Take your great idea to the next level with action research

How—and when—can we find time to conduct meaningful action research? Great ideas and thought-provoking questions can only blossom through methodical inquiry. Nancy Fichtman Dana steps in as your action-research coach and leads you on a journey through wonderings to real change in your classroom.

From framing your question to presenting your research, this guide will encourage, challenge, and ultimately lead you through the action research process. Teachers, students, and action-research coaches alike will learn how to:

• Reframe initial wonderings into pointed inquiries
• Creatively analyze both qualitative and quantitative data
• Draw action-research topics out of ordinary discussions with colleagues
• Share findings with others to help them improve as well

With real-life vignettes, self-guided worksheets, and an included DVD, Digging Deeper into Action Research is your go-to guide each time you embark on a new journey toward professional growth.

"This field guide will undoubtedly make a valuable contribution to the larger project of practitioners engaged in the work of reflecting on, studying, and interrogating their own practice in order ultimately to improve the social life of classrooms and the learning opportunities and life chances of children."
—Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education
Boston College

"This is THE book to read for any educator who ever found themselves asking, 'What just happened?!?' If you like finding your own solutions to your teaching problems, this is the key to your freedom and to satisfaction in your teaching career!"
—Mary K. Culver, Associate Clinical Professor
Northern Arizona University

"Makes a distinct contribution to the field and will be a very useful resource for universities and school districts."
—Susan Villani, Senior Program/Research Associate, Learning Innovations
Author, Mentoring and Induction Programs That Support New Principals

"Will improve the training and practice of future school administrators and the learning of students across the country."
—Jim Lentz, Superintendent, Augusta Public Schools, KS

Blend theory with real-world practices to develop and sustain effective leadership!

University preparation programs for educational leaders are continually criticized for lack of connectedness to the real world, while school and district leaders face mounting pressure to adopt the latest research-based best practices. Closing the Leadership Gap demonstrates what happens when universities and districts work together to shape and support superior leadership that harnesses the qualities of excellence in both practice and research. The authors, experts in school-university partnerships for leadership development, help close the gap between academic training and day-to-day issues with a program that incorporates collaborative partnerships between university faculty and inservice administrators.

Filled with lessons learned, school leader voices, and reflections throughout, this book illustrates how to cultivate and sustain ethical, effective leadership. Readers will find:

• Field-tested tools, templates, and forms
• Research-based strategies to apply in any leadership development endeavor
• Performance assessment and documentation methods

This resource is ideal for staff developers, leadership coaches, university preparation programs, and prospective or practicing administrators committed to a strong leadership preparation curriculum that inspires leaders to remain in education and have a lasting, positive impact upon student achievement.

Empowering multilingual learners, families, and teachers

With its emphasis on relationship building as the backdrop for linguistically and culturally sustainable assessment, the bestselling second edition of Assessing Multilingual Learners significantly impacted the field of language education. Applying the groundbreaking assessment “as,” “for,” and “of” learning model to new contexts, this updated third edition offers educators welcoming and encouraging ways to support multilingual learners to succeed in school and beyond.

Through eight thoroughly revised chapters, Dr. Margo Gottlieb ties assessment to teaching and learning to foster agency and empowerment for multilingual learners, families, and teachers. This book envisions assessment as a process integral to and embedded in curriculum and instruction through:

• Assets-based language
• Student-centered activities
• Classroom assessment tools
• Portraits of practice illustrating authentic assessment practices
• References and resources for stimulating discussion
• Deep questioning for thinking through processes, dilemmas, or challenges

Assessing Multilingual Learners explores the realities and possibilities of classroom assessment as a road to inspire multilingual learners, their families, and teachers to reach great heights.

Transform educational systems by zeroing in on what matters.

As schools grapple with an array of social, economic, and political challenges, education leaders must hone their focus on important tasks and learn how to navigate bureaucratic constraints, policies, and parental concerns while fostering change. This essential guide proposes that school leaders become "brave and focused," not by abandoning structures or making changes recklessly, but by understanding their influence and maximizing positive change with evidence-based decisions.

Divided into three stages, Focused addresses building a leadership paradigm for outstanding schools, discusses the most influential elements for collective success, and offers solutions to the pitfalls that frequently hinder success. Other features include:

• Illustrative vignettes, practical examples, and stories
• Research-based action steps to become a more focused leader
• Focus points at the close of each chapter to support implementing a new leadership approach

Focused provides a practical guide for school leaders to successfully navigate today's complex educational systems and develop the change-makers, artisans, innovators, inventors, and civic leaders of tomorrow.

Navigate barriers and take actional steps toward equity

The principles of Cultural Proficiency have guided our drive toward equitable schools for decades. Leaders who apply this framework to scrutinize the beliefs and practices that have caused disproportionate harm to children of color and other marginalized students are frequently left with the question: “Now What?”

Using their unique insights and life experiences as Latina superintendents, the authors of Now What? Confronting Uncomfortable Truths About Inequity in Schools present a guide to navigating barriers, managing differences, and creating an actionable equity plan. Readers will find:

• a "What Next" guide for leaders at all levels to leverage Cultural Proficiency
• a Culturally Proficient Leadership Rubric for promoting growth
• an 8-Step Process to help educators gauge status and progress of their equity plan
• a discussion of the impact of COVID-19 on educational transformation, as well as heightened awareness of injustice, including the Black Lives Matter movement and mistreatment of immigrant children and families

Cultural Proficiency begins with us. By focusing on our beliefs and biases, and taking actionable steps, we can become more proficient at eliminating barriers.

