Education Faculty Books

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  Re-envisioning Family Engagement and Literacy in Early Childhood Classrooms: "Porque así ya conocemos"

  Julia Lopez-Robertson and Melissa Summer Wells

  Families are resources that are extremely powerful and important for young learners from minoritized backgrounds, yet such families are often overlooked, silenced, or ostracized. This book presents a much-needed framework for family and community engagement in the early childhood and elementary literacy classroom that embraces and foregrounds students’ unique cultural backgrounds. This book spotlights the families of minoritized learners and the crucial role that they play in building dynamic and inspiring environments for learning. To re-envision the engagement of these families in the early childhood classroom, the book provides an accessible understanding of Yosso’s theory of community cultural wealth. Covering key topics such as children’s literature and digital tools, the book features strategies for implementing culturally responsive classroom practices to create positive home–school partnerships. Each chapter highlights one type of capital in community cultural wealth—aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistant—and gives teachers guidance on working with and supporting the efforts of families both inside and outside of the classroom.

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  Setting the Stage for Learning: Equitable, Evidence-Based K-12 Instructional Design and Assessment

  Janine S. Davis and Courtneay Kelly

  This book is about how to teach well. While it draws on our personal experiences in education and will include anecdotes, it is grounded in research on classrooms and students in a wide variety of contexts. It may come as little surprise that teachers often tend to teach in the ways that they were taught (Lortie, 2002); that can be wonderful for learners who are similar to you, but terrible for students who did not have the same background, experiences, and interests.

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  The New Normal in Education: Teaching, Learning, and Leading

  Mary Beth Klinger and Teresa Coffman

  This book explores teaching, learning, and leadership in higher education following the Covid-19 pandemic. It examines opportunities that currently exist within higher education as they relate to innovative teaching and learning strategies, from instructional modalities to new models of transformative learning to meet students “where they are” in terms of career development and lifelong learning. Emphasis is placed on educational leadership and management skills, faculty and teaching acumen, and students and their quest for knowledge and understanding as we navigate past a global health crisis towards a future of hope and solutions to some of today’s most pressing issues using collaboration, community, and an inquiry-oriented approach. The current state of education is reimagined with emphasis on higher education as a learning organization. A sense of urgency in higher education is underscored to instill knowledge and competency, encourage innovation, and help the next generation of students flourish in an evolving and changing world with resilience, optimism, and creativity that will yield real solutions to some of the world’s most prevalent and challenging issues.

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  Behavior Management: Systems, Classrooms, and Individuals

  Jennifer D. Walker and Colleen Barry

  Children and teens are simultaneously complex and predictable. Behavior theory and research can provide ways of predicting behaviors and designing classroom structures that benefit all students. Behavior Management: Systems, Classrooms, and Individuals is a highly readable, student-friendly textbook that meets the needs of both undergraduate and graduate teaching programs. By covering theory, systems, classrooms, and individuals, the authors have created a pragmatic resource that can be used by a range of individuals seeking reliable, evidence-based techniques integrating behavior management into effective classrooms, including both upcoming and established educators.

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  Lessons from the Pivot: Higher Education's Response to the Pandemic

  Janine S. Davis, Christy Irish, Ellen Watson, Rosemary Huff Arneson, Jennifer D. Walker, Tracey S. Hodges, Olivia Murphy, Lee Skallerup Bessette, and et al.

  This text includes chapters from instructional designers, university faculty and staff, and undergraduate and graduate students, and the text has been divided into three sections to reflect these varied perspectives. Each section begins with research-based perspectives, but also contains more personal narratives at the end. While the context of most of the chapters is the United States, there are also chapters with a Canadian context. It is also important to note that, as of the first half of 2021, the pandemic rages on, and mentions of COVID-19 in the following chapters will be reflective of the state of affairs in North America in the spring and fall of 2020.

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  Foundations of American Education: A Critical Lens

  Melissa Wells and Courtney Clayton

  In this survey text, readers will explore the foundations of American education through a critical lens. Topics include the teaching profession, influences on student learning, philosophical and historical foundations, structures of schools, ethical and legal issues, curriculum, classroom environment, and the path forward.

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  Inquiry-Based Learning: Designing Instruction to Promote Higher Level Thinking

  Teresa Coffman

  Inquiry-Based Learning: Designing Instruction to Promote Higher Level Thinking focuses on learning and pedagogy around inquiry using technology as a cognitive tool. Specific inferences and applications of learning through an inquiry approach are explored and illustrations are drawn from educational settings.

  This third edition text explores realistic approaches and encourages reflective practice through the creation of instruction around a variety of curricular topics, to include digital citizenship, information literacy, social media, telecollaborative activities, problem-based learning, blended learning, and authentic assessments. Emphasis is placed on developing 21^st century skills within a thinking curriculum.

