Resources and Useful Links
Useful Links
- COE for Research@EastZone (Temasek Junior College) Note: this link requires staging link of temasek jc
- East Zone Beacon
Resources for Loan
For an updated list of resource books, please click here.
Sample Book Synopsis for CoE T&L Website
Key Concepts for Understanding Curriculum
Colin J Marsh
Key Concepts for Understanding Curriculum is an invaluable guide for all involved in curriculum matters. Now fully updated, this revised and enlarged fourth edition provides not only a solid grounding in the subject but also covers the latest trends and issues affecting the field. Written in Marsh’s clear and accessible style, the book details the strengths, weaknesses and controversies around major concepts in curriculum, including
- curriculum planning and development
- curriculum management
- teaching perspectives
- collaborative involvement in curriculum
- curriculum ideology
Now updated with new chapters on curriculum models, school-based curriculum development, learning studies, ICT developments in assessment, the new edition includes extra detail on standards and essential learning factors that have recently been introduced in a number of countries, including the UK, USA and Australia.
This up-to-date edition of a definitive text will be essential reading for anyone involved in curriculum planning or development. It will be especially useful to students training to be teachers, and practicing teachers following professional development programmes.
The Skillful Teacher: Building Your Teaching Skills
Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, Robert Gower
Twenty chapters capture a blend of research and practitioner-developed approaches for using the research in the classroom. Each chapter lays out a known repertoire of strategies to help teachers fulfill a particular kind of mission from the spiritual imperative of communicating high expectations to the abstract challenge of planning lessons.
Review by Stephen Phelps_:
_“Research for Better Teaching has synthesized much of the knowledge base on teaching in one practical and useful manual. At last there is book that does justice to the complexity of great teaching. Jon Saphier and Robert Gower have divided the nuts and bolts of teaching into four areas.
- Management, which includes classroom routines and transitions, discipline, momentum, and getting students’ attention,
- Instruction, which includes clarity, the principles of learning, and models of teaching,
- Motivation, which outlines teacher behaviors that establish high expectations for all, help with relationship building, and the classroom climate,
- Curriculum, which includes objectives, the learning experience, assessment, and curriculum design.
This 598 page book should be a mandatory text for all teacher training courses.”
Quality Questioning: Research-Based Practice to Engage Every Learner
Jackie Acree Walsh and Elizabeth (Beth) Dankert Sattes
Based on two decades of research on teacher effectiveness, the authors offer strategies that engage all students in the teacher’s questions and prompt students to generate their own questions for an enriched learning environment.“Extremely practical in its examples and in its readability. The authors’ style is very reader friendly. I particularly like the questions for reflection at the end of each chapter and the quotes from teachers in the field.”
(Susan Hudson, School Improvement Services)
“Reading this book gave me an ‘a-ha’ moment on almost every other page. I have been using inquiry in my classroom for many years, and I even teach a class to other teachers about using questioning, but this book gave me more practical, research-based techniques to enhance the instruction I am giving. I have not seen a book that addresses using questioning so thoroughly, and gives such simple ideas for implementing the ideas.”
(Patricia Herr, Elementary School Teacher, Virginia)
“A practical guide to help classroom teachers across America enrich instruction with quality classroom questions. The authors provide good examples of probing questions that will engage the student. I have read and reviewed thousands of NAEP questions, in thirteen years as the governing board’s executive director, looking for just such ‘thinking questions’ as are bundled up in this book into a neat package for teachers.”
(Roy Truby, Former Executive Director of the National Assessment Governing Board)
“The authors present a solid framework and then take readers to increasing specificity about what good questioning is and how to use it in the classroom. Clear examples and useful tools are provided throughout to guide use by individual teachers or by teams of teachers in a school.”
(Robert E. Blum, Director, Center for School and District Improvement)
“Without Quality Questioning, we won’t discover all of the good practices we need as teachers of children and youth or as teachers of future teachers. You can find help and answers in Quality Questioning.”
(Mark Musick, President)
Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing It Right-Using It Well
Rick Stiggins, Judith Arter, Jan Chappuis, Steve Chappuis
This combination book and workbook features:
- A user-friendly format with hands-on practice
- Practical examples and expanded information about assessment for learning in everyday instruction
- Accompanying CD-ROM and DVD that contain additional resources and video segments
The concepts, skills, and instructional strategies you need to apply assessment for learning in your classroom.
This core resource in the ATI professional development program in assessment for learning is grounded in research that shows student motivation and learning can improve through the use of student-involved classroom assessment.
Designed for use in collaborative learning teams, this combination book and workbook:
- Helps teachers improve assessment accuracy and quality
- Is user-friendly, with practical examples of what assessment for learning looks like in everyday instruction
- Helps educators increase knowledge and skill in student-involved classroom assessment
- Features hands-on practice for the classroom
- Includes an accompanying CD and DVD that contain additional resources and video segments
The Active Mentor: Practical Strategies for Supporting New Teachers
Ronald (Ron) J Nash
This resource demonstrates how to build effective, active teacher mentoring programs-from helping new teachers implement active classroom principles to creating a schoolwide climate for mentoring.
“This book is for any school developing its own mentoring program or looking to improve an existing one. The program shows everyone how to take responsibility for helping newly hired educators develop into practitioners who continuously reflect on and improve their teaching skills.”
(Kathy Tritz-Rhodes, Principal)
“Ron Nash delivers clear compass points to follow for all those committed to successful new teacher induction programming.”
