What will it take to create truly contemporary learning environments that meet the demands of 21st-century society, engage learners, and produce graduates who are prepared to succeed in the world? What skills and capacities do teachers and leaders need to create and sustain such schools? What actions are necessary? Bold Moves for Schools offers a compelling vision that answers these questions—and action steps to make the vision a reality. Looking through the lenses of three pedagogies—antiquated, classical, and contemporary—authors Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Marie Hubley Alcock examine every aspect of K–12 education, including curriculum, instruction, assessment, and the program structures of space—both physical and virtual—time, and grouping of learners and professionals. In a new job description for teachers, Jacobs and Alcock highlight and expound on the following roles: self-navigating professional learner, social contractor, media critic and media maker, innovative designer, globally connected citizen, and advocate for learners and learning. With thought-provoking proposals and practical strategies for change, Bold Moves for Schools sets educators on the path to redefining their profession and creating exciting new learning environments. The challenge is unprecedented. The possibilities are unlimited.

Examines the problems associated with the toxic environment found in many American public education institutions--Mark Sizemore, B.S. Health Sciences, HMC (SS), USN (Retired)

The One-Minute Millionaire meets Who Moved My Cheese - with frogs! A business novel with a fable and talking points that show how to blast through fear and doubt, purge inner critters, optimize your operating state, and lead from the inside-out. Bold Moves cleverly surpasses the left-right brain gymnastics of The One-Minute Millionaire, by acting as an inside-outside personal trainer in human complexity. It is three books in one: a business novel, a teaching fable, and cliff notes. The focus is leaders who yearn for balance, integration and self-determined action in their professional and personal lives. The book vividly portrays the internal terrain where Bold Moves are seeded, nurtured and brought to fuition as it: Shows how to develop and sustain an Optimal Operating State from which to make wise choices and Bold Moves. Gives fresh, profound insights about how to distinguish between Bold Moves and brash, barely and background moves. Delivers how to blast through fear and doubt, purge Inner Critters, and lead from the inside-out.

By understanding the realities, complex relationships and conditions of practice that influence urban schooling, educators can take advantage of the opportunities that urban settings present. The authors identify nine key problems of practice affecting city schools in the United States and provide examples of the possible interventions needed to improve the education of urban youth. The theory, research and analytic tools relevant to each issue are presented clearly and in a non-technical way.

Diversity High offers special insight into school change and social transition in racially divided communities. It underlines the obvious notion that change is difficult and confirms that leadership in an academic environment matters in changing schools. Vandeyar and Jansen provide a thorough investigation allowing readers to distinguish second-order changes (changes to curriculum, staffing, culture, and leadership), from first-order changes, (changes in student complexion in de-racializing schools). The study demonstrates the non-linearity of reforms by capturing the dynamism of change in powerful photographic records ranging from origins to change (demonstrated through black and white to color pictures). Conveying complexity through the ways in which race, class and culture intersect to produce unintended consequences; this book is concise and expertly researched. Ultimately, Vandeyar and Jansen celebrate human agency over determinist structures at the center of change through their in-depth analysis of a white South African high school that pursued transformation against the grain of its own racial biography.

In a double-shift system, which aims primarily to extend access and minimize unit costs, schools cater to two entirely separate groups of pupils during a school day. The first group of pupils usually attends school from early morning until mid-day, and the second group usually attends from mid-day to late afternoon. Each group uses the same buildings, equipment, and other facilities. In some systems the two groups are taught by the same teachers, but in other systems they are taught by different ones. Some education authorities extend this model into a triple-shift system. A few education authorities operate quadruple shifts, but these systems usually have overlapping rather than end-on shifts. This book also discusses single shifts. It analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of different types of arrangements as practiced in a wide range of countries. Its main focus, however, is on double shifts. (DFR)