New Releases by Douglas Fisher

Transform your PLC collaboration to strengthen student learning across classrooms Professional Learning Communities hold tremendous potential, but without clear structure and shared purpose, that potential often goes untapped. PLC+ The Texas Way offers Texas educators an evidence-based framework for moving beyond isolated classroom practice toward collaborative inquiry and evidence-based teaching that accelerates learning for every student. Written specifically for Texas schools, this guide shifts PLC work from prep and planning to creating shared understanding of TEKS and HQIM, making intentional instructional decisions that support learners and responding to student needs. Anchored in the five essential questions—Where are we now? Where are we going? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today? Who benefited and who did not?—PLC+ provides the clarity and direction teacher teams need to translate state standards and quality materials into meaningful student growth. Inside, you′ll find: Direct connections to Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) Spotlight cases featuring small and rural schools that demonstrate how PLC+ works in diverse Texas contexts Ready-to-use tools and protocols that support teams in making sense of the five essential questions and taking immediate action PLC+ The Texas Way helps educators build cultures of collective responsibility, shared efficacy, and trust-based teamwork. When teachers collaborate with purpose, students thrive—and that′s what matters most.

Ready to transform your classroom into a place where every student can thrive? Effective classroom management isn’t just about control—it’s about creating an environment where trust, fairness, and purpose guide every action. Instead of relying on quick fixes, this practical guide digs into proven strategies that go beyond simple compliance, helping you build real connections and engagement with your students. This guide is fully illustrated, with visuals created to make complicated concepts easier to digest and remember. Whether you’re a visual learner or just want ideas to stick, the illustrations don’t just decorate the pages—they actually help bring strategies to life, making communication clearer and your own understanding stronger. Inside, you’ll find: Clear explanations of classroom management and discipline, showing how they work together for a supportive classroom Research-based tips to create a positive climate, boost your credibility, and build community Proactive routines to kick off the year, manage transitions, and design instruction that fosters responsibility and belonging Handy quick guides for tackling common challenges, from off-task behaviors to conflicts By blending strong management with responsive discipline, you can help students feel safe, empowered, and ready to learn. Perfect for new and experienced educators alike, this guide is your companion for building a classroom culture where every kid has the chance to succeed.

Imagine a classroom where every lesson feels like a step toward a clear and meaningful destination. The Illustrated Guide to Teacher Clarity by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey offers an accessible, fully illustrated introduction to the essential aspects of Teacher Clarity. Engaging visuals and infographics bring the principles of Teacher Clarity to life, making the basics easy to understand, remember, and apply. Teacher Clarity is not a single strategy or technique—it is a mindset and a commitment to designing and delivering instruction in ways that make learning visible and attainable for all students. Start with The Illustrated Guide to Teacher Clarity to build your foundation, then move into The Teacher Clarity Playbook to focus on and practice writing learning progressions, learning intentions, and success criteria for your own classroom. With the Illustrated Guide, teachers will: Grasp the "why" behind Teacher Clarity. Discover the easy-to-follow Teacher Clarity process that seamlessly weaves together a thoughtful analysis of standards, intentional organization of lessons, meaningful assessment, and responsive instruction. Gain actionable strategies to invite students into the learning process as partners—encouraging them to take ownership, build confidence, and develop the skills they need to thrive both in school and beyond. Get 25+ videos, clarity checklists, and other ready-to-use tools to help you bring Teacher Clarity to your classroom. The Illustrated Guide to Teacher Clarity and The Teacher Clarity Playbook provide a complete path—first to understanding clarity, then to bringing it to life in your teaching practice.

Lead lasting change for your entire learning community School leadership requires more than good intentions—it demands consequential actions that produce positive and meaningful outcomes for students, teachers, and the whole school community. Consequential Leadership is a practical, illustrated guide for busy educational leaders that will help you move beyond compliance to meaningful transformation—efficiently and effectively. Drawing from extensive research and real-world experience, the authors present five essential leadership imperatives that combine theoretical insights with actionable strategies, all delivered alongside engaging illustrations that make complex concepts accessible and memorable. The book explores crucial areas that define effective educational leadership: Five leadership imperatives that include courage and accountability, motivation and collective purpose, evidence-based decision making, professional learning design, and performance conversations Practical tools and assessments like self-evaluation rubrics, reflection prompts, and a personalized leadership journey map Real-world applications that bridge research and practice, helping you to implement strategies that drive student achievement and teacher effectiveness A visual framework that presents leadership concepts through illustrations, charts, and diagrams designed to enhance understanding and retention Embracing consequential leadership principles will allow you to develop the skills and competencies to create learning environments where students grow academically and personally, teachers thrive professionally, and school communities flourish through collective purpose and shared accountability.

