Teaching Books

This is the best book to learn Japanese. It is very helpful...If you want to learn Japanese, you should buy this book.. Thanks amazon for offer it.

I am using the book in conjunction with a class at a local college. The book is proving to be very useful. I received the book in good condition and I am very pleased with it.

Not for the casual tourist who will vacation in Japan. Using this book, you will not learn the necessary phrases for a short trip to Japan. If you want to learn common phrases, do not buy this book. It was designed for serious students of the language.

On that note, it is unbelievable that a text book of this caliber would be Romanized. If you are a serious student, then take this review seriously: learn hiragana immediately. Do not buy this book; buy the kana version of this book, and begin studying hiragana while you are waiting for it to arrive in the mail. If your college forces you to buy the Romanized version (like mine did), do future students a favor by requesting that they switch over to the kana version.

Although my review of this book sounds harsh, do not be mislead. I like the Japanese for Busy People text book series, and, like all serious students of the Japanese language, despise Romanized books. Buy the kana version.

The book was very helpful and I got it in efficient time.

Good Book, good way to get ideeas for writing across to children.

Not only is this book chock full of sound advice, rationale, and examples (a good balance, too!), but Katie Wood Ray is a remarkable author herself and serves as a wonderful model as she writes about teaching writing. I read this book cover to cover during a pretty densely packed quarter at school and have gone back to it again and again as a rich resource.

If you are at all doubtful or confused how to conduct writers workshop with
younger (K and 1) students this book is for you. It outlines how to get started and sustain successful writing throughout the year. Book layout is easy to read (plenty of space in the margins for notes) and there are pictures along the way to clarify and inspire new great ideas in any classroom. A must read if you are in K or 1 for the first time or want to implement a writers workshop.

This is a great book to help k-2 teachers implement writing workshop in the classroom. It offers ideas on how to begin, units of study, and books to incorporate into your mini-lessons. I recommend this book to anyone venturing into the writing workshop approach to teaching writing to young children.

Some books are just fun. You pick them up knowing it will put a smile on your face and you leave it down with that smile on your face.
Oxymoronica (Is this a moronic title?) is one of those books.

It is difficult to write a lengthy review about this book because it would basically entail repeating many of the wonderful quotes which the author has sourced (and he does source and credit them very well.)

The oxymorons range through humor, the human condition, politics, advice and other concepts. I would encourage you to ignore the oxymoronic advice of George Bernard Shaw quoted in this book - "Never take anybody's advice," and read this book.

It is a genuine little gem

less valuable for its editorializing, but priceless for its compilation of puzzling truths about what makes us human. Bravo to the editor for this gem. I bought twenty copies to give as gifts ..there's something revealing for everyone from every generation.

The quotes in this pithy little book are full of wit and wisdom. I have shared many of them with friends and family. It will be worthwhile reading for anyone who cares about words, history and real "rubber-meets-the-road" intelligence.

My mother bought this for me for Christmas one year...she calls me her little oxymoron. She just means that I love witty uses of language...and this book was perfect for me, because it's full of just that! It's split into 14 different chapters, each one showcasing a different type of oxymoron. This was very helpful, because it's easy to flip to whichever section you're in the mood for. This is a great book to set on your coffee table, because it will be a conversations starter at any gathering.

I love how there were oxymorons that make me giggle:
"Be spontaneous." (think about that one!!)

And ones that were just true and thoughtful:
"To lead the people, walk behind them." - Lao-tzu

A great gift for anyone who enjoys the fun of playing with the English language.

This book contains many fine entries by people other than the author, "Dr." Mardy Grothe. Many of them are not `opposite' or `contradictory' enough to fit in, and are less interesting than the ones that do belong.

The problem with the book is the many comments by the author, which at their best are not necessary. His day job evidently involves some sort of counseling. Perhaps this line of work leads him to expect that people require explanations. For whatever reason, he provides his readers, or rather the readers of his selections, with plenty of explanations. He tells us what it is about contradictory statements that makes them contradictory, or whatever else we might need to understand these otherwise entertaining quotations. He even tells us why some of them are funny. Like most people who `explain' what it is about a joke that makes it funny, he's not very funny, and neither is the joke when he is finished with it. No doubt you have heard the term, "firm grasp on the obvious."

