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Suggested books for professional reading and development.
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Mark Twain once observed, “ A lie can get halfway around the world
before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings
true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health
scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important
ideas—businessmen, educators, politicians, journalists, and
others—struggle to make their ideas “stick.” Why do some
ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of
worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea
collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions.
Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that “stick” and
explain sure-fire methods for making ideas stickier, such as violating
schemas, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating “curiosity
gaps.”
Made
to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas.
It’s a fast-paced tour of idea success stories (and failures)—the Nobel
Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point
about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa
Effect; the elementary-school teacher’s simulation that actually
prevented prejudice . Provocative, eye-opening, and funny, Made to
Stick shows us the principles of successful ideas at work—and how we
can apply these rules to making our own messages “stick.”
 Unlocking Formative Assessment is a very easy to read guide for teachers
and principals on current successful learning and assessment tools used in New
Zealand schools. It has an exciting blend of research, practical tips,
anecdotes from teachers and students, policy guides and professional
development ideas in each chapter. The research makes important links to how
formative assessment makes a significant difference to children’s progress,
including their ability to be confident, critical learners, able to achieve
more than before, and in raising their self-esteem.
Gardner's newest book, Five Minds for the Future outlines the specific cognitive abilities that will be sought and cultivated by leaders
in the years ahead.
They include:
- The Disciplinary Mind: the mastery of major schools of thought, including science, mathematics, and history, and of at least one professional craft.
- The Synthesizing Mind: the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to others.
- The Creating Mind: the capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions and phenomena.
- The Respectful Mind: awareness of and appreciation for differences among human beings and human groups.
- The Ethical Mind: fulfillment of one's responsibilities as a worker and as a citizen.
In the book, Gardner draws from a wealth of diverse examples to illuminate these ideas, designed to inspire lifelong learning and also to provide valuable insights for those charged with training and developing organizational
leaders.
Drawing on decades of cognitive research and rich examples from history, politics, business, science, and the arts, Gardner writes for professionals, teachers, parents, political and business leaders, trainers, and all who prize the cognitive skills at a premium for
tomorrow.
Based on empirical brain research from the disciplines of
neuroscience, biology, and psychology, Jensen's text explains how the
relationship between learning and the brain can impact emotions,
patterns, gender, meaningfulness, environments, body rhythms,
attitudes, enrichment, and assessment, and how it influences the
effects of stress and trauma. The book's powerful
information suggests ways for transforming schools into complete
learning organizations by providing students with an optimal learning
environment. Implementation of brain-based schooling has proven to
increase graduation rates, decrease learning difficulties and
discipline problems, and create conditions for the love of learning to
flourish.
This is an immensely helpful book. It puts the case for an integrated
curriculum and also for using inquiry as a framework of learning. However
the emphasis is on a wide range of very practical strategies to support
teacher's plans and teaching of integrated units of work. Strategies suggested
are structured to support the various stages of implementation of an inquiry unit
of work. These stages come under the headings of Tuning In, Finding Out,
Sorting Out, Going Further, Making Conclusions, Taking Action and Sharing.
The final chapter, Putting It Altogether contains two sample integrated
units of work; Night and Day for years 1 & 2 and Water, Water Everywhere
for year 4 – 6. These sample units show how strategies from each
stage can work together to enhance planning. The book also shows how the
strategies suggested can be adapted for different age levels and topics
and how these ideas will help in the development of flexible learners.
The book is written in very readable, accessible language. A must have for every school.
As kids spend ever
more time in the virtual world, the debate over whether video games
foster harmful or helpful real-world habits rages. Marc Prensky, an
educational software developer, is pro-game. In "Don’t Bother Me
Mom—I’m Learning!", Prensky maintains that kids "are almost certainly
learning more positive, useful things for their future from their video
and computer games than they learn in school!"
 A Whole New Mind: Moving From the Conceptual Age to the Information Age. We live in left
brain society - a society that has long honored linear, logical, left
to right, top to bottom beginning to end, piecemeal content
recall-based knowledge and thinking. This is the world and the mindset
of No Child Left Untested.
The
role of the right side of the brain, which handles pattern analysis,
big picture thinking, intuition and the like, has long been undervalued
and misunderstood in our right-brained society. In fact, at one time
the right brain was considered to be the 2nd rate side of the brain.
But
as Pink points out, just about anything that requires right brain
thinking can be automated, turned into software, or outsourced to the
third world. Pink talks about our emerging world where critical
thinking, problem solving, and a deep level of information fluency - in
other words using the whole new mind - is increasingly more highly
valued than simple content recall Just as information workers surpassed
physical laborers in economic importance, Pink claims, the workplace
terrain is changing yet again, and power will inevitably shift to
people who possess strong right brain qualities.
 In his new book Everything Bad Is Good for You:
How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, social
critic & technologist Steven Johnson argues the plots of today's
video games, movies & TV challenge young viewers to think like
grown-ups, follow intricate narratives & analyze complex social
networks. Johnson, a regular contributor to Wired magazine, points out
despite popular belief that electronic media is "dumbing down" society,
IQs in the developed world have risen three points a decade for the
past 100 years. This book is available in the Dunedin Public Library.
 McTighe & Williams
successfully expound on a subject often mired in philosophical debate:
how to assess understanding & evaluate true learning. It is an
outstanding framework for developing curriculum intent on extending
beyond traditional methods of teaching & preaching to students.
The
authors contend that measuring performance against six facets of
understanding can assess true understanding: explanation,
interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, &
self-knowledge. These facets are vital to developing curriculum &
the authors do an outstanding job of presenting the material in charts,
& exercises, making a difficult topic easier to understand.
 The purpose of Thomas' book is not to give you a speculative preview of the
wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you
caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going
to be flat, it is flat, and by flat, he means connected.
Friedman tells his eye-opening story with the
catchy slogans and globe-hopping anecdotes that readers of his earlier
books and his New York Times columns will know well, and also with a
stern sort of optimism. He wants to tell you how exciting this new
world is, but he also wants you to know you're going to be trampled if
you don't keep up with it. His book is an excellent place to begin...
This book is available in the Dunedin Public Library.
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