Build a sustainable coaching model that drives growth and results Instructional coaching has long been a crucial component of professional development in schools. However, without a clear framework, its true potential often goes unrealized. Coaching for Impact bridges this gap by providing a research-supported, practical guide that enhances the effectiveness of coaching programs while helping coaches transform theory into measurable results. Centered around an innovative set of "Impact Rubrics," this comprehensive flipbook offers a structured pathway for elevating coaching practices. Whether you’re an experienced instructional coach or just beginning your journey, this book equips you with actionable tools, proven strategies, and a vision to foster teacher learning and maximize student success. Inside you’ll find: Impact Rubrics, frameworks in each chapter to make coaching visible, actionable, and aligned with teacher growth and student outcomes Step-by-step guidance for building relationships, collecting evidence, and creating goal-oriented coaching plans Research-driven content highlighting how coaching supports effective teaching and sustainable learning practices A holistic approach with strategies to develop trust, foster communication, and align coaching with broader district and school goals By using Coaching for Impact, coaches will gain the skills to cultivate sustainable coaching models that promote both teacher and student success. If you’re ready to sharpen your focus, refine your strategies, and unlock the full potential of instructional coaching, this book is your indispensable guide.

50+ Instructional Strategies for Developing Independent Learners Discover over 50 strategies to meet your students where they are and help them succeed. Every teacher faces a recurring question in the classroom: What strategy will help this student learn right now? With hundreds of potential strategies available, the challenge lies in choosing the right approach at the right time. Instructional Strategies to Move Learning Forward does exactly that, equipping educators with thoughtfully curated instructional strategies designed to advance learning for all students. Grounded in the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) framework, this book empowers you to select and implement purposeful strategies that address your students′ specific needs at a specific moment in their learning while ensuring long-term success. This content-rich guide provides practical tools and insights that emphasize why, when, and how instructional strategies can move learning forward, with: Research-informed rationale for why each strategy works and how each supports meaningful learning Detailed step-by-step guidance for implementation, ensuring every strategy can be immediately applied in your classroom Adaptability across contexts: Strategies designed for use across grades, content areas, and student needs—including multilingual learners and those requiring differentiated support Connections for each strategy to the GRR framework for cohesive lesson planning and consistent results This resource is not about collecting tools; it’s about reflection, intentionality, and impact. Whether you’re a new teacher seeking strategies to build your toolkit or an experienced educator refining your craft, this book will help you make informed instructional decisions that lead to powerful learning opportunities. Learn how to foster clarity, connection, and critical thinking in your students while building confident and independent learners.

50 Strategies for Activating the Full Potential of Your PLC+ Team Are you maximizing the impact of your professional learning communities? 50 Strategies for Activating Your PLC+ equips educators with the tools and actions needed to foster highly effective PLC+ teams. Successful PLCs are built on a foundation of strong collaboration, unified purpose, trust, and effective communication. The 50+ strategies in this essential guide address the challenges and possibilities within teacher teams by focusing on the role of activators, group members who work to ensure that all members of the PLC+ contribute to meaningful, solution-driven progress. Grounded in experience and practical guidance, this resource is designed to make every step of your PLC+ experience impactful. With strategies organized into eight comprehensive sections, the authors provide the frameworks necessary to create an engaged, productive learning culture with: Eight categories of strategies aligned with the five guiding PLC+ questions to support targeted and actionable leadership A practical cross-reference table connecting the strategies to content with additional context and insights to deepen understanding Tools for developing activator skills that enhance facilitation, decision-making, and solution-oriented collaboration within your PLC+ teams Concrete protocols and frameworks for addressing team dynamics, meeting structures, and continuous improvement From establishing goals to reviewing results, you′ll find purposeful actions that drive positive outcomes for educators and students alike. Take the next step in your PLC+ leadership to shape the future of learning in your school.

