Primary / Elementary School

Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice

This book describes an innovative approach to teaching that helps take students beyond the rote memorization of facts and figures to levels of understanding that will serve them well throughout their lives. The book is filled with rich examples gathered during six years of collaboration between reflective classroom teachers and researchers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At the heart of the approach is a framework that transforms traditional teaching by providing clear and coherent guidance in: choosing curriculum topics; defining explicit goals; designing learning activities; fostering student understanding; and assessing students' performance. ISBN: 978-0787910020

The MUSE BOOK and Guide

The MUSE BOOK documents the work of Project MUSE and presents the background, development, and uses of MUSE learning tools and educational approaches, with comments from collaborating school and museum educators. The MUSE Guide, a training manual for using MUSE tools, accompanies the report.

Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child

In this book, David Perkins draws on over twenty years of research which indicates that students from the first grade through college often have only the most superficial kind of knowledge even after considerable instruction in a subject. Here he reveals some commonly misguided strategies students use in trying to understand a topic, and why traditional-teaching approaches often fail. ISBN-13: 978-0028740188

Arts PROPEL: A Handbook for Imaginative Writing

In the Arts PROPEL approach to instruction and assessment, students write poems, and tackle other real-life projects as the starting point for exploring the works of practicing artists. Prepared by Project Zero and the Educational Testing Service with the help of teachers and administrators from the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The Arts PROPEL handbooks, An Introductory Handbook, A Handbook for Imaginative Writing, A Handbook for Music, and A Handbook for Visual Arts, offer guidelines and models for creating a project-based curriculum and using portfolios to assess student work in the arts.

Arts PROPEL: A Handbook for Music

In the Arts PROPEL approach to instruction and assessment, students write poems, and tackle other real-life projects as the starting point for exploring the works of practicing artists.