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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The first section of this book includes Fables, Myths, Short Stories and Essays, some written by students in similar year levels to those reading this book. The Poetry selections include works by students, as well as pieces by well-known poets. Nonfiction selections touch on the areas of Biology and Mathematics. This book is suggested for students in years 5 and 6 to enhance reading comprehension and critical thinking.

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Powerful Writing Structures uses thinking structures to deepen student writing. The thinking strategies in this practical resource focus on using structural aspects of writing forms to inspire and inform students learning to write. Detailed lesson plans revolve around anchor books and include sample student work from real classrooms, book lists and assessment rubrics. Based on extensive classroom testing, this comprehensive approach to developing a balanced year-long writing program includes tips for implementing weekly writing practice and for using different forms of writing in the content areas.

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While mathematicians describe mathematics as playful, beautiful, creative and captivating, many students describe maths class as boring, stressful, useless and humiliating. In Becoming the Maths Teacher You Wish You'd Had, Tracy Zager helps teachers close this gap by making maths class more like mathematics.

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The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) present unique demands on students to learn vocabulary and teachers to teach it. Authors Robert J Marzano and Julia A Simms address the need for CCSS-aligned vocabulary instruction in their three-part resource Vocabulary for the Common Core. They guide teachers and teams toward the creation of a successful vocabulary program while highlighting both general academic and domain-specific terms from the mathematics and English language arts standards. Marzano and Simms show P-12 educators how to achieve success for all students. Vocabulary for the Common Core is the ideal resource for teachers who wish to connect with curriculum standards on a deeper level.

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The New Art and Science of Teaching by Robert J. Marzano is more than a revision of The Art and Science of Teaching. It is a greatly expanded volume, offering a framework for substantive change based on Marzano's fifty years of education research and observation. In The New Art and Science of Teaching, Marzano identifies ten design areas within three categories of teaching - (1) feedback, (2) content and (3) context - that form a road map for F-12 teachers' lesson and unit planning. Also included in the series are The New Art and Science of Classroom Assessment, The New Art and Science of Teaching Writing and The New Art and Science of Teaching Reading - companion books that focus on improving students' literacy skills and showing teachers how to make the most of feedback.

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Working Inside the Black Box offers easy-to-read advice for teachers on how to implement the key techniques within formative assessment, such as questioning, feedback, and peer/self assessment. While other works in the Black Box series have been designed to support assessment for learning, Working inside the Black Box takes a more practical slant, offering practical ideas and advice for the improvement of classroom assessment through the key formative assessment methods. The philosophy of the Black Box series is that formative assessment is considerably more than the sum of a series of handy tips and techniques; rather, it is about creating a learning culture within the classroom that enables the student to become an independent and effective learner.

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Dylan Wiliam starkly outlines the challenge: 'The rather terrifying thing about being involved in education at the present time is that we are the first generation of educators who know we have no idea what we are doing.' This is because, although education is changing fast, the world is changing faster. Professor Wiliam explains what this means in terms of curriculum in our schools and outlines seven suggested principles of curriculum design. This booklet aims to help schools make curriculum development a planned and collegial process, and one that builds on the expertise of others.

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Redesigning Schooling is a six-part series designed to help identify the big questions in education, look at lessons from other systems and shape the debate on how we can make our education system world class. With Redesigning Schooling, educators are urged to consider best practice in six areas of schooling: teaching and learning; student impact; parental engagement; curriculum design; assessment design; and collaboration between schools.

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Leadership for Teacher Learning explores the correlation between teacher quality and student achievement. Drawing from evidence-based research findings, Dylan Wiliam clearly and concisely explains how formative assessment, when applied properly, helps create a structured and rigorous learning environment that increases student achievement. He also presents compelling research to give readers a clear picture of which changes in classroom practice are most likely to impact student achievement; formative assessment's use in differentiated instruction (DI) and response to intervention (RTI); and how to select and support group leaders to ensure productive collaboration.

