Koncocoo

Best Education Administration

What Great Teachers Do Differently: 17 Things That Matter Most
In the second edition of this renowned book, you will find pearls of wisdom, heartfelt advice, and inspiration from one of the nation’s leading authorities on staff motivation, teacher leadership, and principal effectiveness. With wit and understanding, Todd Whitaker describes the beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and interactions of great teachers and explains what they do differently. Todd is a professor of educational leadership at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana, and he has spent his life pursuing his love of education by researching and studying effective teachers and principals.
Reviews
"It was a short and easy read, had some good anecdotal material, I learned some things I really liked from it, and it's something I'll be happy to keep on my shelf for years to come."
"If you need some teaching inspiration in a jiffy this is the book for you."
"Every teacher should read this book."
"Gave this to a friend who is a great teacher (awarded teacher of the year) and she is going to present it at a meeting for other teachers."
"Every teacher should read this."
"Had heard about this writer and his ideas a lot of what he talks about is common sense but after fifteen years of teaching it is good to review what I am doing and how my results impact the kids very good read for any experienced or brand new teacher."
"As well as makes me realize that I am a great teacher."
"I love this book."
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Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8
Based on what the research says about development, learning, and effective practices, as well as what experience tells us about teaching intentionally, DAP articulates the principles that should guide our decision making.
Reviews
"Use this book frequently in my college Early Childhood courses."
"It helped me to look at my lesson plans in a different way, I can't do a lesson without thinking of the appropriateness for my students."
"Excellent resource for early childhood educators."
"yes it was very helpful and the book looks like new!!!"
"Great resource for anyone in early childhood education."
"It comes in handy when dealing with young children :) It shipped fast and was cheaper than buying it elsewhere!"
"Most of the information is quite obvious to anyone in the early childhood profession but it does include many different scenarios which are helpful."
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Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement
A major message is that what works best for students is similar to what works best for teachers – an attention to setting challenging learning intentions, being clear about what success means, and an attention to learning strategies for developing conceptual understanding about what teachers and students know and understand. John Hattie is Professor of Education and Director of the Visible Learning Labs, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Reviews
"Full of great stats."
"Amazing research for any serious educator!"
"The truth presented by the book was at times painful to realize but I emerge from the experience stronger, more certain and feeling better that these truths did indeed set me free from my misconceptions and have made me stronger for now and the future."
"An effect size of d = 0.15 - 0.4 is consider "teacher effects" - presumably the effect of having an average quality teacher working with the students. An effect size of d > .4 is what Hattie considers "desirable effects". If the underlying studies effect was calculated by comparing student outcomes at the end compared to the beginning of the study then it makes sense to dismiss some effect as developmental effects or average teacher effects. But if the underlying study calculated the effect by comparing the difference in growth compared to a control group, that also aged and also had average teachers then to dismiss small effects as developmental or "teacher effects" is completely wrong. Even for cases where the effect size is calculated by comparing outcomes at end of the study to the starting position the size of the effect that can dismissed as developmental effects depends on items such as length of study (was it a one afternoon or multi year intervention?)."
"One of best contemporary resources available."
"This is a great book with a lot of good information."
"This is a very comprehensive study of effective methods and strategies at school."
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Best Education History & Theory

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
John Taylor Gatto has been a fierce advocate for self-directed “guerrilla” education for decades. Gatto's radical treatise on public education, a New Society Publishers bestseller for 25 years, continues to bang the drum for an unshackling of children and learning from formal schooling.
Reviews
"Colleges had to adjust their material to the watered down curriculum that gets passed on to it from high schools."
"If you dislike that advertising permeates everything you read and watch and are amazed at how much crap people think they need then this book is for you."
"Reading this in high school really opens your eyes!"
"This book this for the ones who care about education."
"[...]. Gatto also wrote a more objective and penetrating history of American Education[...]. While these books are provided for free by their authors and publishers, I recommend a purchase in order to support their important work."
"Explains why the U.S. is failing compared to the rest of the world."
"The author states learning is maximized by taking on a 1000 internships, active participation in the community, and periods of isolated reflection. Internship implies sharing information and knowledge with a potential employee, aimed at increasing their professional capability, before employment. Periods of isolated reflection allow the student to meditate on the principles and information they have learned. Abstraction, synthesis, and integration mental process allow the information to evolve into other ideas or principles. The education system values: competition, intimidation, and control more than principles of democracy. Many of the social problems of teen pregancy, drugs, and violence are associated with the rich rather than the poor. If your child thinks its ok, to spend hours down in their room listening to their music, refusing to eat at the dinner table, or participate in family activities, you start to wonder. If your child was previously curious about things and often worked on individual projects and research but suddenly stop, you wonder."
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Best Federal Education Legislation

