Summer is a great time to reset your personal pedagogy to an education-friendly mindset and catch up on what’s been changing in the ed world while you were teaching eight ten hours a day. My Twitter friends gave me great suggestions, but first:
A comment on the selections: I did get more suggestions than I could possibly list so I avoided books that involved politics or hot-button subjects that teachers are divided on and focused on positive and uplifting reading. Yes, there is a lot wrong with education around the world but I wanted a selection of books that would send me — and you — back to teaching in the fall with a can-do attitude for how to accomplish miracles with your next class of students.
Having said that, here’s a granular list of teacher-approved books to keep you busy this summer:
Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times
by Eric C. Sheninger
Digital Leadership defines a strategic mindset and set of behaviors that leverage resources to create a meaningful, transparent, and engaging school culture. It takes into account recent changes such as connectivity, open-source technology, mobile devices, and personalization of learning to dramatically shift how schools have been run for over a century.
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
by Clayton M. Christensen
Selected as one of Business Week’s Best Books on Innovation in 2008, Disrupting Class remains a worthy read. It is filled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and insights into how managed innovation can unleash education. Disrupting Class will open your eyes to new possibilities and evolve your thinking. For more detail, read my review, Disrupting Class.
Ditch That Homework
by Matt Miller and Alice Keeler
In Ditch That Homework, two fresh voices in education philosophy discuss the pros and cons of homework, why teachers assign it, and what life could look like without it. Miller and Keeler share parent and teacher insights and provide data analysis that you can apply to your unique student group. Ultimately, they build a convincing case for ditching or minimizing homework with strategies for improving learning through differentiation and student agency.
A Handbook for Beginning Teachers
by Robert E. MacDonald
Though printed in 1999, this handbook for beginning teachers continues to offer a well-balanced approach to teaching methods bridging both the idealism of teaching and the realism of American schools. It offers strong historical perspectives while introducing current coverage such as the use of technology in the classroom.
How We Think
by John Dewey
Though John Dewey died in 1952, he remains one of the premier educational philosophers whose wide collection of topical education books are included in many (all?) teacher training programs. In How We Think, Dewey shares his views on the teacher’s role in training students to think well. Though written in the early 1900’s, few of the basics have changed in how to encourage thinking, a cornerstone of authentic learning (read this article on Habits of Mind). Explore this book as much to discover one of the influential figures in education reform as for the content.
This book is free online. The link above takes you to Amazon for a free Kindle download.
The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity
by George Couros
In The Innovator’s Mindset, Couros explains how you as an educator can respond to a student’s natural curiosity, feed his/her passion to explore, and shape the way s/he learns. It includes practical suggestions as well as authentic accounts of leaders and learners who are innovating “inside the box.”
The New Yorker Book of Teacher Cartoons
by Robert Mankoff
This is a hilarious compilation of over one hundred pithy cartoons that capture the joy, terror, excitement, anxiety, fun, and bedlam that teachers experience every day. Through the eyes of The New Yorker‘s best-loved cartoonists, educators will learn how to take their profession with a “grain of salt and three grains of aspirin”. Keep this in your bottom desk drawer for those days when you wonder if it’s time to light your hair on fire.
The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined
by Salman Khan
The mastermind behind Khan Academy who single-handedly (almost) brought free high-quality education to anyone with an Internet connection, Salman Khan’s The One World Schoolhouse explains Khan’s vision for equitable education. Discover how millions of students, parents, and teachers use Khan Academy’s free videos in a growing number of classrooms and homeschools around the globe.
Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College
by Doug Lemov
Teach Like a Champion provides effective teaching techniques to help educators become champions in the classroom. These techniques are concrete, specific, and easy to implement immediately. At the end of each chapter are training activities to help the reader reflect on and apply the ideas to their own students.
Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity and Transform Your Life as an Educator
by Dave Burgess
Teach Like a Pirate encourages teachers to reinvigorate their classes by tapping into their passion for teaching, their personal well of creativity, and the energy that originally drove them to become teachers. This book includes practical techniques and innovative ideas as well as over thirty hooks and 170 brainstorming questions. You will turn the last page ready to innovate in ways that will increase student engagement and transform your life as an educator.
Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning
by John Hattie
Visible Learning for Teachers analyzes fifteen years of education research with the goal of explaining how inspired students learn and how effective educators teach. The author offers concise and user-friendly summaries of the most successful interventions and practical step-by-step guidance to successful implementation.
For more detail, see my review of John Hattie’s Visible Learning philosophy.
The Four O’Clock Faculty
by Rich Czyz
The Four O’Clock Faculty identifies ways to make professional development (PD) meaningful, efficient, and, personally relevant by explaining why some PD is awful and what you can do to change that.
Five Minds for the Future
by Howard Gardner
In Five Minds for the Future, bestselling author Howard Gardner, author of The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, shows how we each must master “five minds”: the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind.
Howard Gardner, aside from or because of his seminal research in multiple intelligences, has been cited by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the one hundred most influential public intellectuals in the world.
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Pick one or more of these oft-discussed books, be it pedagogy or hands-on experiences, overarching or specific applications. Or read them all. You will come away feeling informed and current on the best thinking in the education field.
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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
