Table Of Contents:

• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Part I: Research and Theory
• 1. Why This book? Why Now?
• The Moral of the Maginot Line
• Are Our Educational “Guns” Facing in the Wrong Direction?
• A Bloated Curriculum
• A Testing Obsession
• Cultivating the Latent Ability of Every Student
• Life-Altering Teachers
• The Classroom as a Community
• Understanding Is a Key to Hope
• A Playful Classroom
• References
• 2. How Learning Happens: The Natural Human Learning Process
• Students Know How to Learn; They Are Natural Learners
• Trying to Find the Way
• Research on the Natural Human Learning Process (NHLP)
• Using the Missing Link in Math Education
• If All Students Learn the Same Way, Why Are Students’ Fates Different?
• A Person’s Fate: Nature or Nuture?
• Helping Students See Their Potential: Students’ Self-Understanding
• The Benefits of the NHLP and Metacognitive Knowledge
• All Students Have an Innate Potential and Motivation to Learn
• The NHLP Pedagogy
• Notes
• References
• 3. How the Brain Learns: Research and Application
• The Seven Magic Words
• Metacognition: Basic Facts about How the Brain Learns that Everyone Should Know
• Motivation
• Creativity
• Emotions and the Brain: Fight or Flight
• Constructivism
• Reasons Students Are Not Motivated In School
• Plasticity (Neuroplasticity)
• No-Fail First-Stage Learning Tasks
• Examples of No-Fail First-Stage Learning Tasks
• Things That Can Make It Go Wrong
• Feeding the Brain
• Opportunities to Fulfill Their Potential
• Notes
• References
• Part II: Classroom Applications
• 4. How Tall Am I? Real-world Math for Early Learners
• Transition from Home to School
• Creating a Brain-Friendly Environment
• The Nature of Math
• Math Content for Early Grades
• Numbers
• Measurement
• Geometry
• Games
• Multiple Intelligences and Student Potential
• Exploring Outside the Classroom
• Evaluation
• References
• 5. Can You Build an Igloo? Understanding the Past with Elementary Learners
• Discovering the Past
• Beginning the Unit
• Examining a Distant Place
• Inuit Society Today
• References
• 6. Where Would You Locate Your Castle? Developing Potential in Early Adolescent Learners
• What are the Relatively Normal Physical Changes That Occur With the Beginning of Puberty?
• How Then Would We Teach?
• Justin’s Teacher
• Building Relationships – The Key to Early Adolescents
• Enriched Environments
• Boredom Reduces the Adolescent Brain
• The Importance of Play
• The Opposite of Play is Stress
• Active Learning and Problem Solving
• Connected Learning
• Social Learning
• The Importance of Emotion
• Where Would You Put Your Castle? A Potential Igniting Teaching Unit
• An Acronym to Help Us Remember These Strategies
• The Early Adolescent Needs a Uniquely Skilled, Compassionate Teacher
• References
• 7. What Keeps Satellites Above Earth? Scientific Investigations for Teenage Learners
• Teenage Intellectual Abilities
• Learning to Use Scientific Methods
• Coral Atolls
• Pendulum Clocks
• Gravity
• Satellites
• Relativity
• References
• Part III: Teacher Skills
• 8. Learning Communities: Falling Empire and Rising Democracy
• Learning Communities
• A Falling Empire
• Models of Learning Communities
• Student Feedback
• The “Ask Them” Method for Assessment and Engaged Learning
• Using “Ask Them” For Assessment in a Coordinated-Studies Learning
• Community: “The Fall of Empires”
• Side Benefits
• Pitfalls and Trouble-Shooting
• Making a First Connection
• Igniting Student Potential
• Notes
• References
• 9. Assessment Strategies that Promote Learning and Ignite Student Potential
• Instructional Sequence: Case 1
• Instructional Sequence: Case 2
• What Are the Differences Between Juan’s and Mary’s Approaches to Assessment?
• Informal Feedback
• Making Certain We Are Measuring What Our Students Are Learning
• Test Considerations vs. Projects
• References
• Appendix A: Interest Inventory
• Appendix B: Eporue Map
• Appendix C: Juan’s Classroom
• Appendix D: Using Juan’s Interest Inventory to Show Group Attitude Change
• 10. Developing Teachers Who Inspire Their Students
• What is Different About Instruction That Allows the Brain to Learn in its Most Natural Way?
• Why Does This Approach Work?
• How Do Teacher Skills Differ in Problem-Solving Instruction?
• A Model Preservice Teacher Training Program: Training Teachers to Teach with the Brain’s Natural Way of Learning
• Candidate Selection Process
• Program Structure
• The Teacher Education Classroom as a Laboratory
• Student Teaching
• A More Effective Approach to the Preservice Education of Teachers
• The On-going Professional Development of Teachers
• If the Resources Were Available, What Would a Model Professional- Development Program Look Like?
• Lesson Study: Another Professional Development Strategy
• Educare
• Conclusion
• References
• Index