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Books : Professional & Technical : Education : Theory : Decision Making & Problem Solving
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A passionate plea to preserve and renew public education, The Death and Life of the Great American School System is a radical change of heart from one of America’s best-known education experts.
Diane Ravitch—former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum—examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, Ravitch critiques today’s most popular ideas for restructuring schools, including privatization, standardized testing, punitive accountability, and the feckless multiplication of charter schools. She shows conclusively why the business model is not an appropriate way to improve schools. Using examples from major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Diego, Ravitch makes the case that public education today is in peril.
Ravitch includes clear prescriptions for improving America’s schools:- leave decisions about schools to educators, not politicians or businessmen
- devise a truly national curriculum that sets out what children in every grade should be learning
- expect charter schools to educate the kids who need help the most, not to compete with public schools
- pay teachers a fair wage for their work, not “merit pay” based on deeply flawed and unreliable test scores
- encourage family involvement in education from an early age
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Five years, 200,000 readers, and one national award after the first edition, Blankstein documents how educators have closed gaps, turned schools around, and sustained overall success.
Resources referenced in Failure Is Not an Option®, Second Edition are available in The Facilitator’s Guide to Failure Is Not an Option®, Second Edition and can also be found at the HOPE Foundation Web site at www.hopefoundation.org.
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The benefits and importance of Socratic seminars are widely recognized, but little has been written on how to make them happen successfully in the classroom. By offering real-world examples and straightforward answers to frequent questions, Matt Copeland has created a coaching guide for both the teacher new to Socratic seminars and the experienced teacher seeking to optimize the benefits of this powerful strategy. Socratic Circles also shows teachers who are familiar with literature circles the many ways in which these two practices complement and extend each other.
Effectively implemented, Socratic seminars enhance reading comprehension, listening and speaking skills, and build better classroom community and conflict resolution skills. By giving students ownership over the classroom discussion around texts, they become more independent and motivated learners. Ultimately, because there is a direct relationship between the level of participation and the richness of the experience, Socratic seminars teach students to take responsibility for the quality of their own learning.
Filled with examples to help readers visualize the application of these concepts in practice, Socratic Circles includes transcripts of student dialogue and work samples of preparation and follow-up activities. The helpful appendices offer ready-to-copy handouts and examples, and suggested selections of text that connect to major literary works.
As our classrooms and our schools grow increasingly focused on meeting high standards and differentiating instruction for a wide variety of student needs and learning styles, Socratic seminars offer an essential classroom tool for meeting these goals. Socratic Circles is a complete and practical guide to Socratic seminars for the busy classroom teacher.
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Best-selling text in the market. Introduction to Management Science, 9e blends problem formulation, managerial interpretation, and math techniques with an emphasis on problem solving. The problem-scenario approach introduces quantitative procedures through situations that include both problem formulation and technique applicationExtensive linear programming coverage includes problem formulation, computer solution, and practical application. Text covers transportation, assignment, and the integer programming extension of linear programming, as well as advanced topics like waiting line models, simulation, and decision analysis. Large selection of problems includes self-test problems with complete solutions and 20 case problems. Excel spreadsheet appendices are included in this edition.
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Includes units on figural and verbal descriptions, similarities and differences, sequences, classifications, and analogies. Skills addressed include reading comprehension; describing shapes, things, and words; following directions; antonyms and synonyms; several types of analogy; deductive reasoning; parts of a whole; mapping and directionality; logical connectives; spelling and vocabulary; overlapping classes; pattern folding; tracking, rotation, and reflection; mental manipulation of two-dimensional objects. Reading level: grade 2; ability level: grades 2-4; 326 activities. Reproducible for single-classroom or single-home use.
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This book provides the tools to put democratic values into practice in groups and organisations. Designed to help groups increase participation and collaboration, promote mutual understanding, honour diversity, and make effective, inclusive, participatory decisions, it is loaded with graphics, guidelines and hand outs, and presents more than 200 valuable tools and skills. It is perfect for managers, participants, seasoned practitioners, and students of working group dynamics.
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This popular book shows students how to increase their power to analyze problems and to comprehend what they read. First, it outlines and illustrates the method that good problem solvers use in attacking complex ideas. Then, it provides practice in applying these methods to a variety of comprehension and reasoning questions.
Books on the improvement of thinking processes have tended to be complicated and less than useful, but the authors of this renowned text emphasize a simple but effective approach. The "Whimbey Method" of teaching problem solving is now recognized as an invaluable means of teaching people to think. Problems are followed by their solutions, presented in easy-to-follow steps. This feature permits students to work without supervision, outside the classroom. As students work through the book they will see a steady improvement in their analytical thinking skills, and will develop confidence in their ability to solve problems--on tests; in academic courses; and in any occupations that involve analyzing, untangling, or comprehending knotty ideas.
