Books and Publications

QUICK REFERENCE GUIDES

ASCD Quick Reference Guides cover fundamental education topics in a handy format that's perfect for time-pressed study groups or individuals. Written by recognized experts, the guides are packed with instructional tips and solutions that you can put into practice right away.

Each 8.5" x 11" multipanel guide is laminated for extra durability and 3-hole-punched for binder storage.

Classroom Technology Tips (Quick Reference Guide)

Classroom Technology Tips

This expert overview of EdTech essentials includes dozens of strategies and recommended tools to employ technology more effectively.

New! Building a Positive and Supportive Classroom

Julie Causton and Kate MacLeod

Building a Positive and Supportive Classroom continues Julie Causton and Kate MacLeod's mission to transform schools into healing, loving places where learning and acceptance can occur.

New! The Fundamentals of Understanding by Design

Jay McTighe

This quick reference guide from Understanding by Design^® co-creator Jay McTighe covers UbD^®'s key tenets and three-stage "backward design" process and introduces the framework's design templates and quality standards.

New! Teaching the Five SEL Skills All Students Need

Thomas R. Hoerr

Based on the best-selling book The Formative Five, this quick reference guide presents the five social-emotional skills students need most: empathy, self-control, integrity, embracing diversity, and grit.

Browse Quick Reference Guides

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Addressing and Preventing Classroom Bullying (Quick Reference Guide)

Addressing and Preventing Classroom Bullying

Anti-bullying authority Barbara Coloroso offers tips and procedures to help teachers identify, address, and prevent classroom bullying.

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Better Behavior Practices (Quick Reference Guide)

Better Behavior Practices

Learn ways to shift your classroom management style from punitive to positive with better behavior practices in this guide from Dominique Smith, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Lee Ann Jung.

The Brain and Learning - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

The Brain and Learning

The info and tips from this guide by author Allison Posey, will help teachers relate what we know about the brain to classroom practice.

Building Teacher Capacity Through Reflection - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Building Teacher Capacity Through Reflection

This guide from authors Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral, shows teachers ways to deepen their thinking and reflect on their capacity as educators to improve their effectiveness in the classroom.

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Classroom Technology Tips (Quick Reference Guide)

Classroom Technology Tips

This expert overview of EdTech essentials from Monica Burns includes dozens of strategies and recommended tools to help teachers employ technology more effectively in the classroom.

Close Reading Fundamentals - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Close Reading Fundamentals

Learn the 10 steps for close reading instruction, how to assess close reading, and how to troubleshoot the process so that all students succeed with this powerful tool for learning in this guide from Diane Lapp and colleagues.

Communication Strategies for Successful Co-Teaching - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Communication Strategies for Successful Co-Teaching

In this reference guide, expert Susan Hentz offers nine useful, easy-to-implement activities designed to improve communication and strengthen the working relationship between co-teachers.

Co-Teaching Essentials - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Co-Teaching Essentials

Expert Susan Hentz provides essential information on co-teaching for all educators, giving helpful tips on co-planning, co-teaching partnerships, and co-teaching approaches.

Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom

Building on their award-winning book, Kristin Souers and Pete Hall present 12 practical, easy-to-implement strategies to help students living with trauma thrive in the classroom.

Cultivating Habits of Mind - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Cultivating Habits of Mind

Acclaimed educators Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick offer quick tips for cultivating the 16 habits of mind to help students become more successful learners.

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Designing and Using Essential Questions - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Designing and Using Essential Questions

Packed with tips and examples of process questions to use in the classroom, this guide, by Jay McTighe, is a starting point for any teacher to learn how essential questions will benefit all students.

Distance Learning Essentials (Quick Reference Guide)

Distance Learning Essentials

Monica Burns guides teachers of grades 4–12 through the implementation and facilitation of distance learning experiences with flexibility, feasibility, and accountability in mind.

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E

Engaging Students in Every Classroom (Quick Reference Guide)

Engaging Students in Every Classroom

Susan Hentz and Michelle Vacchio present strategies to foster student engagement through positive relationships, classroom management, flexible grouping, and questioning and discussion.