Lay the foundation for inclusive, impactful classrooms where every student thrives Every student deserves an education that is meaningful, memorable, and built for them. When we design learning with intentional, universal support, the impact extends beyond individual students—it transforms entire classrooms. In Every Child Deserves a Special Education, the authors introduce five powerful mindframes that reshape the way we think about teaching, learning, and inclusion. These mindframes spark a cycle of reflection and growth, shifting not just what we do, but how we see our students, our classrooms, and our role as educators. Inside, you’ll find: Five essential educator mindframes—helping you plan for both diverse learners and the diversity within each learner Stories and examples that bring these mindframes to life through real classroom experiences Reflection tools to help you examine and refine your own beliefs and practices True inclusion starts with how we think, not just what we do. Every Child Deserves a Special Education will help you build the mindset every classroom needs for all students to thrive.

Drive collaboration and improve student learning with PLC+ Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) have long been celebrated as a powerful tool for driving collaboration and improving student outcomes. But what if there was a way to take your PLC work to the next level? Your Introduction to PLC+: Building Collaborative Teams That Drive Student Success introduces the next-generation PLC model that prioritizes collective efficacy and actionable strategies by focusing on five essential questions: Where are we going? Where are we now? How do we move learning forward? What did we learn today? Who benefited and who did not? PLC+ emphasizes identifying and applying evidence-based instruction that values the background of every student, ensuring access and opportunities for all. Team members begin by identifying a common challenge. Then, the clear PLC+ framework, practical tools, and research-based strategies ensure that team efforts directly improve teaching practices and student outcomes. This playbook includes: Protocols and tools that promote data-driven decision-making and actionable plans. Engaging features like "Two Truths and a Lie," self-assessment tools, and implementation-ready scenarios. Practical strategies to measure the real-time impact of collaborative efforts. An interactive design with ample space to reflect on your learning and outline steps to build collective efficacy. Transform your professional learning community today. Whether you′re a teacher or school leader, Your Introduction to PLC+ equips you with the knowledge and skills to collaborate effectively and lead with clarity and confidence. Together, you’ll create effective and impactful learning environments that ensure every student thrives.

How to Activate and Accelerate Student Learning Have you ever given instructions to your students, only to receive blank stares or confusion? Clarity is an essential part of teaching and learning, and every interaction we have with students is the foundation for moving learning forward—we must make every interaction count. Backed by the latest education research on what really works, Teacher Clarity spotlights the newest and best teaching strategies and explains the importance of clear learning intentions, success criteria, lesson design, progress monitoring, and more. Inside, you’ll discover how teacher clarity Helps educators make informed decisions around teaching and learning Demands that educators keep the "big picture" in mind Allows educators to integrate optimal teaching and learning experiences at the right time Tells us what evidence we must generate around teaching and learning and what steps to take next Organized around the four critical components of teacher clarity—organization, explanations, examples, and assessments—and filled with samples for all content and grade levels, Teacher Clarity is your essential guidebook for unlocking your learners’ potential.

The Path to Truly Impactful Practice in Education Starts with Visible Learning It may seem obvious, but learning should never be implied or assumed. Learning must be explicit, evaluated and monitored; the impact of teaching on student learning should be visible. But how can we be sure? Armed with years of research that includes more than 2,100 meta-analyses, and 130,000 studies that include more than 300 million students--plus decades of experience as educators --bestselling authors John Hattie, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Almarode have collaborated to create this accessible guide to what works best to accelerate students′ learning. Packed with everything you need to evaluate your impact, the Illustrated Guide to Visible Learning includes: Clear instructions for collecting, interpreting, and using evidence to make decisions with and for your students A primer on the 12 signature practices of Visible Learning Research-backed mindframes that have the potential to significantly influence the quality of education The full-length School Capacity Assessment tool--included and available for the first time--which allows you to evaluate where your school is on its Visible Learning journey. To have the greatest impact on student learning, we must know what practices work best. With this illustrated go-to guide to Visible Learning in hand, your path is set for truly impactful practice in education.