By helping students to become better problem solvers, this book can assist students in achieving higher scores on tests commonly used for college and job selection, such as:
* Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
* Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
* ACT Work Keys
* Terra Nova
* Law School Admission Test (LSAT)
* Wonderlic Personnel Test
* United States Employment Service General Aptitude Test Battery
* Civil Service Examination
New in the 6th edition: A totally new chapter--"Meeting Academic and Workplace Standards: How This Book Can Help"--describes changes in the educational system in the past 20 years and shows how the techniques taught in this book relate to the new educational standards and tests.
Changes throughout the book reflect current educational and social realities: the names of some characters have been changed to represent more accurately the cross-section of students attending today's schools; dates in some problems have been changed; in other problems the technology referred to has been updated.
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Offering advice for teachers eager to develop better discipline in the classroom, this guide provides practical methods for eliminating disruptive behavior, encouraging productive work habits, and communicating with parents. Clear lessons and straightforward language reveal how to measure discipline in a classroom environment, as well as how to handle difficult situations, such as transition times, assemblies, lunchtime, and field trips. A separate chapter for school administrators explains how to support classroom teachers in creating discipline and how to evaluate those teachers.
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In this insightful look at school reform, Robert Evans examines the real-life hurdles to implementing innovation and explains how the best-intended efforts can be stalled by educators who too often feel burdened and conflicted by the change process. He provides a new model of leadership along with practical management strategies for building a framework of cooperation between leaders of change and the people they depend upon to implement it.
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Comprehensive Classroom Management presents practical methods for creating a positive learning environment, working with behavioral problems, and dealing with a range of challenges in the K-12 classroom. The authors use real-life examples to help both pre- and in-service teachers understand and apply the principles of classroom management in their own classroom situations. The text uses numerous case studies, examples, and descriptions of specific strategies based on current research and classroom experience. Comprehensive Classroom Management features classrooms ranging from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. It focuses on creating positive learning environments for students, and provides extensive, practical materials on both problem solving and building individual behavior change plans for students with behavioral problems.
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Created by bestselling author and MIT senior lecturer Peter Senge and a team of educators and organizational change leaders, this new addition to the Fifth Discipline Resource Book series offers practical advice for educators, administrators, and parents on how to strengthen and rebuild our schools.
Few would argue that schools today are in trouble. The problems are sparking a national debate as educators, school boards, administrators, and parents search for ways to strengthen our school system at all levels, more effectively respond to the rapidly changing world around us, and better educate our children.
Bestselling author Peter Senge and his Fifth Discipline team have written Schools That Learn because educators--who have made up a sizable percentage of the audience for the popular Fifth Discipline books--have asked for a book that focuses specifically on schools and education, to help reclaim schools even in economically depressed or turbulent districts. One of the great strengths of Schools That Learn is its description of practices that are meeting success across the country and around the world, as schools attempt to learn, grow, and reinvent themselves using the principles of organizational learning. Featuring articles, case studies, and anecdotes from prominent educators such as Howard Gardner, Jay Forrester, and 1999 U.S. Superintendent of the Year Gerry House, as well as from impassioned teachers, administrators, parents, and students, the book offers a wealth of practical tools, anecdotes, and advice that people can use to help schools (and the classrooms in them and communities around them) learn to learn.
You'll read about schools, for instance, where principals introduce themselves to parents new to the school as "entering a nine-year conversation" about their children's education; where teachers use computer modeling to galvanize student insight into everything from Romeo and Juliet to the extinction of the mammoths; and where teachers' training is not just bureaucratic ritual but an opportunity to recharge and rethink the classroom.
In a fast-changing world where school violence is a growing concern, where standardized tests are applied as simplistic "quick fixes," where rapid advances in science and technology threaten to outpace schools' effectiveness, where the average tenure of a school district superintendent is less than three years, and where students, parents, and teachers feel weighed down by increasing pressures, Schools That Learn offers much-needed material for the dialogue about the educating of children in the twenty-first century.
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Give children wondrous places to learn and grow! Drawing inspiration from a variety of approaches -- from Waldorf to Montessori to Reggio to Greenman, Prescott, and Olds -- the authors outline hundreds of ways to create healthy and inviting physical, social, and emotional environments for children in child care. Full-color photographs of actual early childhood programs demonstrate that the spaces children learn and grow in can be comfortable for children, teachers, and parents alike.
Margie Carter serves on the adjunct faculty at Pacific Oaks College Northwest, Seattle, Washington. Deb Curtis works as a child care teacher at the Burlington Little School in Seattle. Their other books include The Art of Awareness, The Visionary Director, Training Teachers, Spreading the News, and Reflecting Children's Lives.
