"Gathering data and using it to inform instruction is a requirement for many schools, yet educators are not necessarily formally trained in how to do it. This book helps bridge the gap between classroom practice and the principles of educational psychology. Teachers will find cutting-edge advances in research and theory on human learning and teaching in an easily understood and transferable format. The text's integrated model shows teachers, school leaders, and district administrators how to establish a data culture and transform quantitative and qualitative data into actionable knowledge based on: assessment; statistics; instructional and differentiated psychology; classroom management."--Publisher's description.

Child-centered lesson planning provides a system to strengthen teaching. Great lesson planning helps teachers to choose a range of strategies that match what children are learning and doing-- from directed mini-lessons to facilitated group activities.

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2014! How can teachers transform classroom teaching and learning by making pedagogy more socially and culturally responsive, more relevant to students’ lives, and more collaborative? How can they engage disaffected students in learning and at the same time promote deep understanding though high-quality teaching that goes beyond test preparation? This text for prospective and practicing teachers introduces engaging, innovative pedagogy for putting active and dramatic approaches to learning and teaching into action. Written in an accessible, conversational, and refreshingly honest style by a teacher and professor with over 30 years' experience, it features real examples of preschool, elementary, middle, and high school teachers working in actual classrooms in diverse settings. Their tales explore not only how, but also why, they have changed the way they teach. Photographs and stories of their classroom practice, along with summarizing charts of principles and strategies, both illuminate the critical, cross-curricular, and inquiry-based conceptual framework Edmiston develops and provide rich examples and straightforward guidelines that can support readers as they experiment with using active and dramatic approaches to dialogue, inquiry, building community, planning for exploration, and authentic assessment in their own classrooms.

Transforming Teacher Education through Service-Learning provides a fresh look at educational reform through the lens of teacher preparation. It poses the question “Why service-learning now?” as it discusses the meaningful ways service-learning pedagogy can transform the approaches used to prepare teachers to educate tomorrow’s children. The pedagogy of service-learning has significant implications for teacher education. Its transformative aspects have far reaching potential to address teacher candidate dispositions and provide deeper understanding of diversity. Knowledge of the pedagogy and how to implement it in candidates’ future classrooms could alter education to a more powerful experience of democracy in action and enhance the civic mission of schools. The current and ongoing research found within this volume is meant to continue support of the notion of educational reform. Because the vision we hold becomes the reality we experience, it is imperative to consider the question—Why service-learning now?—as we adjust teacher preparation programs to promote engaging opportunities for today’s youth.

Teachers often want to learn new ideas and approaches to improve their teaching, but their efforts are often blocked by structural constraints in their districts and schools. How can schools overcome these barriers to provide more supportive environments for change? The authors answer this question through the study of six cases of schools and districts where teachers and researchers collaborated to develop teaching for understanding in math and science. This new book features: a new conceptual model of how school resources relate to teaching and learning, focusing not only on material resources such as time and money but also on human and social resources; methods that administrators can use to support teachers who want to improve their teaching of math and science; elements that professional developers should look for in a school environment when they are considering working with staff on teaching improvements; and answers to important questions, including how schools operate as organizations, how they control work, how they respond to changes in their environment, and how they improve classroom teaching and learning.

The future of learning depends absolutely on the future of teaching. In this latest and most important collaboration, Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan show how the quality of teaching is captured in a compelling new idea: the professional capital of every teacher working together in every school. Speaking out against policies that result in a teaching force that is inexperienced, inexpensive, and exhausted in short order, these two world authorities--who know teaching and leadership inside out--set out a groundbreaking new agenda to transform the future of teaching and public education. Ideas-driven, evidence-based, and strategically powerful, Professional Capital combats the tired arguments and stereotypes of teachers and teaching and shows us how to change them by demanding more of the teaching profession and more from the systems that support it. This is a book that no one connected with schools can afford to ignore. This book features: (1) a powerful and practical solution to what ails American schools; (2) Action guidelines for all groups--individual teachers, administrators, schools and districts, state and federal leaders; (3) a next-generation update of core themes from the authors' bestselling book, "What's Worth Fighting for in Your School?" [This book was co-published with the Ontario Principals' Council.].

When the world is changing as rapidly as it is today, education has to mean more than just covering static content. Transformational Teaching in the Information Age explores how teachers can truly engage and inspire students to be independent, imaginative, and responsible learners who are prepared to handle the challenges of tomorrow.