Understanding by Design

Understanding by Design
Author: Grant P. Wiggins
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2005
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1416600353

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

Fire Department Strategic Planning, 3rd Edition

Fire Department Strategic Planning, 3rd Edition
Author: Mark Wallace
Publisher: Fire Engineering Books
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-04-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1593705700

From the author: This 3rd edition is about organized common sense in the fire service. Section One provides support to fire departments that already have a strategic plan and just need to update and revise their existing plan. I have found over my 30 years of consulting with fire department’s that they want to accomplish their next iteration of their strategic plan as rapidly as possible. Section Two provides a detailed “How-to” guide to help a fire department create its first strategic plan. Section Two is divided into four parts: (1) Understanding the Department, (2) Understanding the Situation, (3) Understanding the Strategic Issues Facing the Department, and (4) Creating Organizational Change. A new chapter (Chapter 20) provides assistance to those departments having challenges with their strategic plan and obtaining the desired outcomes/results. It adds a new troubleshooting process for those departments having challenges to create an effective and successful strategic plan. The book is designed to be effective as a manual to develop an individual fire department’s strategic plan as well as a textbook for use in upper division college/university courses or as a text for post-graduate courses.

The Art of Gathering

The Art of Gathering
Author: Priya Parker
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1594634939

"Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond. In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Parker takes us inside events of all kinds to show what works, what doesn't, and why. She investigates a wide array of gatherings--conferences, meetings, a courtroom, a flash-mob party, an Arab-Israeli summer camp--and explains how simple, specific changes can invigorate any group experience. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of exciting ideas with real-world applications. The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue--and how you host and attend them.

The Strategic Planning and Deployment Excellence System (SPADES)

The Strategic Planning and Deployment Excellence System (SPADES)
Author: Jack B. ReVelle
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2019-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000759881

The Strategic Planning and Deployment Excellence System (SPADES) provides a path to long-term success in the environment of rapidly changing technology and business systems. It combines the best of Hoshin Kanri, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and other proven management and leadership tools and techniques. This book presents a set of tools and techniques for developing and deploying a long-term plan for achieving sustained success. These concepts ensure graphically tracing the strategic planning process from the foundation of organizational principles to the enterprise vision and to the organization’s long-term goals. The Scientific Method is the foundation upon which the tools and techniques of SPADES are applied. The Scientific Method begins with an observation of a phenomenon which leads to development of a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. The hypothesis is then tested and, based on the analysis of the results, then accepted or adjusted as necessary. The testing may then be repeated to verify conclusions. The Deming-Shewhart Cycle of plan-do-check-act (PDCA) is the application of the Scientific Method for control and continual improvement of processes and products. SPADES is the integrated evolution of the PDCA Cycle and QFD to answer the challenges of how to stay competitive, year after year, in a dynamic environment of rapidly changing customer requirements and technology.

Excellence in Planning and Promotion

Excellence in Planning and Promotion
Author: Trace L. Howard
Publisher: WestBow Press
Total Pages: 75
Release: 2016-11-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1512761958

Today's congregational expectations regarding ministry events and campaigns are viewed through the lens of excellence not only is this an expectation, it is also a requirement if the church intends to maximize those programs in which it has invested precious resources of time and people. A God-given vision for a ministry program, after prayer and vision sharing, begins with planning, and comes to fruition through effective promotion and marketing. In Excellence in Planning and Promotion, Trace Howard has provided churches and their leadership an outstanding resource by reminding readers of the importance of these elements in delivering ministry events and campaigns that make a kingdom difference. The principles of this book are at the same time incredibly simple yet will reap great benefits for church leaders in our day. This book brings helpful and practical insights to the pastor's approach to ministry and event planning that can be utilized in any ministry leadership context.

