Books about Formative from Amazon.com

No parent needs a child care book as much as the parent of a toddler! The toddler years are an exciting and rewarding time, as your child learns to stand, walk, say words, and use the potty for the first time. Yet, along with all of these incredible milestones come all sorts of daunting parental challenges - from continuous cries in the middle of the night to the first boo-boos to erratic eating habits to public temper tantrums. What is a parent to do?

The Everything Toddler Book offers professional advice on handling every aspect of your child's physical, emotional, and social development. With quick, easy-to-understand advice and positive reassurance, this helpful book provides frustrated - and often sleep-deprived - parents the quick answers they need to their toughest questions.

Featuring true stories from the trenches and ample space to record developmental milestones, The Everything Toddler Book is an indispensable guide to enjoying these wild and wonderful years. It tells you how to:
Prepare great meals toddlers will actually sit still for and eat
Provide comfort for teething and other common problems
Travel by car, train, and airplane with minimal hassle
Handle a child who refuses to listen
Toddler-proof your home
Buy the best toys and games
Get your child on a workable sleep schedule
Resolve jealousies among siblings.
Price: $5.58 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"A powerful resource. The authors clarify the terminology of assessment with painstaking precision and offer specific, practical steps to help educators develop their assessment literacy."
—Richard DuFour, Educational Author and Consultant

"Highly recommended—a clear and helpful guide to navigating the terrain of instruction, assessment, and standards."
—Mike Schmoker, Author, Speaker, and Consultant

"A powerful way of coping with accountability. This important book lays out a game plan for coming up with an educationally defensible response to today's score-boosting pressures."
—W. James Popham, Professor Emeritus
UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

Common formative assessments—the centerpiece of an integrated, standards-based system!

Now you have powerful means to closely align curriculum, instruction, and assessment to the standards essential for student success. You will learn how teams of teachers in the same content area or grade level can collaboratively develop, test, and refine common formative assessments in order to gain reliable and timely feedback on student progress. The results provide teachers with critical insight into how well students are understanding the standards, what changes are needed in instructional strategies, and how to best meet the needs of every student!

This timely resource presents the "big picture" of an integrated, standards-based instruction and assessment system and offers instructional leaders and teacher teams guidelines for:

• Developing high-quality common formative assessments
• Aligning school-based common formative assessments with district benchmarks and large-scale summative assessments
• Predicting likely student performance on subsequent assessments in time to make instructional modifications
• Implementing and sustaining common formative assessments within the school’s or district’s assessment culture

This book is a must-read for all educators and leaders committed to improving standards-based assessment practices in their district, school, or classroom.

(20050920).
Price: $24.76 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Uncovering Student Thinking in Mathematics shows us ways to listen and observe children and their mathematical understandings so we can find better ways to help them take their next learning steps. This book is a gift to educators who 'seek to understand before being understood.'"
—From the Foreword by Anne Davies

"A fresh and unique resource for mathematics teachers who recognize the importance of carefully establishing the starting points of instruction in terms of what students already know. The collection of assessment probes is inventive, engaging for students, and invaluable for teachers."
—Richard H. Audet, Associate Professor, Roger Williams University

Use formative assessment probes to take the guesswork out of mathematics instruction and improve learning!

Students learn at varying rates, and if a misconception in mathematics develops early, it may be carried from year to year and obstruct a student's progress. To identify fallacies in students' preconceived ideas, Uncovering Student Thinking in Mathematics offers educators a powerful diagnostic technique in the form of field-tested assessment probes—brief, easily administered activities to determine students' thinking on core mathematical concepts.

Designed to question students' conceptual knowledge and reveal common understandings and misunderstandings, the probes generate targeted information for modifying mathematics instruction, allowing teachers to build on students' existing knowledge and individually address their identified difficulties.

Linked to National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards, this invaluable handbook assists educators with:

• 25 ready-to-use mathematical probes
• Teacher guides for implementing each probe at any grade level
• Examples of typical obstacles and faulty thinking demonstrated by students

This rich resource combines standards, educational research findings, and practical craft knowledge to help teachers deliver informed instruction that strengthens all students' learning and achievement in mathematics.

(20060523).
Price: $23.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Page Keeley does it again! This book should be on the desk of all classroom teachers. Teachers will reach for it time and again as they use best practices that include appropriate formative assessment strategies "
—Beverly Cox, Elementary Science Coordinator
Orange County Public Schools, Orlando, FL

Use assessment to inform instruction and learning in the science classroom!

Formative assessment allows educators to discover the varied ideas that students bring to the classroom, determine students' understanding of key concepts, and design learning opportunities that will deepen students' mastery of content and standards. A nationally known expert in science education, Page Keeley provides a rich repertoire of purposeful methods that weave assessment into the process of instruction and learning.

The author shares 75 specific assessment techniques to help science teachers in Grades K–12 provide effective instruction. These flexible assessments can be used with any science curriculum, and the author includes:

• A description of how each technique promotes student learning
• Considerations for design and implementation, such as required materials, timing, modeling the technique, and grouping students
• Modifications for different types of students or purposes
• Caveats for using each technique
• Ways the techniques can be used in other content areas

Science Formative Assessment promotes best practices in the science classroom and helps teachers expand their tool kit of proven assessment techniques.

(20071205).
Price: $29.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Ahmet T. Karamustafa bases this study on a fresh reading of the primary sources and, by integrating the findings of recent scholarship on the subject, presents a unified narrative of Sufism's historical development. His innovative analytical framework reveals the emergence of mystical currents in Islam during the ninth century and traces the rapid spread of Iraq-based Sufism to other regions of the Islamic world, providing an integrated, comprehensive understanding of one of the most compelling aspects of late antique, early medieval Islamic religious history.
Copub: Edinburgh University Press .
Price: $22.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

''This is a very timely and important book for those recognizing the need to implement more learner-centered practices in this era of testing and accountability A must read for concerned educators, researchers, and policymakers.'' -- Barbara L. McCombs, Director, Human Motivation, Learning, and Development Center, University of Denver Research Institute

''Not only has Jim McMillan gathered together the foremost experts on the topic of formative assessment, but each of those authors has provided a clear and detailed analysis of the topic from their unique perspectives. This book is a must read for anyone serious about the use of formative assessments in schools.'' -- Robert J. Marzano, Senior Scholar, Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning

''At a time when many educators are wondering if formative assessment is a magic bullet that can boost students test scores, Jim McMillan has assembled a crackerjack collection of writers who tell us what formative assessment can and can t do. If you want to dig into the viscera of formative assessment, this is required reading!'' -- W. James Popham, Professor Emeritus, UCLA

This authoritative volume presents a state-of-the-art review of formative assessment in the classroom. World-renowned experts examine what is currently known about formative assessment and its application to teaching. The book balances theory and research with practical applications that will work in today's high-stakes accountability testing..
Price: $22.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A revision of the architectural classic on design analysis
Precedents in Architecture, Third Edition provides a vocabulary for architectural analysis that illuminates the works of leading architects and aids architects and designers in creating their own designs.
Thirty-one leading architects are represented in this updated Third Edition in examinations of more than 100 structures assessed through a diagrammatic technique that is applicable to any structure. This impressive collection includes sixteen new buildings and eight innovative architects distinguished by the strength, quality, and interest of their designs. Readers will find valuable guidance in analyzing architectural history as an evolutionary process by exploring the commonality of design ideas reflected in a broad range of structures by internationally renowned architects.
Both novices and seasoned professionals will find Precedents in Architecture, Third Edition a very useful tool for enriching their design vocabulary and for the ongoing assessment of buildings found in today's evolving landscape..
Price: $38.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]