New Releases by Douglas Fisher

Build and sustain the mindsets and systems that make teacher clarity work. Learning depends on clarity—a shared understanding among teachers, leaders, and students of what is being learned, why it matters, and how success will be recognized, all aligned with the learning experiences and assessment tasks. While many schools want to embrace teacher clarity, progress often stalls without clear guidance for school and district leaders. This book provides the essential framework for leaders to build, sustain, and embed a culture of clarity that transforms teaching and learning across the entire system. Developed for principals, instructional coaches, and district leaders, this practical guide will help you lead and implement teacher clarity, ensuring it is a foundational element of your school′s or district’s culture and not just a temporary initiative. Designed for reading alongside teachers’ use of the bestselling The Teacher Clarity Playbook, this book provides leaders with the tools to support teachers on their journey and ensure the work succeeds and endures. Features include: Planning Your Pitch: Ready-to-use talking points to help leaders communicate key ideas clearly and persuasively The Thinking Leader: Reflective questions to deepen self-awareness and provoke thoughtful leadership discussions A Leader′s Perspective: Real-life stories and insights from experienced educational leaders Leadership Checklist: Actionable steps to guide leaders in implementing new ideas effectively within their own contexts By modeling, protecting, and sustaining clarity, leaders can create the conditions for teachers to collaborate, reflect, and grow together, ensuring every student has a clear vision of success.

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.

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.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept in education. It′s a present-day force reshaping how students learn, and teachers teach. But in the rapidly evolving world of AI, educators need more than just quick fixes or flashy tools. With the guidance of expert educators Salman Khan, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, James Marshall, and Meghan Hargrave, Teaching Students to Use AI Ethically & Responsibly will prepare you not only how to teach with AI-but how to teach for a world transformed by it. Grounded in the latest research and enriched by years of classroom experience, this book takes you from understanding what AI is and how it operates, to helping students become confident, ethical thinkers in an AI-powered world. Organized into three sections, it covers how to teach AI′s foundational concepts, how to develop student inquiry and critical thinking, and how to teach student AI usage through authentic, curiosity-driven learning quests. It includes: Clear definitions, classroom examples, and teacher/student practices for each of the 30 core topics across AI theory, skills, and application Step-by-step guides for nine unique AI-powered learning quests, each designed to drive curiosity, collaboration, and deep understanding Practical strategies for addressing ethical considerations, bias, privacy, and responsible use of AI in learning environments Skill progressions for different grade bands, including skills to master, prompt-crafting tips, and online examples to help both educators and students integrate and evaluate AI tools with confidence Whether you′re new to AI or already exploring its integration, this comprehensive resource sheds light on hidden aspects of AI, equips you to foster essential student skills, and provides actionable strategies for hands-on collaboration with AI in your daily teaching practice.

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.

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.

Recharge Adolescent Literacy: Strategies to Foster Joyful and Proficient Readers There are many adolescent readers who, for a variety of reasons, find it difficult to connect with written words and have fallen behind on their foundational reading skills. Thankfully, it’s never too late to give these necessary skills a boost and help students find joy in reading and learning. Armed with equity, empathy, evidence-based research, and practical application, Teaching Foundational Skills to Adolescent Readers provides classroom practices teachers can use with the whole class or with small groups to integrate reading support seamlessly with grade-level content learning. Bestselling authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, along with Sarah Ortega, Kierstan Barbee, and Aida Allen-Rotell, creatively organize the book around a metaphor: adolescent literacy is a battery—when all the parts are connected, working together, and fully charged—literacy can thrive. Throughout the book, the following features will guide your learning: Plug Into the Research – an overview of the evidence-based research supporting each section of the literacy model Power Up Classroom Practice – connecting the dots on the research, classroom practice and human aspects of learning Voices from the Field – classroom examples of application and strategies from other secondary educators Take Charge – key takeaways and reflection questions Tips on building and organizing your classroom library to incorporate tools, technology, and media available to maximize lesson effectiveness Dozens of videos to model time-efficient strategies and key concepts By focusing on research, classroom practices, and the human aspects of learning, this book is an essential tool to recharge reading practices for adolescent readers and help educators increase foundational reading skills in the classroom.

A professional development assessment tool to elevate learning and instruction in every classroom This unique, hands-on flipbook is designed as a classroom observation tool that redefines RIGOR, with a focus on five key elements, or indicators, that form a framework to promote a rigorous, scaffolded learning environment. Explore the five indicators on a RIGOR Walk to identify teacher strengths and areas for growth, and to set goals: Relationships Instruction Goals Organization Relevance Developed for teachers, teams, instructional coaches, and school leaders, RIGOR Unveiled provides a wealth of support and knowledge for classroom observation and reflection, including: Tabbed sections that describe each of the five indicators to help focus discussion and evaluations Rubrics for evaluation including ratings, evidence, and "My Next Steps" 100+ video spotlights defining key concepts 25 classroom videos showing each of the indicators in action 25 videos of coaches discussing what they observed in each of the classroom videos Sturdy flipbook format for individual and team use and easy writing on the go Spot It Happening feature to calibrate observations as they happen Together your teaching teams can improve the learning outcomes for students by committing to continuous improvement in their teaching practice. With this book in hand, you’ll have everything you need to make it happen.

