The Professional Teaching Library collection has been curated to provide specific print books on educational topics to help educators learn independently and help each other and parents understand classroom strategies.
This collection begins with the call number PL
Featured are some highlights below.
All Learning Is Social and Emotional by
An ASCD Bestseller While social and emotional learning (SEL) is most familiar as compartmentalized programs separate from academics, the truth is, all learning is social and emotional. What teachers say, the values we express, the materials and activities we choose, and the skills we prioritize all influence how students think, see themselves, and interact with content and with others. If you teach kids rather than standards, and if you want all kids to get what they need to thrive, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Dominique Smith offer a solution: a comprehensive, five-part model of SEL that's easy to integrate into everyday content instruction, no matter what subject or grade level you teach. You'll learn the hows and whys ofBuilding students' sense of identity and confidence in their ability to learn, overcome challenge, and influence the world around them.Helping students identify, describe, and regulate their emotional responses.Promoting the cognitive regulation skills critical to decision making and problem solving.Fostering students' social skills, including teamwork and sharing, and their ability to establish and repair relationships. Equipping students to becoming informed and involved citizens.Along with a toolbox of strategies for addressing 33 essential competencies, you'll find real-life examples highlighting the many opportunities for social and emotional learning within the K-12 academic curriculum. Children's social and emotional development is too important to be an add-on or an afterthought, too important to be left to chance. Use this books integrated SEL approach to help your students build essential skills that will serve them in the classroom and throughout their lives.
Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom by
Differentiated instruction is a nice idea, but what happens when it comes to assessing and grading students? What's both fair and leads to real student learning? An internationally recognized expert on grading practices, Rick Wormeli first examined these questions 10 years ago in the first edition of Fair Isn't Always Equal. In this thoroughly updated second edition, Rick provides a catalyst for serious reflection on current grading and assessment practices in differentiated classrooms. Coherent and effective standards-based grading practices for a high-stakes, accountability-focused world is also outlined. Recognizing the importance of having a shared school vision for assessment and grading, Rick addresses the challenges for teachers and administrators alike. Middle- and high-school educators will easily recognize real examples and gray areas of grading. Rick tackles important and sometimes controversial assessment and grading issues constructively, incorporating modern pedagogy and the challenges of working with diverse groups of students. New sections address sports eligibility, honor roll, descriptive feedback techniques, and gifted/talented students, and chapters on test questions, redos/retakes, grading scales, and grading effort and behavior have been revised extensively. This important book clearly explains the principles behind best grading practices so that you're ready for all grading questions or scenarios that you may encounter in your classrooms and schools.
Designed to Learn by
Students become attentive, curious, and passionate about learning when they can see its relevance to their lives and when they're empow¬ered to use that learning to solve problems that matter. Regardless of the subject or grade level you teach, you can infuse your instruction with the meaning stu¬dents crave by implementing design thinking. Design thinking prompts students to consider: "I've learned it. Now what am I going to do with it?"In Designed to Learn, cognitive scientist and educator Lindsay Portnoy shares the amazing teaching and learning that take place in design thinking classrooms. To set the stage, she provides easy-to-implement strategies, class¬room examples, and clear tools to scaffold the processes of inquiry, discovery, design, and reflection. Because formative assessment is crucial to the process, Portnoy includes sample assessments that measure student learning and ensure that learners take the lead in their own learning. As the author guides you through the five elements of design thinking (under¬stand and empathize, identify and research, communicate to ideate, prototype and test, and iterate and reflect), you'll learn how to support students as they* Use the content you teach to solve a problem in their community or in the world around them.* Isolate a concern for their designed solution to address.* Communicate ideas and provide valid reasoning for potential solutions.* Prototype a solution and test it.* Revise their design for maximum impact and reflect on the process.Equipped with the strategies and supports in Designed to Learn, teachers will be able to ensure that learning in their classrooms is visible, student-centered, and measurable-by design.
Engage the Brain by
Research on the brain has shown that emotion plays a key role in learning, but how can educators apply that research in their day-to-day interactions with students? What are some teaching strategies that take advantage of what we know about the brain? Engage the Brain answers these questions with easy-to-understand explanations of the brain's emotion networks and how they affect learning, paired with specific suggestions for classroom strategies that can make a real difference in how and what students learn. Readers will discover how to design an environment for learning that Makes material relevant, relatable, and engaging. Accommodates tremendous variability in students' brains by giving them multiple options for how to approach their learning. Incorporates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and guidelines. Uses process-oriented feedback and other techniques to spark students' intrinsic motivation. Author Allison Posey explains how schools can use the same "emotional brain" concepts to create work environments that reduce professional stress and the all-too-common condition of teacher burnout. Real-world classroom examples, along with reflection and discussion questions, add to the usefulness of Engage the Brain as a practical, informative guide for understanding how to capture the brain's incredible power and achieve better results at all grade levels, in all content areas.
