Patricia A. Wasley - Böcker

A wonderfully useful, hones and comprehensive book, one which does not oversimplify the condition and the opportunities of the public schools. --Theodore R. Sizer, chairman, Coalition of Essential Schools Based on an extensive, in-depth study of 150 students from across the country, Kids and School Reform offers a student perspective on schools that are transforming themselves. Using extended vignettes and the actual voices and stories of five students who differ in personality, economic and personal circumstances, and academic achievement, the authors show how reform efforts affect kids and what changes matter the most. The five high schools studied are part of the Coalition of Essential Schools.

This book, written by teachers for teachers, takes an important look at the compendium of factors that make up a competent classroom. The authors troubleshoot issues surrounding content standards, instructional objectives, and the aims of curriculum while keeping in mind the importance of inspiring students. This book helps readers consider the essential questions surrounding creative teaching and the ways of helping students take ownership of their learning.

This book explores the power of using media education to help urban teenagers develop their critical thinking and literacy skills. Drawing on his twenty years of experience working with inner-city youth at the acclaimed Educational Video Center (EVC) in New York City, Steven Goodman looks closely at both the problems and possibilities of this model of media education.

Tired of the complacent attitudes Kentucky politicians showed toward education, the Prichard Committee formed as an organization to galvanize the citizens of Kentucky to attack the state's historic educational deficits. The committee's campaigning helped prepare the way for the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990 and continues to work for school reform today. Based on his wealth of experience and success with the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, Sexton provides invaluable guidance for citizens of all states who are interested in implementing school reform.

Building on extensive evidence that school-based teacher learning communities improve student outcomes, this book lays out an agenda to develop and sustain collaborative professional cultures. McLaughlin and Talbert - foremost scholars of school change and teaching contexts - provide an inside look at the processes, resources, and system strategies that are necessary to build vibrant school-based teacher learning communities. Offering a compelling, straightforward blueprint for action, this book: takes a comprehensive look at the problem of improving the quality of teaching across the United States, based on evidence and examples from the authors' nearly two decades of research; demonstrates how and why school-based teacher learning communities are bottom-line requirements for improved instruction; outlines the resources and supports needed to build and sustain a long-term school-based teacher professional community; discusses the nature of high-quality professional development to support learning and changes in teaching; and details the roles and responsibilities of policymakers at all levels of the school system.

What sources of inspiration help sustain teachers' commitments, motivations, and care for their work? How do teachers use their ideals to inform their practice and their learning? The author proposes that many teachers have images of ideal classroom practice which she calls ""teachers' vision."" In this book, Karen Hammerness uses vision to shed light on the complex relationship between teachers' ideals and the realities of school life. Through the compelling stories of four teachers, she reveals how teacher educators can help new teachers articulate, develop, and sustain their visions and assist them as they navigate the gap between their visions and their daily work. She shows us how vision can: illuminate those emotional and passionate moments in the classroom that enrich and enliven their work as teachers; explain what teachers learn about their students, their teaching, and their schools; and reveal why some teachers choose to stay in teaching and others leave the profession.

Based on research and many years of lived experience in schools, the authors have become convinced that teachers learn best within their own work communities. In this volume, they explore what research and practice have to tell us about how such communities grow and develop, and how to negotiate the inherent tension between improving competence and building community.Using five themes that emerged from their studies of practice (context, capacity, content, commitment, and challenge), the authors examine selected research studies, personal reflections, and five cases that were especially commissioned for this volume in order to uncover new insights and understandings. The text begins with essays on research and long-term development projects and concludes with vignettes that address the following questions: What is the context of your program? How does your program deal with facilitating both competence and the building of community? What are the challenges and how has your program dealt with them?

This inspiring book reveals the invisible inner landscapes of how educators teach children from a variety of backgrounds to meet the challenging expectations of today's standards without sacrificing support for their developmental needs or their diverse ways of learning. Featuring 'images of possibility' from an urban school, it describes effective, child-centered teaching in pre-K through fifth grade. Each image is analyzed for the educational decisions that took place to make the experience effective, including the planning involved, the classroom environment and routines that supported it, how standards were addressed, how the teacher assessed student learning to shape instruction, and the impact on students. This practical resource is a must-read for pre- and in-service teachers and anyone committed to helping inner-city children succeed in school and beyond.

This book shows how school improvement efforts are often undermined by the changing conditions around schools, as well as by some of the very policies and programs designed to help them make improvements. Hatch argues that schools cannot wait around for conditions to improve or policymakers to figure out how to provide the 'right' support. Schools need to create the conditions for their own success. To help them accomplish that, the author describes a small set of key practices that schools can use to get resources, manage external demands, and build their capacity to make and sustain improvements over time.