Engage, Empower, Educate: Unleash the Potential of Multilingual Learners What′s your "why" for being a teacher? Unlike other professionals, teachers often have strong reasons for why they teach and a clear sense of purpose. Acknowledging and understanding this purpose helps educators to not just do what they do but do it well. This illustrated guide was designed for all classroom teachers to emphasize the unique challenges and opportunities that arise in multilingual learner education. Using Simon Sinek′s Golden Circle theory to understand and elevate that sense of purpose, the book is organized into three parts: the why, the how, and the what of teaching multilingual learners. You will learn The benefits and goals of a multilingual education How to design learning experiences for multilingual learners and how to respond when students are not learning Culturally inclusive pedagogy and how it positively supports the identities of your students How to foster oral language skills, build vocabulary, and increase students’ word knowledge How to engage families and caregivers and create a sense of belonging in your classroom And so much more! With a clear understanding of the research-based tools, techniques, and instructional strategies described and illustrated in the book, a solid sense of purpose, and a dash of grace for you and your multilingual learners, you will be well on your way to creating productive and positive learning opportunities that meet the best interests of all students, families, educators, and the community.

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 11 signature practices of Visible Learning Research-backed mindframes that have the potential to significantly influence the quality of education. 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.

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

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.

Feedback keeps learning moving forward. Picture water pouring into a crystal goblet. That’s how clear and dynamic feedback must be. You can achieve that "perfect swirl" of giving, receiving, and integrating feedback with this remarkable book, which is organized into 16 modules for self-study or PLCs. Major concepts include: Defining Feedback: learn the most useful types of feedback, why to align them with transparent criteria, how to gather evidence. 4 C’s of Feedback: offer it with care, credibility, clarity, and clear communication Gathering Evidence for Feedback: use a balance of verbal, written, and kinesthetic responses; peer collaboration, checks-for-understanding, technology, and more.

Now more than ever, schools need to be places where openness and can-do are baked into every hallway hello and every meeting. This vision-setting starts at the top, and with a combination of strategic thinking and inspiring relationship-building. With Leader Credibility, learn how to attain or amplify the qualities that all school leaders keep in motion each day. Discover efficient, persuasive ways to communicate and mentor growth by being: Trustworthy Competent Dynamic Immediate Forward thinking

Let’s make the "next normal" a "better normal" If there ever was a time for our heroic school leadership to persevere, it’s now. Because now, well over one year since the pandemic stretched the resilience and reserves of our school systems, it’s time to "rebound." It’s time to leverage this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reboot teaching and learning as we know it so that we magnify the effective practices from the past while leveraging the so many recent lessons learned. This is where Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie, coauthors of The Distance Learning Playbook series, are ideally equipped to serve as your collaborators. Inside Leading the Rebound: 20+ Must-Dos to Restart Teaching and Learning you’ll find immediate actions, mindsets, and approaches to take if we’re to reimagine and improve our schools and school systems. Step by step, you’ll discover explicit guidance on how to: 1. Take care of yourself 2. Take stock and find the path 3. Rebuild teacher agency 4. Rebuild collective teacher efficacy 5. Foreground social and emotional learning 6. Change the learning loss narrative 7. Guide teacher clarity 8. Ensure instructional excellence 9. Use assessments for a range of purposes 10. Design and implement interventions 11. Win back parent-teacher relationships 12. Establish restorative practices 13. Avoid stealing the conflict 14. Enhance teacher-student and student-student interactions 15. Develop early warning systems for attendance, behavior, and course completion 16. Confront cognitive challenges to learning 17. Ensure equitable and restorative grading 18. Enhance PLCs 19. Provide empathetic feedback 20. Host honest performance conversations 21. Maintain your social presence 22. Future-proof teachers and students What’s more Leading the Rebound is backed up with all kinds of resources--including VISIBLE LEARNING® research, sample planning tools, and other essential tips and strategies--to provide you with a start-to-finish roadmap for navigating this absolutely critical next leg in our journey toward a "better normal."

