Everyone talks about "best practice" teaching--but what does it actually look like in the classroom? How do working teachers translate complex curriculum standards into simple, workable classroom structures that embody exemplary instruction--and still let kids find joy in learning? In Teaching the Best Practice Way , Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar present seven basic teaching structures that make classrooms more active, experiential, collaborative, democratic, and cognitive, while simultaneously meeting ""best practice"" standards across subject areas and throughout the grades. Each section begins with an essay outlining one key method, providing its historical background and research results, and then describing the structure's vital features. Next, several teachers representing different grade levels and school communities explain how they adopted the basic model, adapted it to their students' needs, and made it their own. Fully updating and expanding Methods that Matter (Stenhouse, 1998), Teaching the Best Practice Way adds the stories of twenty more celebrated teachers, including James Beane, Donna Ogle, Franki Sibberson, and others from around the country. A brand-new chapter focuses on reading as thinking, detailing the ways teachers can nurture strategic readers--readers who not only deeply understand the printed materials they encounter in school, but who also bring these cognitive strategies to their ""reading"" of film, art, music, and their experience of the world. The book also shares new research studies that validate the principles and activities of best practice teaching, along with lists of recommended materials that support each of the seven methods. Unique in the field, Teaching the Best Practice Way speaks to all teachers, K-12, with stories, examples, and practical classroom materials for the teachers of all children. This is the book for teachers, schools, and districts that believe the big ideas about teaching really do cross all grade levels and subject areas. Education professors will also find this an ideal resource for use in methods courses.

Product Description: We've read educational essays packed with ideas, and we've read narrative accounts of individual schools. Rethinking High School is a rare and delightful marriage of the two. . . . It's hard to imagine anyone involved with high schools who won't come away from this book both impressed and enlightened...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Developed in response to the growing interest in examining individual schools as they undergo change, this book features eight case studies of urban elementary and high schools as they face problems and attempt to find solutions in their quest to reform themselves. The cases, with all their pitfalls and problems, provide examples of the very bumpy road of change and of the individual school cultures that sometimes support and often impede reform. Told in the individual voices of various school leaders, the narratives reflect the inevitable biases of people immersed in their work. Their richness derives from the passion with which these stories are told. Textured and complex, these chronicles invite readers to think deeply about the many layers involved in the process of changing schools. School Leadership in Times of Urban Reform is a powerful text for courses in educational leadership, school reform, and the politics of education. Engaging pedagogical features at the end of each case facilitate its use: *Each case ends with an "Analysis of Leadership" section and "Extended Thinking" questions and activities. *Sections 2-5 conclude with "Reflections" to help the reader uncover the major themes and issues. Section 1 is an introductory analysis of reform and school leadership; it provides a frame of reference for examining the case studies that follow. Sections 2-5 are organized around eight case studies (two per section) that address questions of how the leadership roles of school principals and teachers have been shaped by the reform initiative; how parents and local communities have contributed to school reform; and how the culture of the school, and teaching and learning, have been shaped by reform. The final section synthesizes and analyzes what the authors have learned through these cases concerning the leadership roles of principals, parents, community members, and teachers during the period of reform; how the cultures of schools changed as reform progressed; and how reform impacted the instructional practices of teachers and the learning of students.

Product Description: Thinking in Context: Teaching Cognitive Processes Across the Elementary School Curriculum