Summer is a time for relaxing physically and resetting mentally. As you enjoy your summer refresh, consider how you might bring a renewed sense of well-being into the next school year—not only your own well-being, but also that of your students and colleagues.
Whether you're an instructional coach in search of inspiration and guidance, a new teacher who wants to start strong with engaging classroom practices, or a veteran educator who wants to find the best ways to encourage your colleagues and shape the culture of your school, ASCD can help. Here are 10 books to consider for your summer must-read list.
Coaching
Compassionate Coaching: How to Help Educators Navigate Barriers to Professional Growth by Kathy Perret and Kenny McKee
Compassionate Coaching identifies the six most vexing challenges teachers face and the six corresponding ways that coaches can help teachers surmount them—dubbed the compassionate coaching focus areas. Coaching with compassion focuses on partnership, empowerment, prioritization, routine, connection, and openness. Done well, it can shift the trajectory of whole schools.
Even under ideal conditions, teaching is tough work. Educators can easily become discouraged (or worse, burn out completely) without a robust coaching system in place to support them. Coaching guru Jim Knight and his team of researchers at the Instructional Coaching Group offer a blueprint for establishing, administering, and assessing an instructional coaching program laser-focused on every educator's ultimate goal: the academic success of students.
Uprooting Instructional Inequity: The Power of Inquiry-Based Professional Learning by Jill Harrison Berg
Are you ready to see your school work smarter toward instructional equity? In Uprooting Instructional Inequity, noted leadership coach Jill Harrison Berg offers a comprehensive guide to help school and teacher leaders amplify the power of collaborative inquiry as a means for identifying, interrogating, and addressing instructional inequity.
Teacher Efficacy / New Teachers: Starting Strong
Feeling overwhelmed—constantly, on a daily basis—has unfortunately become the status quo among educators. But it doesn't have to be. In Teaching with Clarity, Tony Frontier focuses on three fundamental questions to help reduce curricular and organizational clutter in the interest of clarity and focus. With this book, teachers can begin to clear away the curricular clutter that overwhelms the profession—and embrace the clarity that emerges.
Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems by Mike Anderson
Incentive and reward systems are used with the best of intentions, but long-term, they simply don’t work. Students need intrinsic, not extrinsic, motivators. Award-winning educator and best-selling author Mike Anderson explains what intrinsic motivation looks like and what fosters it, offering practical strategies every teacher can implement immediately in their classroom.
So Each May Soar: The Principles and Practices of Learner-Centered Classrooms by Carol Ann Tomlinson
Carol Ann Tomlinson's role in defining and popularizing differentiated instruction has made her one of the most influential voices in modern education. In So Each May Soar, she illuminates the next step forward: creating learner-centered classrooms to help all students gain a deeper understanding of themselves, others, and the world.
The Classroom Behavior Manual: How to Build Relationships with Students, Share Control, and Teach Positive Behaviors by Scott Ervin
How do you respond to difficult behavior in the moment? What's the best way to prevent students from acting out in the first place? Behavior expert Scott Ervin calls on his two decades of experience to share the most effective procedures and strategies to foster positive, prosocial student behavior that supports learning. The Classroom Behavior Manual is a resource you can return to again and again, packed with more than 100 strategies and dozens of procedures and tools.
Leadership for Well-Being and Inclusion
Well-Being in Schools: Three Forces That Will Uplift Your Students in a Volatile World by Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, students' well-being was an increasingly prominent concern among educators. World-renowned education experts Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley explore the underlying ideas and research findings related to well-being, coupled with examples of policies and implementations from around the globe.
Restoring Students' Innate Power: Trauma-Responsive Strategies for Teaching Multilingual Newcomers by Louise El Yaafouri
Louise El Yaafouri's book explores the effects of trauma on newcomer students and presents stress-mitigating strategies that empower these multilingual students as they transition to a new environment. This book isn't exclusively about trauma; it's about restoring power. Restoration of power moves us forward.
Achievement Teams: How a Better Approach to PLCs Can Improve Student Outcomes and Teacher Efficacy by Steve Ventura and Michelle Ventura
In Achievement Teams, Steve Ventura and Michelle Ventura offer a framework based on John Hattie's Visible Learning research that makes teacher collaboration more efficient, rigorous, satisfying, and effective. Think of it as a systematic treasure hunt for best practices using real data on your students.
Need more? Later this summer, ASCD will release new books on managing educator bandwidth, creating joyful learning spaces, supporting and motivating teachers, and other timely topics. Spend some time this summer not only soaking up the sun, but also soaking up new and inspiring knowledge that you can take with you into the classroom this fall.
Summer Sale
Now is a great time to build your professional learning library. All ASCD books and Quick Reference Guides are 30% through June 13! Use code SUMMER2022 in the ASCD store to get your discount. And if you’re an ASCD member, your member discount also applies, so be sure to log in when you shop!
Now is a great time to build your professional learning library. All ASCD books and Quick Reference Guides are 30% through June 13! Use code SUMMER2022 in the ASCD store to get your discount. And if you’re an ASCD member, your member discount also applies, so be sure to log in when you shop!
