This field book shows educators how to develop group culture, enhance facilitators' skills, and optimize the group's most precious resource - its members. The authors describe how to form working committees, task forces, grade-level, and department teams, and faculties that are more effective and better equipped to resolve complex issues around student learning.

How great groups make great schools Training leaders how to conduct effective meetings is important, but it′s not enough to ensure that the professional development process is valuable. This field book shows educators how to develop group culture, enhance facilitators′ skills, and optimize the group′s most precious resource—its members. The authors describe how to form working committees, task forces, grade-level, and department teams, and faculties that are more effective and better equipped to resolve complex issues around student learning. Specific topics include Understanding eight principles that underlie effective groups Learning the five standards for effective meetings Setting clear goals and roles Practicing new ways of talking for improved collaboration Examining perceptions and mental models Enhancing energy sources Working with conflict Developing basic facilitation skills This practical guide′s special features include the newly updated seven norms of collaboration, a sample team assessment survey, instruments for assessing meeting effectiveness, an extensive bibliography, and practical examples embedded throughout the text. Practitioners will find a valuable road map for leading effective, student-focused school improvement efforts.

This field book shows educators how to improve schools by developing group culture, enhancing facilitators' skills, and equipping groups to resolve complex issues around student learning.

Renew your teaching and your passion with this updated bestseller! When the teaching life gets tough, reflective practice reenergizes you—counteracting the effects of professional isolation and instilling a sense of meaning, renewal, and empowerment that benefits you, your colleagues, and your students. This bestselling book offers research-based ideas and strategies for using reflective practice individually, with others, and even schoolwide. Features of the newest edition include: Updated strategies for engaging adults and students and using reflective practices to create equitable outcomes New examples of reflective practice in action A new chapter on the core leadership practices for growing reflective practice A new companion website with resources and reflection protocols

The complete guide to getting the most out of every gathering of educators! Prevent meetings from descending into aimless rambling or counterproductive conflicts that end up wasting everybody's valuable time. This resource gives you a playbook to help anyone confidently lead group discussions so that problems get solved, not created. The authors, both veteran educators and experts in group dynamics, detail: How to prepare yourself to facilitate the discussion and keep it on task Best practices for squashing conflict without wounding pride Methods for dealing with “interrupters,” “subject-changers,” disputes, personal attacks, and other time-waster events

During the past quarter century, conceptions of leadership have evolved in concert with breakthrough discoveries in science and generative learning. Liberating Leadership Capacity captures these new ideas through the integration of the authors’ earlier works in constructivist leadership and leadership capacity. What emerges is a pathway through which educators can become the primary designers of their own learning and that of their students, thus creating sustainable systems of high leadership capacity. This vision of leadership reframes professional learning designs and knowledge creation, describing how these ideas are richly manifested in local, national, and international programs. The context is democratic communities; the learning is constructivist; the leadership is shared. The result is wise schools, organizations, and societies. Liberating Leadership Capacity speaks to all adult learners who are engaged in educational improvement. Book Features: A new concept of leadership as fostering capacity through the complex, dynamic processes of purposeful, reciprocal learning.Leadership strategies constructed from the values of learning, democracy, equity and diversity.Professional learning designed to involve community members in building leadership capacity. A timely approach for the effective implementation of the Every Child Succeeds Act (S. 1177).An in-depth analysis of the standards movement through the lens of capacity building.An understanding of systemic change as an organic process arising from practice rather than being imposed on practice—approaches that unleash a sense of agency and wisdom. “This book strikes a chord with those who believe that emerging leadership should define the experiences of students and teachers alike.” —Deborah Walker, Collaborative for Teaching and Learning (CTL) “The authors have designed a model that is at once sustainable, distributive, ecological, and transformational.” —Dean Fink, author and consultant “Describes organizational conditions that promote skillful dialogue, continual learning, building trust, and sharing a common vision among members. In such schools teachers become the leaders of learning and students become the leaders of the future.” —Arthur L. Costa, professor emeritus, California State University, Sacramento

What if we could unlock the potential in every child? As it turns out, we can. Apple's iconic cofounder Steve Jobs had a powerful vision for education: employing technology to make an enormous impact on the lives of millions of students. To realize this vision, Jobs tapped John D. Couch, a trusted engineer and executive with a passion for education. Couch believed the real purpose of education was to help children discover their unique potential and empower them to reach beyond their perceived limitations. Today, technology is increasingly integrated into every aspect of our lives, rewiring our homes, our jobs, and even our brains. Most important, it presents an opportunity to rewire education to enrich and strengthen our schools, children, and society In Rewiring Education, Couch shares the professional lessons he's learned during his 50-plus years in education and technology. He takes us behind Apple's major research study, Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT), and its follow-up (ACOT 2), highlighting the powerful effects of the Challenge-Based Learning framework. Going beyond Apple's walls, he also introduces us to some of the most extraordinary parents, educators, and entrepreneurs from around the world who have ignored the failed promises of memorization and, instead, utilize new science-backed methods and technologies that benefit all children, from those who struggle to honor students. Rewiring Education presents a bold vision for the future of education, looking at promising emerging technologies and how we—as parents, teachers, and voters—can ensure children are provided with opportunities and access to the relevant, creative, collaborative, and challenging learning environments they need to succeed.