Teaching and learning in grades 4-8
If you are interested in transforming your classroom, engaging students and becoming an outrageously effective teacher, read and apply Teach Like a PIRATE right now, says our reviewer Laura Von Staden. “I took the risk at the beginning of this school year,” she writes. “I have to say, it went phenomenally well. I am committed to a pirate’s life.”
The Killgallons’ sentence-composing approach to grammar instruction, bolstered by “a mountaion” of model sentences and mentor texts, could be a valuable tool if teachers would like to see less hesitation and more acrobatics in their students’ writing, says reviewer Jenny Ovadia.
Don & Jenny Killgallon show how students can begin with basic structures and add more layers & nuances as they create sentences and then paragraphs. Reviewer & 6th grade ELA teacher Jenni Miller says the Killgallons’ use of engaging mentor texts & a 65-pp teacher guide makes this an essential reference for writing instruction.
Review: The authors deftly connect the ideas behind the close reading of text to the lives of young readers and their non-traditional reading materials.
Reviewer Sr. Geralyn Schmidt say Elisa MacDonald’s The Skillful Team Leader is a powerful resource through which we can actually understand how, with insightful leadership, teams can overcome barriers to collaboration and change the entire school learning environment for the better.
Kathy Tuchman Glass has created an intensive, in-depth study that will help teachers in understanding and mapping out the ELA standards, with excellent support and numerous examples, says reviewer and ELA consultant Anne Anderson.
Authors Yeap Ban Har & Lorraine Walker show how teachers can apply Singapore concepts to help students develop mathematical thinking. “A goldmine!” says reviewer Sandy Wisneski, who found the book to be the perfect resource to engage and challenge students.
The authors help teachers assist students in developing a mathematical mindset and becoming active problems solvers, says reviewer Linda Biondi. Included are connections to other practice standards, rubrics, student dialogue and lesson examples, and more.
For the 2013 EduBlog Awards we’re defining “best” as among the “especially interesting & attention-worthy.”
For the right audience, this detailed game plan for moving face-to-face PD to virtual learning communities will smooth the transition, says Nicole Miller.