While Active Learning Classrooms, or ALCs, offer rich new environments for learning, they present many new challenges to faculty because, among other things, they eliminate the room’s central focal point and disrupt the conventional seating plan to which faculty and students have become accustomed.The importance of learning how to use these classrooms well and to capitalize on their special features is paramount. The potential they represent can be realized only when they facilitate improved learning outcomes and engage students in the learning process in a manner different from traditional classrooms and lecture halls.This book provides an introduction to ALCs, briefly covering their history and then synthesizing the research on these spaces to provide faculty with empirically based, practical guidance on how to use these unfamiliar spaces effectively. Among the questions this book addresses are:• How can instructors mitigate the apparent lack of a central focal point in the space?• What types of learning activities work well in the ALCs and take advantage of the affordances of the room?• How can teachers address familiar classroom-management challenges in these unfamiliar spaces?• If assessment and rapid feedback are critical in active learning, how do they work in a room filled with circular tables and no central focus point?• How do instructors balance group learning with the needs of the larger class?• How can students be held accountable when many will necessarily have their backs facing the instructor?• How can instructors evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching in these spaces?This book is intended for faculty preparing to teach in or already working in this new classroom environment; for administrators planning to create ALCs or experimenting with provisionally designed rooms; and for faculty developers helping teachers transition to using these new spaces.

Product Description: Flip The Switch! How to Get Students Into Learning Mode Now. What is it that separates classrooms that have an atmosphere of stagnation and passivity from ones that are electric with motivation and engagement?  In this book, education expert Gayle Gregory offers the conditions necessary to foster an environment of active, visible learning in a brain-compatible climate...read more

Product Description: Have you ever entered a building or room for the first time and felt enhanced--felt your body relax and spirit elevate? The effect of human-made environments on learners’ brains is not subjective. According to research studies, we all have measurable responses to the design of a space...read more

Product Description: The opportunity for teachers to take control of their professional growth is at hand! This workbook was written by a current classroom teacher who knows the difference between useful, engaging professional development and insulting, interminable inservices...read more

The purpose of this book is to illuminate and equip both current and prospective educators with the necessary knowledge and skills to at long last become that spectacular and satisfied teacher that they had always envisioned themselves to be and that their students so desperately need them to be.

Product Description: Hospitality and Authoring, a sequel to the Haswells’ 2010 volume Authoring, attempts to open the path for hospitality practice in the classroom, making a strong argument for educational use and offering an initial map of the territory for teachers and authors...read more

Product Description: This book explores how using small groups in second language classrooms supports language learning. Chappell's experience as a language teacher equips him to present a clear, evidence-based argument for the powerful influence group work has upon the opportunities for learning, and how it should therefore be an integral part of language lessons...read more

Product Description: Students learn better when they aren’t afraid to take risks and make mistakes. In this book, teacher and popular blogger Joli Barker shows you how to make K-8 students fearless in the classroom so they can engage in deeper learning...read more

Product Description: What goes on in a classroom? can mean "Are teachers imparting knowledge that will raise test scores?" or it can mean much more. In this series of essays, Block addresses the nature of the classroom as a place for encounter and engagements: with curriculum materials and books, between teachers and students, and with the self...read more

Product Description: ''Reminding us that 'the environments we provide children are within our control,' Kuh and her colleagues challenge us to create spaces that inspire young children's exploration, play, and deep learning. Through rich examples and clear explanations of the historical, political, and aesthetic dimensions of design, they help us think critically about environments and provide theoretical and practical tools to support our efforts...read more

Product Description: Using William Glasser’s ideas as a foundation, this text explores the five basic needs and their implication for classroom management. Additional management concepts and ideas are enmeshed in the developmental recommendations to provide a theoretical and researched validation for a management plan that moves away from rewards and punishments and focuses on meeting the needs of the students...read more