Education Teaching Books

Some books speak so deep to our soul that they help facilitate some type of life-change. We will always cherish these books for their ability to speak directly to us, no matter our life stage, for they carry in them principles that transcendent time. As if magical, each time we re-read these books they renew a fire within us or produce new truths that we missed in our first encounter. Some of have said Deitrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship and Augustine's Confessions are an example of these type of books. In my opinion, this book, The Courage to Teach, is one of them for me. Palmer's emphasis upon the inner life of the teacher is refreshing and enlightening. Palmer explicitly acknowledges that his book builds on the simple premise that states, "good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher" (p. 10).

Without giving a full summary of the book I found chapters 4-5 the most meaningful. His discussion about "the community of truth" and "subject-centered teaching" greatly impacted my ongoing understanding of teaching and education psychology. His words are sure to continue their impact for many years to come, particularly in my development as a thinker, minister and teacher.

As an intellectual extra, I thoroughly enjoyed his analysis of "movements" in chapter 7.

The book was new and was in very good condition. I am happy about the purchase.

Palmer's writing evokes the inner being. He offers a lot of humility and personal experience which calls a person to respond from the inside. I was stirred in numerous ways by his writing and applaud this one like I applaud many of his books. Its a necessary additon to the library of anyone serious about their teaching or in the business of teacher training.

An excellent book on what it takes to really connect with students.
Deals with unusual topics like vulnerabilities, openness, and subject oriented teaching versus student or teacher oriented teaching. Celebrates the inherent wisdom within people, even those who are callous and cynical on the surface.
An important contribution to the field

I read this book with a group of teachers as part of our book club. I had high hopes that it would provide some great discussion. After the first few chapters nobody liked it. Out of the 8 of us that read it, not one of us actually enjoyed the book. There were some good points, but too philisophical for our taste.

thank you for the book, it was in great condition and will work well for my class!

This is an excellent book for anyone who is in the teaching profession, and especially those who teach beginning readers.

This book was in excellent condition and just as described. I received it in a timely manner and am very happy with my purchase.

This book arrived in excellent condition and in a timely fashion. I was able to use it before I went back to school and I need it to teach elementary and middle school aged students in the fall. Thank you very much.

Let me start by saying this book builds off of Guiding Readers and Writers, also by Fountas and Pinnell. If you haven't yet invested in that book and you teach reading or writing to grades 3-12, that's where you want to start. This book will not be nearly as helpful until you have read and engaged in the teaching strategies laid out in Guiding Readers and Writers. However, if you are currently looking to build and add to your literature circles and your reading and writing workshops, this is the book you want.

This book is loaded with resources for teachers. It comes with an interactive DVD to show teachers exactly what they are describing as mini lessons. This was truly the most helpful to me - being able to see teachers in action, working with students, using the techniques I had just read about helped to enable me to create the same learning environment and use the same techniques. The DVD also includes over 100 blackline masters/forms/worksheets ready to use! As a teacher, that in it's self is worth $100 not to have to make everything yourself!

This book uses a variety of methods to deepen comprehension that overlap into to guided reading within the classroom. Interactive read-aloud using picture books is just one way I started deepening comprehension within my classroom using this book. Just two months in, I can see the difference in how my kids are reading and understanding! This is just one of the many pieces I use within reading workshop. The more and more I do this, the more I see my kids using skills that we've pointed out in reading workshop in their writing! This book helps kids think 'about the text', 'beyond the text', and 'within the text'.

This book also helps teachers (of any reading grade) set-up running records to increase fluency. Within the blackline masters, the forms are ready to use, and the layout is easy to use! I am able to do this while my kids are writing in their reader's notebooks or doing independent reading. This is a great tool to help assess where a child is and where a child should be.

This book is a powerful tool if used in combination with Guiding Readers and Writers. Teachers of all ages can find this book filled with useful strategies and practical ideas to use within their reading class.

PS - If you have a chance, check out Heinemann's website. Fountas and Pinnell are doing conferences across the US on small sections of this book. If you have a chance to go, they are well worth it!