Handbook of Musical Identities by
Music is a tremendously powerful channel through which people develop their personal and social identities. Music is used to communicate emotions, thoughts, political statements, social relationships, and physical expressions. But, just as language can mediate the construction and negotiationof developing identities, so music can also be a means of communication through which aspects of people's identities are constructed. Music can have a profound influence on our developing sense of identity, our values, and our beliefs, be it from rock music, classical music, or jazz.Musical identities (MacDonald, Hargreaves and Miell, 2002) was unique in being in being one of the first books to explore this fascinating topic. This new book documents the remarkable expansion and growth in the study of musical identities since the publication of the earlier work. The editorsidentify three main features of current psychological approaches to musical identities, which concern their definition, development, and the identification of individual differences, as well as four main real-life contexts in which musical identities have been investigated, namely in music andmusical institutions; specific geographical communities; education; and in health and well-being. This conceptual framework provides the rationale for the structure of the Handbook.The book is divided into seven main sections. The first, "Sociological, discursive and narrative approaches", includes several general theoretical accounts of musical identities from this perspective, as well as some more specific investigations. The second and third main sections deal in depth withtwo of the three psychological topics described above, namely the development of and individual differences in musical identities. The fourth, fifth and sixth main sections pursue three of the real-life contexts identified above, namely "Musical institutions and practitioners", "Education", and"Health and well-being". The seventh and final main section of the Handbook - "Case studies" - includes chapters which look at particular musical identities in specific times, places, or contexts.The multidisciplinary range and breadth of the Handbook's contents reflect the rapid changes that are taking place in music, in digital technology, and in their role in society as a whole, such that the study of musical identity is likely to proliferate even further in the future.
Mindfulness in the Classroom by
In today's schools, students and teachers feel unprecedented--even alarming--levels of stress. How can we create calmer classrooms in which students concentrate better and feel more positive about themselves and others? Author Thomas Armstrong offers a compelling answer in the form of mindfulness, a secular practice he defines as the intentional focus of one's attention on the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. In Mindfulness in the Classroom, Armstrong - Explains how mindfulness affects the structure and function of the brain. - Provides an overview of mindfulness as both a personal practice and a classroom methodology that aligns with such educational models as Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS), and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). - Shares and explains the extensive research that shows the positive effects of mindfulness practices in the classroom. - Describes how to adapt mindfulness for different grade levels, integrate it into regular school subjects, and implement it schoolwide. - Offers guidelines for teaching mindfulness responsibly, without religious overtones. Dozens of observations from teachers, students, researchers, and practitioners provide striking evidence of the power of mindfulness and offer hope to anyone who wants to make classrooms more productive places of learning.
Project Based Teaching by
It's no secret that in today's complex world, students face unparalleled demands as they prepare for college, careers, and active citizenship. However, those demands won't be met without a fundamental shift from traditional, teacher-centered instruction toward innovative, student-centered teaching and learning. For schools ready to make such a shift, project-based learning (PBL) offers a proven framework to help students be better equipped to tackle future challenges. Project Based Teachers encourage active questioning, curiosity, and peer learning; create learning environments in which every student has a voice; and have a mastery of content but are also comfortable responding to students' questions by saying, "I don't know. Let's find out together." In this book, Suzie Boss and John Larmer build on the framework for Gold Standard PBL originally presented in Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning and explore the seven practices integral to Project Based Teaching: Build the CultureDesign and PlanAlign to StandardsManage ActivitiesAssess Student LearningScaffold Student LearningEngage and Coach For each practice, the authors present a wide range of practical strategies and include teachers' reflections about and suggestions from their classroom experiences. This book and a related series of free videos provide a detailed look at what's happening in PBL classrooms from the perspective of the Project Based Teacher. Let's find out together. A copublication of ASCD and Buck Institute for Education (BIE).
Upgrade Your Teaching by
How can educators leverage neuroscience research about how the human brain learns? How can we use this information to improve curriculum, instruction, and assessment so our students achieve deep learning and understanding in all subject areas? Upgrade Your Teaching: Understanding by Design Meets Neuroscience answers these questions by merging insights from neuroscience with Understanding by Design® (UbD®), the framework used by thousands of educators to craft units of instruction and authentic assessments that emphasize understanding rather than recall. Readers will learn* How the brain processes incoming information and determines what is (or is not) retained as long-term memory;* How brain science reveals factors that influence student motivation and willingness to put forth effort;* How to fully engage all students through relevance and achievable challenge;* How key components of UbD, including backward design, essential questions, and transfer tasks, are supported by research in neuroscience;* Why specific kinds of teaching and assessment strategies are effective in helping students gain the knowledge, skills, and deep understanding they need to succeed in school and beyond; and* How to create a brain-friendly classroom climate that supports lasting learning.Authors Jay McTighe and Judy Willis translate research findings into practical information for everyday use in schools, at all grade levels and in all subject areas. With their guidance, educators at all levels can learn how to design and implement units that empower teachers and students alike to capitalize on the brain's tremendous capacity for learning.
Your Students, My Students, Our Students by
Your Students, My Students, Our Students explores the hard truths of current special education practice and outlines five essential disruptions to the status quo. Authors Lee Ann Jung, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Julie Kroener show you how to¿ Establish a school culture that champions equity and inclusion. ¿ Rethink the long-standing structure of least restrictive environment and the resulting service delivery. ¿ Leverage the strengths of all educators to provide appropriate support and challenge.¿ Collaborate on the delivery of instruction and intervention. ¿ Honor the aspirations of each student and plan accordingly.To realize authentic and equitable inclusion, we must relentlessly and collectively pursue change. This book-written not for "special educators" or "general educators" but for all educators-addresses the challenges, maps out the solutions, and provides tools and inspiration for the work ahead. Real-life examples of empowerment and success illustrate just what's possible when educators commit to the belief that every student belongs to all of us and all students deserve learning experiences that will equip them to live full and rewarding lives.