FG Book Study
Spring 2018
I was thinking, another format option some may want to consider is to order "books on tape" ( I feel old, what do you call those now that tapes don't exist???) and do a walking group-just a thought!
Let me know if you are still interested in proposing a book and we will get it added!
UnSelfie
Teens today are forty percent less empathetic than they were thirty years ago. Why is a lack of empathy—which goes hand-in-hand with the self-absorption epidemic Dr. Michele Borba calls the Selfie Syndrome—so dangerous? First, it hurts kids’ academic performance and leads to bullying behaviors. Also, it correlates with more cheating and less resilience. And once children grow up, a lack of empathy hampers their ability to collaborate, innovate, and problem-solve—all must-have skills for the global economy.
In UnSelfie Dr. Borba pinpoints the forces causing the empathy crisis and shares a revolutionary, researched-based, nine-step plan for reversing it.
The good news? Empathy is a trait that can be taught and nurtured. Dr. Borba offers a framework for parenting that yields the results we all want: successful, happy kids who also are kind, moral, courageous, and resilient. UnSelfie is a blueprint for parents and educators who want to kids shift their focus from I, me, and mine…to we, us, and ours.
FORMAT: Three 1 hour face to face sessions
Follow up: Group email or Google Form
LOCATION: Primarily on campus
Website: http://micheleborba.com/category/unselfie/
Location: Fair Grove Elementary School, Cedar Lodge Road, Thomasville, NC, United States
Conferring with Readers: Supporting Each Student's Growth and Independence
A great reading conference only takes five minutes, but its impact can last a lifetime. That's because conferences are the critical, one-to-one teaching that forms the backbone of reading instruction. Conferring with Readers shows you how to confer well and demonstrates why a few moments with students every week can put them on the path to becoming better, more independent readers.
Conferring with Readers is a comprehensive guide that shows you how to determine what readers have learned and what they need to practice, then provides suggestions for targeting instruction to meet students' needs. It provides explicit teaching methods for use in effective conferences. You'll learn how to:- research a student's use of skills through questions and observations
- compliment to support and build upon successes
- follow up on prior instruction for accountability and depth of understanding
- explain a reading strategy by providing an explicit purpose and context
- model the strategy to make the invisible brainwork of reading more visible
- guide a readerinpracticing the strategy
- link the strategy to independent reading.
- matching students to just-right books
- reinforcing students' strengths
- supporting students during whole-class studies
- helping students move from one reading level to the next
- holding students accountable for previous learning
- deepening students' conversations about books in order to deepen their thinking.
FORMAT: Four 1 hour Face to Face Sessions
FOLLOW-UP: Relevant classroom strategies to try out after each session
LOCATION: Off-Campus, TBD by group participants
The Energy Bus
FORMAT: Five 30 minute Face to Face Sessions
FOLLOW-UP: email
LOCATION: Romans 8
Website: http://www.theenergybus.com/
Location: Romans 8, Crestway Drive, Thomasville, NC, United States
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people - at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book DRIVE: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATES US, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does - and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In DRIVE, he reveals the three elements of true motivation: AUTONOMY - the desire to direct our own lives; MASTERY - the urge to get better and better at something that matters; PURPOSE - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward. DRIVE is bursting with big ideas - the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.
FORMAT: Online-Google Classroom, Six 20 minute sessions
FOLLOW-UP: Relevant classroom strategies to try out after each session
LOCATION: Remote, last session Face to Face on Campus
Website: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218852
Location: Fair Grove Elementary School, Cedar Lodge Road, Thomasville, NC, United States
Present Over Perfect
FORMAT: Six 1 hour Face to Face sessions
FOLLOW-UP: Relevant strategies to try out after each session
LOCATION: Romans 8
Website: https://www.shaunaniequist.com/books/
Location: Romans 8, Crestway Drive, Thomasville, NC, United States
I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything for Our Kids
One day, third-grade teacher Kyle Schwartz asked her students to fill-in-the-blank in this sentence: "I wish my teacher knew _____." The results astounded her. Some answers were humorous, others were heartbreaking-all were profoundly moving and enlightening. The results opened her eyes to the need for educators to understand the unique realities their students face in order to create an open, safe and supportive place in the classroom. When Schwartz shared her experience online, #IWishMyTeacherKnew became an immediate worldwide viral phenomenon. Schwartz's book tells the story of #IWishMyTeacherKnew, including many students' emotional and insightful responses, and ultimately provides an invaluable guide for teachers, parents, and communities.
Format: Five 30 minute face to face sessions
Follow Up: Email
Location: Fair Grove
Website: iwishmyteacherknewbook.com
Location: Fair Grove Elementary School, Cedar Lodge Road, Thomasville, NC, United States
Choice Words
In productive classrooms, teachers don't just teach children skills: they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.
Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool: language. Throughout, Peter Johnston provides examples of apparently ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the orchestration of the classroom. Grounded in a study by accomplished literacy teachers, the book demonstrates how the things we say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for what children learn and for who they become as literate people. Through language, children learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely learning the literacy strategies. In addition, Johnston examines the complex learning that teachers produce in classrooms that is hard to name and thus is not recognized by tests, by policy-makers, by the general public, and often by teachers themselves, yet is vitally important.
This book will be enlightening for any teacher who wishes to be more conscious of the many ways their language helps children acquire literacy skills and view the world, their peers, and themselves in new ways.