Set in the wider context of the project approach to learning, this book addresses the needs of both library media specialists and teachers in preschool, kindergarten, and primary grades. Educators who want to use stories and nonfiction to promote independent learning in young children will love this book. The reader will find practical hands-on activities where each sample lesson includes content, learning goals, and strategies for teaching and assessing learning. Librarians and teachers will learn not only how to guide young children through the research process, but also the important why to do this. These developmentally appropriate research lessons are ready to teach for grades preschool through second.
A turnkey and cost-effective PBL framework that is highly recommended! Are you tired of complex and costly PBL models? Support students’ academic, literacy, and life goals with the +1Pedagogy™ framework. You’ll learn to easily blend theory and practice, core standards, 21st Century Skills, and technology for a comprehensive – and unforgettable - learning experience. K-12 educators, coaches and administrators will learn to: Stimulate students’ interest across disciplines Implement a turnkey, interdisciplinary +1P framework Immerse students in authentic inquiry and real-world application Integrate college and career readiness and digital technology The book includes 9 inspiring sample units and over 30 helpful templates.
This bestselling book has been completely updated and expanded to help teachers use the project approach in child care centers, in preschools, and in kindergarten, 1st grade, and early childhood special education classrooms. For those new to using projects, the book introduces the approach and provides step-by-step guidance for conducting meaningful projects. Experienced teachers will find the teacher interviews, children's work, photographs (including full colour), and teacher journal entries used to document the project process in actual classrooms very useful. This popular, easy-to-use resource has been expanded to include these new features: explicit instructions and examples for incorporating standards into the topic selection and planning process; a variety of nature experiences, with examples that show how project work is an excellent way to connect children to the natural world; an update of the use of technology for both documentation and investigations, including use of the Web as well as and video and digital cameras; and more toddler projects that reflect our increased knowledge from recent mind/brain research about toddler understanding and learning.
"Students learn to be active and responsible citizens by actually seeking to promote change, rather than just being-supposedly-prepared to be leaders in the future." -Steven Zemelman What really matters to your students? The issues in front of them at school and in life. When students inquire into those issues and know that their arguments will be read with a skeptical eye next week by the city council or published in the local newspaper, they're eager to research and find relevant information in nonfiction texts to bolster their claims. They become committed to write, revise, edit, and correct their grammar. They want to think broadly about what reasoning will be effective with their audience. Want that kind of engagement in your classroom? Whether you teach English, social studies, science, or math, From Inquiry to Action will show you how step-by-step. Its projects for civic-engagement help kids become not only college and career ready but citizen ready. And not ready someday, but right now Research, argument, speaking and listening, close reading, writing for real audiences and purposes, and collaboration? It's all here, growing through projects that give students choice, ownership over their learning, incredible motivation, and a sense of voice and power that only comes from focusing on and applying their learning to real-world situations. "It's not enough to just talk about change, or practice in mock legislatures," writes Steve Zemelman. "When students see adults actually listening to them with respect, that is when they begin to realize they have a voice and can make a difference in their world." Read From Inquiry to Action and find practical guidance that leads students to the heights you dream for them. After all, we all want our students to grow as engaged, thoughtful citizens in our communities. Steve blogs frequently about the ideas in From Inquiry to Action and about how educators around the US are applying them at his Civic Action in Schools blog.
If your young students ask, "Why are we doing that?" if they wonder what school learning has to do with life outside of school, if YOU wonder how you will motivate, engage, or otherwise inspire your students to take schoolwork seriously, then read this book. Deborah Diffily and Charlotte Sassman give us pause to rethink the look, feel, and content of classrooms. They remind us that even the youngest students can fully participate in the life of their schools and their communities. And they show us just how successful children can be in conducting their own projects. The authors detail the characteristics of an Applied Learning project, a venture in which students connect school work to the real world and direct their own learning. They offer a timeline for one such project, and describe several more, with suggestions for additional project topics, research resources, and end products. Using numerous vignettes and examples from their own teaching experiences, they demonstrate that, above and beyond academic learning, children grow into contributing members of different groups by learning how to negotiate and compromise, direct their own learning, and make daily work choices that mesh classroom learning with real-world projects. As one six-year-old explained, "Projecks can be educkashional. Projecks can be fun." This book's purpose is the same: to help you understand the power, and the fun, of project-based learning. Try it and possibly change your life.