I am currently studying for the NLN CNE certificaion exam. This book, Teaching in Nursing: A Guide for Faculty (Billings, Teaching in Nursing: A Guide for Faculty) was recommended as a resource and it has been very helpful in preparation for the exam. It is not only an excellent resource for the exam, but also an excellent resource for the novice nurse educator. For those of us in nursing education for a number of years, this book is excellent at refreshing us and providing new ideas and innovations in nursing. I hardily suggest this book to anyone in or seeking to begin educating nurses.

I am taking an online course at the IUPUI School of Nursing and this book has been an excellent resource for this course. Just about everything I need is in there. A must buy for any of the IUPUISON online courses.

I am using this book for a masters class in education for my CNS. I enjoyed reading it. It is very easy to read and covers a vast amount of information needed for a nurse to get started in her her teaching career.

I purchased this book for a class I have been taking and found it easy to understand and very informative.

Teaching in Nursing: A Guide for Faculty by Diane Billings and Judith Halstead is a concise comprehensive easy to read resource on being a nurse educator. I am a graduate student pursuing my MSN/Ed. As a student, I found this book to be very relevant, well cited, and easy to navigate. I loved that it came in soft cover. I highly recommend this book.

Great intro to the concept of home education with a heavy emphasis on the Charlotte Mason method. I re-read this little treasure regularly to keep myself on track. Loving books as much as I do tempts me to compile quite a list of Books We Must Have for School. The CM way of thinking ensures I stick only with the best, the essentials. I highly recommend it!

I first read this book because it was written by Susan, one of Francis and Edith Schaeffer's daughters. Little did I know that it would become the foundational book to becoming a homeschool parent when I decided to take my youngest child out of the public schools.

One doesn't need to be homeschooling their children to appreciate this book. Susan writes in the same warm and friendly way as her mother. However, if one is homeschooling and using the Charlotte Mason "method", this book is an essential volume to have in your library.

If you're a Charlotte Mason fan, you can't pass this one up. It is my favorite book on Charlotte Mason & is full of wonderful parenting advice. Really, all parents are teachers, not just homeschooling parents. This book offers great insight for all who spend time caring for children.

As one preparing to homeschool, this book was this kind of thing that has been spurring me on to ponder, philosophize and dream about both the general approach I will take, and the beginnings of many specific ideas.

For those who are disenchanted with the high pressure standardized-testing mentality prevalent in classrooms today, this book explains the educational philosphy of Charlotte Mason. It is God-focused (Susan is the daughter of Christian apologtic Francis Shaeffer), natural, and relaxed. It is a must-read for any classroom teacher, homeschool parent, or school administrator.

Excellent resource for educators and people who want to be involved with changing the educational system in our society.

If you are an educator, parent or administrator, this handbook will enable you to obtain the crucial, leading edge knowledge in learning styles, multiple intelligences, personal neuro-physiology that enables one to "know thyself." Self-esteem and self-awareness, cognitive learning, including the necessary skills to make one prepared for "life at 21 years old," are also main considerations when teaching students to capitalize on their individual strenghts and wisdom.

Schools that Learn also emphasizes the importance of mastery, synergizing curricula presented, and authentic assessment vs. basing students knowledge purely on standardized test-taking.

This helpful manual is extremely important for educators, administrators, and parents, to read as it combines the aforementioned information and applies it to "building strengths that will be useful in career decision making."

Finally,Schools that Learn emphasizes the importance of keeping a "spirit-filled" outlook while learning, the extreme helpfulness of a mastermind group, accelerated and lifelong education, and of course giving back what you have learned to the community. This "cause and effect" is often forgotten in busy professtional lives, but truly ensures success for those who "get it."

This is an essential book for anyone interested in education. Its comprehensive coverage gives much background, even at the risk of being distracting when you want to follow-up on the leads to so many interesting source-books and links. Though you are told to dip in anywhere, you must read the first section, esp. "The Industrial Age System of Education" by Senge and "A Primer to the Five Disciplines" (Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning and Systems Thinking) (pp. 27-93).

