This expansion of Whatever It Takes sharpens the focus on the pyramid of interventions strategy. The authors examine case studies of schools and districts across North America to illustrate how PLC at WorkTM is a sustainable and transferable process that ensures struggling students get the support they need to achieve. They address how to enrich and extend the learning of proficient students and explain how PLC intervention processes align with RTI legislation.
Our pupils’ success will be defined by their ability to read fluently and skilfully. But despite universal acceptance of reading’s vital importance, the reading gap in our classroom remains, and it is linked to an array of factors, such as parental wealth, education and book ownership, as well as classroom practice. To close this gap, we need to ensure that every teacher has the knowledge and skill to teach reading with confidence. In Closing the Reading Gap, Alex Quigley explores the intriguing history and science of reading, synthesising the debates and presenting a wealth of usable evidence about how children develop most efficiently as successful readers. Offering practical strategies for teachers at every phase of their teaching career, as well as tackling issues such as dyslexia and the role of technology, the book helps teachers to be an expert in how pupils ‘learn to read’ as well as how they ‘read to learn’ and explores how reading is vital for unlocking a challenging academic curriculum for every student. With a focus on nurturing pupils’ will and skill to read for pleasure and purpose, this essential volume provides practical solutions to help all teachers create a rich reading culture that will enable every student to thrive in school and far beyond the school gates.
In 2013, a little known mathematician in his late 50s stunned the mathematical community with a breakthrough on an age-old problem about prime numbers. Since then, there has been further dramatic progress on the problem, thanks to the efforts of a large-scale online collaborative effort of a type that would have been unthinkable in mathematics a couple of decades ago, and the insight and creativity of a young mathematician at the start of his career. Prime numbers have intrigued, inspired and infuriated mathematicians for millennia. Every school student studies prime numbers and can appreciate their beauty, and yet mathematicians' difficulty with answering some seemingly simple questions about them reveals the depth and subtlety of prime numbers. Vicky Neale charts the recent progress towards proving the famous Twin Primes Conjecture, and the very different ways in which the breakthroughs have been made: a solo mathematician working in isolation and obscurity, and a large collaboration that is more public than any previous collaborative effort in mathematics and that reveals much about how mathematicians go about their work. Interleaved with this story are highlights from a significantly older tale, going back two thousand years and more, of mathematicians' efforts to comprehend the beauty and unlock the mysteries of the prime numbers.
Three experts on equity and technology offer concrete, evidence-based strategies for classroom teachers to move toward digital equity in K12 settings. Closing the Gap is an ISTE book series designed to reflect the contributions of multiple stakeholders seeking to ensure that digital equity is achieved on campuses, in classrooms, and throughout education. In this series, authors Nicol R. Howard, Sarah Thomas, and Regina Schaffer offer historical and philosophical insights while exploring challenges and solutions unique to teacher preparation programs, pre-service and in-service teachers, and instructional coaches. The second title in the Closing the Gap series, this book includes: • Examination of digital equity and the “problem of practice” for teachers and coaches • Strategies for connecting the ISTE Educator and Student Standards to practice • Discussion of key challenges facing teachers in today’s classrooms, such as access, connectivity, limited resources, digital divide, and the homework gap • Research-based vignettes from teachers who have encountered and conquered some of the challenges addressed in the book, and from edtech coaches who have implemented equity-centered innovative professional development This book helps teachers address the challenges of teaching in the digital age, providing positive examples and recommendations for achieving digital equity in their classroom communities.
While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap even more at odds with American ideals: the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given a fair chance to be prepared for college. In communities across the U.S., children lack the crucial resources and opportunities, inside and outside of schools that they need if they are to reach their potential. Closing the Opportunity Gap offers accessible, research-based essays written by top experts who highlight the discrepancies that exist in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and life circumstances conspire to create the "opportunity gap" that leads inexorably to stark achievement gaps. They also describe sensible policies grounded in evidence that can restore and enhance opportunities. Moving beyond conventional academic discourse, Closing the Opportunity Gap will spark vital new conversations about what schools, parents, educators, and policymakers can and should do to give all children a fair chance to thrive.
