Education Teaching Books

"Suzanne H. Chapin is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Boston University in Massachusetts.
Her work includes research in the areas of gifted education, curriculum design, and teacher professional development in mathematics.
She is a coauthor of Classroom Discussions: Using Math Talk to Help Students Learn, Grades 1-6 (Math Solutions Publications, 2003)."

"Art Johnson is an award-winning educator who has taught for more than thirty years.
During that time he has taught at the middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels.
He has been named Teacher of the Year for New Hampshire and has received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching."

"..... No matter what instructional program is being used, MATH MATTERS IS AN ESSENTIAL AND ACCESSIBLE book that serves all who teach or are about to teach K-8 mathematics---experienced instructors as well as those just starting out."
[from the book of the back cover]

Conceptual, rather than procedural teaching of math--that is what this book tries to encourage. Although elementary math teachers can often (but not always) find the right answers for math problems, they overwhelmingly are ignorant as to WHY they follow steps spelled out in the procedure they learned so long ago. A teacher who does not know why cannot teach why. This makes for students floating in a permanent math fog. This book tries to fill the gap by laying out math basics--the mathematical principles behind the steps. I am a bit disappointed that no mention is made of the identity properties, but all in all, this book does a good, if sterile job. If you want to get EXCITED about understanding elementary math, you need to read Liping Ma's Knowing and Teaching Elementary Math.

After reading the reviews given to this book, it is obvious to me who are the ones who were told to read the book and who are the ones who were asked to read it as well as offered support with the content. It is just like our students. If we just say "read the book", how engaging is that? If we are given the support to utilize the theory, the book makes much more sense. So, I can understand both ways of seeing the book. I, fortunately, am in a district where we were asked to look into this program (which is really what Working on the Work is) and decide if we would like to use it, as a district. We first, though, were given the opportunity to attend a conference where the presenter was from the Schlechty school. This was where the "practicality" came from. The reviewers are correct in that the book does not give those practical, concrete examples and studies we, as teachers, crave for our own learning. But, that is exactly the point of the program. How can we make our tasks as engaging as we are? The standards at the back of the book are going to be the most useful for teachers. Those are how you structure a lesson to be most engaging. So, I highly recommend that if you get this book that you pair it with some kind of support or research, so that the practical part can be understood along with the theory.

The thesis of the author, offer students work that is meaningful and engaging, is a paradigm shift. The usual way of improving students' experience in the classroom is to offer professional development seminars to teachers so that they might become better educators. However, Schlechty shifts the focus away from improving instruction to working on the work that we require students to do.

I thought the book was convincing of its proposal and an approach that educators need to work on. My only disappointment with the book is that the author did not offer any examples of what "engaging" work might look like. Educators often are bombarded with "theory" and little "practical" examples - which would have been great to have in an Appendix. It is in the "practical" that the book is lacking. Yet, it is a great read and a revolutionary approach.

Anyone with educational experience knows that good teachers try to make lessons engaging and meaningful. All this program does (if your district uses it) is create more work for educators with no real support or help, just a lot of demands in time and paper work. If you don't or didn't share and get help from your colleges before this program shame on you! How did you get through your Collage of Education? Anyone with business experience knows this is just a great example of marketing; it plays on the notion of helping and lets administrators look like they have a plan to the public. If your district administrators needed this program they should have resigned their positions. After a few years of experience you should not have to invest the kind of money and resources this program requires. Who is making the money? Who gets the kick backs? Not the classroom teacher who works longer hours than paid for already. Don't fall for the hype; this is just the latest educational reform gimmick. Making someone rich? Mark Twain had it figured out when it came to school boards. Look it up.

This is the sort of book school administrators love and teachers hate. It's long on vague, lofty sounding goals and absolutely no specifics to help teachers get there. What teacher wouldn't want to be more engaging? Who wouldn't want to inspire their students? Simply stating "be more engaging" doesn't get a teacher there any more than the teacher telling their student to "be smarter". But admin types love Schlechty's program. It puts the burden on the teacher to "work smarter, not harder...", "work the work" and "be more engaging and entertaining", and absolves students, parents and administrators from any responsibility for student improvement.

I'd like to see specifics. And I'd like to see specific approaches backed up by hard research that will tell me the approach works. I haven't seen that yet, not in this book or any of the other 1,000 wunderkinds that run around the educational establishment spouting the latest miracle makeover.

