Karen Olsen's What Brain Research Can Teach About Cutting School Budgets is a practical guide for school leaders who are charged with the painstaking task of making budget cuts--a task typically driven by emotion, tradition, and the power of social leaders, followed by disagreements and dissatisfaction. This book offers an alternative--a way to use brain research to create powerful but politically neutral decision-making criteria. The author offers clear action items, brain research summaries, and checklists to guide leaders through the budget cutting process, and to ensure that they reinvest money into the key programmes that will truly impact student achievement.

"Karen Olsen has put budget topics into perspective so that school administrators can make decisions based on what is best for children, not what is easiest and most efficient for adults. This book is a powerful guide in helping our principals see through the fog of mandates, policies, and red tape and get to the priority of students!" —Terri Patterson, Director of Elementary Education Waco Independent School District, TX "This book boldly asserts that brain research should be applied wherever human brains are working. Not only can and should brain research inform how and what we teach in the classroom, it should be brought to bear in boardrooms and the school budgeting process as well." —Linda Jordan, Associate Professor Hope College Make objective budget-cutting decisions that will truly impact student achievement! In tough economic environments, budget cutting is a daunting but necessary task for many school administrators. Karen D. Olsen takes an exciting, unique approach by applying brain research to budgeting. Now educators can make the decision-making process more objective by using analytical thinking in school budgeting rather than responding to emotion, tradition, or outside influences. Providing a strategy-builder chart, this book Offers action items for putting the strategies into practice Helps leaders determine where money should be reinvested or reallocated Provides specific tips for working within a group decision-making setting Includes more than 30 analytical charts to aid in gathering needed information What Brain Research Can Teach About Cutting School Budgets offers principals and district leaders a methodical process for taking subjectivity out of the budgeting process.

The author explores education from the essential principles of Tawhid (Oneness of God, humanity, knowledge); fitrah (concept of human nature); and the role of humans as vicegerents of God on earth (responsibility and stewardship). The current education system dates back a hundred years or more, and is in desperate need of a 'reboot'. In developing the industrialized society, the education system itself became like a factory, the end product being pupils who merely regurgitate facts, and themselves end up as cogs in the machine that is the wider industrial complex. The legacy of this is a soulless ‘functional’ educational system that fails to develop pupils to meet the present and future needs of individuals and their expectations. This failure inevitably impacts on society and humanity at large. Society has long since moved beyond the industrial revolution and into an age of global connectedness where the sum of human knowledge is freely available via the internet. It is an age where people are generally more well informed and on a variety of issues. An effective holistic educational philosophy is required, one that gives full spiritual meaning to all that a child learns. It should equip children with spiritual awareness, morals and values, social responsibility and accountability, self-discipline and self-determination, self-confidence and empowerment, ambition and aspiration tempered with thoughtfulness and a sense of gratitude.

Your guide to acing the TExEs exam This best-selling handbook is the definitive resource for prospective principals who want to boost student performance and demonstrate outstanding school leadership. Thoroughly updated to address the completely revamped TExES exam, this new edition details: The domains and competencies of successful school leadership The leadership philosophy on which TexES is constructed A sample test and important areas to focus on What to do in the weeks, days, and even the night before the test An extensive list of additional resources to supplement each domain

The premier guide to acing the exam—completely revised! When the toughest test in Texas gets updated, it’s a big deal. Luckily, this best-selling preparation guide—the secret weapon Texas educators use to take their careers to the next level—has been updated right along with it. Now in its third edition, it’s the resource you need to be at your best for the test. In her trademark friendly style, Elaine Wilmore gives you the information you need and helps you make the transition from thinking like a teacher to reflecting, reacting, and responding like a learner-centered principal. As you explore each element of the exam’s new structure—eleven competencies within six domains—you’ll also find: An overview of the updated TExES philosophy In-depth analysis of the new domains and competencies Real-life stories and applications to ground each concept in reality Test-taking strategies, online and offline, to suit any style Tips for time management and stress relief before, during, and after the exam You already know you’re principal material—you just need to prove it to Texas. With this hand-on preparation guide, you’ll be ready to ace the exam, get certified, and change the world—one school at a time.

"An excellent guide for integrating new developments in cognitive neuroscience research with an appropriate 21st-century elementary science curriculum. Susan J. Kovalik′s pioneering Highly Effective Teaching (HET) model has continually evolved for more than 30 years." —Robert Sylwester, Emeritus Professor of Education University of Oregon "This is a book to savor. The content is a woven tapestry: many colorful threads elucidate ideas based in sound research. Marvel at how the authors weave the threads to provide a cohesive, understandable, beautiful educational perspective." — Lawrence Lowery, Professor Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley A step-by-step approach to taking giant leaps in science learning Kid′s Eye View of Science examines learning science from multiple perspectives—especially a child′s. The whimsical character of Mary Froggins guides readers through the steps of igniting students′ natural sense of wonder, incorporating brain research, integrating science concepts with other subjects, and applying science to daily life. The authors demonstrate how to teach science conceptually through the lens of "big ideas" such as change, interdependence, and adaptation. Rich with instructional strategies for exploring inquiry-based science, this valuable resource′s highlights include: Charts, graphics, forms, and summaries that help teachers translate abstract concepts into concrete lessons A comprehensive discussion of brain research, including helpful tips to assimilate 10 bodybrain-compatible elements into the classroom Practical hands-on guidance for enriching science programs and improving student outcomes Field-tested and applicable to multiple intelligences, the book also provides a comprehensive vision for curriculum development with an eye toward preparing students to use their knowledge to shape the future.

Learn how the brain processes mathematical concepts and why some students develop math anxiety! David A. Sousa discusses the cognitive mechanisms for learning mathematics and the environmental and developmental factors that contribute to mathematics difficulties. This award-winning text examines: Children’s innate number sense and how the brain develops an understanding of number relationships Rationales for modifying lessons to meet the developmental learning stages of young children, preadolescents, and adolescents How to plan lessons in PreK–12 mathematics Implications of current research for planning mathematics lessons, including discoveries about memory systems and lesson timing Methods to help elementary and secondary school teachers detect mathematics difficulties Clear connections to the NCTM standards and curriculum focal points