An educational innovator who worked at Sesame Workshop and The George Lucas Educational Foundation offers a new vision for learning As a result of constant innovation, learning is no longer limited by traditional confines and we're moving beyond students tied to their chairs, desks, and textbooks-and teachers locked away in classrooms. In Education Nation author Milton Chen draws from extensive experience in media-from his work on Sesame Street in its nascent years to his role as executive director of the George Lucas Educational Foundation-to support a vision for a new world of learning. This book, in six chapters, explores the "edges" in education—the places where K-12 learning has already seen revolutionary changes through innovative reform and the use of technology. Examines ways in which learning can be revolutionized through innovative reform and the use of technology Explores the ever-expanding world of technology for breakthroughs in teaching and learning Includes many wonderful resources to support innovation in schools across the nation This important book offers a clear vision for tomorrow's classrooms that will enhance learning opportunities for all children.

Many committed their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to build the foundations of freedom we have inherited. It is essential for students to understand this crucial period in our nation's history so they can fulfill their duty today, understand how our government is structured, and help preserve our freedom for future generations. In this full-color book filled with illustrations and images, students will: ¢¢Learn about the War of Independence through the Constitution in this chronological, 34-week daily study ¢¢Explore the lives of those who dared to oppose the most powerful military on earth with the most powerful words and principles put to paper ¢¢Discover in-depth character comments, explanations of providential occurrences, founder's quotes, poetry from the time period, and more!

No fight over what gets taught in American classrooms is more heated than the battle over humanity’s origins. For more than a century we have argued about evolutionary theory and creationism (and its successor theory, intelligent design), yet we seem no closer to a resolution than we were in Darwin’s day. In this thoughtful examination of how we teach origins, historian Adam Laats and philosopher Harvey Siegel offer crucial new ways to think not just about the evolution debate but how science and religion can make peace in the classroom. Laats and Siegel agree with most scientists: creationism is flawed, as science. But, they argue, students who believe it nevertheless need to be accommodated in public school science classes. Scientific or not, creationism maintains an important role in American history and culture as a point of religious dissent, a sustained form of protest that has weathered a century of broad—and often dramatic—social changes. At the same time, evolutionary theory has become a critical building block of modern knowledge. The key to accommodating both viewpoints, they show, is to disentangle belief from knowledge. A student does not need to believe in evolution in order to understand its tenets and evidence, and in this way can be fully literate in modern scientific thought and still maintain contrary religious or cultural views. Altogether, Laats and Siegel offer the kind of level-headed analysis that is crucial to finding a way out of our culture-war deadlock.

What is a rubric and how are they being used in teacher education and evaluation? When did rubrics become ubiquitous in the field of education? What impact do rubrics have on students, teachers, teacher educators, and the educational enterprise? This book is an edited volume of essays that critically examine the phenomenon of rubrics in teacher education, evaluation and education more broadly. Rubrics have seen a dramatic rise in use and presence over the past twenty-five years in colleges of education and districts across the country. Although there is a wealth of literature about how to make rubrics, there is scant literature that explores the strengths and weaknesses of rubrics and the impact the rubric phenomenon is having in reshaping education. The chapters included in this edited volume will critically reflect on the contemporary contexts of rubrics and the uses and impact of rubrics in education. Since rubrics have become indelible in education, it is necessary for a fuller, nuanced discussion of the phenomenon. Creating a book that explores these aspects of rubrics is timely and fundamental to expanding the discourse on this ubiquitous evaluation tool. This book is not meant to be a series of chapters dedicated to best practices for creating rubrics, nor is this text meant to present all sides of the rubric discussion. Rather, this text intends to offer critical polemics about rubrics that can spur greater critical discussion about a phenomenon in education that has largely been unquestioned in the literature.