Do I dare provide a quote from this mischief? Well, ok. From the Introduction:

Oxymoronica?" [sic] you might be thinking, "What's that?" While you surely know what an oxymoron is, oxymoronica is probably a new word to you. You won't find it in any dictionary (at least not yet) because I came up with it only a few years ago. In coining oxymoronica, I was inspired by words you may know . . . I use the word oxymoronica to describe quotations that contain incompatible or incongruous elements. Many examples of oxymoronica appear illogical or self-contradictory on the surface. But at a deeper level, they usually make a great deal of sense and are often profoundly true.

By leaving out the marginally appropriate quotations and ALL of "Doctor" Grothe's comments, this book could be reduced to half its size, and be considerably improved.

This is an easy way to spare a living subject's life. Being able to "isolate Sniffy" and speed up time during a programed experiment is handy. However, if you've ever experienced working with a real rat, Sniffy may leave you disappointed. It feels like a computer generated set of shaping expectations -because that's what it is. I certainly would have never invested in this product if it hadn't been required for class.

Este programa es lo mejor para ensenar a una rata y asi no estar molestanto a las ratas verdaderas. Es una herraminta fabulosa para ensenar.

As a new mom, I learned a lot information from this book. Not sure if all of the opions are right, but still it is good to know them.

I first read The Absorbant Mind" in 1969, It changed the way I raised my children, how I valued their "work" of being children, and how I now work with the mentally ill. I find myself often reviewing the concept that all people really do the best they can, and that using her respect of others, and her method,of going from concrete to abstract concepts is a useful baseline. Dr. Montessori never wasted words in this book, I had to concentrate on each sentance, or I'd miss something. I thank my sister, a Montessori teacher, for introducing it to me, she is Joanna Taylor, who taught for 3o years in SLC.

This book spells out Maria Montessori's most salient observations about child development. An absolute 'must read'.
As for the reviewer who bought the school, I'd suggest he sell it and go work in a nursing home.

The Absorbent Mind isn't easy reading, the translation from Italian to English compromises the flow, however, the content is as precious as diamonds. I read it 3 times before I became comfortable with the writing style. The messages in the book are valuable. I'm happy to see that The Absorbent Mind and other Montessori literature are starting to appear on recommended reading lists 'outside the Montessori circle', it is relevant to ALL.

As for the reviewer who bought the Montessori school and changed the name... There is so much more to Montessori than the wonderful materials, without the right staff, those materials will be misused.

I am yet to see another educational philosophy that is as relevant, as respectful and holistic as Montessori.

This is Montessori's last book, and the most in-depth discussion of her theory based on decades of scientific observation of children. It discusses the special mind of the child, and how nurturing the special potentialities that only children have is the only way to change (and save) humanity. Montessori's theories are particularly interesting today in light of recent neurological discoveries, especially those related to critical periods and language.

This is a very dense book, and requires a good deal of concentration and time to read. I would recommmend The Child in the Family as the first book for one wanting an overview of Montessori ideas.

The first part of the book kept repeating itself with regards to what "should be the main goals of online learning"...it felt very repetitive without really offering any useful information. I discovered the source of every lame group project (or group building experiments) my husband has had to do since he began taking online classes at Keller. There were some interesting "get to know you" activities, but a lot of what I read smacked of those very tired and very lame role-playing business seminars I had to put up with when I worked in hotels, which I despised...but this did drive home the importance of creating a community feel among the students, of getting them working together and feeling part of a group. I would recommend it, but with the warning that the book is somewhat repetitive in the first few chapters. I am glad to have it as a reference, but it's certainly not a one stop resource...it should definately be part of a larger body of works to draw from on the subject.

As an online learner and instructor, I found this book informative, and, yes, ENGAGING. I am planning on using the insights and examples in a new project I've been given-- securing the services of teachers that have experience with strictly the conventional classroom models to instruct online. I'm hopeful that resources like this can de-mystify the distance learning models, and eventually help disseminate knowledge widely throughout my mostly-rural state.

This book is what I have been looking for: short, concise and full of practical examples of activities.

I found the book to be very easy and fast to read with lots of concrete examples of activities for the online learner. Though I understand the importance of engaging the online learner, as an instructor in the allied health field I don't feel I have the time or interest in developing games and the types of alternative learning activities suggested in the book. In allied health/science courses we need to cover an extensive amount of material, perhaps if I were teaching a course in another discipline I would feel differently.

I feel that another book "Discussion Based Online Teaching To Enhance Student Learning" by Tisha Bender is a much better book for my situation and offered more helpful ideas (but less examples) to improve my online course.