Teaching for Excellence and Equity

Teaching for Excellence and Equity
Author: Nathan Burroughs
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Education
ISBN: 303016151X

This open access book examines the interrelationship of national policy, teacher effectiveness, and student outcomes with a specific emphasis on educational equity. Using data from the IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) conducted between 1995 and 2015, it investigates grade four and grade eight data to assess trends in key teacher characteristics (experience, education, preparedness, and professional development) and teacher behaviors (instructional time and instructional content), and how these relate to student outcomes. Taking advantage of national curriculum data collected by TIMSS to assess changes in curricular strategy across countries and how these may be related to changes in teacher and student factors, the study focuses on the distributional impact of curriculum and instruction on students, paying particular attention to overall inequalities and variations in socioeconomic status at the student and country level, and how such factors have altered over time. Multiple methods, including regression and fixed effects analyses, and structural equation modelling, establish the evolution of these associations over time.

Effective School Management

Effective School Management
Author: K.B. Everard
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2004-05-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781412900492

This popular book has been thoroughly updated for its fourth edition, and is even more directed towards the leadership demands on managers, both within the school and in its community setting.

Serve to Win

Serve to Win
Author: Novak Djokovic
Publisher: Zinc Ink
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2013-08-20
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0345548981

Novak Djokovic reveals the gluten-free diet and fitness plan that transformed his health and pushed him to the pinnacle. In 2011, Novak Djokovic had what sportswriters called the greatest single season ever by a professional tennis player: He won ten titles, three Grand Slams, and forty-three consecutive matches. Remarkably, less than two years earlier, this champion could barely complete a tournament. How did a player once plagued by aches, breathing difficulties, and injuries on the court suddenly become the #1 ranked tennis player in the world? The answer is astonishing: He changed what he ate. In Serve to Win, Djokovic recounts how he survived the bombing of Belgrade, Serbia, rising from a war-torn childhood to the top tier of his sport. While Djokovic loved and craved bread and pasta, and especially the pizza at his family’s restaurant, his body simply couldn’t process wheat. Eliminating gluten—the protein found in wheat—made him feel instantly better, lighter, clearer, and quicker. As he continued to research and refine his diet, his health issues disappeared, extra pounds dropped away, and his improved physical health and mental focus allowed him to achieve his two childhood dreams: to win Wimbledon, and to become the #1 ranked tennis player in the world. Now Djokovic has created a blueprint for remaking your body and your life in just fourteen days. With weekly menus, mindful eating tips for optimal digestion, and delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes, you’ll be well on your way to shedding extra weight and finding your way to a better you. Djokovic also offers tips for eliminating stress and simple exercises to get you revved up and moving, the very same ones he does before each match. You don’t need to be a superstar athlete to start living and feeling better. With Serve to Win, a trimmer, stronger, healthier you is just two weeks away.

Case-Based Planning

Case-Based Planning
Author: Kristian J. Hammond
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2012-12-02
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0323138462

Perspectives in Artificial Intelligence, Volume 1: Case-Based Planning: Viewing Planning as a Memory Task focuses on the processes, methodologies, and techniques employed in viewing planning as a memory task. The publication first elaborates on planning and memory and learning from planning. Discussions focus on learning from cases, learning plans, learning to predict failures, case-based planning, structure of case-based planning, and learning from planning. The text then elaborates on planning from memory and planning Thematic Organization Packets (TOPs) and strategies, including TOPs in understanding and planning, TOPs and strategies, and function of memory. The manuscript takes a look at modifying and repairing plans, case-based planning, and planning and planners. Topics include CHEF as a program, case-based planning as planning and learning, noticing and explaining the failure, storing the plan, different situations for altering plans, and introduction of failure. The publication is a vital reference for researchers interested in viewing planning as a memory task.

The Excellent Experience

The Excellent Experience
Author: C. David Crouch
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2013-11
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1491709324

In his new guide, author C. David Crouch reveals the eighty-three principles of excellentology to help you build excellence in your life. Using "building a house" as a metaphor, he guides you in your own personal journey toward excellence. You can learn how to - lay a strong foundation by developing a mission, vision, principles, and standards; - recognize five pillars of performance that map a clear path toward excellence; - assemble a roof that allows you to measure your progress at the organizational, team, and individual levels; and - improve your ability to lead yourself and others toward excellence. By applying the model in five diverse environments-an organization, a team, a church, a family, and an individual life-Crouch demonstrates its effective use for any endeavor. He also applies his model for excellence to a sixth environment-the United States of America-revealing some interesting considerations. Build a life of joy, peace, significance, and fulfillment for yourself and those around you with The Excellent Experience.