Learn how to define proficiency accurately and differentiate to help all students achieve it. With a focus on mixed-ability classes, the author outlines instructional practices that engage, empower, and motivate students. Using stories, strategies, case histories, and sample documents, he explains how to implement equitable instruction, assessment, grading, and reporting practices for diverse 21st century learners.
In Redefining Fair, the author confronts the resistance and obstacles schools experience when implementing differentiation and shows how to overcome them. Learn how to define proficiency accurately and differentiate to help all students achieve it. With a focus on mixed-ability classes, the author outlines instructional practices that engage, empower, and motivate students. Using stories, strategies, case histories, and sample documents, he explains how to implement equitable instruction, assessment, grading, and reporting practices for diverse 21st century learners. The book explores the vital role of differentiation in ensuring student success as schools set goals of proficiency for all and discusses ways to create a culture of excellence in the classroom by focusing on student understanding rather than on outcomes achieved through memorization. The author takes on the "mythology of measurement" and draws a distinction between assessment designed to improve learning through feedback and assessment designed to measure learning through grades. The book concludes with recommendations on how educators may improve their reporting and examines the types of information a report card should contain to communicate an accurate, succinct, and easily understood summary of learning and behavior to students and parents. Benefits: Provides examples of ways to respond to resistance to new assessment methods; Models instructional practices that engage, empower, and motivate students; Shows how to collect data through a variety of preassessments and diagnostic assessments to determine students' needs, readiness to learn, and learning preferences; Examines guidelines to ensure report cards clearly convey essential information to parents and students; Demonstrates an array of grading methods for mixed-ability classes and assessment and differentiation strategies that maximize learning for all students; Explores strategies to facilitate the development of critical-thinking and problem-solving skills students need to navigate the vast amounts of information they encounter in the digital world.
"...deeply felt and cogently argued...Hughes makes a powerful case that deserves a respectful hearing." —The Financial Times Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes argues that the best way to fight income inequality is with a radically simple idea: a guaranteed income for working people, paid for by the one percent. The first half of Chris Hughes’s life played like a movie reel right out of the “American Dream.” He grew up in a small town in North Carolina. His parents were people of modest means, but he was accepted into an elite boarding school and then Harvard, both on scholarship. There, he met Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz and became one of the co-founders of Facebook. In telling his story, Hughes demonstrates the powerful role fortune and luck play in today’s economy. Through the rocket ship rise of Facebook, Hughes came to understand how a select few can become ultra-wealthy nearly overnight. He believes the same forces that made Facebook possible have made it harder for everyone else in America to make ends meet. To help people who are struggling, Hughes proposes a simple, bold solution: a guaranteed income for working people, including unpaid caregivers and students, paid for by the one percent. The way Hughes sees it, a guaranteed income is the most powerful tool we have to combat poverty and stabilize America’s middle class. Money—cold hard cash with no strings attached—gives people freedom, dignity, and the ability to climb the economic ladder. A guaranteed income for working people is the big idea that's missing in the national conversation. This book, grounded in Hughes’s personal experience, will start a frank conversation about how we earn in modern America, how we can combat income inequality, and ultimately, how we can give everyone a fair shot.
Assessment is overdue for a technology-supported reboot, and this practical guide will help you do just that. Within its pages, you'll discover a technology-supported and balanced approach to assessment for learning that includes conversations and performance-based observations as key components. Real-world case studies and differentiated implementation options are available throughout the book to help you identify your current level of knowledge, gain confidence, and hone your skills. Use this book to guide your journey to effective performance-based assessment: Understand how balanced classroom assessment leads to deeper student engagement, greater equity, and increased reliability. Discover the role of formative and summative assessments and how to use triangulation to assess student learning outcomes. Watch video clips that feature real-life teachers and students implementing balanced assessment in the classroom. Learn how to develop positive relationships with students and create a learning environment characterized by trust and collaboration. Understand how to use technology and digital evidence to support assessment, including student self-assessment and peer assessment. Rely on the teacher-readiness scale to help you identify your comfort level with the types of assessment and approaches within the book. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Why Is Balanced Assessment Important? Chapter 2: How Do I Plan Balanced Assessments? Chapter 3: How Do I Assess Through Observation and Conversation? Chapter 4: How Can I Use Technology to Benefit Assessment? Chapter 5: How Do I Use a VOCAL Approach to Improve Learning? Chapter 6: How Do I Communicate About Learning in the Digital Age? Epilogue Appendix References and Resources Index
'Ben's book is an elegant and essential intervention in an era of enervating culture wars. It asks and answers nothing less than the most important question of our time: how can we recover the ability to talk to one another?' - Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland What does it mean to be fair? Why do we feel unfairness so strongly? What has happened to us today that we spend more time condemning each other's views than giving each other a fair hearing? The idea of fairness is one of the most commonly-expressed concepts, yet nobody ever stops to think what it really means. We all simply take the word 'fair' for granted. In this polemical guide to fairness, Ben Fenton explains the meaning of the word, how it fits into our genetic make-up and why we need our innate sense of fair play now more than ever. Fenton explores the idea that the unconscious procedure that humans go through in deciding fairness is the vital balancing act between competition and cooperation, the two driving forces that have made us the super-species of Planet Earth. He describes the neurology, anthropology, psychology, history and future of fairness and looks at how it affects our lives through politics, law, sex, religion, race, sport, business and even war. As a reporter of thirty years' experience, Fenton brings all his skills to bear in a lively and challenging description of the profound inner meaning of a throwaway phrase and why it matters so much to every single person in the world to seek To Be Fair. PART I – WHY SHOULD WE TRY TO BE FAIR? 1. Why You Should Read This Book 2. The Principles of Fairness 3. The Neurology and Psychology of Fairness 4. Fairness in History 5. Is Fairness a Creation of the English speaking World? (Spoiler alert: No) PART II – WHAT DOES FAIRNESS LOOK LIKE IN THE MODERN WORLD? 6. Fairness in Sport (and other forms of War) 7. Fairness in Business and Economics 8. Fairness in Law and Taxation 9. Fairness in Communication and Technology 10. Fairness in Politics and Government 11. Fairness in Human Relationships 12. Is Fair Play the Answer to the Ultimate Question?
