Class discussions are the cornerstone of successful instruction and learning--a way to explore complex subject matter and help students develop critical-thinking, listening, and speaking skills. Too often, the questions teachers ask are met not with deep engagement and discovery but blank stares and silence. In order to reap the benefits of…

Calm is a choice. The key to a calm classroom isn't students who are obedient or quiet but students who feel empowered and safe. It starts with you as the teacher and your ability to foster an environment that supports emotional awareness, psychological safety and belonging, and connected relationships. In "Cultivating a Classroom of…

Even under ideal conditions, teaching is tough work. Facing unrelenting pressure from administrators and parents and caught in a race against time to improve student outcomes, educators can easily become discouraged (or worse, burn out completely) without a robust coaching system in place to support them. For more than 20 years, perfecting such a…

Co-teaching has been increasingly adopted to support students in the general education classroom. After 20 years of field testing, we know what works--and what doesn't. In this practical guide, co-teaching and inclusion experts Toby J. Karten and Wendy W. Murawski detail the best practices for successful co-teaching and ways to troubleshoot common…

We want students to master academic standards, and we want them to be confident, adaptive, and socially responsible. Above all, we want them to find meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Achieving these goals requires a concerted focus on the social-emotional skills that empower students in and beyond the classroom. In "Teaching to…

In the first years of life, as children observe, imitate, and interact with people and their environment, the brain is structuring a foundation for vocabulary, values, cognitive processes, and social skills. Educators, you can help influence that development by teaching the skills and dispositions of intelligent, creative, effective decision…

In this book, the authors explain why telling students things over and over--and perhaps more slowly and more loudly--does not result in understanding. Instead, discover how to use a combination of questions, prompts, cues, direct explanations, and modeling to guide students' learning and build their understanding. Explore an approach to…

Yes, it's true that today's students have tons of distractions that take their attention away from the hard work of learning. That's why it's more important than ever to establish a teaching relationship with students that makes academic learning relevant to their lives. Here's a book that explains how to do that by changing teaching practices…

Although every educator knows firsthand about the effects that poverty can have on students, here at last is a book that makes it crystal clear why and how the effects of poverty have to be addressed in classroom teaching and school and district policy. Veteran educator and brain expert Eric Jensen helps you understand what poverty does to…