But I'm an optimist. I'm still looking for any information that will help me become a better teacher, information that's backed by experience and hard, objective research showing measurable results. I didn't see it here....

Schlechty's Shaking Up the Schoolhouse is the parent to Working on the Work. Both books make the effort to provide information and put forth a different perspective. It's disheartening to read the reactionary comments from educators who are familiar with Schlechty and the WOW book. When is the blame shifting going to stop? How long will teachers focus on all the things they cannot control instead of on the things they can? Nothing gives a teacher more freedom by administrators than success. By shifting our focus to what we give our students to work on, we do work smarter, which brings more joy to the passion for kids that led us to teaching. Teaching the same way we always have is why we continue to have a 30% drop out rate at the high school level(and rising). The book does not say that no teachers want to be more engaging. It simply gives a framework for improving the tasks that we assign our students. If you don't like your job, get out! Education has to continue to make the paradigm shifts needed if we are to expect a responsible, informed citizenry. Here are the facts:

-Research tells us that the engagement precedes learning. Without authentic attention and investment, true and deep learning does not occur.
-Research tells us that a variety of tasks and instructional delivery is required to meet the needs of the variety of learners in any given classroom.
-Research tells us that the most effective teachers are those who are risk-takers in the classroom and make great effort to connect personally with their students.
-Research tells us that last year's lessons won't necessarily work with this year's students.

Any job you take will be evaluated, be it education or not. If we, as teachers, do not continue to reflect on the kinds of work we give our students, then we are simply a warm body in the classroom. What's the great harm in looking more closely at our lesson design and thinking outside the box? I say this book is an interesting read that can encourage any educator to take stock of what is happening in their classroom. Open your lessons up for some reflection and criticism. That's the only way we can grow as educators.

I bought this book to help my 15-month-old have fun on days it was too rainy or cold to go outside. He gets so bored and fussy when he can't go outside. It is most helpful for my Nanny, who doesn't have a car to take him to an indoor play space. There are a lot of useful suggestions and I like the way the book is organized

I think this would be a good book for teachers or day care workers. A lot of the activities in this book I've been doing with my daughter already, or would only work with materials that a day care or pre-school would have on hand.

When I first got this book I was bit disappointed since the activities look so simple that ANYONE could've thought them up.
the thing is that as time passes you find yourself doing the same activities and realize you need to freshen up your lesson plans.
This book is great because it does just that. Gives you great ideas and reminds you the infants & toddlers require different things when learning.
I love the way this book is set up and separated by area of interest (fine motor, gross motor, discovery, etc.) and then by age (infant, young toddlers, older toddlers)
A MUST HAVE!

This does say "For teachers, by teachers" on the cover so it isn't surprising most of the ideas are more suited for classroom settings. If you like to have a lot of resources as a parent, it's nice. For a teacher, it would be more useful.

I am a preschool teacher who has taught kindergarten and 4 yr olds. Having been asked to take a new job with 2 and 3 yr olds was a lot more difficult than I thought! With all the choking hazzards and lack of fine motor skills, it's hard to plan lessons. This book gives some excellent activity ideas. I loved it. My only negative thought is that the book doesn't really follow "themes", which almost all schools use these days. Still it's a great buy!

I bought this a long time ago for a class I was taking to complete my credential as I recall and it was a decent read.

One book of the order did not have all accessories and the other book of the order was never received.

Pearson Prentice Hall is like Luther Vandross, U2, and Stevie Wonder. They produce excellence so consistently so often that it gets kinda boring...lol.

I've run out of cliches for Pearson. Just know that you need any other Special Education book if you just want the overall basics. Everyone, this book is super dense for about 600 pages!

The most resiliant reason Pearson is THE best: they are superb for preparing for PRAXIS tests. This book has a comprehensive alignment between PRAXIS Standards, INTASC Principles, and CEC Standards.

I'm speechless.

This book has a wealth of information for students working on a special education degree. The textbook has easy to read print. There are lots of extras within each chapter.

I have reflected on this book for many years in my reasearch for special education training. The frameworks have been an asset in getting the framework for teaching and sharing with colleagues ways to model research based practices for exceptional learners in any school environment. The author's are well-known in the reserach community."I reflect on this book often for answers!" Carol Swindell,EdS, Inclusvie Special Education Teacher and Doctoral Student.

