Aimed at the growing number of educators who are looking to move beyond covering the curriculum, Designing Authentic Performance Tasks and Projects provides a comprehensive guide to ensuring students' deeper learning—in which they can transfer their knowledge, skills, and understandings to the world beyond the classroom. Readers will learn how to * Create authentic tasks and projects to address both academic standards and 21st century skills. * Apply task frames to design performance tasks that allow voice and choice for students. * Design and use criterion-based evaluation tools and rubrics for assessment, including those for students to use in self-assessment and peer assessment. * Incorporate performance-based instructional strategies needed to prepare students for authentic performance. * Differentiate tasks and projects for all students, including those needing additional support or challenge. * Effectively manage the logistics of a performance-based classroom. * Use project management approaches to facilitate successful implementation of tasks and projects. * Develop performance-based curriculum at the program, school, and district levels. Authors Jay McTighe, Kristina J. Doubet, and Eric M. Carbaugh provide examples and resources across all grade levels and subject areas. Teachers can use this practical guidance to transform their classrooms into vibrant centers of learning, where students are motivated and engaged and see relevance in the work they are doing.

Empower your teachers as partners in professional learning—and see student achievement soar! Are you ready for a professional learning program that makes a lasting difference in the quality of teaching within your organization? This breakthrough book enables education leaders to: Work collaboratively with faculty to develop and implement a five-part plan for professional learning designed to meet your school’s unique needs Connect professional learning with practices that have the greatest positive effect in the classroom Link professional development to teacher evaluation in a manner that builds trust Learn best practices from schools that implemented the author’s methodology, and benefit from user-friendly strategies and tools

Empower your teachers as partners in professional learning—and see student achievement soar! Are you ready for a professional learning program that makes a lasting difference in the quality of teaching within your school or district? Janice Bradley, a highly-respected educator shows how to promote your faculty’s professional growth and accountability through job-embedded learning. This breakthrough book enables education leaders to Work collaboratively with faculty to develop and implement a five-part plan for professional learning designed to meet your school’s unique needs Connect professional learning with practices that have the greatest positive effect in the classroom Link professional development to teacher evaluation in a manner that builds trust Learn best practices from schools that implemented Bradley’s methodology, and benefit from user-friendly strategies and tools Say goodbye to top-down programming that’s quickly forgotten, and discover an approach that empowers and inspires your faculty at all levels of experience. "It′s hard to imagine a simple, five-step process that could integrate all of Learning Forward′s seven professional learning standards, yet that is exactly what Janice Bradley has done in the book, Designing Schools for Meaningful Professional Learning." —Patricia Roy, Senior Consultant Learning Forward Center for Results "I’ve never experienced professional learning such as this! Taking part in collaborative learning with my team gave me the opportunity to explore questions and curiosities about my students that have been buried in years of district-driven professional development. Now my colleagues and I research together in order to create a learning environment every child deserves." —Kathryn Million, First-Grade Dual Language Teacher Las Cruces, NM

Emerging from an education world that sees professional learning as a tool to positively shape teaching practice in order to improve student learning, Transformational Professional Learning elucidates professional learning that is transformational for teachers, school leaders, and schools. Written from the unique ‘pracademic’ perspective of an author who is herself a practising teacher, school leader, and researcher, this book articulates the why and the what of professional learning. It acts as a bridge between research and practice by weaving scholarly literature together with the lived experience of the author and with the voices of those working in schools. It covers topics from conferences, coaching, and collaboration, to teacher standards and leadership of professional learning. This book questions the ways in which professional learning is often wielded in educational settings and shows where teachers, school leaders, system leaders, and researchers can best invest their time and resources in order to support and develop the individuals, teams, and cultures in schools. It will be of great interest to teachers, leaders within schools, staff responsible for professional learning in school contexts, professional learning consultants, professional learning providers, and education researchers.

You can develop the skills to meet the needs of learners in any learning environment. This approachable, in-depth guide unites the adaptability of Universal Design for Learning with the flexibility of blended learning, equipping educators with the tools they need to create relevant, authentic, and meaningful learning pathways to meet students where they're at, no matter the time and place or their pace and path. With step-by-step guidance and clear strategies, authors Katie Novak and Catlin Tucker empower teachers to implement these frameworks in the classroom, with a focus on cultivating community, building equity, and increasing accessibility for all learners. As we face increasing uncertainty and frequent disruption to traditional ways of living and learning, UDL and Blended Learning offers bold, innovative, inclusive solutions for navigating a range of learning landscapes, from the home to the classroom and all points in between, no matter what obstacles may lie ahead.

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

What makes a powerful and results-driven Professional Learning Community (PLC)? The answer is collaborative work that expands the emphasis on student learning and leverages individual teacher efficacy into collective teacher efficacy. PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design calls for strong and effective PLCs plus—and that plus is YOU. Until now, the PLC movement has been focused almost exclusively on students and what they were or were not learning. But keeping student learning at the forefront requires that we also recognize the vital role that you play in the equation of teaching and learning. This means that PLCs must take on two additional challenges: maximizing your individual expertise, while harnessing the power of the collaborative expertise you can develop with your peers. PLC+ is grounded in four cross-cutting themes—a focus on equity of access and opportunity, high expectations for all students, a commitment to building individual self-efficacy and the collective efficacy of the professional learning community and effective team activation and facilitation to move from discussion to action. The PLC+ framework supports educators in considering five essential questions as they work together to improve student learning: Where are we going? Where are we now? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today? Who benefited and who did not benefit? The PLC+ framework leads educators to question practices as well as outcomes. It broadens the focus on student learning to encompass educational equity and teaching efficacy, and, in doing so, it leads educators to plan and implement learning communities that maximize individual expertise while harnessing the power of collaborative efficacy.