Education Teaching Books

Finally, a book that looks at teaching and evaluating in a organized, systematic approach. A continum of professional practice based on research of successful teaching methods. This is a helpful guide for new and seasoned educators, administrators and others interested in identifying an evaluating good teaching strategies.

I LOVE this book! I haven't found a better kids' craft/idea book than this. Very cute ideas, the instructions are very easy-to-follow (nice illustrations that children can understand and views of the "finished product" to motivate kids), and I love that most of the projects only require items that I already have in the house. My three year old daughter has loved everything we've made from the book and it always keeps us busy when things start to get dull.

This book is FABULOUS!!! All the crafts I have used from this book have been excitedly anticipated and completed by my students from the very young to six years old. It is brightly illustrated and filled with a trove of ideas.

"I'm soooo BOOOOOORRRRED!"

You'll never hear this again from the kids in your circle. If you are Mom, Big Sis, Babysitter or Favorite Auntie, you need this book in your arsenal of tools to keep kids (and you) enthralled with many and varied activities to pass the time happily and productively!

There's something here for the holidays, different media, clear, detailed instructions, illustrations, a color wheel and an index!

THIS BOOK IS GREAT! Turn free time into happy time -- I guarantee you'll find tons of stuff that you and your kids will love to make and keep as treasured keepsakes. The best part is that wonderful feeling of pride and accomplishment that even very young children can have from completing a project.

Very highly recommended!

Exactly what the editorial review and all the reviewers said, bottom line: this book is absolutely amazing. I get most of my material from dollar store or everyday home item. Pictures are vivid and clear even my kids understand what is going on (3 and 4 years old). I'm a very neat, tidy person and these ideas are not messy at all. My kids can do most of these activities

I love this book! I am not a crafty person at all but my kids like to do it. There are so many easy crafts with things you should have around the house. Plus most of them don't make a huge mess!

My son needed this book for school and we received in time for school. Great service!

This book is an amazing edition to any library and is great for studying how to live a healthier life. i used this book in my health class and when i finished the class i felt like i understood the class better then my friends who taken the class with another book. this seller is also very reliable, i have bought many things from Neobuller and have recived nothing but quality service and products.

Recently our school has been reviewing many text books for yournew health class. Our school is in an Urban district with many Englishas a Second Language students, so the problem that we found is that the challenge becomes the reading not the information. With the this text the reading level is low compared to the information presented. We were amazed at the supporting resources avalible. The book is very interactive with many options for labs and home activities. Our school has choosen this text to be implemented in our curriculum for the 2000-01 school year.

This book is only masquerading as a textbook -- it is a propaganda tool for those who want to stick their heads in the sand and not talk honestly about contraception. Check the index for yourself -- "birth control" and "contraception" are NOT EVEN LISTED. The section on AIDS does NOT MENTION condom use. It is appalling that in this day and age a textbook to be used in health class can leave out science, truth, and a well-rounded discussion of responsible use of contraceptives. This book deserves far less than 1 star.

I am a 7th grade student and we use this book for health class. Most of my friends and I think that the lessons don't make sense. We did the chapter on emotional health this week. I had to ask my mom who is a counselor to explain the lesson and even she had difficulty understanding what they were trying to say. This is a very confusing book. We were going to buy the book so we could work on the lessons at home but it costs too much.

This is one of the best home discipleship books written. Get your children and family grounded in Truth as soon as possible! It is your job and responcibility, not the church's.

This book is an excellent resource for doing daily family devotions. It devotes a week to each question of the Shorter Catechism, using each day (less Sunday) to focus a particular aspect of the question. I've found that it's an easy way for kids to understand the fundamentals of the faith (even my 5-year-old understands it!).

The caveat is that, as another reviewer mentioned, one of the Catechism questions teaches infant baptism. I'm not sure how we'll handle that when we get to it (it's towards the end of the book). We might still go through it but use the Scriptures to explain how infant baptism is not sufficient for cleansing sins and how baptism is the New Testament always involved adults (Gospels, Acts).

The rest of the book is tremendous. If you can handle the section on infant baptism, you'll find the rest of the book to be very valuable in helping your kids to develop a biblical worldview. It's not just important to know WHAT to believe but WHY they believe it so that they be discerning in life.

Just a note to say that this book is a Presbyterian catechism, not a Baptist one. The main difference I see is that of baptism and the Lord's supper being "effective for salvation." That, and it teaches that infants should be baptized. I don't want to start a discussion of the merits of one view over another. I just wanted to point out the differences to those who may be considering buying the book. I wish I would have known this before I bought the book.

I am considering purchasing:

http://www.amazon.com/Scriptural-Exposition-Baptist-Catechism/dp/1599250527/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/104-6073377-0082326

I do daily devotions with my kids and it can be hard to find a resource useful for both a 5 yr old boy and 11 yr old girl. This book works perfectly. Rock solid theology with pleasant discussion material. It does move along slowly (37 weeks alone on the specifics of the 10 Commandments) but it can be done in 15 minutes a day. If you are new at devotions or just want solid teaching instead of feel-good fluff I strongly recommend this book. Best for ages 3 to 15 but new Christians of any age could get a good basic education with this daily devotional.

