Let's face it: learning is a high-stakes venture. True learning — the kind that stays with students long after the grades are in — requires risk. Ownership. Change. But what does it look like for students to really understand your subject? How can you structure assignments so that Googling becomes an asset, not a threat, to demonstrating knowledge? Veteran teacher Mickey Kolis invites you to reflect on how you "do learning" in your classroom. Real-life classroom examples demonstrate how you can shift the drive for learning into students' hands — while still meeting your learning benchmarks. From making assignments meaningful to students to assessing the results, Rethinking Teaching explores key ideas for creating environments where students want to learn.
Industry Reviews
As a classroom teacher, I have often felt alone, isolated, and overwhelmed. After 12 years in education, I was searching to re-charge my batteries and re-connect to my initial core-beliefs and understandings about my content and my craft. Dr. Kolis' book reaffirmed my basic concepts of teaching and learning by providing a vivid, specific portrait of mastery-teaching and collaborative leadership using clear, precise and concise language and terms. Not only does this book define high-quality teaching and collaborative leadership and set it as goals we should all strive for, it provides the reader with a framework and process to achieve those goals. This book invites educators to become part of the process of revitalizing schooling on the personal, classroom, curricular, building, district, state, and national levels. -- Heather Gaston, Florence, SC School District One 2010-2011 Teacher of the Year
[Rethinking Teaching] is an easy read that offers a wealth of information on how to be a collaborative leader. It is filled with ideas and stories that mesh into what educators must utilize to best help our lifelong learners. Mickey Kolis emphasizes what we have, what we need and what we will be able to offer in the future (as collaborative leaders). -- Sonya Schug, BS in Elementary Education, MA in Teaching Special Education
It is no secret that relationships, communication and collaboration with both students and colleagues are at the heart of successful classrooms and schools. Rethinking Teaching: Teachers as Collaborative Leaders in Making Learning Relevant has provided me with the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary for becoming a collaborative leader in my building. This book attacks the "systems problem" that we currently have in education by encouraging educators to adopt 3 leaderful actions in 30 days to promote incremental change. The "3 in 30" process has equipped me with the blueprint to begin making changes that will positively impact my students and my school. -- Derek Olson, Mathematics Teacher, Memorial High School, Eau Claire, WI
There are many books about becoming a leader. Dr. Kolis takes the journey in a new direction by making explicit the dynamic between knowing about leadership and acting in leaderful ways - putting thought into action! He challenges us to reexamine what we ask students to learn and why they should learn it using dispositional lenses - and makes a convincing case that linking learning goals, dispositions and human relationships through the lens of leaderful actions can strengthen every facet of our practice. What makes this book different, though, is the emphasis on pragmatic steps for implementing the ideas to become more leaderful. Dr. Kolis provides clear guides and tasks that are developed and tested with the very audience that matters most - our students. If you read this book, you will feel compelled to act - and your students will thank you for it! -- Robert Hollon, Professor of Education, University of Wisconsin: Eau Claire