What a year! Twelve months and counting since COVID expanded, stretched, and blurred the boundaries of teaching and learning, at least one thing has remained constant: our commitment as educators to move learning forward. It’s just the context that keeps changing—why Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Almarode, and Aleigha Henderson-Rosser have created a follow-up to The Distance Learning Playbook, their all-new Quick Guide to Simultaneous, Hybrid, and Blended Learning. First, to be clear: simultaneous learning must not be an additive, meaning we combine two entirely different approaches and double our workload. That’s unsustainable! Instead, we must extract, integrate, and implement what works best from both distance learning and face-to-face learning environments. Then and only then—Doug, Nancy, John, and Aleigha insist—can we maximize the learning opportunities for all of our students. To that end, The Quick Guide to Simultaneous, Hybrid, and Blended Learning describes how to: Have clarity about the most important learning outcomes for our students. This will help us decide what is best done asynchronously and what is best done with our "Roomies" and "Zoomies." Capitalize on the potential of asynchronous learning and use that valuable time to preview and review. This way we can draw on evidence from these tasks to help us decide where to go next in our teaching and our students’ learning. Utilize synchronous learning for collaborative learning and scaffolding of content, skills, and essential understandings. In doing so, we can collect additional evidence of students’ learning so that we provide feedback that moves learning forward. Establish norms for combining synchronous and face-to-face environments in simultaneous learning. Importantly, we have to set up the environment for our Roomies and Zoomies to learn together. Develop learning experiences and tasks that maximize learner engagement for all learners in all settings. Focus on acceleration and learning recovery. In other words, no more deficit thinking! Our students are where they are and there are specific things that we can do to ensure their learning. Implement the guide’s many resources, strategies, and templates. "None of us chose to be in a situation where some learners are physically in our classrooms, while others attend virtually and remotely," write Doug, Nancy, John, and Aleigha. "However, what we hope to convey is that we’ve got this! While the context is different, the principles behind clarity, planning, high-yield strategies and interventions, student learning, and assessment hold steady." This is where The Quick Guide to Simultaneous, Hybrid, and Blended Learning will prove indispensable on this next leg of our journey.

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.

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.

Effective school leadership is effective leadership, regardless of where it occurs In March 2020, there was no manual for leading schools and school systems during a pandemic. School leaders had to figure things out as the crisis unfolded. But starting now, leaders have the opportunity to prepare for leading schools through distance learning with purpose and intent—using what works best to accelerate students’ learning all the while maintaining an indelible focus on equity. Harnessing the insights and experience of renowned educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie, The Distance Learning Playbook for School Leaders applies the wisdom and evidence of the VISIBLE LEARNING® research to understand what works best. Spanning topics from school climate at a distance, leader credibility, care for self and colleagues, instructional leadership teams, stakeholder advisory groups, and virtual visibility, this comprehensive playbook details the research- and evidence-based strategies school leaders can mobilize to lead the delivery of high-impact learning in an online, virtual, and distributed environment. This powerful guide includes: Actionable insights and hands-on steps for each module to help school leaders realize the evidence-based leadership practices that result in meaningful learning in a distance environment Discussion of equity challenges associated with distance learning, along with examples of how leaders can work to ensure that equity gains that have been realized are not lost. Analysis of the mindsets that empower leaders to manage change, rather than technology Space to write and reflect on current practices and plan future leadership strategies The mindframes for distance learning that serve leaders well in any instructional setting and will position schools after the pandemic to come back better than they were before The Distance Learning Playbook for School Leaders is the essential hands-on guide to leading school and school systems from a distance and delivering on the promise of equitable, quality learning experiences for students.

First, let’s commend ourselves: how in the midst of a pandemic we faculty stepped up at record speed to teach in such a foreign learning environment. Try we did, adapt we did, and learn we did. But to be clear, and we already recognize this, this past spring was less about distance learning and more about crisis teaching. This time around we have the opportunity to be much more purposeful and intentional, and that’s where The Distance Learning Playbook for College and University Instruction will prove absolutely indispensable. Much more than a collection of cool tools and apps, The Distance Learning Playbook for College and University Instruction mobilizes decades of Visible Learning® research to reveal those evidence-based strategies that work best in an online environment. Supplemented by video footage and opportunities to self-assess and reflect, the book addresses every dynamic that must be in place for students to learn, even at a distance: Faculty-student relationships from a distance Teacher credibility from a distance Teacher clarity from a distance Engaging tasks from a distance Planning learning experiences from a distance Feedback, assessment, and grading from a distance Keeping the focus on learning, from a distance or otherwise What does our post-COVID future hold? "We suspect," Fisher, Frey, Almarode, and Hattie write, "it will include increased amounts of distance learning. In the meantime, let’s seize on what we have learned to improve post-secondary education in any format, whether face-to-face or from a distance." "We are all still active faculty members, committed to teaching, scholarship, and service. The unexpected transition to remote learning doesn’t mean we no longer know how to teach. We can still impact the lives of our students and know that we made a difference. The Distance Learning Playbook for College and University Instruction will show you how." ~Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Almarode, and John Hattie