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What a tantalizing treat for young minds! Seven different thinking skills--relationships, analogies, sequences, deduction, inference, pattern decoding, and critical analysis--are presented in a format designed to appeal to the pre-reader. Lollipop Logic employs visual and pictorial clues to introduce and reinforce high-powered thinking. This one-of-kind tool gives wings to pre-readers and non-readers. This unique book introduces complex thinking skills without the fetters of lexical meaning. Lollipop Logic is the perfect instrument for many young learners. It is simple to use and simpler for youngsters to understand. Best of all, it alleviates the encumbrances of reading ability for young minds ready to soar into the stratosphere of thinking skills far beyond their reading levels.For more advanced logic activities, refer to Logic Countdown, Logic Liftoff, Orbiting with Logic, and Logic Safari Books 1, 2, and 3.
Grades K-2
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The Boston Arts Academy comprises an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse student body, yet 94 percent of its graduates are accepted to college. Compare this with the average urban district rate of 50 percent. How do they do it? This remarkable success, writes Principal Linda Nathan, is in large part due to asking the right questions—questions all schools can consider, such as:• How and why does a school develop a shared vision of what it stands for?
• What makes a great teacher, and how can a principal help good teachers improve?
• Why must schools talk openly about race and achievement, and what happens when they do?With engaging honesty, Nathan gives readers a ring-side seat as faculty, parents, and the students themselves grapple with these questions, attempt to implement solutions, and evaluate the outcomes. Stories that are inspirational as well as heartbreaking reveal the missteps and failures—as well as the successes.Nathan doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but seeks to share her insights on schools that matter, teachers who inspire, and students who achieve.
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In the wake of the accountability movement, school administrators are inundated with data about their students. How can they use this information to support student achievement? This book presents a clear and carefully tested blueprint for school leaders. It shows how examining test scores and other classroom data can become a catalyst for important schoolwide conversations that will enhance schools' ability to capture teachers' knowledge, foster collaboration, identify obstacles to change, and enhance school culture and climate.
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In real life, Mitchell Stevens is a professor in bustling New York. But for a year and a half, he worked in the admissions office of a bucolic New England college that is known for its high academic standards, beautiful campus, and social conscience. Ambitious high schoolers and savvy guidance counselors know that admission here is highly competitive. But creating classes, Stevens finds, is a lot more complicated than most people imagine.
Admissions officers love students but they work for the good of the school. They must bring each class in "on budget," burnish the statistics so crucial to institutional prestige, and take care of their colleagues in the athletic department and the development office. Stevens shows that the job cannot be done without "systematic preferencing," and racial affirmative action is the least of it. Kids have an edge if their parents can pay full tuition, if they attend high schools with exotic zip codes, if they are athletes--especially football players--and even if they are popular.
With novelistic flair, sensitivity to history, and a keen eye for telling detail, Stevens explains how elite colleges and universities have assumed their central role in the production of the nation's most privileged classes. Creating a Class makes clear that, for better or worse, these schools now define the standards of youthful accomplishment in American culture more generally.
(20071031)
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This 30th Anniversary Edition of Tribes Learning Communities shows teachers how to reach students by developing a caring environment as the foundation for growth and learning. Material details how to teach essential collaborative skills, design interactive learning experiences, work with multiple learning styles, foster the development of resiliency, and support school community change. 2006, 1st edition, 444 pages, 165 strategies/energizers, index and resources.
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A supplementary text for use in any subject-matter course at any educational level. This short, inexpensive guide is designed to help students learn to think critically in any subject-matter course. A combination of instruction and exercises shows them how to use critical thinking to more fully to appreciate the power of the discipline they are studying, to see its connections to other fields and to their day-to-day lives, to maintain an overview of the field so they can see the parts in terms of the whole, and to become active learners rather than passive recipients of information.
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An analogy is a comparison that points out the similarities between things that are different in all other respects. Teaching students how to solve analogies not only develops their logical thinking but also builds visual awareness and verbal proficiency.
The seven different types of visual analogies and 14 different verbal analogies in Analogies for Beginners are perfect for beginning lessons in logical reasoning, flexible thinking, and vocabulary. Each page gives students an example of the type of analogy that is being introduced and then provides 7 (visual) or 10 (verbal) problems for them to solve. This combination of verbal and visual format is an ideal way to introduce logical thinking in primary grades. Whether you have time for one analogy a day or a worksheet a week, students will benefit in many ways when analogies are part of your curriculum. The use of visual analogies is beneficial for developing visual analysis even for older students, but especially useful for non-readers and students with developing English skills. The verbal analogies provide students with exercises that require them to use word comprehension and also to examine various characteristics, uses, and relationships.
This is one of a series of analogy books. For younger students use First Time Analogies and Attribute Thinking Activities. For older students use Thinking Through Analogies, Analogy Roundup, Analogies for the 21st Century, or Advancing Though Analogies.
Grades 1-3