Join Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher as they outline a clear-cut, realistic, and rewarding approach to formative assessment. They explain how four discrete steps work in tandem to create a seamless, comprehensive formative assessment system—one that has no beginning and no end. This ongoing approach enhances an active give-and-take relationship between teachers and students to promote learning.Where am I going?Step 1: Feed-up ensures that students understand the purpose of an...

While social and emotional learning (SEL) is most familiar as compartmentalized programs separate from academics, the truth is, all learning is social and emotional. What teachers say, the values we express, the materials and activities we choose, and the skills we prioritize all influence how students think, see themselves, and interact with content and with others.If you teach kids rather than standards, and if you want all kids to get what they need to thrive, Nancy Frey, Dougla...

A more unlikely world opera star than Paul Frey could not be found. Born into a conservative order Mennonite farming family in rural Ontario, Canada in 1941, he was a high school dropout. His first career was as a truck driver, transporting livestock to market. But he was a young man with a powerful and true tenor voice, and a desire to sing opera. Entering opera school unable to read musical notes or count beats, Frey was offered primarily chorus roles during training and after graduation...

More than ever before, as they teach to an increasingly diverse population, educators need a clear, concise guide to designing and implementing responsive curriculum. This book, built around the lessons of classroom teachers, provides the 'how' of instruction design. The first section identifies the most important components of design: addressing standards, designing multiple assessments, identifying richly detailed source materials, and creating interrelated lessons and culminating activi...

Teach skills and foster the dispositions of social and emotional learning in yourself, your students, and your school.Social and emotional learning (SEL) is like any academic subject students learn in school—their learning expands and deepens, year after year. As an educator, what can you do to support not only your students’ well-being and SEL development, but your own?The Social-Emotional Learning Playbook: A Guide to Student and Teacher Well-...

Provide the perfect structure and support to develop student independence.Effective scaffolding leads to learner autonomy—but too many educators have been airlifting students to right answers, perpetuating a generation who don’t know how to learn. Yes, we know the sweet spot for learning involves giving our students the right blend of productive failure and productive success, but how to do it is cloaked in misconceptions.How Scaffoldi...

What it really means to “read closely”Call it close reading, call it deep reading, call it analytic reading—call it what you like. The point is, it’s a level of understanding that students of any age can achieve with the right kind of instruction. In Rigorous Reading, Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher articulate an instructional plan so clearly, and so squarely built on research, that teachers, schools, and districts need look no further:Pu...

While social and emotional learning (SEL) is most familiar as compartmentalized programs separate from academics, the truth is, all learning is social and emotional. What teachers say, the values we express, the materials and activities we choose, and the skills we prioritize all influence how students think, see themselves, and interact with content and with others.If you teach kids rather than standards, and if you want all kids to get what they need to thrive, Nancy Frey, Dougla...

The benefits of collaborative learning are well documented—and yet, almost every teacher knows how group work can go wrong: restless students, unequal workloads, lack of accountability, and too little learning for all the effort involved. In this book, educators Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Sandi Everlove show you how to make all group work productive group work: with all students engaged in the academic content and with each other, building valuable social skills, consolidating and ext...

Let evidence and integrity guide your grading practiceIf you want to ask a polarizing question in education, ask someone their thoughts on grading. Few topics have elicited more interest or opinions, even though grading practices have remained relatively unchanged for years. But opinions are not evidence. The time has come to get it right with a fresh approach grounded in research and the principles of integrity.Grading With Integrity introduces a ...

It’s all about the right support, at the right time, in the right amountNew teaching staff, whether novice or veteran, are a central part of a successful school year. So why is it that they are often greeted at the door of our school community with the autopilot vibe of a ticket taker at the movies? Onboarding Teachers changes the rules of engagement, offering activities and practical strategies that focus leaders and coaches on critical aspects of success...

The 1913 murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan would have far-reaching consequences for Georgia and the nation; in the years that followed a Jewish man named Leo Frank was convicted on dubious evidence, a governor's career toppled while an anti-Semite became Georgia's senator, and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith was formed.The Silent and The Damned: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank tells the horrifying story of how a trial spiraled into mob vi...