Helping Students Take Control Of Their Own Learning

What does learner-centered education look like, and how can we best put it into practice? This helpful book by experienced educators Don Mesibov and Dan Drmacich answers those questions and provides a wide variety of strategies, activities, and examples to help you with implementation. Chapters address topics such as positioning students at the center of the lesson and teachers as coaches, making tasks relevant and engaging, incorporating the affective domain and social-emotional learning, assessing learning, and more. Appropriate for new and experienced teachers of all grades and subjects, this book will leave you feeling ready to help students take control of their own learning so they can reach higher levels of success.

What does learner-centered education look like, and how can we best put it into practice? This helpful book by experienced educators Don Mesibov and Dan Drmacich answers those questions and provides a wide variety of strategies, activities, and examples to help you with implementation. Chapters address topics such as positioning students at the center of the lesson and teachers as coaches, making tasks relevant and engaging, incorporating the affective domain and social-emotional learning, assessing learning, and more. Appropriate for new and experienced teachers of all grades and subjects, this book will leave you feeling ready to help students take control of their own learning so they can reach higher levels of success.

A New Companion to Leaders of Their Own Learning Puts Students in Charge of Their Learning and Growth Five years after the publication of Leaders of Their Own Learning, EL Education is back with a new companion guide to help you tackle the common challenges of student-engaged assessment. This unique, student-centered approach to assessment equips and compels students to understand goals for their learning and growth, track their progress toward those goals, and take responsibility for reaching them. EL Education has more than 25 years of experience supporting school transformation through student-engaged assessment. With their new book, The Leaders of Their Own Learning Companion, they have harvested the best tools and wisdom from schools across the country to help you hone student-led assessment practices in your classroom and school. Identifies the common challenges of implementing each of the eight interrelated student-engaged assessment practices from Leaders of Their Own Learning, and provides strategies and tools for tackling them Offers practical tips for school leaders Deepens your learning with 46 videos and an online toolbox The Leaders of Their Own Learning Companion is designed for teachers and leaders of all grade levels and no prior knowledge of the original Leaders of Their Own Learning is necessary to make the most of this book.

Children are born full of curiosity, eager to participate in the world. They learn as they live, with enthusiasm and joy. Then we send them to school. We stop them from playing and actively exploring their interests, telling them it's more important to sit still and listen. The result is that for many children, their motivation to learn drops dramatically. The joy of the early years is replaced with apathy and anxiety. This is not inevitable. We are socialised to believe that schooling is synonymous with education, but it's only one approach. Self-directed education puts the child back in control of their learning. This enables children, including those diagnosed with special educational needs, to flourish in their own time and on their own terms. It enables us to put wellbeing at the centre of education. Changing Our Minds brings together research, theory and practice on learning. It includes interviews with influential thinkers in the field of self-directed education and examples from families alongside practical advice. This essential guide will give you an understanding of why self-directed education makes sense, how it works, and what to do to put it into action yourself.

Success in any endeavor is not a matter of luck, fate, or happenstance. And that is just as true about succeeding at school. This book will help you learn to look at your school experience from a new vantage point, one that allows you to increase your motivation and commitment, build your confidence, and take control over your educational experience instead of depending on others to get you where you want to go. How? You’ll learn to take ownership over your education. When you take ownership, and only then, you will succeed – and you will be more likely to succeed in other arenas of you life, as well. This book will teach you how to do that, and do that well.

In this revolutionary book, a renowned computer scientist explains the importance of teaching children the basics of computing and how it can prepare them to succeed in the ever-evolving tech world. Computers have completely changed the way we teach children. We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers. Technology changes every day, but the basic ways that computers can help us learn remain. For thousands of teachers and parents who have sought creative ways to help children learn with computers, Mindstorms is their bible.

How do we create independent learners? What can we do to help our students think for themselves, make good decisions and work off their own initiative? In this book, bestselling author and trainer Mike Gershon brings together 50 strategies, activities and techniques you can use to help all the students you teach think, learn and act independently. These practical, classroom-ready ideas can be used across the curriculum and with different age groups. Each one presents you with a different way to build the confidence and learning power of your students. Throughout, the emphasis is firmly focused on finding ways to give students agency, so they can see that they have the means to take control of their own learning - and to learn more as a result. This book is a must-buy for any teacher who wants to help their students develop as learners. It gives you tools, techniques and ideas that you can instantly build into your practice, helping you to tweak, develop and change the way you work, all with the ultimate goal of making your learners more independent. To find out more about Mike;s work, his other books and his free resources, visit mikegershon.com

In this much needed resource, Maryellen Weimer-one of the nation's most highly regarded authorities on effective college teaching-offers a comprehensive work on the topic of learner-centered teaching in the college and university classroom. As the author explains, learner-centered teaching focuses attention on what the student is learning, how the student is learning, the conditions under which the student is learning, whether the student is retaining and applying the learning, and how current learning positions the student for future learning. To help educators accomplish the goals of learner-centered teaching, this important book presents the meaning, practice, and ramifications of the learner-centered approach, and how this approach transforms the college classroom environment. Learner-Centered Teaching shows how to tie teaching and curriculum to the process and objectives of learning rather than to the content delivery alone.