NSDC Book Selection December 2009

Leading Adult Learning, Supporting Adult Development in Our Schools

Educators at every level go through different stages of development over the course of their lives and need different kinds of supports and challenges to grow. Leading Adult Learning introduces a model of adult development that helps school and district leaders consciously cultivate teacher, principal, and superintendent capacities in the educational workplace. Eleanor Drago-Severson's developmental model of learning-oriented school leadership draws from multiple knowledge domains, including adult learning, developmental theory, leadership practice, and organizational collaboration. The book shows school leaders how to foster growth and learning for individuals with different needs and developmental orientations.

August Article

Horizon Report: 2009 K-12 is a new project that applies the process developed for the New Media Consortium's Horizon Project with a focus on emerging technologies for elementary and secondary learning institutions.

Here is a link to the web version of the report http://wp.nmc.org/horizon-k12-2009/

The format of the Horizon Report reflects the focus of the Horizon Project, which centers on the applications of emerging technologies to teaching, learning, research, and creative expression. Each topic opens with an overview to introduce the concept or technology involved and follows with a discussion of the particular relevance of the topic to education or creativity. Examples of how the technology is being — or could be — applied to those activities are given.

July Book Choice

Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind

Just as gifted children clearly differ from the norm, Deborah Ruf s book Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind is set apart from the stacks of other books written for parents, teachers, and professionals about the development of a gifted child naturally endowed with a high degree of general mental ability or extraordinary ability in a specific domain. Although the designation of giftedness is largely a matter of administrative convenience. The most obvious reason is that the author has carefully collected and categorized vignettes from 50 families with 78 different gifted children. Because of the breadth of this project, Ruf gives readers an unprecedented opportunity to vicariously experience daily living with exceptional children

July Book Choice

Overview
An essential part of moving forward with ASCD's Understanding by Design® framework is to make sure its principles and strategies are reflected in all aspects of your school improvement efforts, including curriculum planning, leadership, teacher professional development, and action research. Here’s a book to help you with that. From creating your mission and goals to identifying desired results, UbD authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe describe how to focus your school on the goals of understanding and accomplishment-based learning. Dozens of action ideas, curriculum frameworks, and assessment rubrics help you use backward design and other UbD processes to determine the evidence for your success and to plan improvement steps in instruction and leadership roles.

June Book Choice

Malcolm Gladwell is keynote speaker for this years NECC in Washington DC.
A British-born Canadian journalist, author, and pop sociologist, Malcolm Gladwell is based in New York City and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. His books and articles often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences and make frequent and extended use of academic work, particularly in the areas of sociology, psychology, and social psychology. He is best known as the author of The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), and Outliers (2008).
In this best-seller, a staff writer for The New Yorker weighs the factors that determine good decision-making. Drawing on recent cognitive research, Gladwell concludes that those who quickly filter out extraneous information generally make better decisions than those who discount their first impressions.

June Book Choice

In the book, Johnson claims that popular culture – and in particular television shows and video games – has grown more complex and demanding over time and is making us smarter.

"This book is an old-fashioned work of persuasion that ultimately aims to convince you of one thing: that popular culture has, on average, grown more complex and intellectually challenging over the past thirty years"

For those of us that use Facebook, Twitter, IM, Gaming and enjoy some reality TV... this is an enticing read!

Enjoy... Ready for feedback comments

May Book Choice: Here Comes Everybody, By Clay Shirky

In this book, Shirky describes three levels of group activities, made possible by social media:
1. Sharing with others, using del.icio.us, Flickr, Slideshare and other social tools. After September 11th, a professor of Middle Eastern history starts writing a blog that became a resource for reporters covering the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq.

2. Collaboration, perhaps using Linux or Wikipedia. Kite makers find each other online and collaborate on the most radical improvement in kite design in decades. So are architects.

3. Collective action, where groups form to pursue a larger purpose and use social tools, ranging from google or Yahoo! groups to free online social networks such as Ning to share news and tips, recruit others, support each other and remain unified.

Please share your review and comments on this book.