The authors consider this book a "prequel" to their other books about learning organizations (p.7). That's true. Though this is the most recent book, you can start with this one and go on to the others for further depth. Some repetitions may only serve well for mastery.

The whole book is very readable and informative. Concepts are clearly explained. It follows the same excellent editing format as The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and The Dance of Change.

When you get too enthused by so many ideas and success stories of innovations, heed the advice for "The Strategy of Organizational Change". "Focus on one or two new priorities for change, not twelve. Most school systems are already overwhelmed with change. They don't need a new initiative; they need an approach that consolidates existing initiatives, eliminates "turf battles," and makes it easier for people to work together toward common ends." (p.25)

There are just too many passages that you wish to quote. The book is a treasure mine. However, for those (esp. busy administrators) who find the volume too daunting or verbose (592 pages!) and still want to get a handle on launching into transforming their schools into learning organisations, I would recommend, "Ten Steps to a Learning Organization" and start with the simple questionnaire given there.

Senge became famous for his book on learning organizations. In this book, he and his co-authors apply those concepts and ideas specifically to educational institutions. While much of their focus is on K12, the ideas and process are applicable to higher education as well. So many management books are really fads with superficial value, but Senge's books are very practical and valuable. This book in particular demonstrates a great deal of passion on the part of the author's for their topic.

Having been given the instructions to select a book of vision for a reading group in a graduate class, I didn't expect to choose one of over 500 pages. The length, however, is indicative of the power this book has for changing minds about schools and the way to structure them for learning. I found myself often reading passages aloud to other educators and anyone who would listen. Instead of stifling my curiosity, the book inspired me to dig deeper on the five disciplines. A great book for creating a vision of education that includes schools where students are learning. I may purchase another one to loan out!

Great if you already know a little about Chemistry, it moves a little fast. I am using it for an advanced first level Chemistry course.

As a student, I found the text was helpful not only as a resource, but I used the questions and invention guides frequently as a way to generate new ideas.

I found the book extremely interesting, giving me many ideas for structuring my work with ADHD students as a tutor and coach.

this guide was recommended by my child's psychologist as a tool to deal with ADHD and executive function deficit. It has been tremendously helpful. As a matter of fact I got his school's psychologist and Special Ed Coordinator to purchase copies for all teachers.

I had the wonderful opportunity to have Peg as an instructor for an education class in college. Unlike some professors, who tend to use their own published works as a core text, Peg gave our class a great variety of literature from various sources. She is part of a VERY SMALL group of instructors who went out of the way to make our class environment interesting and very educational. Many of the methods that we read and talked about were practiced in our class and she managed our class in a true democratic fashion. She is a great teacher who shares her own struggles as a school psychologist and as a concerned parent!

It is very difficult to find information on Exective Skills which is easy enough for the average reader. This book is such a book - not a textbook and designed for school personnel in addition to parents. It is not extremely clinical which makes it easy to follow.

As a parent, I may have missed some of the subtleties in this book, but I thought it seemed like a long exposition of what is largely common sense advice. No problem with it really - it was a good way to get started thinking about some strategies - but somehow I expected more insight out of it.

These are a great tool for students grades 1-3! I love that my students create their own Star of the Week posters without going overboard. These are perfect!

I really like using this in my classroom. It's a great way to get to know each student throughout the year. I allow for them to share their poster, and have a mini share with their favorite things that they bring from home.

GREAT for a beginning of the year project with kids... let them use their imagination and their markers!!

I plan to use these personal posters with each student of the week. After the poster is completed and returned, it will be laminated and displayed. The students can take them home at the end of the week to display at home or give as a gift to a relative.

I have my students fill out there poster whenever they are chosen as the Star Student of the week. Each student can present their poster, take a few questions, and then bask in the glory of having their poster hanging in the hall for the week. Also, after the poster has been presented, I have every student write a friendly letter to the Star Student. All letters are made into a booklet that the Star Student receives at the end of their week.