This book examines the criminal justice decisions of the Rehnquist Court era through analyses of individual justices' contributions to the development of law and policy. The Rehnquist Court era (1986-2005) produced a period of opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court's judicial conservatives to reshape constitutional law concerning rights in the criminal justice process. It was an era in which the Court produced many hotly-debated decisions concerning such issues as capital punishment, search and seizure, police interrogations, and prisoners' rights. The Court's most conservative justice, William H. Rehnquist, ascended to the key leadership position of Chief Justice and he was joined on the Court by two new appointees, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who were equally supportive of both greater authority for police and limited definitions of constitutional rights for suspects, defendants, and criminal offenders. The Rehnquist Court era decisions refined and narrowed many of the rights-expanding decisions of the Warren Court era (1953-1969). However, the Supreme Court did not ultimately eliminate the Warren era's foundational rights concepts in criminal justice, such as the exclusionary rule and Miranda warnings. As the leading liberal voices of the Warren era, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, retired early in the Rehnquist era, the Court experienced continued advocacy of broad conceptions for many rights through the increased assertiveness of Republican appointees Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter as well as the arrival of new Democratic appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. In many important cases, the justices advocating the preservation of constitutional protections could prevail, even on a generally conservative Court, by persuading one or more of President Ronald Reagan's appointees to support a particular right for suspects and defendants. Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, in particular, shaped outcomes within a divided Court as they determined which of the Court’s wings with which they would align in a particular case. The contributors to this volume identify and highlight the unique perspectives and influential decisions of individual justices as the means for understanding the Rehnquist Court’s imprint on criminal justice.
Learn how to assess students in a way that truly impacts learning. In Rigor and Assessment in the Classroom, bestselling author Barbara R. Blackburn provides a broad range of practical strategies for increasing the rigor and usefulness of your formative and summative assessments. You’ll discover how to... Create an environment where students are expected to learn at high levels; Evaluate and check student learning in a way that ensures growth; Strengthen the validity and reliability of your assessments; Plan assessments in conjunction with planning the instruction; Differentiate assessments to increase the rigor for all students; Enhance the effectiveness of your grading system and feedback; Use performance-based assessment to enhance rigor; and Design clear, reader-friendly rubrics and scoring guides. Each chapter includes ready-to-use tools, examples across the subject areas, and "Think About It" questions to help you reflect on what you’ve read. Many of the tools are also offered as free eResources at www.routledge.com/9781138936140, so you can easily print and distribute them for classroom use.
Throughout America's history, lawyers with a crusading zeal have, through their moral stance, intellectual integrity, and sheer brilliance, made use of the law to fight social injustice. In short biographical chapters, the authors tell the stories of ten of these lawyers. Some are well known: Thurgood Marshall; William Kunstler; Louis Brandeis; Morris Dees; Clarence Darrow; and Ralph Nader. Others are not so well known, but deserve to be. All are fascinating and influential attorneys, and examination of their lives illuminates key issues in American history. An annotated bibliography; a chronology of the person's life and work; and a helpful table detailing their most prominent cases accompany each chapter.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A vivid account of a remarkable life.” —The Washington Post In this comprehensive, revelatory biography—fifteen years of interviews and research in the making—historian Jane Sherron De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg’s passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, and her meticulous jurisprudence. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs is her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to “repair the world,” with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II. Ruth’s journey begins with her mother, who died tragically young but whose intellect inspired her daughter’s feminism. It stretches from Ruth’s days as a baton twirler at Brooklyn’s James Madison High School to Cornell University to Harvard and Columbia Law Schools; to becoming one of the first female law professors in the country and having to fight for equal pay and hide her second pregnancy to avoid losing her job; to becoming the director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project and arguing momentous anti-sex discrimination cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. All this, even before being nominated in 1993 to become the second woman on the Court, where her crucial decisions and dissents are still making history. Intimately, personably told, this biography offers unprecedented insight into a pioneering life and legal career whose profound mark on American jurisprudence, American society, and our American character and spirit will reverberate deep into the twenty-first century and beyond. REVISED AND UPDATED WITH A NEW AFTERWORD
