*Self-paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #855). 

This book describes the beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that form the fabric of life in our best classrooms and schools. It focuses on the specific things that great teachers do ... that others do not.

Readers of author Todd Whitaker’s best-selling WHAT GREAT PRINCIPALS DO DIFFERENTLY asked him for a companion volume focusing on great teachers and their classrooms. This book is his response to those requests.

This book focuses on the specific things that great teachers do ... that others do not. It  answers these essential questions:

- Is it high expectations for students that matter?

- How do great teachers respond when students misbehave?

- How do the best teachers approach standardized testing?

- How can your teachers gain the same advantages?

"This book is easy to read and provides essential information.  I've ordered copies for every one of my teachers." 

   - Ann Ferrell, Principal

     Autrey Mill Middle School, Georgia

*Self -paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #5046). Visit our home page for more details.

The world has undergone foundational shifts in recent decades—widespread advances in technology and communications, booming economic developments and increased competition, and the escalation of global challenges from financial meltdowns to global warming. How can we prepare students to meet the challenges of our century if our schools remain virtually unchanged?

This essential resource introduces a framework for 21st century learning that maps out the skills needed to survive and thrive in a complex and connected world. A 21st century education includes knowledge of traditional core subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic—but also emphasizes contemporary themes such as global awareness and financial/economic, health, and environmental literacies. Students in 21st century schools will apply their knowledge to understanding and solving real-world challenges using their 21st century skills:

• Learning and Innovation Skills
• Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, and Communication and Collaboration
• Digital Literacy Skills: Information Literacy, Media Literacy, and ICT Literacy
• Career and Life Skills: Flexibility and Adaptability, Initiative and Self-Direction, Social and Cross-Cultural Skills, Productivity and Accountability, Leadership and Responsibility

The book is filled with classroom vignettes, global examples, schoolwork samples, and includes a DVD with video mini-documentaries of innovative practices that bring the skills to life and offer an exciting view of what teaching and learning can and will look like as we transform learning to meet the demands of the 21st century.

*Self -paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #5045). Visit our home page for more details.

At last, a book that forever solves the debate over whether homework is an essential component of rigorous schooling or a harmful practice. Veteran teacher, trainer, professor, consultant, and author Cathy Vatterott distills her years of experience with all kinds of schools into a balanced approach that ensures homework leads to more opportunities for learning and teaching without turning off parents and students. Explore a new paradigm that helps you understand:

• How to avoid the “homework trap.”
• Why viewing homework as formative feedback is the most powerful way to transform homework policies and practices.
• How to differentiate homework assignments to your students.
• Which teacher behaviors and attitudes reinforce good homework practices.
• How to ensure students complete homework and get adequate time and support.

Because most educators have never been trained in effective homework practices, this guide is loaded with valuable tips and strategies you won’t find anywhere else, including:

• Seven steps to building better relationships with parents about homework.
• Ten common sense tips from teachers about homework.
• Four components of high-quality homework tasks.
• Six ways to differentiate homework assignments.

*Self-paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #5064). Visit our home page for more details. 

The Complete Guide to Service Learning is the go-to resource in the fast-growing field of service learning. It is an award-winning treasury of service activities, community service project ideas, quotes, reflections, and resources that can help teachers and youth workers engage young hearts and minds in reaching out and giving back.

Author, and internationally known service learning expert, Cathryn Berger Kaye presents service learning—its importance, steps, essential elements, and challenges—within a curricular context and organized by theme. This new revised and updated second edition maintains the easy-to-use format of the original and is enhanced to reflect the most up-to-date information on service learning programs and pedagogy.

*Self -paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #859). Visit our home page for more details.

This book helps teachers, principals, superintendents, and all educators develop a repertoire of tools and skills for comfortable and effective interaction with parents. It shows you how to deal with the parent who is bossy, volatile, argumentative, aggressive, or maybe the worst - apathetic. It provides specific phrases to use with parents to help you avoid using "trigger" words which unintentionally make matters worse. It will show you how to deliver bad news to good parents, how to build positive credibility to all types of parents, and how to foster the kind of parent involvement which leads to student success.

*Self -paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #988). Visit our home page for more details.

This book focuses on basic strategies you can integrate into everyday instruction in every subject area and across grade levels. It shows teachers how to motivate and engage students.

The practical examples in this book make it easy for you to apply these strategies in your own classroom. It presents lively stories about how teachers help their students succeed. You’ll meet teachers of all types, from preschool to high school, and you’ll hear the voices of real students.

There are 26 chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet:
A. Achievement Is More Than a Test Score
B. Begin With the End in Mind
C. Catch Them Doing Something Good
D. Dealing With Diversity
E. Engagement Equals Success
F. Form Partnerships
G. Goals and Success
H. High Expectations for Everyone
I. It's All About Me (the Value of Intrinsic Motivation)
J. Jump to Conclusions (Don't)
K. Keys to Evaluation: Grading and Motivation
L. Literacy
M. Myths of Motivation
N. Never Give Permission
O. Owners, Not Renters
P. Perception is Reality
Q. Quantify Quality
R. Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word
S. Scaffolding for Success
T. Track Progress, Not Students
U. Understanding at High Levels
V. Variety Is the Spice of Life
W. What You See Is What You Get
X. X-Factor
Y. You Are the Key
Z. On Beyond Zebra (208 pp., 2005)

*Self -paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #698). Visit our home page for more details.