I highly recommend "Training Hearts, Teaching Minds" by Starr Meade for anyone who has a family, or is in any way involved in the Biblical training of anyone, of any age, no matter how long they've been born again. As a church planting Pastor this is a book that I recommend that all of my congregation get, read, and apply to their daily lives and personal / family devotions. It will continue to reinforce the basics of the Christian life and take you continually deeper into the depths of God's Word. This is the first, but certainly not the last, thing I will be reading and recommending by Starr Meade; I will continue to praise Jesus for this book!

Philemon 25 to you and your family,

Pastor Tim Camp

The book is just awsome. It answered many of my questions! I highly recomend it to all!

I use the items in this book as bellringer activities. I had to retype them though because of the strange fonts used. I found my students couldn't read them. The activities would be great test prep also.

I used this book during the latter half of the school year, and wished that I had started sooner. The glossary of terms is so easy to use, and students can refer to it immediately without having that lost look on their faces.
It's a great class starter for that punch of grammar without it looking like those boring grammar drills we went through in school.
The material is very relevant to teenagers, and the sample work is written by students themselves which gives my students more confidence to write.
I plan on using this at the beginning of the year, and carrying on throughout the year.
Highly recommended if you're floundering over those class starters.

This book has interesting writing models to use with students followed by a variety of thought provoking questions that range from grammar and style choices to craft lessons. There is so much to choose from that I will need time to sort through it all before I can make the best use of this book. It's great to finally find a resource that will stimulate older students.

This book is NOT a book of complete lesson plans, as I thought it was; I was thrown into teaching a new class and curriculum this year, and thought it might be helpful. I don't want to knock the book too much, because the activities are cute, short, and to the point. But the title "180 Daily Lessons" isn't necessarily what you think it might be; even an average middle school class will probably knock off these activities in less than half an hour, and if you teach a double block, this is nowhere near a full lesson. Forewarned is forearmed.

I have just begun to use this book with my middle school classes. So far, so good. Unlike many workbooks I have bought sight unseen, this one has many pages which can be reproduced as is. I made a packet for my writers using the first five pages of the book which named and gave examples (mostly understood and enjoyed) of techniques such as the "Magic 3," and "Full-Circle Ending" as well as imagery, humor, etc. The book is well-aligned with the 6-Traits method.
The type of printing used on the examples is a little hard to see, but it did not pose a major problem. I also got her "Portfolio" book, as I was that impressed.

I needed this book for a master's class I am taking. It came and was everything I expected. It came quickly and in good condition. I was a little perterbed by the cost of this book in relation to it's size. A little book at a big price.

Differentiated Instructional Strategies: One Size Doesn't Fit All by educators and education specialists Gayle H. Gregory and Carolyn Chapman is an informative, "user friendly" guide specially written for classroom teachers, in order to introduce them to the method of differentiated instruction that involves carefully adapting curriculum and instructional approaches to the specific and individual learning needs of each student in the diverse classroom of a plural society. Individual chapters address the importance of creating a climate conducive to learning, effective curriculum approaches, assessing one's students and much more. A practical, persuasive, and useful guide, Differentiated Instructional Strategies is highly recommended reading for classroom educators and a seminal contribution to Teacher Education supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.

this book had a lot of information, but nothing that required an entire book to cover. there were a lot of "methods" and ideas to incorporate in the classroom, but the organization of the book made it cumbersome to follow the examples. If you are the type of learner who appreciates a ton of examples this would be a great reference.

Differentiated Instructional Strategies: One Size Doesn't Fit All by Gayle Gregory, and Carolyn Chapman is great tool to compliment any teacher's personal resource library. As a novice to teaching and classroom instruction, I found this book to be very enlightening. The discussion of standards based classrooms, student expectations, multicultural & student diversity, cognitive variation, as well as societal and technological change is threaded though this book. This book defines a simple educational philosophy that success for any teacher is through assessment, effective planning, and effective strategical implementation to measure student performance. Today's classroom demands ongoing cirriculum development and adaptation to classroom instuction through best practices. The techniques in this book outlines a learner's needs, creating a receptive climate for learning, assessment, as well as various innovative strategies for cirriculum success.

Differentiated Instructional Strategies: One Size Doesn't Fit All by Gayle Gregory, and Carolyn Chapman is great tool to compliment any teacher's personal resource library. As a novice to teaching and classroom instruction, I found this book to be very enlightening. The discussion of standards based classrooms, student expectations, multicultural & student diversity, cognitive variation, as well as societal and technological change is threaded though this book. This book defines a simple educational philosophy that success for any teacher is through assessment, effective planning, and effective strategical implementation to measure student performance. Today's classroom demands ongoing cirriculum development and adaptation to classroom instuction through best practices. The techniques in this book outlines a learner's needs, creating a receptive climate for learning, assessment, as well as various innovative strategies for cirriculum success.

