The Best Practice

If "doctor knows best," why haven't quality and safety in medicine been more of a sure thing?

This is a brand new multi-media resource to support new and experienced primary school teachers develop skills of critical reflection in order to improve teaching and learning. An integrated DVD and textbook present a range of innovative case studies comprising video clips of real teachers in the classroom, together with context and narrative, step-by-step guidance through key issues, and commentary and debate from experts and professionals in the field.

"The single most powerful variable in student achievement is the quality of teaching. But what does quality mean? What does it look like in real classrooms? It looks like the teaching in this book." -Steven Zemelman, Harvey "Smokey" Daniels, and Arthur Hyde Best Practice is back, and with it Steve Zemelman, Smokey Daniels, and Arthur Hyde invite you to greet today's most important educational challenges with proven, state-of-the-art teaching. Linguistic diversity, technology, Common Core, high-stakes testing-no matter the hurdle, Best Practice teaching supports powerful learning across our profession. Best Practice, Fourth Edition, is the ultimate guide to teaching excellence. Its framework of seven Best Practice Structures and cutting-edge implementation strategies are proven across the grades and subject areas. BP4 creates common ground for teachers, leaders, and principals by recommending practices drawn from the latest scientific research, professional consensus, and the innovative classrooms of exemplary teachers. BP4 puts top-quality teaching at the fingertips of individual practitioners by sharing real-life instructional scenes that define classroom excellence, increase learning, and improve students' life opportunities. It's also more valuable than ever to PLCs and school reform initiatives thanks to: plans and strategies for exceeding state and Common Core Standards cohesive principles and common language that strengthen professional collaboration classroom vignettes that show teachers and kids at work chapters on reading, writing, math, science, and social studies that support unified instructional goals special attention to technology in the classroom, special education, ELLs, struggling readers, and the arts. This new educational era demands highly-effective, high-quality instruction that makes a difference for students. Fortunately with Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde's help every educator can be a world-class, life-changing teacher-a Best Practice teacher.

In this extensively revised and expanded second edition, we find updated descriptions of progressive teaching in six subject areas: reading, writing, mathematics, science, social studies, and the arts.

In Best Practice Kimberly Chong provides an ethnography of a global management consultancy that has been hired by Chinese companies, including Chinese state-owned enterprises. She shows how consulting emerges as a crucial site for considering how corporate organization, employee performance, business ethics, and labor have been transformed under financialization. To date financialization has been examined using top-down approaches that portray the rise of finance as a new logic of economic accumulation. Best Practice, by contrast, focuses on the everyday practices and narratives through which companies become financialized. Effective management consultants, Chong finds, incorporate local workplace norms and assert their expertise in the particular terms of China's national project of modernization, while at the same time framing their work in terms of global “best practices.” Providing insight into how global management consultancies refashion Chinese state-owned enterprises in preparation for stock market flotation, Chong demonstrates both the dynamic, fragmented character of financialization and the ways in which Chinese state capitalism enables this process.

Best Practice is written for non-professional musicians who play "traditional" music of any style on any instrument. Technology and ease of travel may make these regional styles easier to learn about and hear, but many players struggle to maintain commitment and enthusiasm for practicing, given the pressures of daily life. These musicians need a different kind of advice on practicing and playing. Why? Because they're usually adults, playing primarily for enjoyment, and they're often self-taught. Many have expressed that, while they truly want to improve, they don't know whether their efforts are efficient, or even effective. They may wonder: Am I spending my practice time well? Am I working on the things that will help me achieve what I want? How much time should I spend practicing and how often should I practice? Should I focus on notes, ornaments, speed, intonation? How much music theory do I really need to know? What should my goals be for each day, each week, or longer?The book incorporates ideas for practice techniques, and also suggestions for developing mental and physical habits that support artistic progress and growth. The author interweaves concepts from a lifetime as a musician, over 20 years' training and teaching aikido, plus yoga, meditation, and even a career in television and marketing.Traditional, or "trad" music styles include old time, Celtic, Cajun, Swedish, contra, Québecois, blues, Métis, and others, but much of the information in the book could apply to any musician, singers, and even other types of artists. There are 197 short, self-contained chapters. Each offers a single concept or idea. You can read one whenever you sit down to practice or play. Best Practice incorporates the author's experience as a musician, a martial artist, a yoga teacher, and even as a broadcast video editor and producer. There are learnings from neuroscience, psychology, and Buddhist meditation. This is a book you'll want to keep near your practice space, to dip into repeatedly for inspiration.

Highly practical and accessible, this indispensable book provides clear-cut strategies for improving K-12 writing instruction. The contributors are leading authorities who demonstrate proven ways to teach different aspects of writing, with chapters on planning, revision, sentence construction, handwriting, spelling, and motivation. The use of the Internet in instruction is addressed, and exemplary approaches to teaching English-language learners and students with special needs are discussed. The book also offers best-practice guidelines for designing an effective writing program. Focusing on everyday applications of current scientific research, the book features many illustrative case examples and vignettes.

What if almost everything you know about creating a culture of innovation is wrong? What if the way you are measuring innovation is choking it? What if your market research is asking all of the wrong questions? It's time to innovate the way you innovate. Stephen Shapiro is one of America's foremost innovation advisrrs, whose methods have helped organizations like Staples, GE, Telefónica, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and USAA. He teaches his clients that innovation isn't just about generating occasional new ideas; it's about staying consistently one step ahead of the competition. Hire people you don't like. Bring in the right mix of people to unleash your team's full potential. Asking for ideas is a bad idea. Define challenges more clearly. If you ask better questions, you will get better answers. Don't think outside the box; find a better box. Instead of giving your employees a blank slate, provide them with well-defined parameters that will increase their creative output. Failure is always an option. Looking at innovation as a series of experiments allows you to redefine failure and learn from your results. Shapiro shows that nonstop innovation is attainable and vital to building a high-performing team, improving the bottom line, and staying ahead of the pack.