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools
From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. Refusing to embrace the formulas of left and right, she attacks politically correct speech codes as intelligently as she criticizes the free-market faith in competition. And this skepticism animates her broader critique in Reign of Error , a book that dispels the clouds of reform rhetoric to reveal the destructiveness of the privatization agenda.” —Jackson Lear, Commonweal. “No matter what side of the debate the reader is on, Ms. Ravitch provides a thought-provoking look at some of the major challenges facing public education today.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Ravtich’s critique of the corporate reformers’ manufactured agenda, along with the truly progressive alternatives she offers, shows us a way to begin the long haul toward improving democracy’s classrooms.” —Joseph Featherstone, The Nation. “Diane Ravitch [is] arguably our leading historian of primary and secondary education.” —Andrew Delbanco, The New York Review of Books. Ravitch’s candor stands in stark contrast to the bromides of the corporate reformers, who have pretty much left any attempts at integration out of their schemes.” —NEA.org (National Education Association). You will never find a more succinct and compelling book than Reign of Error , with a crystal clear analysis of the way in which our schools are being driven into the ground by the Billionaire Boys club of Gates, Broad, Walton, Murdoch, and Bloomberg, and other ideologues and opportunists eager to join in. Buy the book.” — The Huffington Post “I knew a lot about what happened to black public schools in Mississippi, but had concerns about how to go about building a better system. In Reign of Error , she reveals the shocking lack of evidence behind many of the radical experiments being forced on our public school children and families by tragically misguided politicians and non-educators. Most important, she lays out a vision of evidence-based, authentic education reforms that hold great promise for America to lead and inspire the world again. What Silent Spring and The Fate of the Earth did for the environmental and antinuclear movements, this book should do for the cause of improving America's public schools." “Diane Ravitch’s Reign of Error takes the myths surrounding public education head on and provides her readers with logic and reasoning sorely missing from the current debate. Ravitch also takes on the Billionaire Boys Club with swipes at their handmaidens of destruction, including Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and Wendy Kopp, and the book provides the solutions that will change the trajectory away from so-called destructive innovation towards equitable, high quality education for all children.”. —Karen GJ Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
Reviews
"She also calls for small class size, banning for-profit charter schools, cooperation between charter schools and other public schools and providing the social and medical services poor children need to do well in school."
"Ms. Ravitch has my vote for Superintendent of Schools, has my support to become the next Education Department Secretary, and has my thanks for tirelessly working to correct the mistakes caused by educational privatization, online "education," and modern forms of charters that are misleading and abusive towards public schools."
""Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Dangers to America's Public Schools. ". Even despite the fact it was a bit dry and tedious on occasions, I found a lot of good information in it. I don't think there is anything wrong with Public Schools that a little time, money and interested people can't fix. All of my family have attended them from my Mother and Father both, in the early part of the last century to my Grandchildren the last of whom graduated in 2010. Then the privatization vultures move in for the kill and shove part of those funds to 'for profit schools' which they tout as being a cure-all for something they have deliberately created (an educational crisis). They are deliberately setting public schools up to fail when they start taking funds away. It's one the politician's oldest tricks when they want to get rid of a public institution...start starving it to death of funds to operate. Only a complete fool would try and sell the idea that economic advantages and poverty doesn't have something to do with children's abilities to learn. Where a lot of these people think Government can't do anything right...as far as I am concerned private businesses are far bigger screw ups. And there have been some huge ones from the privatization of the Iraq war that cost the taxpayer billions in wasted tax dollars that were thrown at a nonexistent problem, to the disaster I see in education these days."
"As a public school teacher and a strong advocate for public education, I believe this information must reach the general public."
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Best Education Counseling

Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy
With his trademark style, he shows students how to apply theories in practice, and helps them learn to integrate the theories into an individualized counseling style.
Reviews
"No one in their right mind would expect spellbinding performances from the "actors" (one might have been Corey though if I remember correctly) in these segments, but holy molar!"
"The book arrived when my course was completed."
"If you have access to the accompanying videos, take advantage of them, they are great!"
"The Corey's write a bunch of different theory and practice books."
"Perfect "Cliff's Notes" version of the text book!"
"Corey does an excellent job of presenting the theories in this text."
"They just slapped on a label saying it was the manual, but since I also ordered the regular textbook, I compared the two and they are exactly the same."
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Best Education Curriculum & Instruction