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Science provides the means by which learners can interact with the world around them and develop ideas about the phenomena they experience. To be able to learn science in this way, students need help in developing process skills to investigate, and communication skills to question and discuss findings. The specific aim of Inside the Black Box: Science is the improvement of science education, so ideas are put in the context of the aims and expectations of science teaching. The book sets out in detail the research findings on four main ways of practising formative assessment found to be both workable and productive with teachers of science, and it shows teachers how to develop formative work within a science faculty in a school.

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This revised Australian edition of Inside the Black Box: Primary Years is an up-to-date guide to assessment for learning focused on helping Australian primary teachers to acquire and develop effective assessment practice. The booklet offers guidance on how to develop a community of learning that builds on collaborative practice between children, offering recommendations grounded in both research findings and in the authors’ experience of working with many teachers, schools and local authorities over the last decade.

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Inside the Black Box: Maths outlines the principles of formative assessment and how they can be applied in the maths classroom. The recommendations made in Inside the Black Box: Maths gain particular strength from the fact that they are grounded in the main findings of many decades of research into the principles that govern effective learning and the factors that help support the motivation and self-esteem of learners. This research is put into the context of the aims and expectations of mathematics teaching, and the authors outline their findings on ways of practising formative assessment that have been found to be both workable and productive with mathematics teachers, including classroom dialogue, feedback and marking, and peer- and self-assessment.

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In the ever-evolving climate of ICT education, formative assessment practices have an essential role to play, since their purpose is to enable teachers to sift the rich data that arise in class discussion and activity so that professional judgements can be made about the next steps in learning. In this book, the authors offer advice to ICT teachers on how to use formative assessment to interact more effectively with students and promote learning. They set out in detail four main ways of practising formative assessment in an ICT setting, outlining assessment techniques that encourage learners to bring their ideas to the fore. Using these methods, teachers can gauge what students already know, while assessing learners’ analytical skills and how they approach a design task.

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Geography students must develop process skills for investigation as well as communication skills to question and discuss their findings. Formative assessment fits well into this learning setting, since its purpose is for teachers to sift student responses in class discussion and activity and make professional judgements about the next steps in learning. Using this exclusive edition, revised by John Butler to align with the recently released Australian Curriculum: Geography, primary and secondary teachers throughout Australia can enrich their geography instruction with assessment for learning while fulfilling national curriculum requirements. Learn More

This revised Australian edition of English inside the Black Box offers an opportunity to reconsider established teaching strategies such as classroom dialogue and peer- and self-assessment in the light of the research findings on formative assessment, and to use them more rigorously and consistently as a means of helping students to progress. The booklet examines the principles of learning that underpin formative assessment and goes on to consider how these might be applied in the classroom, identifying the aspects of formative assessment that research has shown to be important in raising student achievement in the English classroom. Learn More

Inside the Black Box: Design and Digital Technologies attempts to blend what we know about the power of formative assessment with a restatement of the educational purpose of Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies. In today’s increasingly digital world, the need to increase the level of technological literacy in all societies is of international importance, and so this booklet offers advice to teachers on how to interact more effectively with technology students on a day-to-day basis. In this book, the authors detail the results of their research into ways of practising formative assessment in Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies.

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Inside the Black Box of Assessment helps you to develop the quality of your summative assessments, offering easy-to-read advice for teachers on how to implement the key techniques within formative assessment – questioning, feedback and peer/self assessment. Previous booklets in the series have targeted teachers of particular curriculum subjects. However, Inside the Black Box of Assessment is different in that its aim is to help all teachers and schools develop the quality of their own summative assessments. The philosophy of the Black Box booklets is that formative assessment is considerably more than the sum of a series of handy tips and techniques; rather, it is about creating a learning culture within the classroom that enables the student to become an independent and effective learner.

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Assessment for learning has long been recognised as a key factor in raising students' standards of achievement, yet many teachers in Australia still struggle to strike a balance between formative and summative assessments. This revised Australian edition aims to help our nation's educators improve their assessment practice by offering easy-to-read advice on how to implement the key techniques within formative assessment - questioning, feedback, and peer- and self -assessment. The philosophy of the Black Box series is that formative assessment is considerably more than the sum of a series of handy tips and techniques; rather, it is about creating a learning culture within the classroom that enables the student to become independent and effective learners.