I found the book to be a good read and had a lot of interesting things to say and good examples of activities for online participants.

The book focuses solely on the online learner, which is good, but if you teach students in a classroom setting and are looking to extend their learning online in the evenings and between classes you need to 'read between the lines' to pull out the pieces that you need (which are many and included in this book).

Leadership Capacity For Lasting School Improvement by Linda Lambert (Professor Emeritus and Founder of the Center for Educational Leadership at California State University - Heyward), brings together real-life experiences and the experience-based wisdom of educators around the world to present and illustrate the five major prerequisites for high leadership capacity, as well as offering in-depth advice on the complex task of leading an education institution. Individual chapters directly address the changing role of the principle, parents as leaders, district leadership, major participation patterns and more, in this excellent and highly informative resource ideal for anyone charged with a role of leadership responsibility in the corridors of academia.

This book is written for practising school leaders. It offers guidance in fine tuning whole-school cultural change, a topic that practitioners have handled intuitively and singularly for ages.

The intellectual modelling that underwrites Lambert's book are the Leadership Capacity Matrices For the readers of my vintage, it is good to see useful variants of Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Theory of Leadership model. Instead of plotting task behaviour against relationship behaviour that Hersey and Blanchard used, Lambert has used degrees of participation and the degree of leadership skill on the axes.

Seeking Quadrant 4.
Clearly quadrant 4 is the outcome that school leaders seek- High on participation and high leadership skill. The pointers are:
1. Principal, teachers, parents and students as skilful leaders.
2. Shared vision resulting in program coherence.
3. Inquiry-based use of data to inform decisions and practice.
4. Broad involvement, collaboration, and collective responsibility reflected in roles and actions.
5. Reflective practice that leads consistently to innovation.
6. High or steadily improving student achievement.

The role of the school leader can often be a lonely task and there is a dearth of material which actually guides school leaders through aspects of change that articulate, finesse and embed intentions.

For me this is a timely and practical book.

I read this book in a college class. Although I am not a teenager, I think that teenagers in the class learned a lot. They learned things such as what to wear, how to spend their money when choosing what to wear, and how culture affect our life style.

As a developmental compostion teacher, I have used this text for several years, and without question, the students have not only praised it, but strongly recommended it for future classes. That kind of praise has never happened to me with any other textbook. Students love the readings--they are lively, challenging, yet very pertinent to real issues and not watered-down versions of those controversies. Additionally, I love the readings because they blend real-life experiences and observations with real in-depth critical analysis, but still, at a level that is both accessible and challenging.

MIRROR ON AMERICA is a text book composed of various essays examining the impact pop culture has upon modern American society. Some of the areas examined include fashion, marketing, television, movies, music, sports, fast food restaurants, theme parks, and the Internet. Various social issues are also examined including gender identity and self-image, race, and ethnic backgrounds. The essays are taken from a wide variety of sources including newspapers, magazines, popular journals, song lyrics, and websites. Most of the writings are quite short, between 2-3 pages, and are easy to understand.

The book is often used in introductory college lit classes as a way of introducing to students how to critically examine their culture and the media. Even though I read the book and found it very easy to read (I finished the entire book in 3 days), I think that it would work well for teaching students who haven't had many critical thinking classes before. I also think it would make a good text to use while teaching a high school media literacy class. Overall, though the book isn't spectacular, it does a decent job at doing what it was designed for.

I considered using this book for the college freshman composition course that I teach. I decided against it, however, because the book lacks depth and the reading level is a bit too low. There are some good sample essays that make for fun out of class reading, but they don't really push the envelope. The study questions are high-school level, and the book is riddled with footnotes defining words that college students should already know. The result is patronizing and distracting. If I use this book, it would be for a class that focuses solely on pop culture and advertising issues, but it would still need to be supplemented with another text, other examples or just a lot of in-class discussion to go beyond the shallow treatments here. Also, many of the "hip" references are already woefully out of date for today's college freshman.

This book was used in my college English Lit. class to help students be more critic of things that they read, whether it be a textbook or a magazine article. Most of the essays in the book have major flaws. The one that I remember the best was written by Dick Clark and was about Elvis Presley. Clark makes the comment that Elvis didn't write his own songs, which is untrue (as blanket statements tend to be). Anyway, Elvis wrote at least 2 hits, one with Vera Matson (Love Me Tender) and another with Otis Blackwell (Don't Be Cruel).

Though many of these essays are poorly written, this is a good textbook for developing with critical reading skills.