How to Create a Culture of Achievement in Your School and Classroom

How to Create a Culture of Achievement in Your School and Classroom
Author: Douglas Fisher
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2012-04-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1416614575

What does it feel like to walk into your school? Is it a welcoming place, where everyone feels valued? Most school improvement efforts focus on academic goals, instructional models, curriculum, and assessments. But sometimes what can make or break your learning community are the intangibles--the relationships, identity, and connections that make up its culture. Authors Fisher, Frey, and Pumpian believe that no school improvement effort will be effective unless school culture is addressed. They identify five pillars that are critical to building a culture of achievement: 1. Welcome: Imagine if all staff members in your school considered it their job to make every student, parent, and visitor feel noticed, welcomed, and valued. 2. Do no harm: Your school rules should be tools for teaching students to become the moral and ethical citizens you expect them to be. 3. Choice words: When the language students hear helps them tell a story about themselves that is one of possibility and potential, students perform in ways that are consistent with that belief. 4. It's never too late to learn: Can you push students to go beyond the minimum needed to get by, to discover what they are capable of achieving? 5. Best school in the universe: Is your school the best place to teach and learn? The best place to work? Drawing on their years of experience in the classroom, the authors explain how these pillars support good teaching and learning. In addition, they provide 19 action research tools that will help you create a culture of achievement, so that your school or classroom is the best it can be. After reading this book, you'll see why culture makes the difference between a school that enables success for all students and a school that merely houses those students during the school day.

The Leader in Me

The Leader in Me
Author: Stephen R. Covey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2012-12-11
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 147110446X

Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.

Cultures Built to Last

Cultures Built to Last
Author: Richard DuFour
Publisher: Solution Tree Press
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2013-05-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 193676475X

Take your professional learning community to the next level! Discover a systemwide approach for re-envisioning your PLC while sustaining growth and continuing momentum on your journey. You’ll move beyond isolated pockets of excellence while allowing every person in your school system—from teachers and administrators to students—the opportunity to be an instrument of lasting cultural change.

Transforming School Culture

Transforming School Culture
Author: Anthony Muhammad
Publisher: Solution Tree Press
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2009-11-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1934009997

Busy administrators will appreciate this quick read packed with immediate, accessible strategies. This book provides the framework for understanding dynamic relationships within a school culture and ensuring a positive environment that supports the changes necessary to improve learning for all students. The author explores many aspects of human behavior, social conditions, and history to reveal best practices for building healthy school cultures.

Leaders of Learning

Leaders of Learning
Author: Richard DuFour
Publisher: Solution Tree Press
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2011-07-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1935542680

For many years, the authors have been fellow travelers on the journey to help educators improve their schools. Their first coauthored book focuses on district leadership, principal leadership, and team leadership and addresses how individual teachers can be most effective in leading students—by learning with colleagues how to implement the most promising pedagogy in their classrooms

Committing to the Culture

Committing to the Culture
Author: Steve Gruenert
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2019-06-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1416627871

In their follow-up to School Culture Recharged and the best-selling School Culture Rewired, Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker go deep into the roots of culture change and explore how school leaders can positively shift their cultures in a sustainable way. Drawing from the authors' extensive experience and research, Committing to the Culture - Unpacks questions around the nature of culture, including the importance of vision and climate and how the tension between the past and the future can keep a culture stagnant. - Explains how toxic cultures come about, why they can be so resistant to lasting change, and how not to change those cultures. - Describes how to build a positive culture based on trust, collaboration, and commitment rather than fear, competition, and compliance. - Offers advice to help leaders ensure that positive change endures, withstanding fads, toxic mindsets, and other threats. The authors provide real-world scenarios to illustrate how their ideas and approaches work in practice. Leaders will gain profound insight into how to create meaningful change, with the goal not just to "transform" their school but also to get all members of the school community to commit to culture change—and make sure that change sticks.

Responsive Teaching

Responsive Teaching
Author: Harry Fletcher-Wood
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2018-05-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351583867

This essential guide helps teachers refine their approach to fundamental challenges in the classroom. Based on research from cognitive science and formative assessment, it ensures teachers can offer all students the support and challenge they need – and can do so sustainably. Written by an experienced teacher and teacher educator, the book balances evidence-informed principles and practical suggestions. It contains: A detailed exploration of six core problems that all teachers face in planning lessons, assessing learning and responding to students Effective practical strategies to address each of these problems across a range of subjects Useful examples of each strategy in practice and accounts from teachers already using these approaches Checklists to apply each principle successfully and advice tailored to teachers with specific responsibilities. This innovative book is a valuable resource for new and experienced teachers alike who wish to become more responsive teachers. It offers the evidence, practical strategies and supportive advice needed to make sustainable, worthwhile changes.

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain
Author: Zaretta Hammond
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2014-11-13
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1483308022

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

Culture Re-Boot

Culture Re-Boot
Author: Leslie S. Kaplan
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1452277958

Your start-up menu for super-charged culture change There′s an invisible thread woven through your school that defines everything from dress codes to student success. It′s your school culture, and reshaping it will yield highly visible improvements for teachers and students. Leslie Kaplan and William Owings guide you in improving leadership, teaching, learning, confidence, and trust throughout your school. Culture Re-Boot reframes school culture to include organizational learning, relational trust, accountability, program improvement, and teacher effectiveness while showing you how to: • Be the transformational leader your school needs to reinvigorate your school culture • Establish a student-centered learning culture focused on student outcomes • Engage teachers in culture-focused leadership teams that support teacher and student learning • Get parents and community on-board to collaborate for student achievement • Connect professional development and school culture for maximum results Packed with hands-on culture re-boot activities to help school leaders and faculty revitalize their school′s values and practices, this practical handbook for school improvement will energize your school′s culture and build the capacity to help all students succeed. "Ever since Seymour Sarason wrote his seminal book on The Culture of Schools and the Problem of Change, we have known that ′culture′ is at the heart of all organizational performance. But reformers keep forgetting this key fact. Kaplan and Owings′ book changes all that. Now in one place you can find everything you need to know to ′re-boot′ you own school′s culture." —Michael Fullan, Author of Motion Leadership "As a principal focused on student achievement and school climate, I am excited to begin using these strategies and discussions to drive our conversations to a deeper and more meaningful level. The combination of school culture, professional learning community, and teacher/community leadership provides a compelling and unique exploration of real methods to sustain student achievement and school improvement." —William Richard Hall, Jr., Principal R. C. Longan Elementary School, Henrico, VA