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Effective classroom formative assessment helps educators make minute-by-minute, day-by-day instructional decisions, but putting it into practice requires both a robust collection of techniques and an understanding of how to use them. Dylan Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy deliver a clear, practical guide for teachers, centred on five key strategies for improving teacher practice and student achievement. The authors provide an overview of each strategy and a number of very practical formative assessment techniques for implementing them in classrooms. Along with guidance on when and how to use the specific techniques, they provide tips, cautions and enhancements to sustain formative assessment.

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Written by Professor Dylan Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy, Embedding Formative Assessment is a two-year professional development pack for schools and colleges that contains all the materials needed for two years of research-based professional development. This pack is based on the premise that all teachers can improve their practice by developing their use of assessment for learning (AfL) through membership of a teacher learning community (TLC). It presents educators with both the challenge and the support needed to embed formative assessment teaching practices consistently across a whole school.

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In this challenging booklet, Dylan Wiliam argues forcefully that schools must develop their own way of assessing children’s progress. He guides us through a nuanced way of thinking about assessment that should underpin the design of any model: knowing the limitations of types of assessment and the impact these have on the inferences you make; defining what you will assess and the purpose for which you will use the data; how you will collect, share and record it; and, critically, how you can design assessment systems that first and foremost support teaching and learning. 'Good summative assessment requires teachers to share a construct of quality, while good formative assessment requires helping students share the same construct of quality.'

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Educational achievement carries more importance than ever for students to thrive in the complex, unpredictable world of the 21st century. In this second edition of the bestselling Embedded Formative Assessment, author Dylan Wiliam makes the case for the significant role of formative assessment in increasing teacher quality and student learning. Through a vast body of new research, insights, examples and formative assessment techniques, this rich resource shows F-12 teachers and administrators how to positively impact student achievement.

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Formative assessment is the most impactful approach to raising student achievement, but teacher quality plays a vital role in this process. The Handbook for Embedded Formative Assessment explores why and how to implement formative assessment into daily classroom practice. Using this resource as a companion to Dylan Wiliam's Embedded Formative Assessment, Second Edition or as a stand-alone book, F-12 teachers will find tried-and-tested classroom techniques, practical how-tos, and engaging exercises to guide implementation. When teachers use formative assessment to ensure learning, students are prepared to thrive in the complex, unpredictable world of the 21st century.

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Inside the Black Box: Foreign Languages offers advice to foreign languages teachers on developing assessment practices that improve learning, backed by rigorous evidence that the assessment for learning method is effective and feasible in real classrooms. Formative assessment fits naturally into the foreign languages setting since teachers can collect and sift data that arises in classroom interactions and activities, so that professional judgements can be made about the next steps in learning. Inside the Black Box presents the principles that underlie effective learning and teaching in languages before outlining practical ways of implementing formative assessment in the languages classroom, going on to demonstrate how formative assessment can be developed within a languages department.

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The Adaptive School is about developing strong schools in which collaborative faculties are capable of meeting the certain challenges of today and the uncertain challenges of tomorrow. Some schools are flourishing. Others are making remarkable gains in improving student achievement, increasing attendance, attaining higher post-school accomplishments, and developing satisfying relationships with their communities. Some schools produce only fair results; others languish. We believe that all can be better. The Adaptive School is designed as a sourcebook to support you in developing and facilitating collaborative groups to improve student learning. You can use it as a basic text for yourself or as a reference book for diagnosis and problem solving.

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Educating students to traditional literacy standards is no longer enough. If students are to thrive in their academic and 21st-century careers, then independent and creative thinking hold the highest currency. The authors explain in detail how to add these new components of literacy: Solution Fluency, Information Fluency, Creativity Fluency, Collaboration Fluency. Students must master a completely different set of skills to succeed in a culture of technology-driven automation, abundance, and access to global labor markets. The authors present an effective framework for integrating comprehensive literacy or fluency into the traditional curriculum.

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It is time to rethink the relationship between teaching and learning and assess the crucial skills students need to succeed in the 21st century. The authors assert that educators must focus assessment on mindfulness and feedback for improvement, framing assessment around six fluencies students need to cultivate. The book provides scenarios, lessons, activities and assessment rubrics.

