Renaissance readers perceived the print book as both a thing and a medium - a thing that could be broken or reassembled, and a visual medium that had the power to reflect, transform, or deceive. At the same historical moment that print books remediated the visual and material structures of manuscript and oral rhetoric, the relationship between vision and perception was fundamentally called into question. Investigating this crisis of perception, Pauline Reid argues that the visual crisis that suffuses early modern English thought also imbricates sixteenth- and seventeenth-century print materials. These vision troubles in turn influenced how early modern books and readers interacted. Platonic, Aristotelian, and empirical models of sight vied with one another in a culture where vision had a tenuous relationship to external reality. Through situating early modern books’ design elements, such as woodcuts, engravings, page borders, and layouts, as important rhetorical components of the text, Reading by Design articulates how the early modern book responded to epistemological crises of perception and competing theories of sight.

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.

In Change by Design, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, the celebrated innovation and design firm, shows how the techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of business. Change by Design is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders who seek to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization, product, or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

How does one package and sell confidence in the stability of a nation riven by civil strife? This was the question that loomed before the Philadelphia financial house of Jay Cooke & Company,&8239;entrusted&8239;by the US government with an unprecedented sale of bonds to finance the Union war effort in the early days of the American Civil War.&8239;How the government and its agents marketed these bonds revealed a version of the war the public was willing to buy and buy into, based not just in the full faith and credit of the United States but also in the success of its armies and its long-term vision for open markets. From Maine to California, and in foreign halls of power and economic influence,&8239;thousands of agents were deployed to&8239;sell&8239;a clear message: Union victory was unleashing the American economy itself. This fascinating work of&8239;financial and political history&8239;during&8239;the Civil War&8239;era&8239;shows&8239;how the marketing and sale of bonds crossed the Atlantic to Europe and beyond, helping ensure foreign countries' vested interest in the Union's success. Indeed, David K. Thomson demonstrates how Europe, and ultimately all corners of the globe, grew deeply interdependent on American finance during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the American Civil War.&8239;

First published in 1986. We all play the roles of teacher or learner many times in life, in school and home, on the job and even at play. How can we strengthen those roles, striving for deep understanding and sound thinking? Knowledge As Design demonstrates the strong but neglected unity between learning and critical and creative thinking. Author David Perkins discloses how the con­cept of design opens a doorway into a deeper exploration of any topic, academic or every day. Knowledge As Design challenges the concept of knowledge as informa­tion. Drawing from current philosophy and cognitive science, the book shows how learners can attain a new level of insight when learning highlights the constructed and con­structive character of knowledge. Any individual involved in formal or informal learning or teaching can benefit from the general outlook and specific principles laid out in this book. It offers a uniquely intelligent philosophy and psychology of understanding and critical and creative thinking.

Sage Homeschooling: Wild and Free offers a natural learning path, for gentle parents who dream of living fully in joy and connection with their children while giving them all they need to be successful, with eight secrets to living a fulfilling unschooling life. In this inspirational and secular guide, you will learn how to: deschool, shaking off all the educational programming that weighs you down maintain your relationship focus on connection beyond the early years trust in your children and their natural learning journey embrace the freedom that fosters meaningful productivity and independence utilize collaboration in respectful partnership to achieve self-directed growth fully realize the environment as a valuable tool for playful learning live a fun lifestyle of learning through rich, adventurous experiences set your compass for growth and success in all the ways that matter most If you are ready to take the leap into a lifestyle of passionate learning with clarity and confidence, then read this book! "Our job as parents is not to educate our children but to provide environmental contexts that optimize their ability to educate themselves. In this upbeat, fun-to-read book about her family's unschooling practices, Rachel Rainbolt provides a multitude of great ideas about how to do just that." Peter Gray, Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College and author of Free to Learn.