Lois A. Lanning – författare

How to ensure your ELA teaching sticks

One thing we know for certain: the Common Core will become yet-another failed initiative unless our curriculum provides a clear, unambiguous picture of how to teach for understanding. The solution? A concept-based curriculum. Where can you learn how to create one? Designing a Concept-Based Curriculum in English Language Arts.

Fusing Lynn Erickson's groundbreaking curriculum model with implementation guidelines and sample units, this important new book will put you on the fast track to using concept-based curriculum in your school or district. Lanning shows you how to design a curriculum that:

Functions as a framework for lesson plansUnites the efforts of ELA teachers district-wideAddresses core standards while focusing on student understandingCreates a ripple effect helping to align curriculum, assessments, and instruction

"Lois Lanning's new book is a clear, practical, insightful, game-changer for teachers who want to move beyond collections of facts or lists of standards to authentic, meaning-rich curriculum. I would have been a much better English/Language Arts teacher with these ideas clear in my thinking! And my students would have been much better served."—Carol Ann Tomlinson, William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor Curry School of Education, University of Virginia

"Lanning's experience and wisdom allow her to see the Big Picture when it comes to teaching kids about the Big Ideas we want them all to grapple with in the course of their time in schools."—Jim Burke, Author of The English Teacher's Companion

A cutting-edge model for 21st century curriculum and instructionHow can you spot a thinking child? Look at the eyes: they’ll light up, signaling that transformative moment when your student has finally grasped that big idea behind critical academic content. If experiences like this are all too rare in your school, then you need a curriculum and instruction model that’s more inquiry-driven and idea-centered. Now. H. Lynn Erickson and Lois Lanning demonstrate how, through concept-based curriculum, you can move beyond superficial coverage and lower-level skills practice to effect intellectually engaging pedagogy, where students engage in problem finding and problem solving. New insights include: How to design and implement concept-based curriculum and instruction across all subjects and grade levels. Why content and process are two different (but equally important) aspects of any effective concept-based curriculum. How to ensure students develop the all-important skill of synergistic thinking. We’re all looking for the best curriculum and instruction model to meet the changing demands of the 21st century. This is it."With the onset of the Common Core and new national content standards, concept-based learning is now more crucial than ever. Erickson and Lanning are ′ahead of the curve′ in providing teachers and curriculum leaders with rich instructional strategies to meet these challenging standards. This is an essential book for planning tomorrow’s curricula today."Douglas Llewellyn, Educational Consultant and Author of Inquire Within, Third Edition "Powerful teaching engages minds with powerful ideas. At its core, such transformative teaching is neither transmission of information nor practice with inert skills. Rather it is a careful choreography between a mind and an idea such that the mind comes to own the idea in a form that is true to the discipline and expansive for the learner. Erickson and Lanning teach teachers to be choreographers of learning—understanding both what makes content worth knowing and how to engage young minds with that content in ways that extend their capacities to understand it at a deeper level, use it, transfer it, and ultimately create with it."Carol Ann Tomlinson, Ed.D., Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and PolicyCurry School of Education, University of Virginia

Think Beyond the Facts! Knowing the facts is not enough. If we want students to develop intellectually, creatively problem-solve, and grapple with complexity, the key is in conceptual understanding. A Concept-Based curriculum recaptures students’ innate curiosity about the world and provides the thrilling feeling of engaging one’s mind.  This updated edition introduces the newest thought leadership in Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction. Educators will learn how to

Meet the demands of rigorous academic standards Use the Structure of Knowledge and Process when designing disciplinary units Engage students in inquiry through inductive teaching Identify conceptual lenses and craft quality generalizations

Explore deeper levels of learning and become a Master Concept-Based Teacher.

"This book is smart, wise, and energizing. It honors the disciplines we teach by reminding us of their inherent meaning. It honors teachers with the belief that they grow as human beings through understanding the power of what they teach. It honors students by expecting them to become thinkers capable of reasoned stewardship of the world they live in and will inherit." Carol Ann Tomlinson, William Clay Parrish, Jr. Professor University of Virginia, Curry School of Education “As factual and procedural knowledge are a click away, education needs to foster contextualization and higher order thinking through a focus on transferable conceptual understandings. This essential book translates the needed sophistication of concept-based learning into actionable classroom practices.” Charles Fadel, Author of “Four-Dimensional Education” and “21st Century Skills" Founder, Center for Curriculum Redesign Visiting Scholar, Harvard Graduate School of Education