Having Hard Conversations

For many educators, confronting a colleague about a work-related issue can be a daunting matter. This insightful book helps educators speak with clarity and courage to directly address difficult situations within their schools.

Having Hard Conversations provides an interactive, personal approach to mastering the art of challenging conversations. The author’s step-by-step strategy addresses a wide range of situations, including communication with supervisees, peers, and supervisors. Emphasizing that initiative and preparation are the keys to a successful conversation, this resource includes:

• Thought-provoking questions and first-person accounts that help educators become more self-aware, effective communicators
• Advice on overcoming personal hesitation about expressing concerns
• Guidance on identifying goals for the conversation and choosing the best "what-where-and-when" for a productive discussion
• Sample scripts and practical tools to help educators prepare for the conversation

By addressing important issues directly and professionally, educators can find self-empowerment and promote an open, healthy school environment.

Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind (Contributing Author)

Arthur L. Costa, Bena Kallick, Editors
Bringing together all four books in the ASCD ground-breaking Habits of Mind series, this volume presents a compelling case for why it’s more relevant than ever to align the missions of schools and classrooms to teaching students how to think and behave intelligently when they encounter problems and challenges in learning and in life. Drawing on their research and experience in applying the habits of mind in all kinds of schools, the authors guide you through every step of making intelligent behavior a practical outcome in any school:

• Explore 16 habits of mind and the significance of developing these habits as part of everyday success and lifelong learning
  
• Discover classroom-tested strategies, units, lessons, and tasks that help students learn good habits of mind and apply them in learning academic content
  
• Help your school cultivate a more thoughtful culture that encourages students to reflect on their thinking and assess how well they’re using the habits of mind
  
• Make the 16 habits of mind part of the everyday life in your school or district through your curriculum development, school leadership, and staff development

Mentors in the Making (Contributing Author)

Betty Achinstein and Steven Z. Athanases, Editors
Foreword by Ellen Moir
In response to a growing interest in mentoring and new teacher induction, the authors offer a unique view of developing quality mentors. Drawing on empirical research, practitioner action inquiry, and field-tested practices from induction programs, they explore effective mentoring in diverse educational contexts. With richly contextualized and thoughtfully analyzed excerpts from actual mentoring conversations and powerful examples of practice, the volume offers educators, researchers, and policymakers a reform-minded vision of the future of mentoring. Challenging conventional wisdom—that it is sufficient to identify successful teachers and send them out to mentor others—this essential resource:

• Argues that mentors are not born, but developed through conscious, deliberate, ongoing learning.
• Provides a needed link between research and practice in the field of new teacher mentoring, to define a knowledge base for effective mentoring.
• Documents induction and mentoring practices that focus new teachers on individual learners, equity-oriented curriculum and pedagogy, and the educator’s role in reforming school culture.
• Highlights problems and complexities of enacting mentor knowledge and learning in diverse contexts.