The author provides educators with sixty-six keys to help middle and secondary school students with disabilities succeed.

"The suggestions and tips give teachers a solid start to their year and help their students achieve. This book has a unique focus on secondary teachers." —Janet Crews, Secondary Instructional Coordinator Clayton School District, MO "A blueprint for successful teaching; an entire year of teaching methods in one volume. This book is jam-packed with practical, useful forms to guarantee a meaningful year for both the students and especially the teacher!" —Ronald W. Poplau, Social Studies Teacher Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, KS An easy-to-use source for all the strategies you need to thrive in the secondary classroom! Preparing adolescent students for today′s increasing demands requires commitment, organization, subject matter knowledge, and passion. But with the right strategies and tools, first-year secondary school teachers can approach this challenge with greater confidence and ease. Leveraging a wealth of information and research from the New Teacher Center, this user-friendly guide provides a solid foundation for classroom management, lesson planning, and assessment. Teachers will learn step-by-step tips for organizing standards-based curriculum across the content areas, supported by extensive reproducible forms and go-to references, including lesson plans from exemplary math and language arts teachers. The authors provide specific strategies for: Reaching struggling readers Working with English learners and their families Designing lessons with assessment in mind Sustaining a passion for teaching Covering everything needed for your first year and beyond, this guide provides invaluable insights on succeeding with adolescent students.

Creating a positive classroom learning environment is a complex but necessary task if a teacher wants to cultivate a new, productive classroom culture. By fully realizing the seven keys the author highlights, teachers can establish clearer expectations, enhance instruction and assessment practices, and foster quality relationships with students, thereby maximizing the potential of all students. The book includes helpful stories from teachers, as well as classroom strategies to consider in implementing the keys. With this book, teachers can clearly define the misunderstood concepts of differentiation and enrichment and know how to use these strategies to help all students succeed, no matter their needed level of support. Benefits Read stories from classroom teachers that highlight how each key can help establish a positive learning environment. Explore research and anecdotal evidence that maintains that students who feel connected are more motivated and successful in the classroom. Learn how the effective use of data can minimize both academic and behavioral challenges among students. Discover collaborative practices that can establish common expectations between teachers and their students, so a positive classroom tone is set when the school year starts. Consider tactics teachers can use to record and analyze data on students' progress, to make informed decisions that help students gain proficiency. Peruse the essential practices that teachers should have in their classroom assessment toolbox. Contents Introduction Classroom Culture and Positive Relationships: Precursors to a Positive Learning Environment Classroom Expectations Targeted Instruction Positive Reinforcement Data-Driven Decisions Differentiation and Enrichment Collaborative Teams Connecting to the Schoolwide System Epilogue References and Resources Index

Student engagement happens as a result of a teacher’s careful planning and execution of specific strategies. This self-study text provides in-depth understanding of how to generate high levels of student attention and engagement. Using the suggestions in this book, every teacher can create a classroom environment where engagement is the norm, not the exception.

The Smart Classroom Management Way is a collection of the very best writing from ten years of Smart Classroom Management (SCM). It isn't, however, simply a random mix of popular articles. It's a comprehensive work that encompasses every principle, theme, and methodology of the SCM approach. The book is laid out across six major areas of classroom management and includes the most pressing issues, problems, and concerns shared by all teachers. The underlying SCM themes of accountability, maturity, independence, personal responsibility, and intrinsic motivation are all there and weave their way throughout the entirety of the book. Together, they form a simple, unique, and sometimes contrarian approach to classroom management that anyone can do. Whether you're an elementary, middle, or high school teacher, The Smart Classroom Management Way will give you the strategies, skills, and know-how to turn any group of students into the motivated, well-behaved class you love teaching.

With all that we know about how students learn, the nature of the world they will face after graduation, and the educational inequities that have existed for centuries, maintaining a traditional, one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and learning is tantamount to instructional malpractice. International security, the success of global economies, and sustainability as a global society all depend on the success of our education system in the years to come. It’s our obligation to prepare our students for their future—not our past. Authors Eric C. Sheninger and Thomas C. Murray outline eight keys—each a piece of a puzzle for transforming the K–12 education system of teaching and learning—to intentionally design tomorrow’s schools so today’s learners are prepared for success . . . and stand ready to create new industries, find new cures, and solve world problems. The traditional model of schooling ultimately prepares students for the industrial model of the past. If we want our students to become successful citizens in a global society, we must dramatically shift to a more personal approach. Failure is not an option. We can no longer wait. Let Learning Transformed show you how you can be a part of the solution. The authors encourage you to use the hashtag #LT8Keys to continue the discussion online.

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

A comprehensive critical survey of the controversies, theories and practices central to secondary education today, this book provides teachers, researchers, parents and policy-makers with a vital new reference resource. It covers important topics including: assessment citizenship curriculum e-learning exclusion theories of learning work experience. Fully cross-referenced, with extensive suggestions for further reading and on-line resources, this is an essential guide to theory and practice in the twenty-first century classroom.

By designing projects that move students from surface to deep and transfer learning through PBL, they will become confident and competent learners. Discover how to make three shifts essential to improving PBL’s overall effect: Clarity: Students should be clear on what they are expected to learn, where they are in the process, and what next steps they need to take to get there. Challenge: Help students move from surface to deep and transfer learning. Culture: Empower them to use that knowledge to make a difference in theirs and the lives of others.

In Reading in the Wild, reading expert Donalyn Miller continues the conversation that began in her bestselling book, The Book Whisperer. While The Book Whisperer revealed the secrets of getting students to love reading, Reading in the Wild, written with reading teacher Susan Kelley, describes how to truly instill lifelong "wild" reading habits in our students. Based, in part, on survey responses from adult readers as well as students, Reading in the Wild offers solid advice and strategies on how to develop, encourage, and assess five key reading habits that cultivate a lifelong love of reading. Also included are strategies, lesson plans, management tools, and comprehensive lists of recommended books. Copublished with Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of Education Week and Teacher magazine, Reading in the Wild is packed with ideas for helping students build capacity for a lifetime of "wild" reading. "When the thrill of choice reading starts to fade, it's time to grab Reading in the Wild. This treasure trove of resources and management techniques will enhance and improve existing classroom systems and structures." —Cris Tovani, secondary teacher, Cherry Creek School District, Colorado, consultant, and author of Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? "With Reading in the Wild, Donalyn Miller gives educators another important book. She reminds us that creating lifelong readers goes far beyond the first step of putting good books into kids' hands." —Franki Sibberson, third-grade teacher, Dublin City Schools, Dublin, Ohio, and author of Beyond Leveled Books "Reading in the Wild, along with the now legendary The Book Whisperer, constitutes the complete guide to creating a stimulating literature program that also gets students excited about pleasure reading, the kind of reading that best prepares students for understanding demanding academic texts. In other words, Donalyn Miller has solved one of the central problems in language education." —Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus, University of Southern California