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  Building a Professional Teaching Identity on Social Media: A Digital Constellation of Selves

  Janine S. Davis

  As social media use explodes in popularity, teachers can now share resources and interact with a broad international audience of colleagues, scholars, students, and the general public. Teachers use sites such as Twitter to develop and hone their professional identities and manage others’ impressions of them and their work. This text draws on extensive research to provide guidance about teachers’ use of social media for professional development and identity formation. A conceptual framework drawing on Goffman’s Theory of the Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and research into how users interact online informed the case studies of preservice teachers’ experiences with social media. A secondary function of the book is to guide teachers through the process of conducting action research projects in their own classrooms.

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  Understanding Special Education: An Examination of the Responsibilities through Case Studies

  Roberta Gentry and Norah S. Hooper

  In increasing numbers, general education teachers are faced with the task of educating students with disabilities in their classrooms, and many beginning teachers are not prepared for the diverse classroom that awaits them. The cases in this book are written from the viewpoint of general education teachers, with the goal of providing them with the information and tools to improve their ability to approach this task with confidence. As participants process the cases in this book, they will learn to collect and evaluate data, identify important concepts, apply legal requirements, develop hypotheses, and create or defend arguments. Through introductory materials included in each chapter, the major provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are outlined in easy and understandable terms and illuminated through the cases presented. Discussion questions, links to websites, and suggested activities are included in each chapter.

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  Social Skills Deficits in Students with Disabilities: Successful Strategies from the Disabilities Field

  Helen Nicole Frye Myers

  Social skills may impact a student with a disability more than the disability itself. Learn the social deficits and challenges associated with disabilities as well as strategies to support social skill development. A variety of professionals share their success strategies so readers (parents, teachers, counselors, psychologists, and others working in the disability field) can incorporate them into their professional “toolbox” and practice. Included are strategies from Special Educators, School Counselors, Licensed Professional Counselors, an Occupational Therapist, and a Psychologist. Current issues such as bullying are explored in addition to ways that professionals and universities should be involved in supporting social skills of students with disabilities. A special section on working with parents includes a handout with strategies parents can use while social skills are developing in their child.

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  Instructional Alignment: Optimizing Objectives, Methods, and Assessment for Developing Unit Plans

  Suzanne G. Houff

  In response to a quagmire of jargon based and convoluted curriculum textbooks, Instructional Alignment offers a concise and basic approach to instructional design. By exploring the areas of planning, assessment, and methodology, the text explains how these three areas provide an essential framework for effective teaching and illustrates how they align in order to maximize student learning. Houff guides the reader through the process of developing objectives that identify what the learners should know and be able to do at the end of the lesson. Next, the readers study assessment strategies and tools that correlate with the stated objective in order to accurately determine if the objective has been met. Direct and indirect instructional strategies are then explored to provide the reader with a variety of options or methods to best meet the objective. Final alignment is demonstrated through a project-based unit example that provides a visual representation of theory into practice. With the concluding glossary of current trends and terms in instructional design, readers will finish this key guidebook with a thorough understanding of effective instruction, as well as the capacity to adopt methodical, tested, lessons in the classroom.

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  Literacy Coaching to Build Adolescent Learning

  Nancy DeVries Guth and Tamie Pratt-Fartro

  Prompted by state and federal mandates, school districts are focusing their attention on improving adolescents' literacy skills and increasingly turning to literacy coaches for instructional support. This rare resource for secondary-level coaches focuses on five pillars of adolescent literacy: time to read for enjoyment, choice in reading materials, strategies for reading texts, vocabulary instruction, and motivation to read—and shows coaches how to work effectively with middle and high school teachers across the content areas.

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  The Classroom Facilitator: Special Issue Questions

  Suzanne G. Houff

  This book is designed for teachers, administrators, and staff development coordinators who are interested in a resource that provides an overview of current issues and the answers to some difficult educational questions. Through the use of case studies, current information, and reader exercises, this collection provides a manageable developmental resource for effective instructional practices and promotes the understanding of special topics and questions faced by the classroom teacher. The contributing authors address such diverse topics as developmentally appropriate instruction, special education, ESL, the culturally responsive classroom, integrative supportive technology, and professional communication.

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  The Classroom Manager : Procedures and Practices to Improve Instruction

  Suzanne G. Houff

  Using William Glasser's five basic needs as a foundation, The Classroom Manager provides a theoretical base to guide readers in the understanding and development of an effective classroom management program. The topics of survival, belonging and love, power, fun, and freedom are explored through definitions, practical recommendations and case studies. Each topic is expanded to include current classroom concerns such as cyberbullying, communication, rewards and punishment, cooperation, and humor in the classroom.

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  The Classroom Researcher: Using Applied Research to Meet Student Needs

  Suzanne G. Houff

  The Classroom Researcher is designed for teachers, administrators, and professional developers who are interested in learning how research can be used to improve instruction. The book begins with an overview of educational research and an identification of the types and purpose of research designs. This is followed by an explanation as to how and why research is used in education. Users are then guided through the process of identifying a problem, compiling a literature review that synthesizes research related to the problem, and developing a product that addresses the problem.

  This workbook presents valuable research information in a non-threatening and non-statistical format. Educators can easily progress through the book and begin practicing research in the classroom to better meet the needs of their students.