Demonstrates how to develop a standards-based curriculum, deliver and assess instruction with research-based best practices, and implement capacity-building processes that support a school's daily operation.
Providing clear explanations of inquiry-based learning in the light of the Common Core, this book is a practical and graphical guide that will serve as a much-needed primer for librarians and educators. Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are putting educators under pressure to examine what works and what doesn't. Even with the best efforts, integrating new strategies into daily practice in the classroom or library can be frustrating. This book will help. Providing a professional development toolkit that trains school librarians and teachers and enables them to train others, it presents a sequence of scaffolded essential questions that results in a customized blueprint for effective teaching. The book assembles background building blocks for inquiry and the Common Core, illustrates and connects key concepts on how to introduce inquiry-based learning, and provides effective tools for igniting the Common Core through inquiry-based learning methods. Developed from the crucible of six years of professional development to real-world audiences with deep experience in teaching and school librarianship, this book makes implementing inquiry learning and embracing the Common Core easier for classroom teachers and school librarians who understand the value of these teaching methods but are unsure of the best way to implement them.
This sourcebook contains more than twelve hundred easy-to-follow and implement classroom activities created and tested by veteran teachers from all over the country. The activities are arranged by grade level and are keyed to the revised National History Standards, so they can easily be matched to comparable state history standards. This volume offers teachers a treasury of ideas for bringing history alive in grades 5?12, carrying students far beyond their textbooks on active-learning voyages into the past while still meeting required learning content. It also incorporates the History Thinking Skills from the revised National History Standards as well as annotated lists of general and era-specific resources that will help teachers enrich their classes with CD-ROMs, audio-visual material, primary sources, art and music, and various print materials. Grades 5?12
This textbook is a comprehensive and practical guide to teaching middle level social studies. Middle level students are just as capable as high school students at engaging in hands-on, progressive, reflective activities, yet pedagogical strategies designed specifically for the middle grades are often overlooked in teacher education programs. This text provides both progressive and traditional teaching methods and strategies proven effective in the middle level classroom. The content of this book consists of conventional chapters such as “What is Social Studies?” and “Unit and Curriculum Planning,” as well as unique chapters such as “The Middle Level Learner”, “Best Practices for Teaching State History” and “Integrating the “Core” Subjects in Middle Level Social Studies”. In addition to the unique chapters and lesson plans many additional features of the book will be useful for middle level teaching and learning. These features include: • A list of website resources that provide links to thousands of lesson plans, state and national standards, and other multimedia tools that can be used in the classroom. • Individual, collaborative, and whole class activities that will help methods students develop a better understanding of the topics, lessons, and strategies discussed. • High quality lesson ideas and classroom tested teaching strategies embedded throughout the book. • Images of student work samples that will methods students visualize the finished product that is being discussed. • An examination of state and national standards that will help guide methods students in their lesson planning
A Guide to Curriculum Mapping synthesizes teaching, learning, and assessment research with an innovative, inclusive, and comprehensive approach to effective curriculum design that centers student learning and evidence-informed continuous improvement. A Guide to Curriculum Mapping offers adaptable tools, resources, and templates that readers can customize to their own institutions and programs. The authors offer ways to document, synthesize, integrate, and visually represent how learning opportunities work together—whether within courses, across degree programs, or throughout an entire college or university. The authors have presented their integrated mapping approach to acclaim at conferences for close to a decade and have tested their use in programs large and small across the US, beyond systematically applying them at their home institution, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). This book enables educators—whether faculty, chairs, deans, administrators, educational developers, staff, or assessment leaders concerned with student learning and success—to think through the clarity, organization, and alignment of their programs for improving learning using learner-centered research.
These new model core teaching standards outline what all teachers across all content and grade levels should know and be able to do to be effective in today's learning contexts. They are a revision of the 1992 model standards, in response to the need for a new vision of teaching to meet the needs of next generation learners. This document incorporates changes from a public feedback period in July 2010.
For years, educators have turned to the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrices (CRM) when it comes to assessment. Now for the first time, the modules are packaged into one resource to help teachers evaluate the quality and premise of their current assessment system.
Teaching Science in Elementary and Middle School offers in-depth information about the fundamental features of project-based science and strategies for implementing the approach. In project-based science classrooms students investigate, use technology, develop artifacts, collaborate, and make products to show what they have learned. Paralleling what scientists do, project-based science represents the essence of inquiry and the nature of science. Because project-based science is a method aligned with what is known about how to help all children learn science, it not only helps students learn science more thoroughly and deeply, it also helps them experience the joy of doing science. Project-based science embodies the principles in A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards. Blending principles of learning and motivation with practical teaching ideas, this text shows how project-based learning is related to ideas in the Framework and provides concrete strategies for meeting its goals. Features include long-term, interdisciplinary, student-centered lessons; scenarios; learning activities, and "Connecting to Framework for K–12 Science Education" textboxes. More concise than previous editions, the Fourth Edition offers a wealth of supplementary material on a new Companion Website, including many videos showing a teacher and class in a project environment.
"Clearly shows the success that can occur when a staff learns together. I highly recommend this book to aspiring and beginning principals, as well as those with years of experience." —Paul Young, Executive Director, West After School Center Former President, National Association of Elementary School Principals Foster schoolwide professional learning through a collaborative action research model! Action research is a popular method for individual educators to examine their practices and grow in their profession. In this how-to guide, readers will learn how Whole-Faculty Study Groups (WFSGs) use action research to involve an entire school in advancing staff learning and school performance. The WFSG model is a type of professional learning community (PLC) that catalyzes school change with schoolwide action research as a central component. With over 20 years of experience, the authors draw from hundreds of examples and case studies to describe how implementing WFSGs can help students, teachers, administrators, and other staff members work collaboratively to improve teacher practice and student learning. The authors′ empirical data and comprehensive approach help deepen educators′ understanding of how to use meaningful action research to strengthen teamwork and realize school reform. Additionally, readers will learn how: The WFSG system compares with other approaches to action research The schoolwide action research process can be applied in a wide variety of school reform efforts Study groups can move from discussion to action Principals and district leaders can support schoolwide action research Discover the ways WFSGs can enhance student learning and result in real school improvement in this highly relevant, must-have guide.