This book, "Performance-Focused Smile Sheets," completely reimagines the smile sheet as an essential tool to drive performance improvement. Traditional smile sheets (i.e., learner response forms, student reaction forms) don't work! Decades of practice shows them to have negligible benefits. Scientific studies prove that traditional smile sheets are not correlated with learning results! Yet still we rely on smile sheets to make critical decisions about our learning interventions. In this book, Dr. Will Thalheimer carefully builds the case for a new methodology in smile-sheet design. Based on the learning research, "Performance-Focused Smile Sheets" shows how to write better questions, more focused on performance. The book also shows how to deploy smile sheets to our learners to get valid feedback--feedback that can be used to help us as trainers, instructional designers, teachers, professors, eLearning developers, and chief learning officers build virtuous cycles of continuous improvement.
Your Periodic Table of Learning Elements Engaging, effective training programs are a mixture of science and art, requiring the right balance of adult learning theory, available technology, intuitive tools, proven practices, creativity, and risk. How does a trainer find the right combination and proportion of these elements? How does a trainer know what’s possible? To answer these questions, Brian Washburn offers a simple yet elegant periodic table of learning elements modeled on the original periodic table of chemical properties. Washburn’s elements—which are organized into solids, liquids, gases, radioactive, and interactive categories similar to their chemical cousins—are metaphors for the tools and strategies of the field of learning design; when they’re combined, and under certain conditions, they have the potential to create amazing learning experiences for participants. They are that impactful. From critical gas-like elements like the air we breathe, present in every training room (think instructional design or visual design), to radioactive elements, powerful and dangerous yet commonly used (think PowerPoint), Washburn guides you through the pitfalls and choices you confront in creating engaging learning experiences. A well-designed training program can be world-changing, he argues, and if you believe in your craft as a learning professional, you can do this too. Whether you’re an experienced learning designer or new to the field, this book inspires with new ideas and ways to organize the design of your learning programs. With stories from Washburn’s professional experience, the book includes a hands-on glossary of definitions and descriptions for more than 50 of his elements.
Structured Methods in Language Education (SMILE) is a complete language/literacy program, easily implemented and shown to be effective in teaching language skills to individuals of all ages, with profound disabilities. It uses progressive methods of instruction, phonics, and word-building.
Better Learning Solutions Through Better Learning Experiences When training and development initiatives treat learning as something that occurs as a one-time event, the learner and the business suffer. Using design thinking can help talent development professionals ensure learning sticks to drive improved performance. Design Thinking for Training and Development offers a primer on design thinking, a human-centered process and problem-solving methodology that focuses on involving users of a solution in its design. For effective design thinking, talent development professionals need to go beyond the UX, the user experience, and incorporate the LX, the learner experience. In this how-to guide for applying design thinking tools and techniques, Sharon Boller and Laura Fletcher share how they adapted the traditional design thinking process for training and development projects. Their process involves steps to: Get perspective. Refine the problem. Ideate and prototype. Iterate (develop, test, pilot, and refine). Implement. Design thinking is about balancing the three forces on training and development programs: learner wants and needs, business needs, and constraints. Learn how to get buy-in from skeptical stakeholders. Discover why taking requests for training, gathering the perspective of stakeholders and learners, and crafting problem statements will uncover the true issue at hand. Two in-depth case studies show how the authors made design thinking work. Job aids and tools featured in this book include: a strategy blueprint to uncover what a stakeholder is trying to solve an empathy map to capture the learner’s thoughts, actions, motivators, and challenges an experience map to better understand how the learner performs. With its hands-on, use-it-today approach, this book will get you started on your own journey to applying design thinking.
