The Bakhtin Primer offers a truly new and innovative approach to leading and reforming schools. It delves into some of Bakhtin's most salient concepts - chronotope, polyphony and heteroglossia, dialogue and dialogism, and carnival - and presents them as the basis for a comprehensive reform agenda - one that focuses on high levels of student achievement and on socially just and inclusive educational practice. The primer demonstrates the relevance of theory to educational practice and presents it in clear, concise language coupled with numerous illustrative examples to make the ideas...

The Authentic Assessment Primer introduces education students to the phenomenon known as authentic assessment. As such, it is the perfect antidote to high stakes testing, since it relies on performance and shows what a student -can do.- In an authentic approach, teachers see assessment as a means to educate and improve student performance, as opposed to simply auditing it on a one-shot test. Authentic tasks require quality performance connected to the learner s world. It is multilayered and complex. The Authentic Assessment Primer provides feedback continually and the learner...

Despite the fact that publishers and policy-makers have had increasing influence over classrooms, it is the teacher who must make decisions on a minute-by-minute basis about what will help specific students learn. Similarly, local administrators must make key decisions at the school and district level that will best serve particular communities of teachers, students, and parents. Action research offers educators and other stakeholders a systematic way to research and reflect on specific students, classrooms, schools, and communities in order to solve local problems and improve local...

Among the many challenges facing public schooling in the United States is the often irrelevant usage of technology in the classroom in ways that support the textbook and computer industries more than student learning and achievement. This primer reframes the longstanding debate about instructional technology in school classrooms and challenges the reader to think more critically and conscientiously about the fundamental communication and technological processes that mediate learning and ultimately define education. The primer offers educators at all levels a three-dimensional map for...

The second edition of the Critical Pedagogy Primer not only introduces the topic but also provides a vision for the future of the critical pedagogy. Kincheloe's notion of an evolving criticality makes sure that critical pedagogy will continue to be a vibrant and creative force that makes a powerful difference in education and in the world in general. As it prepares readers for the challenges of the future, it focuses on the traditions and individuals who have helped construct the discipline. This attention to the past and the future provides readers with an introduction unlike most...

This clear, readable introductory text for undergraduate and graduate Education Law courses or modules offers a practical guide to everyday problems such as student expression, discipline, religion, curriculum, social media, privacy, charter schools, discrimination, special education, and more. Features include distinctions among school, district, state, and federal law; the Facts and Find research method; the Cascade approach to the American legal system; lobbying advice; and the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the replacement to No Child Left Behind. Written by the ex-Counsel...

Uncovering Black Heroes is a series of essays regarding real people who are not so well-known in the mainstream of American freedom and civil rights discussion.