Selected as one of NPR's Best Books of 2016, this book offers superior learning tools for teachers and students, from A to Z. An explosive growth in research on how people learn has revealed many ways to improve teaching and catalyze learning at all ages. The purpose of this book is to present this new science of learning so that educators can creatively translate the science into exceptional practice. The book is highly appropriate for the preparation and professional development of teachers and college faculty, but also parents, trainers, instructional designers, psychology students, and simply curious folks interested in improving their own learning. Based on a popular Stanford University course, The ABCs of How We Learn uses a novel format that is suitable as both a textbook and a popular read. With everyday language, engaging examples, a sense of humor, and solid evidence, it describes 26 unique ways that students learn. Each chapter offers a concise and approachable breakdown of one way people learn, how it works, how we know it works, how and when to use it, and what mistakes to avoid. The book presents learning research in a way that educators can creatively translate into exceptional lessons and classroom practice. The book covers field-defining learning theories ranging from behaviorism (R is for Reward) to cognitive psychology (S is for Self-Explanation) to social psychology (O is for Observation). The chapters also introduce lesser-known theories exceptionally relevant to practice, such as arousal theory (X is for eXcitement). Together the theories, evidence, and strategies from each chapter can be combined endlessly to create original and effective learning plans and the means to know if they succeed.

This is an open access book. With the progress of social civilization, social science and its research are becoming more and more important. Theoretically and practically, the study of social phenomena and social problems and the development of prosperous social sciences are the eternal themes of human beings. At present, social science research and its results can hardly meet the needs of social development, especially the unscientific evaluation of social science results, which has aroused great concern from all walks of life, and has produced dirt and questions on social science, thus affecting the proper development of social science. Max Weber once said that "the most important function of social science in modern times is to keep people "clear-headed" and to resist the delusions of "prophetic legislators". " Humanities and arts are the process of perceiving, realizing, thinking, manipulating, and expressing objective or subjective objects through capturing and excavating, feeling and analyzing, integrating and applying, or displaying the stage results in the form obtained through feeling (seeing, hearing, smelling, touching). The social sciences and humanities and arts contain content that will directly affect our lives and the way society functions. And by reacting to today's increasingly intricate problems and situations through systematic and professional discussions, they will further contribute to the improvement of institutions and the development of society. By thinking about issues and looking at problems and the world from different perspectives by putting the two together, it may be possible to have more comprehensive, appropriate, and better responses; for example, the development of laws requires a deeper understanding of the environment in which they are implemented; international trade requires a certain understanding of the customs of different countries; and the development of tax and economic policies requires a certain understanding of the population, consumer demand, etc.

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Network, iLRN 2018, held in Missoula, MT, USA, in June 2018. The 12 revised full papers and the two revised short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 57 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on environmental sciences, climate change, immersive technologies; immersive technologies in cultural heritage; immersive technologies in primary and secondary education; games and game design.

Research shows that vocabulary is the best support for students’ comprehension of narrative and information texts. Often, vocabulary instruction focuses on a few target words in specific texts. However, to understand the many new words in complex texts students need to know how words work. This book, written by an award-winning authority on reading instruction, shows teachers how to make small changes to teach more words and also how words work. Many of these small changes involve enrichments to existing vocabulary practices, such as word walls and conversations with students. Each chapter includes descriptions of teachers’ implementation of small changes to support big gains in students’ vocabulary. This book, which has sufficient depth in research and theory for graduate and undergraduate courses in vocabulary instruction, also offers practical steps that K–8 teachers can use in any reading program to help all students grow their vocabulary. Teaching Words and How They Work shows teachers how to: Identify the most important word families to teach. Teach students to use opening text as background knowledge for comprehending the rest of the text. Use word walls with more purpose and greater student engagement. Select the right words to teach from new information texts. Better understand limitations of leveled texts and how to adjust. Use assets and address challenges to support English learners. Access free mentor and teacher resources online at textproject.org.

The Creative Classroom presents an original, compelling vision of schools where teaching and learning are centered on creativity. Drawing on the latest research as well as his studies of jazz and improvised theater, Sawyer describes curricula and classroom practices that will help educators get started with a new style of teaching, guided improvisation, where students are given freedom to explore within structures provided by the teacher. Readers will learn how to improve learning outcomes in all subjects—from science and math to history and language arts—by helping students master content-area standards at the same time as they increase their creative potential. This book shows how teachers and school leaders can work together to overcome all-too-common barriers to creative teaching—leadership, structure, and culture—and collaborate to transform schools into creative organizations. Book Features: Presents a research-based approach to teaching and learning for creativity. Identifies which learning outcomes support creativity and offers practical advice for how to teach for these outcomes. Shows how students learn content-area knowledge while also learning to be creative with that knowledge. Describes principles and techniques that teachers can use in all subjects. Demonstrates that a combination of school structures, cultures, incentives, and leadership are needed to support creative teaching and learning.

Digital Learning and Collaborative Practices offers a comprehensive overview of design-based, technology-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning in virtual settings. Today’s digital communications foster new opportunities for sharing culture and knowledge while also prompting concerns over division, disinformation and surveillance. This book uniquely emphasises playful, collaborative experiences and democratic values in a variety of environments—adaptive, augmented, dialogic, game-based and beyond. Graduate students and researchers of educational technology, the learning sciences and interaction design will discover rich theories, interventions, models and approaches for concretising emerging practices and competencies in digital learning spaces.

Comprehensive and up-to-date, Transformational Teaching provides a survey of instructional design and effective pedagogy that incorporates a biblical worldview throughout, making it especially useful for education courses at Christian colleges, Christian teachers who desire further training or ACSI certification, and homeschooling parents using a faith-based curriculum. The book explores philosophical and psychological foundations underlying teaching approaches, interprets the latest findings in neurological and educational research, and weaves InTASC standards throughout select chapters. Additionally, the final section is devoted to specific disciplines to offer strategies for effective teaching and faith integration in each subject area. Most chapters also feature a worldview foundations section, current research on best practices, case studies, and challenges for reflection and application. Written by authors with more than a century of combined teaching experience, including K-12 classrooms in both public and Christian schools, higher education, online instruction, and international training conferences, Transformational Teaching sets a new standard for teacher training that is specifically geared to a Christian educator.