Everyday Vocabulary Strategies - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Everyday Vocabulary Strategies

Explore strategies and rubrics for assessing vocabulary learning, and plan how to team with your colleagues to increase vocabulary across your grade level or school. Get tips and resources from Marilee Sprenger that will help you increase students' vocabularies for greater reading success.

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Flipping the Learning - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Flipping the Learning

Flipped learning pioneer Jon Bergmann offers a compelling overview of how to flip your classroom and use technology to support best practices in student learning. The guide also features ways to overcome common hurdles and mistakes, tips for effective flipped videos and sample flipped lessons.

The Formative Assessment Learning Cycle - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

The Formative Assessment Learning Cycle

In this guide, experts Susan Brookhart and Jay McTighe show how best to incorporate the formative learning cycle into everyday instruction. They offer techniques for sharing learning targets, assessment activities to use in the classroom, and strategies for providing student feedback.

Fostering Student Voice - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Fostering Student Voice

This handy guide by Russell Quaglia and Kristine Fox is based on years of research and work in schools and describes a four-step process to fostering student growth.

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Games and Tools for Teaching Addition Facts - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Games and Tools for Teaching Addition Facts

This handy guide from authors Jennifer Bay-Williams and Gina Kling is full of engaging games, assessment tools, and strategies that offer teachers ways to help every child develop fluency with addition and subtraction facts.

Games and Tools for Teaching Multiplication Facts

Games and Tools for Teaching Multiplication Facts

This guide from authors Gina Kling and Jennifer Bay-Williams offers engaging games, assessment tools, and strategies for teachers to help every child master multiplication and division facts.

Getting Started with Project Based Learning - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Getting Started with Project Based Learning

John Larmer describes the benefits of project based learning, outlines seven key project-based teaching practices, and offers tips for designing high-quality projects.

Giving Students Effective Feedback - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Giving Students Effective Feedback

Feedback is one of the most important variables affecting student learning. Susan Brookhart shares how and when to provide effective feedback that helps students see where they are going, where they are now, and where they should go next in their learning.

Grading for Student Learning - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Grading for Student Learning

Explore grading and reporting strategies that motivate student learning and accurately reflect student achievement in this guide by Susan Brookhart. Learn ways to communicate clearly about grades and grading and how to involve students in the grading process.

Gradual Release of Responsibility in the Classroom - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Gradual Release of Responsibility in the Classroom

A quick-reference introduction to the gradual release of responsibility framework—a template for delivering powerful, effective, and engaging instruction that fosters independent learning—from Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey.

Guiding Meaningful Math Conversations - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Guiding Meaningful Math Conversations

In this handy laminated guide, Laney Sammons shows how to engage students in constructive math conversations that help them solve problems and build mathematical meaning.

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H

High-Quality Lesson Planning (Quick Reference Guide)

High-Quality Lesson Planning

Jane E. Pollock, Susan Hensley, and Laura Tolone guide teachers through five steps to plan high-quality lessons that increase student engagement and achievement.

How to Align Assessment to Curriculum and Instruction (Qualities of Effective Teaching) - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

How to Align Assessment to Curriculum and Instruction (Qualities of Effective Teaching)

This research-based guide explores how to align assessment to standards, content, rigor, and learning goals while ensuring the reliability and validity of the assessment.

How to Create High-Quality Assessments (Qualities of Effective Teaching) - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

How to Create High-Quality Assessments (Qualities of Effective Teaching)

The Stronge and Associates team shares guiding principles for creating high-quality assessments, plus how to build an assessment blueprint and recommendations for writing test items.

How to Use Assessments to Inform Instruction (Qualities of Effective Teaching) - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

How to Use Assessments to Inform Instruction (Qualities of Effective Teaching)

The Stronge and Associates team shares how to use assessment data to modify your instruction, interpret test scores, and apply student data to learning goals.

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I

Improving Classroom Discussion - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Improving Classroom Discussion

Find tips, strategies, and examples to learn how to better help students speak and listen to one another in ways that help them make meaning and increase their understanding from questioning expert Jackie Acree Walsh.

Inclusion Do's, Don'ts, and Do Betters - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Inclusion Do's, Don'ts, and Do Betters

Noted inclusion expert Toby J. Karten details the essential do's, don'ts, and do betters for creating an inclusive classroom where all students are supported and receive the most effective instruction.

