Inspiring Middle School Minds

Inspiring Middle School Minds
Author: Judith A. Willis
Publisher: Gifted Unlimited
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2009
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Teaching adolescents can be quite challenging. Dr. Judy Willis, a neurologist and teacher, explains the inner workings of the adolescent brain. She uses the findings of brain research in her classroom to explain how parents and teachers can trigger untapped inspiration in students. Middle school education has often been a "black hole" for gifted students, seldom providing adequate challenge. By understanding how the brain works, however, we can make learning for all youngsters exciting and stimulating. The information and advice in this book will help parents and teachers design positive and rewarding learning experiences that will then be stored in long-term memory rather than "deleted" or "filtered out."

Teaching with Poverty in Mind

Teaching with Poverty in Mind
Author: Eric Jensen
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2010-06-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1416612106

In Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do About It, veteran educator and brain expert Eric Jensen takes an unflinching look at how poverty hurts children, families, and communities across the United States and demonstrates how schools can improve the academic achievement and life readiness of economically disadvantaged students. Jensen argues that although chronic exposure to poverty can result in detrimental changes to the brain, the brain's very ability to adapt from experience means that poor children can also experience emotional, social, and academic success. A brain that is susceptible to adverse environmental effects is equally susceptible to the positive effects of rich, balanced learning environments and caring relationships that build students' resilience, self-esteem, and character. Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Teaching with Poverty in Mind reveals * What poverty is and how it affects students in school; * What drives change both at the macro level (within schools and districts) and at the micro level (inside a student's brain); * Effective strategies from those who have succeeded and ways to replicate those best practices at your own school; and * How to engage the resources necessary to make change happen. Too often, we talk about change while maintaining a culture of excuses. We can do better. Although no magic bullet can offset the grave challenges faced daily by disadvantaged children, this timely resource shines a spotlight on what matters most, providing an inspiring and practical guide for enriching the minds and lives of all your students.

Fires in the Mind

Fires in the Mind
Author: Kathleen Cushman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2010-05-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 047064950X

Teens talk to adults about how they develop motivation and mastery Through the voices of students themselves, Fires in the Mind brings a game-changing question to teachers of adolescents: What does it take to get really good at something? Starting with what they already know and do well, teenagers from widely diverse backgrounds join a cutting-edge dialogue with adults about the development of mastery in and out of school. Their insights frame motivation, practice, and academic challenge in a new light that galvanizes more powerful learning for all. To put these students' ideas into practice, the book also includes practical tips for educators. Breaks new ground by bringing youth voices to a timely topic-motivation and mastery Includes worksheets, tips, and discussion guides that help put the book's ideas into practice Author has 18 previous books on adolescent learning and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Educational Leadership, and American Educator From the acclaimed author of Fires in the Bathroom, this is the next-step book that pushes the conversation to next level, as teenagers tackle the pressing challenges of motivation and mastery.

Bright Minds, Poor Grades

Bright Minds, Poor Grades
Author: Michael D. Whitley
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2001-07-01
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1101119306

For any parent who has ever been told, "your child isn't performing up to his or her potential," this book has the answer. Renowned clinical psychologist Michael Whitley, Ph.D. offers a proven ten-step program to motivate underachieving children. This easy-to follow book identifies the six types of underachievers from the procrastinator to the hidden perfectionist to the con artist, and it presents the ten steps to help children succeed in school-and ultimately, in life.

All Kinds of Minds

All Kinds of Minds
Author: Melvin D. Levine
Publisher: Educators Publishing Service, Incorporated
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1993
Genre: Learning disabilities
ISBN: 9780838820902

Explains a variety of learning disabilities to elementary school children.

When I Was Young and Immature

When I Was Young and Immature
Author: Seth Kelley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2016-12-09
Genre:
ISBN: 9781540857156

Middle school is chock-full of pressures and struggles. Don't you wish there was an experienced person to teach you the lessons that come with this difficult journey? Well, now you do. "When I Was Young and Immature" focuses on many of middle school's toughest subjects such as romance, labels, and transition. High-schooler Seth Kelley has been through it all, and he's taken the time to write this book so middle-schoolers everywhere can make the most of their middle school experience. "Seth Kelley uses humor and wisdom to weave together an entertaining book. His personal experience will encourage and inspire teens while also giving adults an inside view of the middle school mind. I highly recommend this book!" -Jana Kelley, author of Side by Side

Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom

Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom
Author: Judy Willis
Publisher: ASCD
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2007-05-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1416617434

Many teachers in regular classrooms feel unprepared to teach students with learning disabilities. Fortunately, brain research has confirmed that strategies benefiting learners with special challenges are suited for engaging and stimulating all learners. In this book, neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis explains that we can best help students by putting in place strategies, accommodations, and interventions that provide developmentally and academically appropriate challenges to suit the needs, gifts, and goals of each student. Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom will help teachers * Understand how the brain learns and the technologies that reveal this process. * Implement strategies that are compatible with students' individual learning styles and honor their multiple intelligences. * Improve the focus of students with attention disorders and help them gain the confidence and skills they need to develop goal-oriented behaviors. * Create an enriching learning environment by incorporating student-centered activities, discovery and hands-on learning experiences, cross-curricular learning, and multisensory lessons. * Implement strategic review, study, and test preparation strategies that will allow students to retain information and connect it with future learning. * Build safe, supportive classroom communities and raise class awareness and empathy for students with learning disabilities. It's time for teachers to lower the barriers, not the bar. Using strategies that align with research on how people's brains function, teachers can engage all students as individuals and help them reach their maximum potential with joy and confidence.

Upstanders

Upstanders
Author: Harvey Daniels
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780325053592

"How can we meet today's elevated goals and engage middle school kids-but not simply replicate our winner-take-all society? How can our students achieve a higher standard-the commitment to bend the world towards justice? In a word, inquiry. Welcome to the classroom of Sara Ahmed. With Smokey Daniels as your guide you'll see exactly how Sara turns required topics into questions young adolescents can't resist investigating and units that help them become thoughtful, compassionate, and action-oriented. Smokey and Sara share everything you need: a developmental look at middle school kids, lessons for collaboration, self-awareness, and compassion, a toolbox of strategies, structures, and handouts, commentary from Smokey that highlights key teaching moves, Game-Time Decisions from Sara that reveal instructional choices, documentation of the incredible work that inquiry allows kids to do, engaging units on commonly taught middle school themes. Give kids all the complexity the standards could ever expect, and something they don't: the chance to grow from bystanders into Upstanders." -- pages (4) of cover.

Little Big Minds

Little Big Minds
Author: Marietta McCarty
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2006-12-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 144064988X

A guide for parents and educators to sharing the enduring ideas of the biggest minds throughout the centuries—from Plato to Jane Addams—with the "littlest" minds. Children are no strangers to cruelty and courage, to love and to loss, and in this unique book teacher and educational consultant Marietta McCarty reveals that they are, in fact, natural philosophers. Drawing on a program she has honed in schools around the country over the last fifteen years, Little Big Minds guides parents and educators in introducing philosophy to K-8 children in order to develop their critical thinking, deepen their appreciation for others, and brace them for the philosophical quandaries that lurk in all of our lives, young or old. Arranged according to themes-including prejudice, compassion, and death-and featuring the work of philosophers from Plato and Socrates to the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King Jr., this step-by-step guide to teaching kids how to think philosophically is full of excellent discussion questions, teaching tips, and group exercises.

How Your Child Learns Best

How Your Child Learns Best
Author: Judy Willis
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2008-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1402220685

Brain-Based Strategies You Can Use Today to Enhance Your Child's Love of Learning How Your Child Learns Best is a groundbreaking guide for parents that combines the latest brain research with the best classroom practices to reveal scientifically savvy ways to improve your child's success in school. Written by Judy Willis, MD, MEd, a board-certified neurologist who is also a full-time classroom teacher, How Your Child Learns Best shows you not only how to help your child learn schoolwork, but also how to capitalize on the way your child's brain learns best in order to enrich education wherever you are, from the grocery store to the car - a necessity in today's "teach to the test" world. By using everyday household items and enjoyable activities, parents of children ages three to twelve can apply targeted strategies (based on age and learning strength) in key academic areas, including: Reading comprehension Math word problems Test preparation Fractions and decimals Oral reading Reports and projects Science and history Reading motivation Vocabulary Discover how to help your child increase academic focus and success, lower test stress while increasing test scores, increase class participation, foster creativity, and improve attention span, memory, and higher-level thinking. How Your Child Learns Best shows how to maximize your child's brain potential and offers something for every parent who wants the best for his or her child. "At last we parents now have a reference that will help guide us in assisting our children's growth and flowering. This book is what parents have been searching for and need now more than ever." - from the foreword by Goldie Hawn