Measure what matters for deeper learning

Getting at the heart of what matters for students is key to deeper learning that connects with their lives, but what good is knowing what matters without also understanding how to bring it to life? What does it really take to know who students are, what they are truly learning, and why? 

Measuring Human Return solves this dilemma with a comprehensive, systematic process for measuring deeper learning outcomes. Educators will learn to assess students’ self-understanding, knowledge, competencies, and connections through vignettes, case studies, learning experiences and tools. The book helps readers:

• Develop key system capabilities to build the foundation for sustainable engagement, measurement, and change
• Discover five comprehensive “frames” for measuring deeper learning
• Engage in the process of collaborative inquiry 
• Commit to the central, active role of learners by engaging them as partners in every aspect of their learning 

Discover how to take an authentic, formative, and inquiry-driven approach to measuring the outcomes that drive deeper learning.

Reinvigorating today’s schools with Critical, Creative and Collaborative thinking 

Critical, creative and collaborative thinking should be at the centre of all 21st century teaching and learning. Creating Thinking Classrooms is loaded with examples, stories and strategies for reinvigorating schools with this quality thinking. Written for leaders who support teachers, this guide treats educational change as a process of renovation, rather than process of revolution, and emphasizes building upon, refining and sustaining the many good things happening in today’s schools. Practical and user-friendly, it emphasizes five key principles for learning and teaching:   

• Engaging students
• Sustaining inquiry
• Nurturing self-regulated learners
• Creating assessment-rich learning
• Enhancing learning through digital technology 

As a balanced and reasoned response to the challenges and opportunities facing schools, this book separates the rhetoric of school reform from reality by analyzing what’s actually happening and offering a plan educators can use. Recapture the fundamentals of classroom learning with a practical and powerful roadmap charting the way forward. 

Leadership isn’t just a title

What could you do with a $1 billion budget if you had 100,000+ students and one of the largest school systems in America?  Imagining is his reality. Learn along from Dallas Dance as he shares the successful change efforts he employed to transform Baltimore Public Schools.  

Deliberate Excellence is a true story of success in a challenging school environment that delivers great insight and inspiration. Readers will be moved and changed by three key success principles:

• Establishing equity over equality by providing exactly what individuals need to be successful
• Understanding change, how it happens, and what one needs to make it so
• Knowing people deeply and how that leads to accomplishment and organizational change  
  
  

Be inspired by this passion for progress and the drive to maximize latent potential in all people.

"For 20 years, Dr. Dallas Dance has been an inspiration to me as a leader. He understands that true leaders inspire others to lead, galvanize their audience, and provide practical applications to difficult situations. Regardless of the political climate, Dr. Dance has always kept students first. After reading Deliberate Excellence, educators will take away successful strategies to increase student achievement."
Dr. John B. Gordon III, Chief of Schools
Chesterfield County Public Schools, Chesterfield, VA

"Leaders are desperate for books that offer techniques from educational leaders who still practice and hone their craft from the trenches and a proven record of success. Dallas Dance offers educational leaders a unique, candid, and welcome perspective."
LaQuita Outlaw, Principal – Grades 6-8
Bay Shore Middle School, Bay Shore, NY

Re-evaluate your perspective on teacher evaluation to truly transform school performance!

The tools, strategies, and reflections in this book provide realistic solutions to the problem faced by many schools: meaningless evaluation. A considerable amount of time, energy, and money is spent on the teacher evaluation process, yet the question remains whether it is truly transforming the learning of teachers and, therefore, students.

This practical guide shows how evaluation can become the tie that binds all school improvement activities together to:

• Bring clarity and purpose to all educators making their roles more effective
• Improve teacher practice since they receive better support
• Increase student achievement and overall school culture

"For years, building leaders have been agonizing over teacher evaluations, pouring countless hours into a practice that consistently fails to produce the desired result; more meaningful conversations that produce improved quality instructional practices and increases in student achievement. In his book, Making Evaluation Meaningful, PJ Caposey shares a step by step framework filled with quick & easy to follow “Tips for Tomorrow,” as well as detailed examples to help you shift your mindset and behave yourself to a more effective instructional leader. This book will leave you questioning your own evaluation system while at the same time inspiring you to re-commit the time and resources needed to help grow and develop your teachers."

—Jimmy Casas, Principal and CEO

" PJ Caposey, through a practitioner lens, has developed an incredible guide that not only helps to demystify the evaluation process, but also provide ready-to- use strategies to ensure reflection and growth are the result. In the end evaluation must be meaningful for both parties. This book will help get you there."

—Eric Sheninger, Author/Consultant, Senior Fellow/Thought Leader

"PJ Caposey has developed a great resource on teacher evaluation that actually provides realistic, encouraging, and supportive guidance instead of an arbitrary checklist!"

—Larry Ferlazzo, Teacher, Author and Education Week Teacher advice blogger