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Educational administrators make a sincere effort to develop a curriculum scope and sequence for students. Yet, with few exceptions, educational administrators make no such effort to develop a similar document for the professional learning of teachers. As a result, teachers often are provided with professional learning activities that lack focus and coherence. The content of Transforming Professionals into Experts: A Systematic and Comprehensive Approach to Mid-Career Teacher Development fills this void. Through clear standards, reflective activities, and differentiated evaluation tools, educational administrators will have everything needed to implement a systematic and comprehensive staff development program for mid-career teachers.

Teacher leadership has many potential benefits for colleagues and students. Unfortunately, due to unsupportive conditions and a lack of professional training, these benefits frequently do not materialize. To succeed teacher leaders require a conducive school culture, supportive school administrators, time to complete responsibilities, appropriate incentives and recognition and feedback designed to improve performance. In addition, highly effective teacher leaders participate in high quality professional learning intended to prepare them to fulfill their roles and responsibilities. This professional development prepares teacher leaders to utilize effective interpersonal skills, diagnose and manage school culture and politics, lead professional growth activities, provide instructional leadership and assist with human resources management. This book provides the reader with both strategies for creating supportive conditions and the knowledge and skills required to meet the challenges of teacher leadership.

Teacher leadership is a challenge. Frequently, those selected to serve as teacher leaders have no formal training and are provided with limited guidance. Yet, teachers expect teacher leaders to have an extensive “toolbox” containing strategies that can be used to improve educator effectiveness. This book is intended to provide teacher leaders with a repertoire of high-quality “tools” they can immediately and effectively use to complete their job responsibilities. More specifically, the reader will be provided with tools and strategies for leading groups and professional learning activities, collecting and analyzing data and student work, and organizing and facilitating mentoring programs and teacher action research projects. The teacher leader that reads this book will have the tools of a “master craftsman”, making them capable of building a better future for teacher and their students.

Millions of novice teachers will be entering classrooms over the next few years. Unfortunately, due to feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and unsuccessfulmany of these teachers will not stay in education. If we are to succeed in staffing our schools with effective teachers, educational leaders must do a better job of supporting these teachers early in their careers. One form of support we can improve is the teacher induction process. In combination with the book From First Year to First Rate, this book provides all of the material necessary to provide a comprehensive, systematic multi-year teacher induction program. Through reflective activities, teachers that participate in this program will establish proficiency with classroom management, professionalism, assessment and instruction.

Administrators often assume new teachers come prepared with the foundational skills required to be effective teachers. Not only is this frequently a false assumption, but some of these skills do also not fully make sense until a teacher has responsibility for a classroom. To assist in the transition process, many teachers will attend orientation and be assigned a mentor. However, they will not receive professional development designed to establish the foundational skills of classroom management, direct instruction, classroom assessment and professionalism. These are the bedrock skills necessary for both short and long-term success as a professional educator. Through concise, research-based explanations and practical application activities, this book is designed to fill this void. Whether it is read alone, in concert with a mentor, or as part of a systematic district induction program, teachers that master the content of this text will become effective with their students.

Building upon a solid foundation of classroom management, direct instruction and classroom assessment, teachers in the early professional stage of their teaching career need to learn how to engage students in deeper learning experiences. Two research-based strategies for accomplishing deeper student learning are various types of classroom discussions and complex learning tasks. This book provides the research-based strategies teachers need to successfully implement these learning activities. Teachers that master these strategies will increase both the critical thinking skills and content knowledge of their students.

The superintendent position is important to the overall quality of a school system. Staff would have difficulty succeeding without the support of an effective and efficient system. It is also potentially rewarding. There is great satisfaction in knowing that something you did had a major impact on the quality of education provided to children. You can change the future, but it comes at a cost. The superintendent position is difficult. In addition to all of the technical skills and knowledge required, doing this job well requires strength of character, mental toughness, and a high level of self-awareness. You must know who you are and what you believe in. Not only that, you must have the fortitude to represent those beliefs in the face of crises and adversity. These are not the topics taught in most graduate school education coursework. Through sharing of “ten truths” the author fills this void. More specifically, readers will learn the realities of being a school superintendent and practical suggestions for navigating the difficulties inherent in the role.

Collaborative teaching has the potential to improve the performance of both students and teachers. However, this method is not regularly capitalized in many schools because teachers who are assigned to co-teach often lack task-specific knowledge and skills to better prepare them. Fortunately these skills can be learned. In addition to establishing a solid foundation of teamwork skills, Teaching for Results will explain how to use the structure of co-teaching to practically and effectively implement differentiated instruction in their classrooms. This essential guide will demonstrate to readers how to use best practices in differentiated instruction in order to effectively co-manage, co-assess, co-plan, and co-instruct a diverse group of learners in any general education classroom.

Negotiating is both an art and a science that requires specific knowledge and skills. Few school administrator preparation programs provide training in negotiating skills. As a result, when faced with the need to negotiate, most school administrators rely on the negotiating skills they have learned from other life experiences. While these strategies may work well when attempting to purchase a car, such skills often leave Individualized Education Plan meeting participants feeling dissatisfied, worn out, and alienated. This book prepares school administrators to successfully negotiate complex deals between parents and school personnel. Clear step-by-step guidelines for preparing and leading these types of meetings are described.

The first year of a new leader's tenure is a critical time period. If an administrator begins their position by taking certain actions while avoiding others, he or she will get off to a positive start. This positive start leads to momentum and an increased probability of success. In this book, an experienced school administrator provides practical, research-based, guidance for how to succeed during this critical first year as a new school administrator. It also includes research and practical application strategies for addressing the most important tasks to be accomplished during their first year in a new administrative position.

Characterized by complex challenges and constant change, a school or district hierarchy can prove a difficult setting in which to establish high-performance teamwork. Dynamic Educational Leadership Teams: From Mine to Ours provides school and district level leaders with research-based, practical guidelines that they can use to create high-performing school- and district-level leadership teams. High-performing leadership teams emerge with adherence to Jennings's set of simple behavioral principles, which he teaches through a sequence of interactive activities on subjects ranging from promoting productive conflict to demanding mutual and individual accountability.