Leading The Evolution

Now is the time to evolve from the existing model of schooling into one that is more innovative, relevant, effective, and successful. Leading the Evolution introduces a three-pronged approach to driving substantive change (called the evolutionary triad) that connects transformative educational leadership, student engagement, and teacher optimism around personalized competency-based education. Each chapter includes supporting research and theory, as well as clear direction and strategies for putting the evolutionary triad into practice. Learn how and why to implement a personalized competency-based approach for academic achievement and student engagement: Understand the current state of education and why changing to a competency-based approach is imperative. Identify the instructional leadership behaviors that lead to the organizational and cultural shift necessary to transform the current education paradigm. Consider in detail all three points of the evolutionary triad: transformational instructional leadership, teacher optimism, and student engagement. Examine the central focus of the evolutionary triad: personalized, competency-based education. Explore educational leadership practices that support successfully implementing the evolutionary triad and learning competencies in schools. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Foundations for Evolution Chapter 2: The Transformational Instructional Leader Chapter 3: The Optimistic Teacher Chapter 4: The Engaged Student Chapter 5: The High-Impact School Epilogue References and Resources Index

Developmental Approaches to Human Evolution encapsulates the current state of evolutionary developmental anthropology. This emerging scientific field applies tools and approaches from modern developmental biology to understand the role of genetic and developmental processes in driving morphological and cognitive evolution in humans, non-human primates and in the laboratory organisms used to model these changes. Featuring contributions from well-established pioneers and emerging leaders, this volume is designed to build research momentum and catalyze future innovation in this burgeoning field. The book’s broad research scope encompasses soft and hard tissues of the head and body, including the skeleton, special senses and the brain. Developmental Approaches to Human Evolution is an invaluable resource on the mechanisms of primate and vertebrate evolution for scholars across a wide array of intersecting disciplines, including primatology, paleoanthropology, vertebrate morphology, evolutionary developmental biology and health sciences.

The Princeton Guide to Evolution is a comprehensive, concise, and authoritative reference to the major subjects and key concepts in evolutionary biology, from genes to mass extinctions. Edited by a distinguished team of evolutionary biologists, with contributions from leading researchers, the guide contains some 100 clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics in seven major areas: phylogenetics and the history of life; selection and adaptation; evolutionary processes; genes, genomes, and phenotypes; speciation and macroevolution; evolution of behavior, society, and humans; and evolution and modern society. Complete with more than 100 illustrations (including eight pages in color), glossaries of key terms, suggestions for further reading on each topic, and an index, this is an essential volume for undergraduate and graduate students, scientists in related fields, and anyone else with a serious interest in evolution. Explains key topics in some 100 concise and authoritative articles written by a team of leading evolutionary biologists Contains more than 100 illustrations, including eight pages in color Each article includes an outline, glossary, bibliography, and cross-references Covers phylogenetics and the history of life; selection and adaptation; evolutionary processes; genes, genomes, and phenotypes; speciation and macroevolution; evolution of behavior, society, and humans; and evolution and modern society

This collection presents research-based interventions using existing knowledge to produce new pedagogies to teach evolution to learners more successfully, whether in schools or elsewhere. ‘Success’ here is measured as cognitive gains, as acceptance of evolution or an increased desire to continue to learn about it. Aside from introductory and concluding chapters by the editors, each chapter consists of a research-based intervention intended to enable evolution to be taught successfully; all these interventions have been researched and evaluated by the chapters’ authors and the findings are presented along with discussions of the implications. The result is an important compendium of studies from around the word conducted both inside and outside of school. The volume is unique and provides an essential reference point and platform for future work for the foreseeable future.

Carl Zimmer tells the story of the theory of evolution from Darwin's journey on the Beagle to the controversies of modern evolutionary theory, the understanding of the lethal resurgence of antibiotic resistant diseases and the wave of species extinctions that face us today. The result is a wonderfully accessible account of a remarkable scientific journey, from the emergence to the triumph of an idea.

At a glance, most species seem adapted to the environment in which they live. Yet species relentlessly evolve, and populations within species evolve in different ways. Evolution, as it turns out, is much more dynamic than biologists realized just a few decades ago. In Relentless Evolution, John N. Thompson explores why adaptive evolution never ceases and why natural selection acts on species in so many different ways. Thompson presents a view of life in which ongoing evolution is essential and inevitable. Each chapter focuses on one of the major problems in adaptive evolution: How fast is evolution? How strong is natural selection? How do species co-opt the genomes of other species as they adapt? Why does adaptive evolution sometimes lead to more, rather than less, genetic variation within populations? How does the process of adaptation drive the evolution of new species? How does coevolution among species continually reshape the web of life? And, more generally, how are our views of adaptive evolution changing? Relentless Evolution draws on studies of all the major forms of life—from microbes that evolve in microcosms within a few weeks to plants and animals that sometimes evolve in detectable ways within a few decades. It shows evolution not as a slow and stately process, but rather as a continual and sometimes frenetic process that favors yet more evolutionary change.

The cerebellum is an intriguing component of the brain. In humans it occupies only 10% of the brain volume, yet has approximately 69 billion neurons; that is 80% of the nerve cells in the brain. The cerebellum first arose in jawed vertebrates such as sharks, and early vertebrates also have an additional cerebellum-like structure in the hindbrain. Shark cerebellum-like structures function as adaptive filters to discriminate 'self' from 'other' in sensory inputs. It is likely that the true cerebellum evolved from these cerebellum-like precursors, and that their adaptive filter functionality was adopted for motor control; paving the way for the athleticism and movement finesse that we see in swimming, running, climbing and flying vertebrates. This book uses an evolutionary perspective to open up the exciting body of work that is cerebellar research to a wide audience. Understanding the brain is of interest to many people, from many different backgrounds, and for many different reasons. Therefore, understanding cerebellum is a significant step towards the wider challenge of understanding the brain. This book will be of interest to neuroscientists, neurologists and psychologists, in addition to computer scientists, and engineers concerned with machine/human interactions and robotics.