement in the classroom, it contains stories about implemented approaches and their effectiveness. Chapters 2 and 3 are particularly noteworthy and have practical implications for teachers of most subjects.
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Total Participation Techniques (Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele)This book is available for checkout in our office.
The subtitle of this book is "Making Every Student an Active Learner," and that is an accurate summary of what it offers. We have turned to this book on many an occasion for ideas for Prolific PD sessions on teaching strategies for collaboration, information processing, formative assessment and more. While not every technique offered here will work for your situation, a great many will. Even better, the ideas here can inspire you to make adaptations for your classroom or come up with new ideas that work along the same lines.
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