Let evidence and integrity guide your grading practice If you want to ask a polarizing question in education, ask someone their thoughts on grading. Few topics have elicited more interest or opinions, even though grading practices have remained relatively unchanged for years. But opinions are not evidence. The time has come to get it right with a fresh approach grounded in research and the principles of integrity. Grading With Integrity introduces a measured approach to grading reform based on honesty, transparency, accuracy, and equity with recommendations backed by clear and trustworthy evidence. Addressing the many "whys’’ involved, this thoughtfully organized book addresses central questions related to grading and reporting student learning, covering: An historical overview of grading and reporting practices A discussion of standards-based and competency-based grading Recommendations for reporting non academic learning goals separately from academic achievement, to accurately reflect students′ performance Suggestions for reporting growth and improvement, using specific assessments and other reporting tools An infallible argument for grading with integrity This book is a must-read for K-12 classroom teachers and administrators who are looking to implement better and more defensible grading and reporting policies and practices. Let evidence and integrity be your guide to enhancing students’ best interests and learning success.

Foster Trust, Accountability and Engagement in Your Teams Creating strong, cohesive teams is an art, and How Teams Work: A Playbook for Distributing Leadership is the essential guide for school leaders looking to master this craft. This interactive playbook doesn′t just advise but actively equips leaders with the tools they need to foster trust, accountability, and engagement in their teams. School leaders today face a critical mandate: to empower, engage, and work in concert with their teams to foster a positive and productive school environment. How Teams Work doesn′t offer mere platitudes—it offers practical strategies and tools, with concept maps, learning intentions, team challenges, reflection prompts and more. Information is organized into six modules exploring: The foundational role leaders play in team dynamics Strategies to bring together and mobilize effective leadership teams Methods to forge and maintain team unity and collaboration How to build and maintain trust and respect within teams Practical tools for maximizing team productivity and decision-making Guidelines on reflective leadership to assess and improve team performance How Teams Work isn′t only a resource; it′s a roadmap to sustainable success, illuminating the path to nurturing leadership at every level. In an age where the turnover of educators is high and the need for sustained, collective school improvement efforts is urgent, leveraging the power of teams isn′t just advantageous—it′s essential.

Your Guide to Engaging and Effective Math Instruction With the latest research on what works best in teaching and learning, The Mathematics Playbook is your comprehensive guide to enhancing mathematics teaching and learning. With a focus on fostering equity and maximizing student learning, the authors provide practical modules that integrate the latest research on effective teaching practices, and answer four critical questions: How do we foster, nurture, and sustain mathematics learning? How do we ensure all learners have equity of access and opportunity? What are the non-negotiables in a high-quality mathematics task? How do we know if learners really "get it"? Through real-life examples and an emphasis on self-assessment and reflection, this playbook empowers you to create engaging and impactful learning experiences in mathematics.

Time Saving AI Tools that Make Learning More Engaging Busy educators need tools that support their planning and provide them with more time with students. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a promising solution, it can only help if we’re willing to learn how to use it in ways that improve upon what we already do well. The Artificial Intelligence Playbook: Time Saving Tools that Make Learning More Engaging is here to empower teachers to explore AI’s potential and discover practical ways to implement it to enhance their planning and instruction. Two chapters and 6 "Educator Functions" guide teachers step-by-step through how to purposely use AI to: Compose Writing Prompts and Avoid Plagiarism Manage Content Foster Student Engagement Meet Students’ Instructional Needs Assess Student Learning Continue Lifelong Learning Though AI has the potential to reduce workload for educators, it will never replace teachers. Your connection with students is irreplaceable—and greatly impacts their learning. Consider AI a valuable tool that provides you with more time to build and sustain those vital relationships with students and that can assist them in learning at the very same time.