It only took four years for the world to fall apart. Now the last member of my family has died, and I'm forced to travel across what's left of three states to find the only people I know left alive. To survive, I'll have to salvage food and supplies and try to avoid violent men who've learned they can take what they want by force. The only way I'm going to make it is by trusting Travis. Travis used to fix my car, and now he's all I have left in the world. He's gruff and stoic and unfriendly, and I don't really know or like him. But he's all I have left. He'll keep me safe. We'll take care of each other. Until we reach what's left of our town and can finally let go of one another. Last Light is a standalone post-apocalyptic romance set in the near future after a global catastrophe.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Tired, stressed, and in need of more help from your partner? Imagine running your household (and life!) in a new way... It started with the Sh*t I Do List. Tired of being the “shefault” parent responsible for all aspects of her busy household, Eve Rodsky counted up all the unpaid, invisible work she was doing for her family—and then sent that list to her husband, asking for things to change. His response was...underwhelming. Rodsky realized that simply identifying the issue of unequal labor on the home front wasn't enough: She needed a solution to this universal problem. Her sanity, identity, career, and marriage depended on it. The result is Fair Play: a time- and anxiety-saving system that offers couples a completely new way to divvy up domestic responsibilities. Rodsky interviewed more than five hundred men and women from all walks of life to figure out what the invisible work in a family actually entails and how to get it all done efficiently. With 4 easy-to-follow rules, 100 household tasks, and a series of conversation starters for you and your partner, Fair Play helps you prioritize what's important to your family and who should take the lead on every chore, from laundry to homework to dinner. “Winning” this game means rebalancing your home life, reigniting your relationship with your significant other, and reclaiming your Unicorn Space—the time to develop the skills and passions that keep you interested and interesting. Stop drowning in to-dos and lose some of that invisible workload that's pulling you down. Are you ready to try Fair Play? Let's deal you in.
Every company has a personality. Does yours help or hinder your results? Does it make you fit for growth? Find out by taking the quiz that’s helped 50,000 people better understand their organizations at OrgDNA.com and to learn more about Organizational DNA. Just as you can understand an individual’s personality, so too can you understand a company’s type—what makes it tick, what’s good and bad about it. Results explains why some organizations bob and weave and roll with the punches to consistently deliver on commitments and produce great results, while others can’t leave their corner of the ring without tripping on their own shoelaces. Gary Neilson and Bruce Pasternack help you identify which of the seven company types you work for—and how to keep what’s good and fix what’s wrong. You’ll feel the shock of recognition (“That’s me, that’s my company”) as you find out whether your organization is: • Passive-Aggressive (“everyone agrees, smiles, and nods, but nothing changes”): entrenched underground resistance makes getting anything done like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall • Fits-and-Starts (“let 1,000 flowers bloom”): filled with smart people pulling in different directions • Outgrown (“the good old days meet a brave new world”): reacts slowly to market developments, since it’s too hard to run new ideas up the flagpole • Overmanaged (“we’re from corporate and we’re here to help”): more reporting than working, as managers check on their subordinates’ work so they can in turn report to their bosses • Just-in-Time (“succeeding, but by the skin of our teeth”): can turn on a dime and create real breakthroughs but also tends to burn out its best and brightest • Military Precision (“flying in formation”): executes brilliant strategies but usually does not deal well with events not in the playbook • Resilient (“as good as it gets”): flexible, forward-looking, and fun; bounces back when it hits a bump in the road and never, ever rests on its laurels For anyone who’s ever said, “Wow, that’s a great idea, but it’ll never happen here” or “Whew, we pulled it off again, but I’m tired of all this sprinting,” Results provides robust, practical ideas for becoming and remaining a resilient business. Also available as an eBook From the Hardcover edition.
Also a major motion picture starring Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson! Goodreads Choice Winner, Best Young Adult Fiction of 2019 In this #1 New York Times bestselling novel that’s perfect for fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, two teens fall in love with just one minor complication—they can’t get within a few feet of each other without risking their lives. Can you love someone you can never touch? Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions. The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals. Will’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella, she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment. What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
A teacher presents a lesson, and at the end asks students if they understand the material. The students nod and say they get it. Later, the teacher is dismayed when many of the students fail a test on the material. Why aren’t students getting it? And, just as important, why didn’t the teacher recognize the problem? In Checking for Understanding, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey show how to increase students’ understanding with the help of creative formative assessments. When used regularly, formative assessments enable every teacher to determine what students know and what they still need to learn. Fisher and Frey explore a variety of engaging activities that check for and increase understanding, including interactive writing, portfolios, multimedia presentations, audience response systems, and much more. This new 2nd edition of Checking for Understanding has been updated to reflect the latest thinking in formative assessment and to show how the concepts apply in the context of Fisher and Frey’s work on gradual release of responsibility, guided instruction, formative assessment systems, data analysis, and quality instruction. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey are the creators of the Framework for Intentional and Targeted (FIT) Teaching™. They are also the authors of numerous ASCD books, including The Formative Assessment Action Plan: Practical Steps to More Successful Teaching and Learning and the best-selling Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention.
