STUFF Good Players Should Know may very well be the best book ever written for basketball players. It is conversational and easy to understand, yet filled with subtle insights into the game of basketball. STUFF is page after page of creative concepts, common sense, and special tips that can not be found anywhere else. ? How do you guard a stronger player? ? How do you set up a game-winning steal? ? How do you ?strip? a rebound? ? How do you score with a strong-handed dribble while going to the weak side? ? How do you practice shooting for maximum game effectiveness? ? How do you recognize defensive changes? STUFF is like having a coach right beside you, in your room, discussing the fine points of the games. How do you think in the minutes of the game? How do you react to mistakes? What is your attitude about fouls? Eating? Superstitions? Injuries? All this and more makes STUFF a book that players will find indispensable. Basketball fans will enjoy it, but players won't do

Golf is unique: it's the only sport in which the Lowest Score Wins. Golfers have been inundated for years with advice and sayings intended to help them shoot lower scores, like "spend 50% of your time practicing your putting" or "you've got to be in the short grass." What if we told you that most of this popular advice was not true at all? That these myths are holding you back from reaching your potential and shooting the lowest score possible? That putting might be the least important skill in golf, that driving the ball far is much more important than driving it straight, and that Phil Mickelson might just be the best strategist on the PGA Tour? Lowest Score Wins is NOT your classic golf book. We show you the new way to shoot lower scores -- immediately. You'll learn to use something called Separation Value to guide your practice and how you can use Shot Zones to help you determine your GamePlan for every shot you play. You'll discover why typical course management strategy fails (hint: it only covers half of the equation). This book is the first of its kind. It is your own personal roadmap to shooting lower scores tomorrow. What are you waiting for?

R Visualizations: Derive Meaning from Data focuses on one of the two major topics of data analytics: data visualization, a.k.a., computer graphics. In the book, major R systems for visualization are discussed, organized by topic and not by system. Anyone doing data analysis will be shown how to use R to generate any of the basic visualizations with the R visualization systems. Further, this book introduces the author’s lessR system, which always can accomplish a visualization with less coding than the use of other systems, sometimes dramatically so, and also provides accompanying statistical analyses. Key Features Presents thorough coverage of the leading R visualization system, ggplot2. Gives specific guidance on using base R graphics to attain visualizations of the same quality as those provided by ggplot2. Shows how to create a wide range of data visualizations: distributions of categorical and continuous variables, many types of scatterplots including with a third variable, time series, and maps. Inclusion of the various approaches to R graphics organized by topic instead of by system. Presents the recent work on interactive visualization in R. David W. Gerbing received his PhD from Michigan State University in 1979 in quantitative analysis, and currently is a professor of quantitative analysis in the School of Business at Portland State University. He has published extensively in the social and behavioral sciences with a focus on quantitative methods. His lessR package has been in development since 2009.

In Linking Teacher Evaluation and Student Learning, researchers Pamela D. Tucker and James H. Stronge show that including measures of student achievement in teacher evaluations can help schools focus their efforts to meet higher standards. You'll see how four school systems have built such measures into their evaluation programs in these distinct ways: * Documenting how desired learning outcomes translated into actual student learning * Tracking progress on key content standards * Setting annual quantifiable goals for students' academic progress * Analyzing changes in students' achievement test scores The authors explore the strengths of each approach, offer insights from teachers and administrators, and describe practical ways to incorporate similar measures of student learning into your own evaluation program. Detailed appendixes provide hands-on tools and resources to help you adapt these approaches to your school's particular needs. For any school that is working to meet higher standards, linking teacher evaluation to measures of student learning is a powerful way to refocus professional development and improve student achievement.

Understanding the knowledge that teachers must bring to their classrooms is critical to the advancement of the field of teacher education. Understanding how teacher knowledge impacts various aspects of teacher practice is also critical. Understanding the interplay between teacher knowledge and practice, and consequently the result that this relationship has on student learning is most important. This dissertation attempts to advance our collective understanding of the complex relationship between teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student learning in the field of elementary mathematics. Four third-grade teachers were followed as they taught a subset of lessons in a unit on fractions. The study first investigates the types of knowledge that the teachers brought to their classrooms. Then, an examination is conducted of the way in which these types of knowledge impacted their teaching practice. Finally, the student learning that resulted over the course of these lessons is discussed. This study supports the widespread belief that teacher knowledge is important to instruction. The descriptions of the case study teachers highlight that their varying levels of knowledge resulted in unique aspects of practice being emphasized in their classrooms. This dissertation documents the differences in teaching practice and the trade-offs that produce differences in student learning. Interesting student learning patterns emerged, based on qualitative student interviews. Medium students from classrooms in which teachers focused for more sustained periods on mathematical concepts seemed to demonstrate greater procedural fluency and deeper conceptual understanding than their peers in the other classrooms. Low students in classrooms where fluency was the focus seemed to show slightly greater procedural fluency, though less conceptual understanding, than their peers in the classrooms that spent more time on concepts. High students showed no appreciable difference across all classrooms. This study adds to the field by introducing a new construct, the conceptual threshold, to offer an explanation of these student learning trends.

Baseball "by The Book."