Books

In NOW Classrooms, Grades 9-12: Lessons for Enhancing Teaching and Learning Through Technology, the authors 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 Years 9-12 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 vital four C skills (communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity), teachers can connect technology to key content-area outcomes and prepare students to succeed in the 21st century.

What is love? Is lying always wrong? Is beauty a matter of fact, or a matter of taste? What is discrimination? The answers to these questions, and more, are examined in Philosophy for Teens: Questioning Life's Big Ideas, an in-depth, teenager-friendly look at the philosophy behind everyday issues. Sharon M. Kaye, PhD, and Paul Thomson, PhD, examine some of life's biggest topics, such as lying, cheating, love, beauty, the role of government, hate and prejudice, in this bare bones, casual and engaging book, written directly for and field-tested with teenagers. Both sides of the debates are covered on every issue, with information from some of the world's most noted philosophers included in a conversational style that teenagers will love.

Have you struggled with how to engage students in a lively and meaningful discussion about ideas that matter? Make Up Your Mind, for students in years 7-10, presents 10 pervasive intellectual conflicts that have bedevilled the world of ideas for centuries and continue to influence modern thought, including free will versus determinism, nature versus nurture and liberalism versus conservatism. Each chapter offers background information and a variety of discussion starters, journal prompts, skits, readings and student assignments. Students will sharpen their critical thinking skills as they wrestle with contradictions that continue to challenges all people, shaping dialogue about contemporary issues.

Step-by-step lessons for introducing and using the strategies, connections to literary devices, curricular connections for nonfiction, reading lists, and rubrics for each strategy are all part of this valuable resource. New and experienced teachers will find the tools they need to go beyond a literal understanding and teaching secondary students how to read more deeply.

Curiosity comes from within; we just have to know how to unleash it. We learn by engaging and exploring, asking questions and testing out answers. Yet our classrooms are not always places where such curiosity is encouraged and supported. Cultivating Curiosity in K-12 Classrooms describes how teachers can create a structured, student-centered environment that allows for openness and surprise, where inquiry guides authentic learning.

A large part of our everyday communication involves argumentation and reasoning – for example, when we want to persuade others, make good purchasing decisions or analyse messages we receive from advertisers and politicians. But how well do we prepare students for these tasks? In his new book, Good Thinking, Erik Palmer shows teachers of all learning areas how to transform the activities they already use into openings for improving student thinking. 

What comprises skilful and effective critical thinking? Using a discussion-based approach with easy-to-follow stories, teaching tips and accompanying student activities and focus questions, Thoughtworks introduces students to some of the key concepts and skills that underpin sound reasoning and rationality. Thoughtworks helps students to understand critical thinking through philosophical enquiry, and features teacher's notes and solutions with each exercise. It is ideal for enrichment and extension programs, and introduces reasoning and rationality to middle-years students with included student activity pages.

"What does it mean to be fair?" "How do you know who your friends are?" "What is time?" "Are you the same person you were five years ago?" "Can something logical ever not make sense?" If you have ever wondered about questions like these, you are well on your way to becoming a philosopher! Philosophy for Kids offers young people (from age ten up) the opportunity to become acquainted with the wonders of philosophy. Forty questions arranged under Values, Knowledge, Reality and Critical Thinking invite kids to think about questions that philosophers have been discussing since the time of the ancient Greeks.

Conversations push students to think and learn in lasting ways. Academic conversations are back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challenging and negotiating relevant ideas. Unfortunately, academic conversations are rare in many classrooms. Talk is often dominated by the teacher and a few students, or it does not advance beyond short responses to the teacher's questions. To address these challenges, Zwiers and Crawford have identified five core communication skills to help students hold productive academic conversations across content areas. Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill, crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess.

Building on the ideas developed in Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary, Brenda J. Overturf has updated and energised the recommended practices for middle grades students. Vocabularians is for any educator who wants to help young adolescents increase knowledge and competency with word study while bringing interest, motivation and even joy to their learning. Brenda takes teachers and administrators inside three middle-level schools where educators are integrating vocabulary instruction across the curriculum. By blending current research with classroom experience and application, Brenda builds on her work with Margot Holmes Smith and Leslie Montgomery and offers an easy-to-implement, customised-to-middle-school resource that will improve instruction and assessment.

Creative thinking is something that should be infused into every existing subject area at all year levels, but how do we teach it? SCAMPER, according to its creator Bob Eberle, is an engaging introduction to creative thinking. SCAMPER is an acronym, each letter referring to a different verb. These verbs are techniques to use to encourage creative thinking. When thinkers guide their thoughts using a certain technique they achieve a new outcome and/or idea. Creative thinking is integrated into every learning area of the Australian Curriculum including the F-10 and the Senior Secondary curricula. The activities in SCAMPER Revisited are designed to push students to their creative limits, and help to lay the foundations for continued creative thinking throughout their schooling.