The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers
develop goals for every reader give students step-by-step strategies for skilled reading guide readers with prompts aligned to the strategies adjust instruction to meet individual needs with Jen's Teaching Tips craft demonstrations and explanations with her Lesson Language learn more with Hat Tips to the work of influential teacher-authors. Whether you use readers workshop, Daily 5/CAFE, guided reading, balanced reading, a core reading program, whole-class novels, or any other approach, The Reading Strategies Book will complement and extend your teaching. Jennifer Serravallo is the author of New York Times bestseller The Reading Strategies Book as well as other popular Heinemann titles, including Teaching Reading in Small Groups; Conferring with Readers; and The Literacy Teacher's Playbook, Grades K - 2 and Grades 3 - 6.
Reviews
"Most books about teaching reading require plowing through lots of pages about the author's philosophy and practices before getting to the good stuff...the stuff you can use in the classroom tomorrow. Every teacher, from classroom teachers to reading specialists to literacy coaches to tutors to home-school teachers, from pre serviice teachers to veteran teachers, will quickly and easily be able to find the strategies they need to teach the students in front of them."
"- Jennifer Serravallo, The Reading Strategies Book: Your EVERYTHING Guide to Developing Skilled Readers. Jennifer Serravallo created the ultimate book of reading strategies. - Classroom Teacher: This is truly a comprehensive book to help you develop individual reading goals or goals for reading strategy groups. The book is organized around the following goals (chapters) for developing skilled readers: - Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers. - Teaching Reading Engagement: Focus, Stamina, and Building a Reading Life. - Supporting Print Work: Increasing Accuracy and Integrating Sources of Information. - Teaching Fluency: Reading with Paraphrasing, Intonation, and Automaticity. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Plot and Setting. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Thinking About Characters. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Themes and Ideas. - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Maint Topic(s) and Idea(s). - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Key Details. - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Getting the Most from Text Features. - Improving Comprehension in Fiction and Nonfiction: Understanding Vocabulary and Figurative Language. - Supporting Students' Conversations: Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension. - Improving Writing About Reading. Each chapter starts with a research-based explanation of WHY the goal is important to developing skilled readers."
"I am a literacy coach and am so excited to use this book next year with teachers at my school. Here's why: I love how Jennifer compares The Reading Strategies Book to a cookbook, It's a great analogy for the lessons in the book. Jennifer walks you through navigating the book, choosing goals for students, how the book might fit into your current literacy instruction, and supporting strategies with visuals. I think this book should be a required text for college literacy courses and should be a welcome gift to new teachers when hired."
"The Reading Strategies Book will be my go-to resource for improving my students' reading comprehension for years to come."
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Best Educational Philosophy

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
As Tom Nichols shows in The Death of Expertise , this rejection of experts has occurred for many reasons, including the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine. ”Nichols expands his 2014 article published by The Federalist with a highly researched and impassioned book that's well timed for this post-election period... strongly researched textbook for laymen will have many political and news junkies nodding their heads in agreement." ”This may sound like a rant you have heard before, but Nichols has a sense of humour and chooses his examples well. ”Excellent...makes important points and offers valuable insight, particularly when it comes to the role of the internet and social media in our political environment...essential reading for anyone interested in this pressing subject." Citizens - now so proudly ill-informed that they cannot even make use of expert opinion in fulfilling their civic role - must rediscover a sense of responsibility. ".
Reviews
"While many of the studies in the book have now been called into question (an excellent illustration of one of Tom Nichols' sections about when experts are wrong), I still found it fascinating how I, a person with a graduate-level degree and extensive self-education through extensive reading, knew so very little about so much. How much do we see today, though, of people without any education or training or experience, claiming that their opinion is as valid as any expert, or dismissing experts as nothing more than "elites," as if that allows them to be ignored? In a time when our entire world is built around technology and knowledge and the experts who understand them, Americans are forgetting how that all happened. The populace must understand enough to make the decisions to choose both smart experts (Knowers) and policymakers (Deciders) and understand the limits of each. But without experts and policy makers who listen, and an educated, informed populace that helps choose and respect them.....I worry for the world of my children."
"A painful, insightful yet honest bio on today's chronic illnesses when it comes to disrespecting knowledge and intelligence!"
"But shockingly absent from his analysis is the possibility that experts might be corrupt, or have their own agenda - that a scientist might deny climate change while working for the Trump Administration, or take home a fat paycheck from Coca Cola for insisting that sugar-water doesn’t make people fat. Apparently Political Science degrees now include PhD-level courses on Botany, Ecology, and Medicine – who knew?"
"There are also books that are important because they speak to urgent needs of a particular time."
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Best Elementary Education