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Growing Global Digital Citizens: Better Practices That Build Better Learners explore show teachers and administrators can transform education through the essential concept of global digital citizenship (GDC). Embraced by thousands of schools worldwide, GDC practices empower students to effectively and ethically participate in their online and offline communities. Authors Lee Watanabe Crockett and Andrew Churches provide F-12 teachers and administrators with a clear path for establishing a GDC program in their school, ensuring that their students grow into considerate, respectful and responsible global citizens.

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When educators embrace student-centred learning, classrooms transform, learning comes alive and outcomes improve. A culmination of Lee Watanabe-Crockett's years of work with schools around the world, Future-Focused Learning: Ten Essential Shifts of Everyday Practice details ten core shifts of instructional practice teachers can use with students immediately, regardless of core curriculum or instructional pedagogy. These proven shifts offer a clear pathway for taking the great work teachers already do and making it exceptional. Teachers will connect the six essential fluencies to the shifts to develop students' 21st century skills and higher-order thinking, gain one hundred specific examples of instructional microshifts - simple classroom activities to advance classroom learning - and more.

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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. This book breaks into three sections. The Short Stories section in Jacob’s Ladder, Secondary (Years 8–9) includes works by famous authors, many classics, among them stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf. Poetry is drawn from selections by well-known poets, including Yeats, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Shelley. The four works in the Biographies section give details of the lives of Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie, Emily Dickinson and Margaret Mead.

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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students spanning from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills relevant across the curriculum. The Short Stories section includes works by famous authors, among them Anton Chekhov, Mark Twain and O. Henry. Poetry is drawn from selections by well-known poets, including Shakespeare, Yeats, William Blake and Emily Dickinson. The works in the Biographies section give details of the lives of Erwin Schrodinger, Margaret Bourke-White, Itzhak Perlman and Amartya Sen. This book is suggested for students in years 7-8 to enhance reading comprehension and critical thinking.

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In I, You, Me, We, students explore essential questions such as "How does our environment shape our identity? What are the consequences of conforming to a group? When does social conformity go too far?" This unit, aligned to the Australian Curriculum, includes a major emphasis on rigorous evidence-based discourse through the study of common themes across rich, challenging non-fiction and fictional texts. Guide students to examine the fine line of individuality versus conformity through the related concepts of belongingness, community, civil disobedience, self-reliance and questioning the status quo by engaging in creative activities, Socratic seminars, literary analyses and debates.

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In the Mind's Eye: Truth Versus Perception invites students on a philosophical exploration of the themes of truth and perception. The book is designed specifically with gifted and high-achieving middle-years and early high school learners in mind. These concept-based lessons are accelerated beyond typical year-level standards and include advanced models and organisers to help students analyse a variety of texts. Students engage in activities such as Socratic seminars, literary analyses, skits and art projects, and creative writing to understand differing perceptions of reality. Lessons include a major emphasis on rigorous evidence-based discourse through the study of common themes and content-rich texts.

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The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbooks complement the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 5–6 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking. Corresponding to the activities, students read high-interest passages, then complete skill ladders connected to the readings to move them from lower-order, concrete thinking skills to higher-order, critical thinking skills. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering various English skills.

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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbooks complement the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 5–6 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking.

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The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbook complements the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 5–6 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking. Corresponding to the activities, students read high-interest passages, then complete skill ladders connected to the readings to move them from lower-order, concrete thinking skills to higher-order, critical thinking skills. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering English skills such as sequencing, cause and effect, classification, making generalisations, inference, and recognising themes and concepts.

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The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbooks complement the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 4–5 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking. Corresponding to the activities, students read high-interest passages, then complete skill ladders connected to the readings to move them from lower-order, concrete thinking skills to higher-order, critical thinking skills. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering various English skills.

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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbooks complement the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 4-5 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking.

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The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbook complements the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 4-5 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking. Corresponding to the activities, students read high-interest passages, then complete skill ladders connected to the readings to move them from lower-order, concrete thinking skills to higher-order, critical thinking skills. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering English skills such as sequencing, cause and effect, classification, making generalisations, inference, and recognising themes and concepts.

