Offers sixty innovative, enjoyable, and effective activities designed to make learning unforgettable.

Get 'em started and keep 'em going ? quick! Choose from the 75 hands-on activities in this book to: * Raise the comfort level of your participants * Jumpstart a training session * Energize a presentation * Stimulate group discussion The key word here is quick! While there are tons of books containing icebreakers and energizers, many of the activities are too involved for the limited time available. This book solves that problem . "A great way to get your session off to an active start is by adding Energize Your Audience! to your bookshelf. Lorraine Ukens has that special knack of writing exercises that immediately capture and energize your audience. And, isn't that what you want in an icebreaker?" -Steve Sugar, coauthor, Games That Teach Teams "Energize your audience. Easy to say and hard to do. This is a great resource to help deliver your message by capturing participants' attention so you can be heard." -Ed Rose, author, 50 Ways To Teach Your Learner and Presenting and Training with Magic "Energize Your Audience! is a treasure trove of energizing, creative, and easy-to-facilitate activities. Guaranteed to delight, motivate, and engage any training group, this collection is a 'must-have' on every trainer's bookshelf." -Karen Lawson, CSP, Lawson Consulting Group, Inc. All of these exercises are reproducible and can be easily facilitated in 15 minutes or less, leaving most of your valuable time to focus on the topic of the training session. Keep your participants alert and actively engaged in the learning process with the help of this invaluable resource!

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Today's organizations are using teams to carry out tasks and solve problems. To get the job done, your managers and team leaders need to communicate and cooperate. Facilitation is the skill that saves the day! This workshop shows your employees how to become effective facilitators, and great facilitators promote employee commitment and satisfaction, and augment team performance and problem solving. The Instructor's Guide includes everything you need to conduct a facilitation workshop: simulations, discussion resources, and more. The flexible workshop is organized around practical problems, so participants never lose sight of the job. The Handbook reinforces key workshop concepts, details key facilitation methods, offers step-by-step instructions for facilitating meetings, and much more. Numerous checklists and forms enable quick implementation. Remember, the Handbook is an essential tool even for professionals who haven't participated in a Facilitator Excellence workshop. This stand-alone facilitation reference is a gold mine of tips and tools. The Profile assesses facilitators' abilities and suggests areas for improvement. Incorporated into the Facilitator Excellence workshop, this quick assessment is also an effective follow-up tool that ensures ongoing facilitator development.This package helps professionals to: * Lead meetings effectively * Organize team activities * Obtain project support * Find solutions to problems * Establish harmony among coworkers * Deal with customers and clients * Set goals and make decisions * Earn support for initiatives . . . and much more! You'll need one copy of the Instructor's Guide for the trainer, skilled facilitator, or manager who will conduct the workshop. Each participant will need one copy of the Handbook and the Profile.

Teaching at Its Best This third edition of the best-selling handbook offers faculty at all levels an essential toolbox of hundreds of practical teaching techniques, formats, classroom activities, and exercises, all of which can be implemented immediately. This thoroughly revised edition includes the newest portrait of the Millennial student; current research from cognitive psychology; a focus on outcomes maps; the latest legal options on copyright issues; and how to best use new technology including wikis, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and clickers. Entirely new chapters include subjects such as matching teaching methods with learning outcomes, inquiry-guided learning, and using visuals to teach, and new sections address Felder and Silverman's Index of Learning Styles, SCALE-UP classrooms, multiple true-false test items, and much more. Praise for the Third Edition of Teaching at Its BestEveryone veterans as well as novices will profit from reading Teaching at Its Best, for it provides both theory and practical suggestions for handling all of the problems one encounters in teaching classes varying in size, ability, and motivation." Wilbert McKeachie, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, and coauthor, McKeachie's Teaching TipsThis new edition of Dr. Nilson's book, with its completely updated material and several new topics, is an even more powerful collection of ideas and tools than the last. What a great resource, especially for beginning teachers but also for us veterans!" L. Dee Fink, author, Creating Significant Learning ExperiencesThis third edition of Teaching at Its Best is successful at weaving the latest research on teaching and learning into what was already a thorough exploration of each topic. New information on how we learn, how students develop, and innovations in instructional strategies complement the solid foundation established in the first two editions." Marilla D. Svinicki, Department of Psychology, The University of Texas, Austin, and coauthor, McKeachie's Teaching Tips

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together