Books

Today’s teachers face a daunting challenge: how to ensure a positive school experience for their students, many of whom carry the burden of adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, poverty, divorce, abandonment and numerous other serious social issues. Spurred by her personal experience and extensive exploration of brain-based learning, author Marilee Sprenger explains how brain science – what we know about how the brain works – can be applied to social-emotional learning.

For decades, educators have struggled to overcome stunted student growth in literacy. Literacy reframed offers a fresh perspective on reading instruction with a robustly research-affirmed alternative to classroom skill work. Authors Robin J Fogarty, Gene M Kerns and Brian M Pete use the big three elements of literacy – decoding, vocabulary and knowledge – to guide educators in creating a classroom environment where students deeply engage in reading, writing, speaking and listening. The wealth of concrete, adaptable classroom examples and scenarios throughout the book will help K–12 teachers take action on this exciting approach.

In many classrooms, the emphasis is on instructional strategies that teachers employ rather than on what students should be doing or thinking about as part of their learning. What’s more, students’ minds are something of a mysterious ‘black box’ for most teachers, so when learning breaks down, they’re not sure what went wrong or what to do differently. It doesn’t have to be this way. Learning that sticks helps you look inside that black box. Bryan Goodwin and his coauthors unpack the cognitive science underlying research-supported learning strategies so you can sequence them into experiences that challenge, inspire and engage your students. As a result, you’ll learn to teach with more intentionality - understanding not just what to do but also when and why to do it.

Differentiated lessons for every learner supports middle school teachers in teaching all students, including those with high ability. The extension lessons in this book provide for active learning tailored to address multiple learning levels. Using this semi-structured process ensures differentiated learning experiences that align to the standards while also respecting that students have different interests, have different methods of learning and are learning at different challenge levels. The time is now upon us to emphasise interdisciplinary learning experiences that provide real-world connections and engage students in relevant and meaningful learning. We have long known that while critical for gifted and talented students, these higher-level thinking strategies benefit all students.

Ready-to-use differentiation strategies introduces various low-preparation, low-stress differentiation activities and strategies that can be implemented immediately in any content area in Grades 6-8. Each differentiation strategy encourages higher level thinking and intellectual risk taking while accommodating different learning styles.

In Making grades matter: Standards-based grading in a secondary PLC at Work®, authors Matt Townsley and Nathan L Wear offer a road map for implementing standards-based grading in professional learning community (PLC). They provide all the actionable ideas and tools that collaborative teams need to transition to this effective, research-backed grading system and ensure gradebooks have clarity and purpose. With the support of this practical guide, secondary educators will maximise student learning outcomes, thereby achieving unprecedented success.

Rev up robotics shows educators how to begin incorporating robotics in tandem with computational thinking into content area lessons or electives. Part 1 covers the basics, defining robotics and sharing real-world applications along with how to teach foundational skills for computational thinking and computer science. Part 2 shows robotics in practice within the context of content areas and features lesson plans mapped to academic and technology standards, including the ISTE Standards and the Computer Science Teacher Association Standards. Part 3 offers advice on pedagogy and teaching strategies backed by research from the learning sciences, and shares approaches to teaching robotics using project-based learning or as part of after-school clubs or robotics competitions.

Make the future! Hands-on sustainability lessons for years 7 & 8 is a resource for secondary classrooms that gives real meaning to the idea of sustainability. Created in line with the Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies, this book empowers students to make a tangible difference to the environment – and their future. Make the future! combines traditional skills and cutting-edge research to create authentic, purposeful activities that will show your students positive change is not just feasible – it is delicious, stylish, economical and fun!

In Best Practices at Tier 2: Supplemental Interventions for Additional Student Support, Secondary, authors Bob Sonju, Sharon V. Kramer, Mike Mattos and Austin Buffum offer Years 6-12 teachers proven response to intervention (RTI) strategies for responding to students who need additional support after core instruction. The authors explain that a school functioning as a professional learning community (PLC) is essential to effectively implementing RTI. Using this book, teachers and administrators will discover fundamental practices and tools to support students through a schoolwide, collaborative effort.

In NOW Classrooms, Grades 6-8, authors Meg Ormiston, Lauren Slanker, Jennifer Lehotsky, Megan K. Flaherty, Janice Conboy and Whitney Cavanagh stress that real transformational school change focuses on robust teaching and learning, not the ever-evolving devices that may enhance that change. This book presents practical, classroom-tested lessons that grades 6-8 teachers and instructional coaches can use to prime students to actively learn and solve real-world problems. Sets of topical lessons progressively increase in depth and complexity for readers to choose from based on students’ needs. Using these lessons, grounded in the essential four C skills, teachers can connect technology to key learning-area outcomes and prepare students to succeed in the 21st century.

Jacob's Ladder targets reading comprehension skills in high-ability learners by moving students through an inquiry process from basic understanding to critical analyses of text. Students in Years 7-8 will learn to comprehend and analyse any reading passage after completing the activities in Jacob's Ladder, Years 7-8 (2nd ed.). Using skill ladders connected to short stories, poetry and biographies, students move from lower-order, concrete thinking skills to higher-order, critical thinking skills. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering common English curricular goals such as sequencing, determining cause and effect, classifying, inferencing and recognising main ideas. The second edition includes new readings and ladders for students to use.

The Affective Jacob's Ladder Gifted Reading Comprehension Program uses a models approach to scaffold student learning and promote inquiry-based discussions of texts. This series of Jacob's Ladder books focuses specifically on supporting advanced students' social-emotional needs through the discussion of reading selections in the following genres: short stories and media, poetry, and speeches, essays and biographies. New ladders were specifically designed for this series and derived from relevant theories about empathy, risk and resilience, achievement motivation, and mindsets and practices for cultivating talent. The Affective Jacob's Ladder guides provide teachers with an explanation of the nature and substance of the theoretical constructs for each ladder.