Category Archives: books

Presentations at AMLE (Austin, here we come!)

chnocq9xeaazpqyGetting ready to leave for the Association of Middle Level Educators conference in Austin, Texas. I’m excited to be presenting my research, The Doing Revolution, on Wednesday, October 12th at 9:45 at the Austin Convention Center. Please come join me if you can!

I’m also helping out on two presentations with the University of Vermont’s Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education. These are personal and immediately applicable table sessions about shifting roles in personalized learning; and a concurrent session about how to launch makerspaces and genius hours. I am thrilled to be part of this work in transforming education and sharing the progress happening in Vermont.

My publisher, Corwin Press, will also have a table at AMLE. I’m hoping they’ll bring copies of Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Can Stop the Exodus, so we can concentrate the ways to help keep great teachers in the classroom.

So far, I’ve heard the bat bridge is something not to miss in Austin.  What else?

 

Teacher Summer Reading: Learn Like Pirate

(First published at the Tarrant Center for Innovative Education blog)

Something about this book title and summer reading fits perfectly. The open ocean, pirates, and fierce independence. I’m hoping you have a bit of time to settle into some reading for fun and some that inspires you in the classroom to have students take on more leadership and develop their own independence.

You know when you pick up a book and it just clicks? Learn Like a Pirate, by Paul Solarz is just that kind of book. As a teacher I have been trying to develop ways for students to take more leadership and ownership in the classroom (and beyond). Paul Solarz takes this to a new level– and I wish I had this book years ago. It is, in short, a guidebook for how to give your students voice, choice, leadership and independence in the classroom. The book gives very doable ways for students to take the lead in their own educations– to create classroom environments can foster community, life-long, engaged learning.

learn like a piriate

Cliff Notes Version:

(aka transformative practices outlined in the book)

Continue reading →

The Order of the Trees is a Green Earth Book Award Honor Book!

2016-green-earth-book-award-honor-winners-for-web-768x403We are pleased to announce that The Order of the Trees won the Green Earth Book Award honor prize for Children’s Fiction 2015! The Nature Generation awards books that promote environmental stewardship among young people.  The Green Earth Book awards are awarded in picture book, children’s fiction and non-fiction, young adult fiction and non-fiction categories.

I’m honored to be included on this list. We’ll be heading to Washington D.C. in October for the Read Green Festival and award ceremony and we will be thrilled to meet other authors,  environmentalists and readers!