From acclaimed educators and best-selling authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey comes Teaching Reading: Mastering the Fundamentals, a series of four laminated guides that provide teachers with essential information and strategies for teaching students in grades K-6 how to read. The guides, which are designed to be used sequentially as a set but can also be stand-alone resources for targeting certain components of teaching reading, draw from the latest research and present practical, powerful strategies that teachers can utilize right away in their classrooms. This guide, #2 in the series, focuses on methods for building the reading fluency of elementary students to foster comprehension. Readers will learn about: reading fluency terms measures of oral reading fluency using oral fluency norms to guide instruction and intervention measures of prosody six techniques for teaching fluency profiles of disfluent readers fluency interventions for disfluent readers sight word recognition high-frequency words sight word techniques using flashcards effectively heart words common mistakes to avoid

Your Hands-On Guide to Thriving Your First Years of Teaching You’ve made the incredible decision to become an educator because you want to impact the learning lives of young people. Thank you, and welcome. We welcome you to this amazing profession with open arms, and with an arsenal of experience and essential tools, strategies, and lessons to help you establish a successful and satisfying teaching career. We wanted to make it easier for you to learn and practice these techniques that research shows increase student learning. To do so, we also considered cognitive psychology research that tells us that images and illustrations can help strengthen communication and our own understanding. This helped us develop the unique format for this book: part hands-on playbook, part professional book, and all highly illustrated, it is designed to make complicated concepts more digestible and memorable. This extensive guide for new teachers provides everything you need to impact learning from your first day on, including: How to plan powerful learning experiences that ensure student engagement 22 step-by-step learning strategies for any grade and any subject Detailed guidance for developing formative and summative assessments 30+ classroom videos demonstrating the techniques and strategies in action Teaching is without a doubt one of the most challenging professions there is. But those who chose to accept that challenge are what make teaching the best profession in the world!

High levels of engagement—it’s not an impossible dream. But to attain it we need to focus on what galvanizes learning, and ensure we are offering the tools and mindsets with which students can lean in. In this playbook, an ace team of educators give us the goods to guide self-starting learners. Nine modules show us how to: Coherent standards, success criteria, tasks, and goals so students can travel clear pathways Offer tools that allow learners to recognize the gap between their current performance and the expected performance, and select strategies to close that gap Talk with students about engagement as a continuum, and that there are actions they can take to heighten their buy-in to any endeavor Stress-test our lesson plans to ensure students can discuss, debate, create and problem-solve around highly relevant content Use lots of low-stakes assessment and feedback routines to develop effective collaboration that doesn’t depend on us. Our job as teachers is to guide learning experiences that build knowledge and self-efficacy. But from there, we need to stay on the sidelines and let students play. Only then will they develop the muscle to persevere, the strategic actions to excel, and the confidence to make our curriculum the springboard of their own dreams and goals.

Provide the perfect structure and support to develop student independence. Effective scaffolding leads to learner autonomy—but too many educators have been airlifting students to right answers, perpetuating a generation who don’t know how to learn. Yes, we know the sweet spot for learning involves giving our students the right blend of productive failure and productive success, but how to do it is cloaked in misconceptions. How Scaffolding Works unveils the essential moves and methods. Ten interactive modules help every K-12 educator structure support in new ways, including knowing how to: Gradually release responsibility to students through intentional and purposeful scaffolding Design lessons and experiences that attend to the affective, metacognitive, and cognitive aspects of learning Collect data before, during, and after learning, so we can place, move, and take away scaffolds with greater intention Promote independence with front-end scaffolds, distributed scaffolds, back-end scaffolds, peer scaffolds, and fading scaffolds Use a blend of demonstration, modeling, coaching, explaining, questioning and choice Promote purposeful practice—in which learners knows where they’re going and how to get there Perhaps we rush in to rescue learners because the world seems fraught; we want to help our students reach the safety of academic success. Our intentions are good, but it’s time to step back, gradually and purposefully, and let them pilot their own learning.

"Like an animated encyclopedia, Teaching Reading delivers the latest evidence-based practices in 13-interative modules that will transform your instruction and reenergize your career."--

The Social-Emotional Learning Playbook: A Guide to Student and Teacher Well-Being provides the language, moves, and evidence-based advice you need to identify and nurture social and emotional learning in yourself, your students, and your school. Sparking deep reflection and transformative growth, this highly interactive playbook profiles six tenets of social and emotional learning--building resilience, belonging and prosocial skills, emotional regulation, relational trust and communication, individual and collective efficacy, and community of care.

