This is a textbook serving as an introduction to the profession of Independent Educational Consulting. The book highlights the practices, principles, and tenets of the field and highlights ways to help students find a good match college. These are some of the topics covered: business practices, helping families with affordability issues, gaining knowledge, growing an independent counseling practice, ethical guidelines, and working with students with learning disabilities.

Assessment is an essential part of teaching and learning, but too often it leads to misleading conclusions—sometimes with dire consequences for students. How can educators improve assessment practices so that the results are accurate, meaningful, informative, and fair? Educator and best-selling author Myron Dueck draws from his firsthand experience and his work with districts around the world to provide a simple but profound answer: put student voice and choice at the center of the process. In this engaging and well-researched book, Dueck reveals troubling issues related to traditional approaches and offers numerous examples of educators at all levels who are transforming assessment by using tools and methods that engage and empower students. He also shares surprising revelations about the nature of memory and learning that speak to the need for rethinking how we measure student understanding and achievement. Readers will find sound advice and detailed guidance on how to * Share and cocreate precise learning targets, * Develop student-friendly rubrics linked to standards, * Involve students in ongoing assessment procedures, * Replace flawed grading systems with ones that better reflect what students know and can do, and * Design structures for students' self-reporting on their progress in learning. Inspired by the origins of the word assessment—derived from the Latin for "to sit beside"—Dueck urges educators to discard old habits and instead work with students as partners in assessment. For those who do, the effort is rewarding and the benefits are significant

Choosing to See: A Framework for Equity in the Math Classroom By Pamela Seda and Kyndall Brown Most of the top jobs for the future require students to have a strong foundational understanding of mathematics. Our failure to mathematically educate most students in general, and students of color in particular, is bad not only for these students individually but also for our society. In Choosing to See, Pamela Seda and Kyndall Brown offer a substantive, rigorous, and necessary set of interventions to move mathematics education toward greater equity, particularly in serving the needs of Black and Brown students, who are underrepresented and underserved as math scholars. The authors' thoughtful ICUCARE equity framework serves as a lens to help teachers see where they are achieving this alignment and where they are not. Through this lens, choosing to see means caring enough about what you see to act. It means accepting that every one of your students can be an expert given the opportunity. It means recognizing negative stereotypes about marginalized students and understanding their effects. It means knowing that your students have rich lives outside the classroom that can inform what you do inside the classroom. And it means recognizing and celebrating their human dimensions, so that all students' strengths, capabilities, and talents can grow. "A provocative and practical read! Seda and Brown remind us that equity is not a destination but a journey we take together with our students, their families, and our colleagues." DR. TRENA L. WILKERSON, professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Baylor University, president, NCTM "It's one thing to embrace Standards for Mathematics Practices (SMP) but quite another to see the human potential of minoritized children and teach them in ways that ensure they actually succeed. The authors of this book share rich personal stories that not only help teachers to see their students but to also perceive who they are and what they can become." JACQUELINE LEONARD, professor of Mathematics Education, University of Wyoming "Choosing to See is the emotional and spiritual journey that all math educators need to embark on wholeheartedly. The book is a timely primer that takes the deep and complex issue of race and systemic bias in the mathematical experiences of Black students and presents them with unflinching clarity and candor." SUNIL SINGH, author of Pi of Life "This book helps close the gap between recognizing that we can do more to make math classrooms equitable and actually having a plan for how to do it. Pamela and Kyndall are respected leaders in the mathematics education community and help unpack the problems we may not be aware of as well as solutions for addressing them." ROBERT KAPLINSKY, author of Open Middle Math

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

Empowering striving writers to thrive as writers! Somehow, in every classroom during every year, there are students who keep us up at night because of the instructional challenges they face as writers. These students—our striving writers—may find success exploring different entry points and pathways than those their classmates travel. Every Child Can Write will help you lead striving writers along their journey toward growth, confidence, and success. Filled with practical strategies, classroom-management ideas,and reproducible tools, this book also offers low- and high-tech solutions for increasing writing volume and boosting self-esteem. Plus, with suggestions for differentiating instruction based on standards and student needs, it will help you: Implement principles of UDL to optimize your classroom environment and student learning; Identify and honor students’ strengths throughout your writing instruction; Maximize the power of formative assessment to set goals with students; and Integrate the most appropriate technology that empowers students and leads them to independence. As essential as writing is in elementary school, it will be even more important when your students reach middle school. Now is the time to give them the skills, practice, and confidence they need to succeed. As we know, in distance learning caregivers and teachers partner more than ever to help students with writing. The Distance Learning companion to Every Child Can Write is for teachers to share with caregivers to help children develop their writing lives—even while learning at home. Each of the eight modules contains video clips that talk caregivers through tools for supporting their student writers, along with downloadable tools that can be used by teachers or caregivers.