The nature of employment is changing: low wage jobs are increasingly common, fewer workers belong to unions, and workplaces are being transformed through the growth of contracting-out, franchising, and extended supply chains. Closing the Enforcement Gap offers a comprehensive analysis of the enforcement of employment standards in Ontario. Adopting mixed methods, this work includes qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with workers, community advocates, and enforcement officials; extensive archival research excavating decades of ministerial records; and analysis of a previously untapped source of administrative data collected by Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. The authors reveal and trace the roots of a deepening "enforcement gap" that pervades nearly all aspects of the regime, demonstrating that the province’s Employment Standards Act (ESA) fails too many workers who rely on the floor of minimum conditions it was devised to provide. Arguably, there is nothing inevitable about the enforcement gap in Ontario or for that matter elsewhere. Through contributions from leading employment standards enforcement scholars in the US, the UK, and Australia, as well as Quebec, Closing the Enforcement Gap surveys innovative enforcement models that are emerging in a variety of jurisdictions and sets out a bold vision for strengthening employment standards enforcement. Closing the Enforcement Gap Research Group Leah F. Vosko Guliz Akkaymak Rebecca Casey Shelley Condratto John Grundy Alan Hall Alice Hoe Kiran Mirchandani Andrea M. Noack Urvashi Soni-Sinha Mercedes Steedman Mark P. Thomas Eric M. Tucker International/Quebec Contributors Nick Clark Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau Tess Hardy John Howe Guylaine Vallée David Weil
"What if disadvantage need not correlate with poor academic achievement? If instead of researching the 'underachieving' groups (minorities, children for whom English is not their home language, and children of families in poor socioeconomic circumstances) you look at what works in schools to raise the attainment of all these groups, the results are compelling. This inspiring book is grounded in Feyisa Demie's meticulous research and analysis of the high expectations and targeted interventions by schools in one poor inner-city local authority (LA). Schools once in special measures are transformed to "Outstanding" by gifted leadership, effective teachers who mirror the school's intake, and a governing body and community of parents all working towards the same goals. This LA's schools raise their children's attainment at Key Stage 2 and GCSE to levels that far surpass the national average and allow students to access top universities." -- Back cover.
As teachers grapple with the challenge of a new, bigger and more challenging school curriculum, at every key stage and phase, success can feel beyond our reach. But what if there were 50,000 small solutions to help us bridge that gap? In Closing the Vocabulary Gap, the author explores the increased demands of an academic curriculum and how closing the vocabulary gap between our ‘word poor’ and ‘word rich’ students could prove the vital difference between school failure and success. This must-read book presents the case for teacher-led efforts to develop students' vocabulary and provides practical solutions for teachers across the curriculum, incorporating easy-to-use tools, resources and classroom activities.
A comprehensive guide to future-proofing public sector communication and increasing citizen satisfaction How to communicate with the citizens of the future? Why does public sector communication often fail? Public Sector Communication combines practical examples from around the world with the latest theoretical insights to show how communication can help bridge gaps that exist between public sector organizations and the individual citizens they serve. The authors—two experts in the field with experience from the public sector—explain how public entities, be they cities, governments, foundations, agencies, authorities, municipalities, regulators, military, or government monopolies and state owned businesses can build their intangible assets to future-proof themselves in a volatile environment. The book examines how the recent digitalization has increased citizen expectations and why one-way communication leaves public sector organizations fragile. To explain how to make public sector communication antifragile, the authors map contributions from a wide variety of fields combined with illustrative examples from around the world. The authors propose a research-based framework of different intangible assets that can directly improve communication in the public sector. This important resource: Helps explain the sector-specific conditions and why communication is often challenging in the public sector Summarizes all relevant literature on the topic across disciplines and includes the most popular management ideals of the recent decades Explores how public sector organizations can increase citizen satisfaction with effective communication Presents new approaches to both the study and practice of communication in the public sector Provides international examples of successful public sector communication Offers realistic guides to building intangible assets in practice Written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as public managers and leaders, Public Sector Communication offers an illustrative, research-based guide to improving communication and engaging citizens of today and the future.
