Increasingly the education world is recognizing that the development of learning communities is an effective means for improving schools without increasing the budget or adding new programs. This indispensible volume offers practical advice gathered from 22 schools (elementary, middle, and high schools) that have successfully modeled or are creating professional learning communities.

Teacher leadership holds great promise for improving the quality of teaching and ensuring student success. But for co-performance of leadership to be effective, teachers and principals need to lead in sync.Leadership coach Jill Harrison Berg guides educators through the process of creating a shared vision for student success and effective teaching, developing a mutual understanding of each person's role in achieving that vision, establishing a schoolwide culture of teacher leadership, and building the trust needed to bring it all together. Leading In Sync: Teacher Leaders and Principals Working Together for Student Learning provides principals, assistant principals, coaches, department leaders, grade-level and content team leaders, mentors, professional development leaders, and in fact all teachers with the strategies and tools needed to: * Examine their own thinking about what constitutes quality teaching. * Tap faculty members who are already leading. * Identify who has the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required for particular leadership roles. * Support leadership collaboration through efficient, effective communication. * Develop trust within the school community. Berg offers thought-provoking context and reflection questions so that educators can examine their own unique settings; real-world examples of teachers and principals co-performing leadership to improve student success; and dozens of strategies, tools, and templates to facilitate leading in sync.

This book addresses the past and future of research on the effectiveness of "asynchronous learning networks" courses in which students and teachers learn together online via the Internet. An integrated theoretical framework called "Online Interaction Lea

Study after study has concluded that no matter how competently managed a school may be, it is the bringing together of leadership and learning that makes the difference between ordinary and extraordinary performance. Strengthening the Heartbeat offers leaders a clear and compelling way to help their schools achieve extraordinary results. The proven principles outlined in this book can help any school build a culture of leadership and learning. Thomas J. Sergiovanni?a leading thinker in the educational leadership arena?shows how a strong heartbeat is a school's best defense against the obstacles leaders face as they work to change schools for the better. But strengthening the heartbeat of schools requires that we rethink what leadership is, how leadership works, what leadership's relationship is to learning, and why we need to practice both leadership and learning together. Filled with illustrative examples, Strengthening the Heartbeat shows how to build trust that leads to the creation of a vision and the building of a covenant that brings together principals, teachers, parents, and students to honor shared values, goals, and beliefs. When leaders are able to strengthen the heartbeat, their schools become stronger and more resilient. These qualities help leaders to share the burdens of leadership with others, to create collaborative cultures, and to be continuous learners. Leadership inevitably involves change and change inevitably involves learning. Using this book, school leaders will have the tools they need to make their schools the best they can be.

Collaborating Online provides practical guidance for faculty seeking to help their students work together in creative ways, move out of the box of traditional papers and projects, and deepen the learning experience through their work with one another. Authors Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt draw on their extensive knowledge and experience to show how collaboration brings students together to support the learning of each member of the group while promoting creativity and critical thinking. Collaborating Online is the second title in the Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning. This series helps higher education professionals improve the practice of online teaching and learning by providing concise, practical resources focused on particular areas or issues they might confront in this new learning environment.

"Too often the response to good ideas is ′it won′t work here.′ This book respects that perspective by providing school leaders with studies from the field that describe efforts that have and have not worked. The concept of shared leadership is presented in a ′real world′ context, including the voices of those who don′t want it. The reader will develop a better understanding of what true collaboration can look like along with the challenges leaders may face as the culture of their school adapts to change." —Stephen Gruenert, Indiana State University "Learning to Lead Together connects leadership theory with experiences from the field—it is very useful to practitioners and to individuals preparing for formal school leadership positions." —Albert H. Fein, Gonzaga University "Janet Chrispeel′s Learning to Lead Together provides a rich anthology of real experiences of school based leaders caught in the vortex of leading and learning on the one hand and teaching and leading on the other. I highly recommend this new work to students seeking real answers to real problems." —James C. Moulton, Jr., Consulting Principal, Fairfax County Public Schools Learning to Lead Together: The Promise and Challenge of Sharing Leadership examines the dilemmas for school leaders and administrators, and the benefits for schools and students, when principals work with teachers (and their communities) to share leadership. Most schools function within existing hierarchical structures that contradict and undermine many of the conditions necessary for shared leadership. Current school reform initiatives and policies urge or require that teachers be actively involved in decision-making without addressing systemic dilemmas and paradoxes. Through real-life single and multiple case studies, Learning to Lead Together addresses how principals and their staffs struggle with the challenge of shared leadership, how they encourage teacher growth and development, and how shared leadership can lead to higher levels of student learning. The cases show how shared leadership, a powerful adaptive change, is socially constructed across contexts and evolves as teachers and principals learn how to work together. The book also illustrates how principal preparation and professional development programs that utilize problem-based learning and provide opportunities for genuine collaboration with colleagues can provide school leaders with the skills they need to share leadership and accountability effectively. This book is ideally suited as a supplemental text for courses in educational leadership and administration. School administrators, superintendents, and principals will also find this an invaluable reference.

'Affective Learning Together' contains in-depth theoretical reviews and case studies in the classroom, of the social and affective dimensions of group learning in a variety of educational situations and taught disciplines, from small groups working on design projects or debating topics in biology and in history in schools.