The Praxis II is an intimidating exam. It is more difficult than the study guides let on; however, this book offers a reasonable overview. I would use it as a place to start, but NOT exclusively. Start with one of the many study guides out there (borrow one from the library for free) then move on to finding a good overview book in each catagory...geography, poli sci. etc. The study guide tests (this and other praxis II study guides) also serve as a way to test which areas need additional review. Good luck!!

I recently took the Praxis II Secondary Social Studies test in late April of 2008, and found this study guide to be of central importance to my ability to go into the test feeling like I had done as much meaningful prep as was possible given the time I had to study.

In the month prior to taking the test, I did some online research (including reading these reviews about THIS study guide), and came away not particularly impressed that I would need the guide. I bought several books and created study regimens for myself on world and us history, psychology, economics, geography etc. that are included in the test. However, after nearly 3 weeks of studying, I realized that the spectrum of possible subject topics was just too overwhelming, and that I needed help to refine what I was going to spend my time on. This particular subject test covers so much stuff, why would you leave it to your own assumptions or guesswork which topics, prominent figures, or general ideas you would look to learn rather than get a simple, comprehensive list of what you should study. I found, for instance, in the psychology/sociology section, I simply researched every person or idea they had listed through google and wikipedia - and I scored a perfect 13 our of 13 on that particular section. Had I not had that list, I would have likely studied twice as much for not as much return on my studying investment. Moreover, the study guide included some rather specific ideas that in my B.A. and M.A. of political science would not have thought to include in my study of psychology - I consider that valuable information.

Having said that, this is not a comprehensive study guide. You will get general ideas and names that you are left to go gather info on. It is just as easy to google a name and search wikipedia than it is to read it from in a book. I think people are somewhat misguided to expect ETS to literally hand them a complete answer sheet to the test they need to make an effort to learn the information for in order to pass.

That is what this study guide is for - to help you prevent studying things that are not going to be on the test - and help you concentrate your efforts on the areas that are included to help you score better. In that regard, I am 100% satisfied that I purchased this study guide.

If you're like me, you are going into teaching to do as good as you can. So you can be a stingy know-it-all and save your $20, but I think the time and effort this guide will save you is well worth the money, and difficult to think of doing without.

I totally agree with you, as do many others. It is a very hard test that should be looked at by ETS and reviewed by the board. I wonder what the statistics are on the pass/fail rate on that test and what the average score is on the test. Buying this study guide will not help you, it is just another money making way for ETS. I had to take the test and the best way to study is to buy class room books and read through them. That is the only true way to passing this test, or getting lucky.

Works great, however... it's very general knowledge stuff- it basically could have said, when you're studying make sure you know everything. The practice test was nice because it was really long and gave me an idea of what the test would be like, and the test was very close to identical to the practice test. (Different questions, but exact same style)

If you are going to take the Praxis test it is because you have experience in the given subject. As such, do not buy this study guide. Its things to study are extremely broad and do not give any specific information. For example: Chapter 6, "Political Theory" Things to Study- Political theory and major theorists such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Marx, and Lenin. I was hoping for some more specific information than a prompt to return to my college textbooks and notes. As part of the test on politics, one could easily imagine the key names to know... thus thanks for the obvious. If this limited information will suffice, shell out the $20. Otherwise, save it to pay for the huge fee Praxis charges for their tests.

AS a special ed inclusion teacher I need to find "extra" or "different" work than what the general ed teacher provides and this workbook has been perfect!

OKAY so this is a good workbook for fourth grade basic math. I am not sure that you could consider it a stand a lone book for home schooling as I use it with several other books, but I find the pages helpful and colorful.

Very useful tool in assisting students with Asperger's syndrome to learn about and develop control over their feelings.

Great for using at home with kids up to elementary school. I gave it as a gift and it was extremely useful. Gives examples of what might be causing the feelings. Gives a standard language for both parents and children to be clear about which feeling is being discussed. The definitions of big, medium and small feelings with discussion of how to keep reactions at a similar level has been a lifesaver for us.

This book is such a good resource for ESL teachers! It is expensive, but I bought it anyway because I knew I would want to keep it on my bookshelf (I could have read it online for a class I was taking). I am an experienced teacher, but there is always room for improvement, and this book is a wonderful source of ideas.