Future-Focused Learning will drive you to think deeply about your instructional practices and consider what you need to change. Alex Valencic likes the book’s focus on what students both need and want to learn and finds it solidly on-target if occasionally frustrating.
To help students with special needs succeed, Blackburn and Witzel explain how rigor, RTI and MTSS can go hand in hand. The authors detail how RTI’s tiered interventions work with MTSS’s focus on core instruction for all students, writes doctoral student Bryndle Bottoms.
Facilitating science-based research around real world problems empowers students through the skills they acquire and the subject knowledge they gain, says teacher Angela Duke. And what better topic than climate change? “The environment of the future will be theirs to live in.”
Jennifer Serravallo’s new book will help teachers become more cognizant of their students’ literacy needs and better prepared to meet those needs effectively. Reviewer and preservice coach Linda Biondi praises Serravallo’s student-centered approach to book leveling.
Few things are more frustrating for students (and their teachers) than having a concept or skill that has already been learned ‘leak’ out the brain and disappear. Curtis Chandler explains how those leaks happen and what teachers can do to counter them. Suggested apps and tools included!
Book Reviews / Project Based Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 12/26/2018 · Last modified 11/17/2019
Teacher leader Kevin Hodgson finds much to like in A.J. Juliani’s The PBL Playbook. The text is built around practical advice for PBL implementation and classroom experiences. For beginners Juliani’s stories are a lifeline, offering mentor examples and lesson analysis.
It’s true. Teachers in K-6 need to prepare students for STEM and engineering careers that don’t exist yet. The solution? Focus on gifting our younger students with a broad range of inquiry experiences and collaborative know-how, writes STEM education expert Anne Jolly.
Doing Poorly on Purpose by G&T specialist Dr. James Delisle explores how to help smart students who do poorly in school. Many of the ideas can be effective with any student, says teacher Elizabeth OBrien. Strategies include reaching underachievers and “selective customers.”
As someone who teaches media literacy and popular culture, Frank Baker understands the need to meet students where they are. We know they watch TV and they discuss the characters, plots, etc. While they’re engaged, why not raise their awareness about TV commercialism?
Kids love visual texts such as art and photographs, but as with written texts, they often don’t know where to begin when asked to look at the works critically. Author and NBCT Marilyn Pryle finds that if given specific doorways, her students have much richer discussions.
