In an effort to address the problems confronting the American education system, the Obama administration has issued structural and systematic reforms such as Race to the Top. These initiatives introduce new statistics and accountability systems to gauge what constitutes "good" teaching, both from an administrative standpoint and the perspective of teacher training programs. This volume offers a direct critique of this approach, concluding that it does not respond adequately to the issues of education reform but rather raises new problems and actively stymies progress. The author argues that at the heart of the confusion lies a misguided and rationalistic view of teaching and learning. He draws on the philosophical strategies of Ludwig Wittgenstein to break down the guiding assumptions of Race to the Top, allowing both the positive and the negative aspects of the policies to be heard. The author then proposes a different view of teaching and learning which considers how to effectively address the problems Race to the Top seeks to confront.

Product Description: Transforming Classroom Culture is an anthology of original work authored by diverse faculty who work in a variety of New England college and university settings - private and public, racially homogeneous and diverse. The authors focus on institutional contexts that promote innovation in teaching practice, faculty identity as a resource for effective pedagogy, and dilemmas and outcomes of student-faculty engagement in the classroom...read more

Product Description: Take an in-depth look at what students should know and be able to do. Improve core instruction to ensure learning for all. Created specifically for K-5 educators, this book provides proven response to intervention strategies to differentiate instruction, engage students, increase success, and avoid additional interventions...read more

Product Description: Knowledge is power, and this book puts assessment data and instruction together in a step-by-step format. Instead of dreading the time testing takes from teaching, you can harness its power to define learning targets, build standards-based assessments; gather and use test data in the classroom, and develop data-driven teaching strategies...read more

Product Description: For nearly fifteen years students and teachers have suffocated under the oppressive regime of high-stakes testing spawned by the No Child Left Behind Act. Returning Sanity to the Classroom: Eliminating the Testing Mania uses the engaging pedagogy of ‘Forgiving Learning’ to give new life and hope to the education landscape...read more

Product Description: With school improvement initiatives, quality trumps quantity every time. This book solves the growing problem of schools implementing too many improvement strategies at once instead of deep focus on the most critical few. B.R. Jones’s method details: Selecting critical standards—Defining the skills your students most need now...read more

Product Description: In our work as educators, we all aspire to be effective. We also aspire to be wise. If teachers are to represent and advocate for education, we must become the stewards of a discourse that nurtures education’s possibilities. This book explores how teacher dispositions are defined, developed, cultivated, and assessed...read more

Product Description: Empowering Excellence inspires a revolution in teaching and assessment practices. These methods of teaching and grading represent a major step ahead in how teachers assess and interact with students. Empowering Excellence presents 12 significant “shifts” that encourage motivation, build confidence, and measure what students know and are able to do based on the Common Core State Standards or equivalent standards in a highly supportive, student-centered environment...read more

Product Description: As long as the free market has reigned, private sector firms have confronted a produce-or-perish existence. For a host of reasons, public organizations increasingly face these competitive pressures as well. But public organizations in the most unexpected of places have answered the call to evolve productively with fantastic success...read more

Product Description: Marshall Gregory argues that teachers at the university and high school levels can achieve teaching excellence by grounding their teaching in pedagogical theory that takes into account students' abilities and the ultimate goals of teaching: to develop students' capacities for thought, reflection, questioning, and engagement to their fullest extent...read more

Product Description: Because the Common Core requires bold action Why The Common Core, an Uncommon Opportunity? Why now? Because it tackles a largely overlooked component of implementation: how to redesign your instructional delivery system, K-12. And you’ll have to; if you don’t, you’ll be subject to the very same failure and frustration so many other districts and schools are experiencing...read more

A built-in bunny puppet allows the reader to demonstrate the actions in the text

Product Description: It’s a challenge every teacher faces… finding ways to get and keep the attention of their students; getting them to engage fully in the lessons. In today’s world of constant connection to media and entertainment through television and the Internet, it is harder than ever...read more

Product Description: NOTE: Used books, rentals, and purchases made outside of Pearson If purchasing or renting from companies other than Pearson, the access codes for the Enhanced Pearson eText may not be included, may be incorrect, or may be previously redeemed...read more

Product Description: Teach to the Common Core, differentiate instruction, and keep students engaged—all at the same time! With new Common Core–aligned tools and strategies, this second edition of a bestseller is an all-in-one m

Product Description: Kersey and Masterson’s 101 Principles for Positive Guidance with Young Children is a reference tool, a guide, a handbook, and more for creating responsive teachers who foster respectful relationships through responsive teacher-child interactions and strength-based guidance strategies that promote emotional competence, self-regulation, and social and academic success for children...read more

Product Description: For far too long, public education had been under the shadow of terms such as failing schools, achievement gaps, and poor classroom management. While many publications have outlined these issues, the goal of this book is not to resonate despair but to illuminate our hopes and dreams for public education...read more

Product Description: Jonathan Kozol has been a leading educational critic and social activist since 1967 when Death at an Early Age, his book about racism in Boston’s schools, was published and won a National Book Award. Since then, Kozol has written eleven more books which focus on such issues as segregation in schools and society, poverty, inequitable school funding, effective teaching and curriculum choices that help create good citizens and good learners, teacher leadership in matters related to social justice, literacy, and homelessness...read more