Language may be a teacher’s most powerful tool. Every day the words, phrases, tone, and pace you use have the power to help students develop self-control, build their sense of belonging, and gain skills and knowledge.

This book, by an author with more than twenty years of experience teaching children and educators, will help you recognize the influence your words have on the children you teach. It will show you how to use language more skillfully, building a classroom where students feel safe, respected, appreciated, and excited about learning. Read an adapted excerpt

Full of practical tips, real life anecdotes, and concrete examples, this warm and thought- provoking guide includes specific suggestions about language to adopt and language to avoid. Topics include:

• using language to help children envision success
• open-ended questions that stretch children's thinking
• listening and using silence skillfully
• the 3 Rs of teacher language: reinforcing, reminding, and redirecting
• saying what you mean and meaning what you say
  giving brief, concrete instructions
• offering meaningful, specific encouragement

The sensible approach this book advocates is backed by research and proven through decades of successful practice in elementary classrooms nationwide. It offers ideas beginners can try immediately and a wealth of guidance and support for those farther along in the process of changing their language.

Generous in its practical examples, The Power of Our Words also clarifies the principles behind using constructive language in the classroom. The book calls on us to remember that teaching is not a monologue, but a dialogue.

— Carol Ann Tomlinson, EdD, professor of Leadership, Foundations & Policy, The University of Virginia

*Self -paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #992). Visit our home page for more details.

Positive Coaching is jam-packed with specific strategies for interacting positively with young people in the sport setting. Many readers say they are encouraged to continue their coaching after reading this inspiring book.

*Self-paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #897). Visit our home page for more details. 

Through continuous work with educators, the authors have created a more powerful, practical tool for moving forward in the PLC process. Like the first edition, the second edition of Learning by Doing is an action guide for closing the knowing-doing gap and transforming schools into PLCs.

*Self-paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #968). Visit our home page for more details. 

Both a “how-to” book and a rich narrative, Meet Me in the Middle draws on the author's 20 years of experience in the middle school classroom. He addresses key middle-level teaching challenges such as differentiating instruction, writing in all subjects, alternative assessments, teaming, mentoring, and more.

*Self -paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #920). Visit our home page for more details.

If it ever feels like teaching is just too much hard work, here's a guide that helps you develop a more fluid and automatic way to respond to students and deliver great teaching experiences every time. Using a short set of basic principles and classroom examples that promote reflection, Robyn R. Jackson explains how to develop a master teacher mindset that ensures you

• Always know the right questions that lead students to deeper thinking, increased motivation, and more ownership of learning.
  
• Anticipate which areas of a lesson might give students trouble and correct misconceptions before they cause learning problems.
  
• Use effective feedback to show students what they still need to do to reach an objective.
  
• Organize your teaching knowledge into meaningful patterns that become the basis for your core teaching approach.
  

Find out where you are on your own journey to becoming a master teacher, which steps you need to take to apply the principles of great teaching to your own practice, and how to advance to the next stage of your professional development. Lots of classroom tips, problem-solving advice, and tools to help you begin practicing the book's principles in your classroom right away.

*Self-paced distance learning graduate course offered in conjunction with this text (Course #5063). Visit our home page for more details. 

If you were inspired to become a teacher because you wanted to change the world, and instead find yourself limited by teach-to-the-test pressures, Black Ants and Buddhists will make you think. Mary Cowhey gives readers insight into her Peace Class in Northampton, MA, where first and second graders view the entire curriculum through the framework of understanding the world, and trying to do their part to make it a better place. Her students learn to make connections between their lives, the books they read, and the larger world.

This book helps you ensure that all students are treated with dignity and respect, and that their cultures are valued. Nancy P. Gallavan provides an eight-point cultural compass for crafting a grade-appropriate inclusive curriculum. Each chapter includes frequently asked questions, specific strategies, and activities that help you:

- Ask the right questions for determining culturally appropriate curriculum

- Engage children in cultural discussions that build confidence

- Include cultural sensitivity across all content areas

From reframing lessons to working with families, the author walks you through the steps of connecting children's home and school lives. The teacher and student activities provide an excellent roadmap to ensure that all students fell accepted and engaged.

All children have one important thing in common—the need to be treated with dignity, respect, and care. Navigating Cultural Competence in Grades 6–12 shows teachers and administrators how to ensure that the cultures of all peoples are considered and valued. The author provides an eight-point cultural compass to guide you in crafting a respectful and inclusive curriculum. Each chapter includes frequently asked questions, specific strategies, and activities that help you:

- Broaden your knowledge about cultural diversity
- Become comfortable discussing culture
- Increase confidence in your teaching
- Create a welcoming school environment

It is vital for you to infuse cultural competence into your instruction, build bridges between students in the classroom, and strive to connect students’ home and school lives. This book provides valuable tools for ensuring that all students feel accepted and engaged.

In this profoundly significant book, author Michael Gurian has revised and updated his groundbreaking book that clearly demonstrated how the distinction in hard-wiring and socialized gender differences affects how boys and girls learn. Gurian presents a proven method to educate our children based on brain science, neurological development, and chemical and hormonal disparities. The innovations presented in this book were applied in the classroom and proven successful, with dramatic improvements in test scores, during a two-year study that Gurian and his colleagues conducted in six Missouri school districts.

•Explores the inherent differences between the developmental neuroscience of boys and girls
•Reveals how the brain learns
•Explains when same sex classrooms are appropriate, and when they’re not

This edition includes new information on a wealth of topics including how to design the ultimate classroom for kids in elementary, secondary, middle, and high school.