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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The Short Stories section of this book includes fables and myths, as well as contributions by students in the same year level as those reading the book. The Poetry selections include works by students, as well as pieces by well-known poets. Nonfiction selections touch on the areas of Science, Mathematics and History. This book is suggested for students in years 4 and 5 to enhance reading comprehension and critical thinking.

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The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbooks complement the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 2-3 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking. Corresponding to the activities, students read high-interest passages, then complete skill ladders connected to the readings to move them from lower-order, concrete thinking skills to higher-order, critical thinking skills. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering various English skills.

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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbooks complement the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 2-3 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking.

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The Jacob's Ladder Student Workbook complements the Jacob’s Ladder: Primary Years 2-3 book by providing a matching, all-in-one resource for students to record their answers to each exercise. This allows the teacher to keep all of the student’s work in the program in one place for ease of collection, reading and marking. Corresponding to the activities, students read high-interest passages, then complete skill ladders connected to the readings to move them from lower-order, concrete thinking skills to higher-order, critical thinking skills. The ladders include multiple skills necessary for academic success, covering English skills such as sequencing, cause and effect, classification, making generalisations, inference, and recognising themes and concepts.

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Jacob’s Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive, ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The Short Stories section of this book includes myths and fables. The Poetry selections include works by students in similar year levels to those reading the book, as well as pieces by well-known poets. Nonfiction selections touch on the areas of History, Biology, Geometry, Probability and Sustainability. This book is suggested for students in years 2 and 3 to enhance reading comprehension and critical thinking.

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Honouring the leadership of Dr Joyce VanTassel-Baska, this book includes major strands of work central to defining the field of gifted education and discusses relevant trends and issues that have shaped or will shape the field. This comprehensive resource outlines three major sections: conceptions in gifted education such as intelligence, creativity and eminence; linkage of theory to practice through curriculum and instruction, professional development, and assessment; and the infrastructure of gifted education that relies on research, policy and leadership directions within and outside the field. Showcasing contributions from leading senior scholars in gifted education, this book is sure to be an invaluable resource for policymakers, scholars, researchers.

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Jacob's Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the ongoing development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The Short Stories sections in the Jacob's Ladder, Early Primary books mainly refer to award-winning, readily-available picture books (not included). Poetry is drawn from selections by well-known poets, including William Blake and Edward Lear. In this book, the Interdisciplinary Connections section also refers to picture books (not included). This book is suggested for gifted students in the early primary year levels.

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Jacob's Ladder is a reading comprehension program for gifted students that spans from early primary to early secondary instruction. Students progress through an inquiry process based on targeted reading passages that emphasise the progressive development of higher-order thinking skills that are relevant across the curriculum. The Short Stories sections in the Early Primary books mainly refer to award-winning, readily-available picture books (not included). Poetry is drawn from selections by well-known poets, including A.A. Milne and Lewis Carroll. This book is suggested for gifted students in the early primary year levels (years F-1) who are already reading or show advanced levels of understanding. It is used to enhance reading comprehension and critical thinking if stories are read aloud.

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The ideas and examples in this book help teachers successfully collaborate to raise student achievement through the use of formative assessments. Here, Todd Stanley and Betsy Moore, educators with over 40 years of combined experience, offer proven formative assessment strategies to teachers in a professional learning community. Contents include: Why a PLC?, How to Work Effectively in a Group, How to Write Assessments, Adjustments in the Classroom, Keeping Up with Collaboration. If you’re looking to extend the benefits of formative assessments throughout your school, this user-friendly guide will help to unite teachers in improving classroom learning!

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Project-Based Learning for Gifted Students: A handbook for the 21st-Century classroom makes the case that project-based learning is ideal for both the gifted and regular classroom. Focusing on student choice, teacher responsibility and opportunities for differentiation, author Todd Stanley guides teachers through the initial steps for creating a project-based learning environment in their own classroom, walking them through topics and processes such as linking projects with standards, finding the right structure and using rubrics effectively. With its practical approach, Project-Based Learning for Gifted Students is the perfect companion to Stanley’s primary school resource series,10 Projects for the PBL Classroom, which offers engaging lesson plans for maths, science and English. Learn More