Since it was first invented, Americans have been trying to re-design the American high school. One of the latest approaches - funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - is to find inventive high school designs that work well in one location and replicate them in other locations. The authors of this book followed a design team from Big Picture Learning as it worked to do exactly this, recording the challenges it faced, and the strategies it employed. Their accessible and entertaining account of Big Picture's work is laced with stories about 'scaling up' by other school design teams, and in other enterprises beyond high school. Based on careful research, the book is both a practical guide to a new dimension of school reform, and also an interesting read for anyone interested in school change.

A much-needed counterpoint to the sweeping rhetoric of reform, this important book offers a nuanced depiction of the challenges and possibilities at the school and classroom level. Through the experiences of urban high school teachers who partner with their local university, Del Prete provides unique insight into teaching and learning in the midst of reform. He effectively illustrates why focusing on teaching practice and school cultures - more than standards and accountability - is a more fruitful way to achieve real and lasting change. With powerful portraits from classrooms serving diverse and low-income students, this book: depicts the daily concerns and small victories of teachers determined to support all students in meaningful learning, and prepare them for postsecondary education; characterizes the importance of a coherent school learning culture, based on one of the most effective small urban schools in the country; and, illustrates the potential of university-school partnerships to support the development of teaching practices that will help close the achievement gap.

This book examines a policy that is one of the most powerful levers to improve teaching quality and advance teaching as a profession. Jennifer Goldstein presents the story of Rosemont, an urban district in California that created ""professional accountability"" with peer assistance and review (PAR), an alternative approach to teacher evaluation in which expert teachers evaluate their teacher peers. It challenges a number of long-held beliefs and practices in education-- adversarial labor relations, ""being nice,"" hierarchy, isolation, and negligence--to achieve very different teacher evaluation outcomes. This timely and accessible volume: Chronicles a rare case of a teacher union and school district partnering to improve teacher quality and teacher evaluation. Presents the most detailed study of PAR implementation, including its processes, challenges, and outcomes. Summarizes the state of PAR implementation across the country in an afterword by Susan Moore Johnson.

This is a unique insider’s look at the process that teachers experience when they assume leadership positions in their school, district, state, or writing project site. The text features vignettes by K–12 teachers, describing their individual leadership roles and experiences to show how teachers take charge in a variety of contexts. The authors identify four major themes: identity, collaboration, making conflict productive, and learning new practices. Through the teacher leaders’ own words, readers witness how the four themes are an integral part of daily practice. Chapters also examine what research indicates about these new and proliferating roles.How Teachers Become Leaders makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how teachers in leadership positions:Construct a new identity.Develop the skills and abilities to handle conflict and make it productive.Learn to facilitate the building of learning communities, helping teachers to collaborate with one another.Use the practices they already know and incorporate new ones into their work.Reframe the very meaning of leadership, making it work side by side rather than top/down.

New teachers need support from their peers and mentors to locate resources, information, new ideas, emotional support, and inspiration. This timely book explains the research and theory behind social networks (face-to-face and online), describes what effective social networking for educators looks like, reveals common obstacles that new teachers face in establishing support networks, and offers valuable practical advice. The author follows the stories of four first-year teachers, illustrating the significant impact that social support networks can have on teachers’ lives and challenging common misconceptions of professional support. This book offers action guides to help teachers become “intentional networkers,” as well as a companion website with tools for networking and collaboration. This is a must-have resource for pre- and in-service teachers.Book Features:Research-based frameworks on teachers’ social networks and professional support.Suggestions for mentors, teacher educators, and school administrators on how to help new teachers to effectively develop their social networks.A companion website that offers discussion forums, resources, and networking tools: www.thenetworkedteacher.com

What Should I Do? is a practical guide to the everyday dilemmas of the urban classroom. It offers a lifeline to both beginning teachers who are struggling to be successful and to the teacher educators who are trying to prepare them for these challenges. The author uses narratives of practice, written by novice teachers, to help readers experience a variety of dilemmas they are likely to encounter in the classroom. By engaging with and analysing the cases, readers come to see that the ''problems'' of teaching are actually ''dilemmas'' that have no clear-cut right or wrong solution, thus reducing the potential for frustration and despair often felt by teachers. This practical resource will empower teachers to transform the unpredictable world of troubled schools into places of learning and hope, for both themselves and their students. As a former teacher said, ''I wish I had read this book and realised that I wasn't expected to have all the answers. I would probably still be teaching.''