Increasing Rigor In The Classroom - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Increasing Rigor In The Classroom

Rigor expert Barbara R. Blackburn offers teachers tips for designing rigorous instruction and assessment that advance student learning.

Integrating SEL into Everyday Instruction - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Integrating SEL into Everyday Instruction

Use this guide from authors Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and Douglas Fisher to discover an empowering and effective approach to SEL that shifts it from a standalone curriculum to its natural place as an essential part of learning.

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Managing Your Classroom with Restorative Practices - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Managing Your Classroom with Restorative Practices

In this laminated guide authors Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey offer positive and proactive tips for creating a respectful classroom, developing rapport with students, managing conflicts, and establishing expectations for student behavior.

Media Literacy in Every Classroom - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Media Literacy in Every Classroom

In this laminated guide, longtime leaders in media literacy education, Faith Rogow and Cyndy Scheibe share an inquiry-based approach to media analysis that teaches students how to think without telling them what to think.

Motivating and Managing Student Behavior with Dignity - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Motivating and Managing Student Behavior with Dignity

Experts Allen N. Mendler and Brian D. Mendler, coauthors of the classic book Discipline with Dignity, offer strategies and tips for managing student behavior.

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Personalizing

Personalizing Learning in Your Classroom

In this laminated guide, authors Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick explain the four attributes of personalized learning, provide tips to build student readiness in the classroom, and describe the seven elements of progressively student-driven learning.

Planning Effective Instruction for ELLs

Planning Effective Instruction for ELLs

Authors Pérsida and William Himmele share practical strategies to help teachers effectively plan to meet the linguistic and academic needs of English Language Learners.

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Q

Questioning Strategies to Activate Student Thinking - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Questioning Strategies to Activate Student Thinking

This handy guide by Jackie Acree Walsh helps teachers develop questions that connect students to learning goals, hold all students accountable for responding, and scaffold and support student thinking.

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R

Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading

Rubrics are essential to help students learn how to learn and are strong tools that support and enhance instruction and student learning. Learn how to create and use rubrics to improve assessment and understanding in the classroom in this guide from Susan Brookhart.

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T

Teacher Talk That Matters - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Teacher Talk That Matters

Mike Anderson offers advice in three key areas—culture and climate, management and behavior, and academic engagement—to help teachers build better language habits.

Teaching and Supporting Students Living with Adversity (Quick Reference Guide)

Teaching and Supporting Students Living with Adversity

Debbie Zacarian and Lourdes Alvarez-Ortiz outline five keys to supporting students living with adversity and provide related strategies teachers can use to create a strengths-based learning environment.

Teaching Students from Poverty - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Teaching Students from Poverty

This laminated guide from Eric Jensen discusses how poverty affects students and the best teaching strategies to meet the differing needs of this population, whether elementary, middle, or high school age.

Total Participation Techniques to Engage Students - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Total Participation Techniques to Engage Students

Learn about the guiding principles of Total Participation Techniques from Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele and how to effectively use them in the classroom to encourage all students to participate in active learning—and to make it more likely that students will be cognitively engaged in lessons.

Trauma-Invested Practices To Meet Students' Needs - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Trauma-Invested Practices to Meet Students' Needs

Kristin Van Marter Souers and Pete Hall offer K–12 teachers ways to uncover and address students' unmet needs and build trauma-invested environments.

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Understanding Differentiated Instruction - ASCD Quick Reference Guide

Understanding Differentiated Instruction

This laminated guide from Carol Ann Tomlinson covers the key terms, principles, and practices of differentiation and provides teachers with low-prep strategies for getting started. It is a perfect introductory resource for understanding how to better reach and teach all students.

Using Brain Science to Make Learning Stick (Quick Reference Guide)

Using Brain Science to Make Learning Stick

Bryan Goodwin, Tonia Gibson

Bryan Goodwin and Tonia Gibson demonstrate the connection between brain-based scientific research and classroom practices so that teachers can help students engage in deep learning.

Using Data for Equity in the Classroom (Quick Reference Guide)

Using Data for Equity in the Classroom

Amanda Datnow and Vicki Park dispel misconceptions of data use and describe how teachers can engage with data to foster equity and improve classroom instruction.

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UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN® and UbD® are registered trademarks of Backward Design, LLC used under license.