Bring hope, joy, and positive energy back into the daily work of the classroom. In this book, learn to design brain-friendly learning environments that foster engagement, productivity, and achievement while allowing for seamless integration of educational technology. Discover how flexible, welcoming, and comfortable learning spaces can prepare students for the future. In this book you’ll: Find resources for redesigning spaces on a sustainable budget Support technology integration through blended and virtual learning Hear from teachers and schools whose successfully transformed spaces have increased student achievement
Discusses the crisis in education currently and offers a systems approach to developing a new design and perception for education and the learning process. Presents an intellectual technology of systems design to be used by teachers and educational leaders and an agenda for preservice and inservice professional development.
Transform Your School’s Substitute Teaching Experience Just like everything else, substitute teaching is about to undergo a big change. In Substantial Classrooms: Redesigning the Substitute Teaching Experience, authors Jill Vialet and Amanda von Moos usher in a new era of innovation in substitute teaching. Threaded with concrete and actionable ways to improve the experience of substitute teaching for administrators, students, and the teachers themselves, Substantial Classrooms is a leading voice for innovation and renewal in substitute teaching. Instead of viewing substitute teachers as a placeholder in an educator’s absence, this book encourages readers to view substitute teachers as vital resources that diversify the typical classroom learning experience. While other books look only at making a bad situation bearable, this book re-examines substitute teaching with an eye towards reinventing it as a unique and valuable part of students’ educational experience. Key themes of Substantial Classrooms include: How substitute teaching works today Applying human-centered design to create change in legacy systems like substitute teaching Concrete and inspiring examples of different models for substitute teaching, for example, reimagining it as paid fieldwork for aspiring teachers. In addition to these key themes, every chapter includes stories and techniques from dynamic and innovative educational practitioners. This must-have guide to substitute teaching can improve schools everywhere and revolutionize the way educators, school and district leaders, colleges, and community partners view the experience of substitute teaching as a lever to positively impact schools.
In the United States, 1,200 community colleges enroll over ten million students each year—nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates. Yet fewer than 40 percent of entrants complete an undergraduate degree within six years. This fact has put pressure on community colleges to improve academic outcomes for their students. Redesigning America’s Community Colleges is a concise, evidence-based guide for educational leaders whose institutions typically receive short shrift in academic and policy discussions. It makes a compelling case that two-year colleges can substantially increase their rates of student success, if they are willing to rethink the ways in which they organize programs of study, support services, and instruction. Community colleges were originally designed to expand college enrollments at low cost, not to maximize completion of high-quality programs of study. The result was a cafeteria-style model in which students pick courses from a bewildering array of choices, with little guidance. The authors urge administrators and faculty to reject this traditional model in favor of “guided pathways”—clearer, more educationally coherent programs of study that simplify students’ choices without limiting their options and that enable them to complete credentials and advance to further education and the labor market more quickly and at less cost. Distilling a wealth of data amassed from the Community College Research Center (Teachers College, Columbia University), Redesigning America’s Community Colleges offers a fundamental redesign of the way two-year colleges operate, stressing the integration of services and instruction into more clearly structured programs of study that support every student’s goals.
Blended learning is more than just "teaching with technology"; it allows teachers to maximize learning through deliberate instructional moves. This On-Your-Feet Guide zeroes in on one blended learning routine: Station Rotation. The Station Rotation model moves small groups of students through a series of online and off-line stations, building conceptual understanding and skills along the way. This On-Your-Feet-Guide provides: 7 steps to planning a Station Rotation lesson A full example of one teacher's Station Rotation A blank planning template for designing your own Station Rotation Helpful assessment strategies for monitoring learning at each station Ideas to adapt for low-tech classrooms or large class sizes Use blended learning to maximize learning and keep kids constantly engaged through your next Station Rotation lesson! Laminated, 8.5”x11” tri-fold (6 pages), 3-hole punched
This book is the first of its kind to combine a detailed comprehensive description of the learning-centred school with an examination of a cross-cultural perspective.
What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.
Learn what a flipped classroom is and why it works, and get the information you need to flip a classroom. You’ll also learn the flipped mastery model, where students learn at their own pace, furthering opportunities for personalized education. This simple concept is easily replicable in any classroom, doesn’t cost much to implement, and helps foster self-directed learning. Once you flip, you won’t want to go back!
The broad approach of local management of schools or self-managing schools is now widely accepted. In Britain, there is even consensus between the three major political parties that the approach should be continued and extended. A key issue, though, is what comes next for self- managing schools? Drawing on their work and experience in research consultancy, Caldwell and Spinks examine the way in which education is changing, and outline what is desirable and workable for schools today, with clear guidelines for policy-makers and practitioners. The focus is specifically on the school, the classroom, the student, and the future of learning in society. Practitioners will find this book immediately accessible and useful.