Plan enriching Project-Based Learning experiences with ease! The book′s companion website features an updated guide to help teachers integrate technology into PBL experiences for online and blended learning instruction. Is project-planning a project in and of itself? Does project-based learning (PBL) feel more like a pipe dream than a reality in your classroom? Dr. Jennifer Pieratt, a consultant and former teacher herself, knows just where you′re coming from. Developed from the author′s experience in the trenches of project-based learning over the past decade, this book will lead you through the planning process for an authentic PBL experience in a clear and efficient way. Project-based learning has been found to develop workforce readiness, innovation, and student achievement. In this book, the keys to implementing PBL effectively are explored in a simple, easy-to-use format. In addition to thought-provoking questions for journaling, readers will find a visually accessible style featuring • #realtalk soundbites that honor the challenges to implementing PBL • Tips and resources to support the project-planning process • Planning forms to guide you through planning your projects • Key terminology and acronyms in PBL • Exercises to help you reflect and process throughout your project plans If mastering a PBL framework is on your list, prepare to cross it off with the help of this book! Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Winner
The Creative Curriculum comes alive! This videotape-winner of the 1989 Silver Apple Award at the National Educational Film and Video Festival-demonstrates how teachers set the stage for learning by creating a dynamic well-organized environment. It shows children involved in seven of the interest areas in the The Creative Curriculum and explains how they learn in each area. Everyone conducts in-service training workshops for staff and parents or who teaches early childhood education courses will find the video an indispensable tool for explainin appropriate practice.
"Gail Gibbons is known for her ability to bring the nonfiction world into focus for young students. Through pictures, captions, and text, this book provides a window into the world of growing things...Erin Mallon complements Gibbonss text with a clear, clipped, and purposeful narration." -AudioFile Magazine
This new edition incorporates many insights and strategies the authors have learned while working extensively with teachers to implement the project approach. Since the popular first edition was published in 1989, the authors have continued to help teachers around the world understand the benefits of this approach. Katz and Chard discuss in great detail the philosophical, theoretical, and research bases of project work. The typical phases are presented and detailed suggestions for implementing each one are described. Using specific examples, this book clarifies and articulates the process and benefits of the project approach. These specific examples outline how children's intellectual development is enhanced. Years of working with teachers and young children from preschool to primary age provide the authors with first hand experience for employing the project approach. Helpful guidelines will aid teachers in working with this approach comfortably in order to gain the interset of children and in order for those to grow and florish mentally.
No one is immune to the byproducts of compulsory schooling and standardized testing. And while reform may be a worthy cause for some, it is not enough for countless others still trying to navigate the tyranny of what schooling has always been. Raising Free People argues that we need to build and work within systems truly designed for any human to learn, grow, socialize, and thrive, regardless of age, ability, background, or access to money. Families and conscious organizations across the world are healing generations of school wounds by pivoting into self-directed, intentional community-building, and Raising Free People shows you exactly how unschooling can help facilitate this process. Individual experiences influence our approach to parenting and education, so we need more than the rules, tools, and “bad adult” guilt trips found in so many parenting and education books. We need to reach behind our behaviors to seek and find our triggers; to examine and interrupt the ways that social issues such as colonization still wreak havoc on our ability to trust ourselves, let alone children. Raising Free People explores examples of the transition from school or homeschooling to unschooling, how single parents and people facing financial challenges unschool successfully, and the ways unschooling allows us to address generational trauma and unlearn the habits we mindlessly pass on to children. In these detailed and unabashed stories and insights, Richards examines the ways that her relationships to blackness, decolonization, and healing work all combine to form relationships and enable community-healing strategies rooted in an unschooling practice. This is how millions of families center human connection, practice clear and honest communication, and raise children who do not grow up to feel that they narrowly survived their childhoods.