Something told me I should've saved this book for retirement. Joel Spring paints a rather disturbing picture of American education by asking the often overlooked question, Who controls our schools? (hint: not classroom teachers) According to him, it's not necessarily school administrators or superintendents--it's special interest groups. Past efforts to take schools out of politics have ultimately failed because behind every bureaucrat in the public school system is a long trail of puppeteers that ultimately leads back to corporate powerhouses. Spring has obviously read across disciplines, and although he makes his liberal bias very transparent, he renders a very compelling argument.

One of his more interesting claims lies in his critique of site-based management (SBM) as an ostensibly democratic reform model that instead reflects the conservative power structures of hierarchy in local, state, and federal policymaking. "Management" is a essentially an Orwellian term, and the function it actually serves is to devolve a very rigid package of curriculum and instruction to teachers, students, and community members. In this sense, there is nothing "local" about local control. Spring argues that if these street-level bureaucrats were actually given the freedom to negotiate the distribution of specific kinds of knowledge, then the practice of SBM would actually reflect the rhetoric it has been built upon.

Reading this book has revealed rather poignantly the minimal amount of control certain policy figures actually have in negotiating the distribution of knowledge within schools. Aside from addressing the political economy of textbook publishing and the test-producing industry, Spring also dissects the processes involved in the federalist system of policymaking. I, personally, never realized how weak our superintendents can tend to be, especially in factional communities, as they often teeter-totter between attempting to appease various board members/powerful interest groups and maintaining tenure in office. Spring does not shortchange readers on vivid examples that help bring clarity to his description of the complex policy matrix; especially enjoyable was the reference to a superintendent who "could barley light a cigarette at board meetings and was rapidly developing ulcers" (p. 144). More importantly, he is consistently cautious in stressing the fluidity in many of the models he uses in his analysis: In this particular case, he warns that the political power of educational bureaucracies and teachers' unions often tempers the effect of community power structures.

It's amazing to realize how the practice of using schools as political battlefields simply goes back to the fundamental divide between social reconstructionists and administrative progressives (Spring draws heavily from Tyack's The One Best System, which I will be reading in a few weeks). Spring argues that the former group sees the eradication of poverty being contingent upon educating "active citizens" who will work to change the unequal distribution of resources in society. The latter group, which is generally composed of business leaders, argues that poverty can be eliminated by "giving the children of the poor an education that will help them to fit into existing economic and political relationships" (p. 34). The emphasis is on active versus passive citizenship--according to Spring--which sets up his parting shot, namely, that democratic, majoritarian control of public schools is inherently repressive of minority groups, and therefore contains "the seeds of destruction of a democratic society" (p. 196). This breeds some interesting questions: What is democracy? Does democracy naturally "eat itself alive," or do market forces contribute to its distortion?

After reading Spring, I am tempted to admit that we live in a society that is closer to an oligarchy than a true democracy.

The author is the son of a full-blooded American from the Choctaw nation and earned his PhD at the Univ of Wisconsin where he imbibed Progressive perspectives on political conflict. His resulting keen eye for mapping out the various factions in competition for control of state schooling is commendable.

The survival instincts of educational bureaucrats lead them to go to great lengths to frustrate, thwart, and defeat any faction trying to reduce their power over their turf. The teacher unions fight to push education policies reflecting their economic interests, politicians work to impose their ideologies on the district curriculi, and taxpayers fight for fiscal responsiblity. The result is that parents have virtually no control over what happens to their children in state schools that they are forced to pay for. No matter who wins, the losers continue to be education and students caught in the middle.

The solution seems to lie in the area of independent alternatives free of the choking effect of government, although Joel Spring has not taken a good look at what is going on in alterntive and independent schooling. Remaining wedded to his Progressive perspective, he still clings to the idea that somehow government can be the solution when in reality it is government that is the problem. He believes that state schooling performs poorly because there needs to be MORE government, not less. He envisions a "fourth branch" of the federal government, which would be state schooling. His unfamiliarity with Britain, where the "fouth branch" was the government's Church of England and the government's network of state schools established during the mid-1800s, no doubt makes it easier for him to advocate reforms for a system that continually fails to satisfy consumers.

His proposals for state schooling reforms will not work and therefore keep this book from receiving a "5" rating from this review, which otherwise would have been deserved because of the author's ability to identify the various competing factions from the local, state, and national levels and the debilitating effects their fighting has on education.

Parts of this book are interesting, but the same topics are covered better elsewhere by Spring and others. This seems like a tame, watered-down version of some of the ideas that are currently being discussed in education... a textbook for teacher ed students, whom the teacher ed universities don't want to shock too much. Spring's earlier work is more exciting.

Instead of this book check out "The Right to Learn," by Linda Darling-Hammond. It's better documented, more passionate, more complete, and more interesting. Also check out Spring's work "The Cultural Transformation of a Native American Family and its Tribe."