The Leading Impact Teams Coaching Handbook is a great compliment to the Leading Impact Teams: Building a Culture of Efficacy Publication by Dr. Paul Bloomberg and Barb Pitchford.  This coaching handbook is a great resource for teams invested in expanding student ownership and agency. 

• Expand deeper learning outcomes

• Coach model teams to success

• Design Impact Team inquiry

• Strengthen peer facilitation

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Authors:  Dr. Paul Bloomberg and Barb Pitchford

Teachers are a school’s greatest resource. Excellent teachers make excellent schools. Leading Impact Teamstaps into the scheduled team planning time every school already has, and repurposes it in a model that provides the processes needed to build teacher expertise and increase student learning. The model combines two existing practices, formative assessment and collaborative inquiry, and promotes a school culture in which teachers and students are partners in learning. Readers will learn how to:

• Build a culture of efficacy

• Take collective action based on the Visible Learning Synthesis

• Embed student-centered assessment into classroom culture

• Clarify learning goals for success criteria 

• Leverage progressions of learning for "just right" instruction

• Utilize evidence-based feedback

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Authors:  Dr. Paul Bloomberg and Barb Pitchford

Despite the best efforts of equity leaders, our schools suffer from persistent inequities. Guiding the Journey to Excellence with Equity is a must-read for anyone who supports professional learning in our schools. It defines a process of "inside-out" growth that helps develop culturally proficient educators with the facilitation skills needed to navigate the obstacles that arise during equity transformations. Written with an equity lens, this book:

• Includes a powerful vignette that illustrates common challenges and solutions 

• Focuses on mental models for managing group energy 

• Is grounded in a systems model for personal and organizational transformation 

• Provides tools for planning culturally proficient learning experiences

Author: John Krownapple

The Empowered Learner Student-Centered Assessment Toolkit, the product of a wonderful collaboration between The Core Collaborative and Schoolwide, Inc., has been developed to create clarity in the classroom regarding standards-based instruction for students and teachers. When formative assessment is “done right,” students can identify where they are in their learning, where they need to go, and how they will get there. 

• ​Vertical learning progressions

• Formative tasks and holistic rubrics for self and peer assessment

• Goal setting 

• Learning continuums

• Student friendly learning targets

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Authors:  Dr. Paul Bloomberg, Sarah Stevens, Loan Mascorro

Research shows that "teacher collective efficacy" can increase student learning more than any other strategy. In fact, using powerhouse teams can achieve four years of student growth in a single calendar year. Horton’s practical guide offers:

• Short activities that require little to no preparation that you can use to deepen conversation at your very next meeting 

• Step-by-step tools to help your team move from identifying its biggest challenges to choosing and implementing successful reforms

• Strategies to enhance teamwork, trust, and collaboration so your team becomes as effective as possible

Author: Dr. David Horton

Grading for Impact

Aim for a target-based grading system and create stronger learning opportunities!   

As grading, assessment, and reporting continue to be a relevant topic of discussion, this book creates a functional plan to move standards-based grading practices forward in schools. Teachers and teacher leaders will learn how to assess, grade, and report against specific learning targets rather than standards as a whole.  Grounded in application to provide focus and clarity, this book features:

• Case studies of schools that have incorporated target-based assessment, feedback, grading, and reporting

• Practical examples to guide implementation

• Questions, checklists, illustrations, and audits of practice to showcase the work in action

Target-Based Grading in Collaborative Teams: 13 Steps to Moving Beyond Standards

In order to make grading and reporting practices more meaningful and appropriate, schools must design core instruction to reflect both academic standards and specific academic and behavioral targets that clearly indicate what students must know and what they must be able to do. The authors’ experience shows that taking this approach positively impacts teaching and learning. This six-page, quick-reference laminated guide is designed to help schools move beyond standards to target-based grading and reporting. In 13 clear steps, it walks collaborative teams through the process of

• Prioritizing standards and breaking them into specific learning targets

• Creating assessments that accurately measure the relevant standards and learning targets

• Designing and delivering instruction that specifically addresses learning targets; Administering and analyzing assessments

• Reassessing when there is evidence of new learning

• Reporting proficiency levels against learning targets using a summative scoring rubric

With the ever-changing landscape of education, teachers and leaders often find themselves searching for clarity in a sea of standards, curriculum resources, and competing priorities. Clarity for Learning offers a simple and doable approach to developing clarity and sharing it with students. Are both teachers and students clear about what must be learned, why students are learning it, and how they can be successful? Are students able to determine their next steps in learning through quality feedback and assessment? Have teachers had the time and support to collaborate around clarity to ensure an aligned approach within your school system?

This book offers five powerful practices that include:

• Gaining clarity

• Sharing clarity

• Feedback with clarity

• Assessing with clarity

• Collaborating with clarity

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In addition, the book is chock-full of examples from teachers and leaders across North America who have shared their journey, struggles, and successes to provide examples, exemplars, and models for readers to use to propel their own work forward. This is a don’t-miss resource!

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Authors: Kara Vandas and John Almarode

In this essential guide, Starr Sackstein - a National Board Certified Teacher - explains how teachers can use reflection to help students decipher their own learning needs and engage in deep, thought-provoking discourse about progress. She explains how to help students set actionable learning goals, teach students to reflect on and chart their learning progress, and use student reflections and self-assessment to develop targeted learning plans and determine student mastery. Filled with practical tips, innovative ideas, and sample reflections from real students, this book shows you how to incorporate self-assessment and reflection in ways that encourage students to grow into mindful, receptive learners, ready to explore a fast-changing world.