The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers
develop goals for every reader give students step-by-step strategies for skilled reading guide readers with prompts aligned to the strategies adjust instruction to meet individual needs with Jen's Teaching Tips craft demonstrations and explanations with her Lesson Language learn more with Hat Tips to the work of influential teacher-authors. Whether you use readers workshop, Daily 5/CAFE, guided reading, balanced reading, a core reading program, whole-class novels, or any other approach, The Reading Strategies Book will complement and extend your teaching. Jennifer Serravallo is the author of New York Times bestseller The Reading Strategies Book as well as other popular Heinemann titles, including Teaching Reading in Small Groups; Conferring with Readers; and The Literacy Teacher's Playbook, Grades K - 2 and Grades 3 - 6.
Reviews
"Most books about teaching reading require plowing through lots of pages about the author's philosophy and practices before getting to the good stuff...the stuff you can use in the classroom tomorrow. Every teacher, from classroom teachers to reading specialists to literacy coaches to tutors to home-school teachers, from pre serviice teachers to veteran teachers, will quickly and easily be able to find the strategies they need to teach the students in front of them."
"- Jennifer Serravallo, The Reading Strategies Book: Your EVERYTHING Guide to Developing Skilled Readers. Jennifer Serravallo created the ultimate book of reading strategies. - Classroom Teacher: This is truly a comprehensive book to help you develop individual reading goals or goals for reading strategy groups. The book is organized around the following goals (chapters) for developing skilled readers: - Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers. - Teaching Reading Engagement: Focus, Stamina, and Building a Reading Life. - Supporting Print Work: Increasing Accuracy and Integrating Sources of Information. - Teaching Fluency: Reading with Paraphrasing, Intonation, and Automaticity. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Plot and Setting. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Thinking About Characters. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Themes and Ideas. - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Maint Topic(s) and Idea(s). - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Key Details. - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Getting the Most from Text Features. - Improving Comprehension in Fiction and Nonfiction: Understanding Vocabulary and Figurative Language. - Supporting Students' Conversations: Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension. - Improving Writing About Reading. Each chapter starts with a research-based explanation of WHY the goal is important to developing skilled readers."
"I am a literacy coach and am so excited to use this book next year with teachers at my school. Here's why: I love how Jennifer compares The Reading Strategies Book to a cookbook, It's a great analogy for the lessons in the book. Jennifer walks you through navigating the book, choosing goals for students, how the book might fit into your current literacy instruction, and supporting strategies with visuals. I think this book should be a required text for college literacy courses and should be a welcome gift to new teachers when hired."
"In the short introduction, Jennifer Serravallo explains how to identify reading goals for students based on a hierarchy of reading needs."
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Best Secondary Education

Teach Like a Champion 2.0: 62 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College
Over 700,000 teachers around the world already know how the techniques in this book turn educators into classroom champions. Over 70 new video clips of real teachers modeling the techniques in the classroom (note: for online access of this content, please visit my.teachlikeachampion.com) A selection of never before seen techniques inspired by top teachers around the world Brand new structure emphasizing the most important techniques and step by step teaching guidelines Updated content reflecting the latest best practices from outstanding educators.
Reviews
"Bummer for me trying to be cheap last summer and save my hard earned teacher dollars."
"Great resource for new teachers and veterans who are looking to refine their practice and expand their instructional strategies."
"Not a perfect book but so many great techniques to try when facing challenges in the classroom."
"If you can only afford one book on classroom management, buy this one."
"This book is amazing...is it weird or petty that I wish it had pictures or charts or something to break up the chapters and chapters of information."
"Every teacher should read this."
"Love the ideas presented in the book."
"Some of the videos make me cry in their absolute control over every movement and every expression of every child. Working in a Title One school, I get it that there needs to be a much stronger grip on classroom management, but is this really the answer?"
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Best Special Education

Applied Behavior Analysis (2nd Edition)
Applied Behavior Analysis provides a complete description of the principles and procedures needed to systematically change socially significant behavior and to understand the reasons for that change. The Behavior Analyst Certification Board ® BCBA ® and BCABA ® Behavior Analyst Task List, Third Edition, specifying the minimum content all behavior analysts should master, is listed on the inside front and back covers.
Reviews
"The book is also well structured and has a good progression and is easy to follow and find what you're looking for."
"If you can handle the page numbering being 20 pages different from the hardback version, save your money and grab this!"
"This will help future BCBAs get ready to pass the big exam."
"Very frustrated to find that I purchased the paperback version first only to find they aren't the same.... Should be mentioned in the description."
"I didn't notice before, but as I was reading through the book and as I was doing my course for graduate school I noticed pages were missing!"
"It smears easily when you touch the pages if you have ANY moisture or lotion on your hands."
"I intend to return this book as I will need this book forever and it won't last without a cover."
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