What’s on your reading list for 2018? Here are
five book recommendations from Battelle for Kids to support your professional learning in the New Year.
Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children
By Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. (2016)
School leaders across the country are transforming their school systems to provide quality 21st educational experiences that prepare students to thrive in this rapidly changing, complex world.
Becoming Brilliant is a great resource for school leaders engaged in this important work, shared Battelle for Kids’ President and CEO, Dr. Karen Garza. Although the book was primarily written for parents, I found the research and analysis extremely beneficial. The authors speak to the 6 C’s that they believe are essential for success in the 21st century—collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence. They provide in-depth analysis and background research for each of the six categories and summarize this analysis in A Report Card for the 21st Century.
I believe this book is essential reading for school leaders today, added Dr. Garza.
Learn more and buy the book.
Building Equity: Policies and Practices to Empower all Learners
By Dominique Smith, Nancy Frey, Ian Pumpian, and Douglas Fisher (2017)
In
Building Equity, an ASCD publication, the authors introduce the Building Equity Taxonomy, a new model to articulate essential components of an equitable and excellent schooling experience. The book is filled with examples of policy initiatives and practices that
support crucial standards of equity and high-quality, inclusive learning experiences. It also features a School Equity Audit, a survey-based tool to help school and teacher leaders uncover equity-related issues and organize their efforts to better address: physical integration, social-emotional engagement, opportunity to learn, instructional excellence, and engaged and inspired learners.
Learn more and buy the book.
Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems
By Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn (2015)
“When large numbers of people have a deeply understood sense of what needs to be done—and see their part in achieving that purpose—coherence emerges and powerful things happen.” In
Coherence, the authors introduce
a customizable framework for leading successful and sustainable change in school systems. Their approach includes four essential components:
• Focused direction to build collective purpose
• Cultivating collaborative cultures while clarifying individual and team roles
• Deepening learning to accelerate improvement and foster innovation
• Securing accountability from the inside out
Ohio superintendents in Battelle for Kids' SOAR Network read
Coherence as part of a book study this fall as they collaborate to shape 21st century learning experiences for their students.
Learn more and buy the book.
Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better
By Anthony Byrk, Louis Gomez, Alicia Grunow, and Paul LeMahieu (2015)
Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than “implementing fast and learning slow,” they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to “learn fast to implement well.” Using ideas borrowed from improvement science, the authors show how a process of disciplined inquiry can be combined with the use of networks to identify, adapt, and successfully scale up promising interventions in education.
Learn more and buy the book.
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
By Chip Heath and Dan Heath (2010)
Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our organizations, in our communities, and in our own lives? Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly. In
Switch, Chip and Dan Heath show how everyday people have united both minds to achieve dramatic results. The authors bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. They also show that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.
Learn more and buy the book.