Summer PD: Reads

For flexible thinking

The Growth Mindset Coach; Brock & Hundley

Created by teachers for teachers, this is the ultimate guide for unleashing students’ potential through creative lessons, empowering messages and innovative teaching. The Growth Mindset Coach provides all you need to foster a growth mindset classroom, including:

• A Month-by-Month Program • Research-Based Activities • Hands-On Lesson Plans • Real-Life Educator Stories • Constructive Feedback • Sample Parent Letters

Studies show that growth mindsets result in higher test scores, improved grades and more in-class involvement. When your students understand that their intelligence is not limited, they succeed like never before. With the tools in this book, you can motivate your students to believe in themselves and achieve anything.

Get inspired

Today I Made a Difference; Joseph Underwood

Everyone remembers that teacher who made a difference. The one who went the extra mile to truly affect lives, whose lessons carried as much importance outside the classroom as inside. This book is a celebration of those teachers who continue to make an impact. A collection of stories from some of the country's top educators, this book is a celebration of teachers' work, and motivation for them to continue. Joseph Underwood has collected stories from each of the twenty-eight 2004 Disney Teacher™ of the Year honorees. And every story celebrates a different obstacle they overcame, the power and know-how needed to triumph, and the reward granted upon beating the odds. It's the perfect gift for anyone in or considering the profession. This collection is sure to inspire, celebrate, and motivate those people who make the biggest difference in everyone's life.

Frustration busters

The Happy Teacher Habits; Michael Linsin

What do daffodils, baseball announcing, and Tina Fey have to do with teaching? As it turns out, a lot. In The Happy Teacher Habits, Michael Linsin guides you through 11 little-known habits of the happiest, most effective teachers on Earth.

Based on the latest research, and drawing on experts from the worlds of business, marketing, sports, entertainment, music, and medicine, you will learn simple, actionable strategies that will eliminate your teaching stress, supercharge your ability to motivate and inspire your students, and empower you to really love your job.

This is no ordinary teaching book. It is a success roadmap through an educational system that is becoming increasingly harder to navigate. It will expose the falsehoods and misinformation teachers are bombarded with every day, and reveal the secrets to what really matters in creating a happy and fulfilling career.

A tribute to teaching

What Teachers Make; Taylor Mali

In praise of the greatest job in the world...The right book at the right time: an impassioned defense of teachers and why we need them now more than ever.

Teacher turned teacher’s advocate Taylor Mali inspired millions with his original poem “What Teachers Make,” a passionate and unforgettable response to a rich man at a dinner party who sneeringly asked him what teachers make. Mali’s sharp, funny, perceptive look at life in the classroom pays tribute to the joys of teaching…and explains why teachers are so vital to our society. What Teachers Make is a book that will be treasured and shared by every teacher in America—and everybody who’s ever loved or learned from one.

When you're feeling "crazy"

Why Are Good Teachers Crazy?; Frank Stepnowski

A refreshingly honest look inside the teaching profession, Why Are All the Good Teachers Crazy? is a captivating collection of hilarious stories and unreserved observations from one man’s odyssey in the classroom. With equal parts humanity, insanity, and profanity, Frank Stepnowski, a twenty year veteran of the academic wars, offers unique insight into a world everybody knows about but very few understand. “Step” as he was re-christened by his students, pulls no punches in the classroom, and takes no prisoners in his writing debut. The title, which comes from a line that the author heard many times throughout his career, is both a confession and a confirmation. “I wanted a book,” he explains, “that would make people laugh out loud but also open their eyes to just how insane the teaching profession can get. With that in mind, the book is a riotous success, providing searing insight into the classroom and giving an iconoclastic voice to a profession that often goes unheard. Why Are All the Good Teachers Crazy? is a wake up call for some, a rallying cry for others, and an invitation to laugh and learn for everyone.

Based on actual events, the vivid imagery, colorful characters, and incendiary dialogue of this nuclear powered novel will take readers on a roller coaster ride that they will be talking about long after the ride is over.

Image attribution
Site: flickr.com [Image 1]