Kari Lockhart’s What to Expect When You’re Expected to Teach Gifted Students touches on two key elements: how to identify gifted students and how to work with their parents. Kolby Wagner expects to find the author’s strategies for co-teaching and parent engagement helpful.
The limitations of funding, square footage, and time can make classroom design a daunting task, writes reviewer Eileen Hornbostel. To meet those challenges, Jessica Martin offers Strategic Classroom Design, a detailed guide to creating effective learning environments.
Thomas R. Hoerr’s guide for taking SEL schoolwide is particularly helpful to administrators, writes pre-service teacher Holly Reynolds. But she expects the book’s big picture view of quality SEL programs to be useful to her as she evaluates teaching opportunities this summer.
Education law expert Robert Kim’s focused discussion of ten Supreme Court cases is written in practical and accessible language and can be a valuable resource to any educator who wants to help students understand justice and equity, writes pre-service teacher Morgan DeVico.
If you are looking for a book that acts as an all-encompassing start to your journey in autism history and education, NeuroTribes by science journalist Steve Silberman is the book for you, writes pre-service teacher Daniel Zarasua, whose younger brother has autism.
Future teacher Kara Tyler recommends Determining Difference from Disability to help teachers and parents respond to linguistically, culturally and socio-emotionally diverse students. Tyler appreciates the book’s opportunities for reflection and the range of resources.
In Becoming a Transformative Leader Carolyn M. Shields makes the case for equity and justice in our schools and suggests practical ways to examine them more deeply with colleagues and to assess progress toward achieving them, writes educator Chris Dransoff.
Dr. Lindsay Portnoy’s sound research, detailed checklists, and illustrative classroom stories in “Designed to Learn” will inspire you to fine-tune or jump-start your design thinking approach to instruction, writes teacher, author and curriculum leader Sarah Cooper.
In Writing, Redefined Shawna Coppola proposes alternatives (comics, podcasts, etc.) to traditional writing assignments to welcome the students who aren’t drawn to essays and book reviews. Literacy coach Pam Hamilton likes the ideas but wonders if teachers are ready for them.
What the Robbs have done so well is share their experiences as researchers and as educators and provide detailed procedures, anecdotes and insights to guide teachers as they help students become avid readers, writes teacher educator and middle grades veteran Linda Biondi.
