A low-tech, highly-practical planner everyone wishes for—and every teacher needs Renowned educator Jim Burke discovered that teaching at the top of your game requires low-tech, low-profile moments for picking up a pen, reflecting, and looking ahead. Maybe that’s why every page of this remarkable planner feels handcrafted with Jim’s wisdom on managing your time, your classes, and your life. You’ll find professional development ideas to nudge you toward new practices as well as the tried and true— with yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily planning pages for setting your own personal and professional goals. Highlights include: Fill-in pages for long-range dreaming, annual unit envisioning, and short-term planning, as well as downloadable pages for daily ideas and improvisation based on students’ needs Personal Professional Development (PPD) pages and essential readings to help you focus every month on pressing issues and timeless pedagogy about teaching and learning Space to help you set personal goals and reflect on them throughout the year Tools to help you plan instructional time and focus on students who need extra support A planner is never about the lessons--it’s always about the life. It’s about the life and growth of teachers and students and the robust, happy development of one’s days. And there’s no better educator than Jim Burke to remind us of that in Teaching Better Day by Day.

Here is the story of how Ken Winograd grappled with the uncertainties and contradictions of teaching and, in the process, began to understand himself as teacher. Winograd contends that it is crucial that teachers, especially beginning teachers, examine and reflect on the inevitable complexities of classroom life as they work to construct professional identities that are flexible, strategic, and multifaceted. After 13 years working as a teacher educator, he returned to the classroom as a teacher in a nongraded primary classroom. In Good Day, Bad Day, he describes this experience. The first half of the book contains Winograd's daily journal, where he details his everyday work. The journal describes his struggles with students, the efforts to construct a curriculum that reflected his changing beliefs about teaching, and the highs and lows typical of beginning teaching. The second half of the book formally examines various nonpedagogic aspects of teaching, including teacher-student power relations, the emotions of teaching, and the development of teacher identity. Good Day, Bad Day will be useful to teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and policymakers committed to the development of teachers who can reflect critically on their experience and then act to improve their working conditions as well as the learning conditions of students.

Employ cognitive theory in the classroom every day Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that's easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference—many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Learn, for example: How does one become good at retrieving knowledge from memory? How does making predictions now help us learn in the future? How do instructors instill fixed or growth mindsets in their students? Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides firm examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines. Small teaching techniques include brief classroom or online learning activities, one-time interventions, and small modifications in course design or communication with students.

Explains diverse approaches to teaching reading, writing, mathematics learning.

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.

Goodwin and Hubbell present 12 daily touchstones--simple and specific things any teacher can do every day--to keep classroom practice focused on the hallmarks of effective instruction and in line with three imperatives for teaching.

Daniel finds the poetry in the everyday activities of his own neighborhood, in this gorgeous companion to Ezra Jack Keats Award winner Daniel Finds a Poem. The people in Daniel's neighborhood always say, "Have a good day!" But what exactly is a good day? Daniel is determined to find out, and as he strolls through his neighborhood, he finds a wonderful world full of answers as varied as his neighbors. For Emma, a good day means a strong wind for kite flying. For the bus driver, a good day means pleases and thank-yous. A good day is bees for the gardener, birthdays for the baker, and wagging tails for the mail carrier. And, for Daniel's grandma, a good day is a hug from Daniel! And when Daniel puts all these good days together, they make a lovely poem full of his neighbors' favorite things. Micha Archer's vivid collages bring to life one special day, and her inviting text celebrates a vibrant community and an appreciation for the many simple things that give us joy.