(Esther Jackson, Dean of Instruction)
“Ron Nash weaves storytelling and realistic dialogue to set the stage for what mentors should model for new teachers to help them gain the confidence they need. This should be required reading for all administrators, mentors, coaches, teachers, and professional developers.”
(From the Foreword by Kay Burke)
21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn
James Bellanca, Ron Brandt
21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn is the fifth book in the Leading Edge™ series. The Leading Edge series unites education authorities from around the globe and asks them to confront the important issues that affect teachers and administrators—the issues that profoundly impact student success. The experts contributing to this anthology do not prescribe one method to transact change. They embrace the mission, trusting that teachers and administrators—the true change leaders—will venture to the Leading Edge to embrace the challenges and opportunities that will guarantee the success of their students.
21st Century Skills examines a daunting challenge today’s educators face: how to equip students with the skills to succeed in the twenty-first century. Many critics oppose the idea of teaching 21st century skills on the grounds that emphasizing skills such as critical thinking and problem solving will erode the teaching of important content.
The contributors to this volume contend that both knowledge and skills are needed, and they are interdependent. The authors of this book know from experience that effective teaching involves having students use skills to acquire knowledge.
21st Century Skills introduces the 21st century skills movement, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. The chapters seek to flesh out the vision established by the Partnership by identifying key issues that contribute to the dialogue. The contributors explore three overarching questions:
- Why are the skills listed in the Framework for 21st Century Learning needed for learning in the future?
- Which skills are most important?
- What can be done to help schools include these skills in their repertoire so that twenty-first century learning results?
Changing the Way You Teach, Improving the Way Students Learn
Giselle Martin-Kniep and Joanne Picone-zocchia
“Two experienced teacher educators describe a framework for effective teaching that can be applied in any subject area and grade level.
Their detailed review of the structures, processes, and content of effective practice provides you with lots of practical tips you can use right away, including how to teach both the depth and the breadth of your curriculum, five types of questions that engage and support student learning, four types of scaffolding techniques that help you create more paths to understanding of new content, and best ways to organize student portfolios so they document and promote student learning.”
The Well-Balanced Teacher: How to Work Smarter and Stay Sane Inside the Classroom and Out
Mike Anderson
You may have heard of the African proverb “Before healing others, heal yourself.” This is true both in medicine and in classrooms – you have to take care of yourself before you can help someone else. If teachers are stressed out and exhausted, how can they have the patience, positive energy, and enthusiasm to provide the best instruction for students?
Author Mike Anderson discovered that teachers need to take care of themselves in five key areas to keep themselves in shape to care for their students. Belonging: Teachers need to feel positive connections with other people, both in school and outside school.
Significance: Teachers want to know that they make a positive difference through the work they do.
Positive engagement: When teachers enjoy their work, they have great energy and passion for their teaching.
Balance: Healthy teachers set boundaries and create routines so that they can have rich lives both in the classrooms and at home.
Anderson devotes a chapter to each of these needs, describing in frank detail his own struggles and offering a multitude of practical tips to help readers find solutions that will work for them. When teachers find ways to take care of their own needs, they will be healthier and happier and will have positive energy and stamina needed to help their students learn and grow into healthy adults.
Comprehensive Curriculum for Gifted Learners
Joyce VanTassel-Baska, Tamra Stambaugh
Comprehensive Curriculum for Gifted Learners provides a theoretical, research-based framework and practical ideas for writing, implementing, and adapting curriculum for gifted learners in a standards-based era. Readers are first introduced to various curriculum theories, the Integrated Curriculum Model, curriculum reform, and a process for curriculum design and development, culminating in examples of key curriculum products.
Specific core subject areas and non-core subject areas (including thinking skills, creativity, leadership, and the arts) are addressed with practical examples and connections to standards with adaptations for gifted learners. At-risk populations, connections to technology, interdisciplinary approaches, assessment options, and instructional and classroom management strategies are also emphasized and discussed in detail.
Finally, leadership and programming options, as well as new directions in curriculum for gifted learners, provide the reader with an overall examination of a comprehensive approach for teaching, adapting, and leading best-practice initiatives in curriculum for gifted learners.
Highlights of the Third Edition:
- Core content sections provide adaptations and connections to national standards.
- Specific attention to at-risk populations of gifted learners including minorities and low-income as well as twice-exceptional gifted is provided throughout the book as relevant to each content area as well as a dedicated chapter specific to accommodating special needs.
- New chapter on technology connections with relevant options for gifted learners.
- New chapter on assessment and evaluation of gifted learners, especially in the age of accountability.
- New or significantly updated graphic organizers, lesson plans, relevant examples, and model curricula.
Guiding questions for discussion at the end of each chapter to elicit discussion and planning for small group readings, college coursework, or individual reflections on learning.
Assessment Balance and Quality: An Action Guide for School Leaders
Rick Stiggins, Carol Commodore, and Steve Chappuis
New from Pearson Assessment Training Institute (ATI), Assessment Balance and Quality: An Action Guide for School Leaders, 3/e, is chock full of practical activities. Designed to enhance understanding of sound assessment practice; administrators gain a clear vision of what excellence in assessment looks like and the seven essential assessment actions schools and districts can take to realize that vision. Also presented are ten assessment competencies for school leaders, with activities and resources to help them learn and apply the skills.
If you wish to loan any book, please download the loan form and fax to us at +65 6344 2316.
You could also email us at ezcoetnl@dhs.sg.
Kindly note that the books are for loan by schools in the East Zone only.