Utilize restorative practices to create a safe, accepting, and equitable school climate where learning can flourish. When students have unfinished learning, educators create opportunities for students to learn. Unfortunately, this role seems to end when it comes to behavior. How can we turn behavior into a teachable moment? The Restorative Practices Playbook details a set of practices designed to teach prosocial behaviors based on strong relationships and a commitment to the well-being of others. Implementing restorative practices establishes a positive academic and social-emotional learning environment while building students’ capacity to self-regulate, make decisions, and self-govern—the very skills students need to achieve. In this eye-opening, essential playbook, renowned educators Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey support educators with the reflection prompts, tools, examples, and strategies needed to create restorative practices around several key concepts: A restorative school culture, grounded in respect, that builds agency and identity, establishes teacher credibility, sets high expectations, and fosters positive relationships Restorative conversations that equip adults and students with the capacity to resolve problems, make decisions, and arrive at solutions in ways that are satisfactory and growth-producing Restorative circles that promote academic learning through dialogue, build consensus in decision making, and help participants reach resolution through healing Formal restorative conferences that foster guided dialogue between victim(s) and offender(s) and include plans for re-entry into the school community By becoming adept in the skillful use of restorative practices, educators will foster equitable discipline that reduces exclusion and creates a school community driven by relationships and respect.

Now in its 3rd edition, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching is the definitive guide to the gradual release of responsibility—an instructional framework any teacher can use to help students to be more successful and self-directed learners. To gradually release responsibility is to equip students with what they need to master content and develop new competencies. On a day-to-day basis, it means delivering lessons intentionally structured to incorporate four interrelated phases: * Focused Instruction ("I do it") that sets students up for cognitive apprenticeship by establishing lesson purpose, modeling strategies and skills, and sharing information and insight. * Guided Instruction ("We do it together") that incorporates targeted prompts, cues, and questions to scaffold understanding. * Collaborative Learning ("You do it together") that allows students to consolidate and extend understanding through accountable group tasks built on discussion and cooperative problem solving. * Independent Learning ("You do it alone") that provides students opportunities to practice and apply the skills and knowledge they''ve acquired to create authentic products and ask new questions. Authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey detail the components of each phase, sharing proven strategies and real-life examples. You''ll find a variety of useful tips for classroom implementation, along with new guidance on teacher credibility, social-emotional learning, and embedding assessment throughout all four phases. No matter what grade level or subject you teach, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching is an essential resource for improving your practice and empowering your students.

This book unpacks the science of how students learn and translates that knowledge into promising principles or practices that can be implemented in the classroom or utilized by students on their own learning journey.

This innovative book details how knowledge, skills, and dispositions entangle to create collective and individual beliefs, and leads educators to mobilize collective efficacy in the classroom.

For more than a year now, we educators have been tested and tested again. We’ve been stretched, we’ve been pulled, we’ve been put through the wringer. But now it’s time to "rebound." It’s time to bounce back, come back better, and benefit from the many lessons learned to reignite engagement, accelerate learning, and move forward with fresh optimism and better systems for schooling. Enter Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie, whose Distance Learning Playbooks have supported more than a half million educators across pandemic teaching and who are here now to advise you on this next, absolutely critical leg of our ongoing journey. Complete with tools and strategies, prompts and exercises, Rebound: A Playbook for Rebuilding Agency, Accelerating Learning Recovery, and Rethinking Schools will help you: Address the collective traumas we have experienced during the pandemic and rebuild our sense of agency and self, so that we can attribute student success to both teachers’ and students’ efforts Evaluate what we have learned about remote teaching and learning to determine what to carry forward and what to leave behind Shift the narrative from learning loss to "learning leaps" and implement instructional and assessment practices that ensure our students reclaim lost knowledge, build skills, develop agency, and accelerate gains Redefine classrooms, learning experiences, the ways schools operate, and the very idea of schooling itself "The greatest travesty that can arise for schools after 2020/21," Doug, Nancy, Dominique, and John write, "is to rush back to the old normal, and learn nothing, or little, about what worked well. That’s why this book has focused on rebounding, and taking the opportunity to create an even better schooling system, one that serves even more students, and focuses more on what matters most." "Let′s agree not to reduce the impact that our expectations have on students′ learning. What if we talk about learning leaps instead of learning loss? What if we identify where students are in their learning and identify critical content that they must learn now to accelerate their performance in the future? And what if we raise our expectations for students rather than lower them?" —Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie

Disrupting the cycle starts with you. No matter how conscientious we are, we carry implicit bias... which quickly turns into assumptions and then labels. Labels define our interactions with and expectations of students. Labels contribute to student identity and agency. And labels can have a negative effect beyond the classroom. It’s crucial, then, that teachers remove labels and focus on students’ strengths—but this takes real work at an individual, classroom, and schoolwide scale. Removing Labels urges you to take an active approach toward disrupting the negative effects of labels and assumptions that interfere with student learning. This book offers: 40 practical, replicable teaching techniques—all based in research and best practice—that focus on building relationships, restructuring classroom engagement and management, and understanding the power of social and emotional learning Suggestions for actions on an individual, classroom, and schoolwide level Ready-to-go tools and student-facing printables to use in planning and instruction Removing Labels is more than a collection of teaching strategies—it’s a commitment to providing truly responsive education that serves all children. When you and your colleagues take action to prevent negative labels from taking hold, the whole community benefits.

Provide students a clear view of what success looks like for any process, task, or product. What does success look like for your students? How will they know if they have learned? This essential component of teaching and learning can be difficult to articulate but is vital to achievement for both teachers and students. The Success Criteria Playbook catapults teachers beyond learning intentions to define clearly what success looks like for every student—whether face-to-face or in a remote learning environment. Designed to be used collaboratively in grade-level, subject area teams—or even on your own—the step-by-step playbook expands teacher understanding of how success criteria can be utilized to maximize student learning and better engage learners in monitoring and evaluating their own progress. Each module is designed to support the creation and immediate implementation of high-quality, high impact success criteria and includes: • Templates that allow for guided and independent study for teachers. • Extensive STEM-focused examples from across the K-12 STEM curriculum to guide teacher learning and practice. • Examples of success criteria applied across learning domains and grades, including high school content, skills, practices, dispositions, and understandings. Ensure equity of access to learning and opportunity for all students by designing and employing high-quality, high-impact success criteria that connect learners to a shared understanding of what success looks like for any given learning intention.

Student learning communities (SLCs) are more than just a different way of doing group work. Like the professional learning communities they resemble, SLCs provide students with a structured way to solve problems, share insight, and help one another continually develop new skills and expertise. With the right planning and support, dynamic collaborative learning can thrive everywhere. In this book, educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Almarode explain how to create and sustain student learning communities by - Designing group experiences and tasks that encourage dialogue; - Fostering the relational conditions that advance academic, social, and emotional development; - Providing explicit instruction on goal setting and opportunities to practice progress monitoring; - Using thoughtful teaming practices to build cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional regulation skills; - Teaching students to seek, give, and receive feedback that amplifies their own and others'' learning; and - Developing the specific leadership skills and strategies that promote individual and group success. Examples from face-to-face and virtual K–12 classrooms help to illustrate what SLCs are, and teacher voices testify to what they can achieve. No more hoping the group work you''re assigning will be good enough—or that collaboration will be its own reward. No more crossing your fingers for productive outcomes or struggling to keep order, assess individual student contributions, and ensure fairness. Student Learning Communities shows you how to equip your students with what they need to learn in a way that is truly collective, makes them smarter together than they would be alone, creates a more positive classroom culture, and enables continuous academic and social-emotional growth.

Turn good intentions into better outcomes—by design! Why leave student success up to chance? By combining your intuition and experience with the latest research on high-impact learning practices, you can evolve your teaching from good to great and make a lasting difference for your students. Organized around the DIIE framework, Great Teaching by Design takes you step-by-step from intention to implementation to accelerate the impact your teaching has on student learning. Inside, you’ll find: A deep dive into the four stages of the DIIE model: Diagnosis and Discovery, Intervention, Implementation, and Evaluation A fresh look at the Visible Learning research, which identifies the most powerful strategies for teaching and learning Stories of best practices in action and examples from classrooms around the world Great teaching may come by chance, but it will come by design. Whether you’re new to teaching or looking to give your instruction a boost, take up the challenge and discover a new framework for teaching with true intentionality.