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Author: Starr Sackstein

Whether you have already made the move into leadership or are wondering whether a role in administration is right for you, Starr Sackstein’s insight in From Teacher to Leader will help you make the best decisions for yourself and those you serve. In this honest and practical guide, Sackstein prompts you to reflect as you stretch for personal and professional growth.

• How do you know when you’re ready to move into leadership?

• What do you do when you miss being in the classroom?

• How can you make sure you’re leading well?

• What do you do when you feel overwhelmed?

Leadership isn’t easy, and being a first-time leader carries its own set of challenges. But with From Teacher to Leader, you’ll be equipped to thrive in your new role.

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Author: Starr Sackstein

In Peer Feedback in the Classroom, National Board Certified Teacher Starr Sackstein explores the powerful role peer feedback can play in learning and teaching. Peer feedback gives students control over their learning, increases their engagement and self-awareness as learners, and frees up the teacher to provide targeted support where it's needed.

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Drawing from the author's successful classroom practices, this compelling book will help you:

• Gain a deeper understanding of what meaningful feedback looks like and how it can be used as a tool for learning.

• Establish a respectful, student-led learning environment that supports risk taking and honest sharing.

• Teach students to be adept peer strategists who can pinpoint areas of needed growth and move forward with specific strategies for improvement.

• Develop cooperative student expert groups to help sustain effective peer feedback throughout the year.

• Use technology to enhance collaboration, streamline the learning and revision process, and strengthen students' digital citizenship skills.

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Author: Starr Sackstein

Throw out your grade book tomorrow! In Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School, award-winning teacher and world-renowned formative assessment expert Starr Sackstein unravels one of education's oldest mysteries: how to assess learning without grades -- even in a school that uses numbers, letters, GPAs, and report cards.

While many educators can only muse about the possibility of a world without grades, teachers like Sackstein are reimagining education. In this unique, eagerly-anticipated book, Sackstein shows you exactly how to create a remarkable no-grades classroom like hers, a vibrant place where students grow, share, thrive, and become independent learners who never ask, "What's this worth?" 

• Learn what formative assessment really looks like.

• Shift everyone's mindset away from grades

• Track student progress without a grade book

• Communicate learning to all stakeholders in real time

• Maximize time while providing meaningful feedback

• Teach students to reflect and"self-grade"

• Deliver feedback in a digital world

• Create cloud-based learning archives

• Inspire Students to share their work openly

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Author: Starr Sackstein

Teaching and learning cannot happen without questions. Inquiry is the offspring of curiosity and creativity. Questions are incredibly powerful tools that open the world up. In the age of Google, the way we teach needs to change and students need to be reconnected with their early childhood curiosity. Let’s put that control back into kids’ hands by teaching them to question better. The Power of Questioning will help you to make students partners in their own learning.

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Author: Starr Sackstein

Questions are the driving force of learning in classrooms. Hacking Questions digs into framing, delivering, and maximizing questions in the classroom to keep students engaged in learning. Known in education circles as the "Questioning Guru," Connie Hamilton shows teachers of all subjects and grades how to:

• Hear the music: listen for correct answers

• Scaffold to trigger student thinking without doing it for them

• Kick the IDK bucket to avoid “I don’t know” as the final answer

• Punctuate your learning time to end with reflection questions

• Spin the throttle to fuel students to ask the questions

• Fill your back pocket with engagement questions

• Make yourself invisible by establishing student-centered protocols

• Be a Pinball Wizard and turn students into facilitators

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Author: Connie Hamilton

This resource is designed to empower teachers and leaders with strategies to develop learners who have the confidence and tools to engage in any challenge.  By flipping the focus to student ownership of learning, the authors provide clear and simple ways to:

• Develop collaborative relationships

• Jointly establish clear expectations for learning and criteria for success

• Intentionally build learner strategies that last a lifetime

• Use formative assessment results to monitor progress

• Harness the power of reciprocal feedback to improve teaching and learning

• Empower and motivate students set meaningful goals and prove learning

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Authors: Mary Jane O’Connell and Kara Vandas

Social Network Theory and Educational Change offers a provocative and fascinating exploration of how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform. Drawing on the work of leading scholars, the book comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders, contrasting formal and informal organizational structures, and exploring the mechanisms by which ideas, information, and influence flow from person to person and group to group.

The case studies provided in the book reflect a rich variety of approaches and methodologies, showcasing the range and power of this dynamic new mode of analysis. An introductory chapter places social network theory in context and explains the basic tools and concepts, while a concluding chapter points toward new directions in the field. Taken together, they make a powerful statement: that the success or failure of education reform ultimately is not solely the result of technical plans and blueprints, but of the relational ties that support or constrain the pace, depth, and direction of change. This unique volume provides an invaluable introduction to an emerging and increasingly important field of education research.

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Edited by: Dr. Alan J. Daly

This book provides practical strategies and tools for assessing and teaching even the most hard to reach English language learners across the content areas. Syrja offers educators the latest information on working with ELLs (including using formative assessments) and provides a wealth of classroom-tested models and measures. These tools have proven to be effective with ESL students at all levels, including Long Term English Learners (LTELs). Throughout the book, the author shares powerful research-based strategies and clearly illustrates how they should be implemented in the classroom for maximum impact. 

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Author: Rachel Carrillo Syrja