Top Education Books to Tackle this Summer

Ahhhh, summer… The halcyon days where both students and teachers rest body, mind, and soul.

Whether your well-deserved rest is located beach-side, lake-side, or pool-side, the following books—some of the best works published during the 2014-2015 school year--will both enlighten you and hopefully empower your efforts in the classroom this fall. Enjoy!

• The Practical Page – Turner
• Title: 17,000 Classroom Visits Can’t Be Wrong: Strategies that Engage Students, Promote Active Learning, and Boost Achievement
• Authors: John V. Antonetti and James R. Garver
• Theme: Shifting the focus from “teaching” to “learning”

Pithy, practical, and easy to read, 17,000 is quickly becoming one of my favorite education books published so far in 2015. Over the course of 150 pages, Antonetti and Garver share the results of their observations in over 17,000 classrooms. Throughout the book, they brilliantly synthesize their research to analyze what’s working in classrooms with a focus on increasing student engagement and developing higher-level thinking skills. In addition to providing insights to age old pedagogy as well as new instructional innovations, the book excels at providing dozens of examples of successful practice. Most importantly, Antonetti and Garver’s research equips the reader with practical and simple tools that can be immediately inserted into the classroom environment. If there is one education book that you read this summer, you will not be disappointed if that book is 17,000.

• The “Pool Envy” Tome
• Title: Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology
• Author: Michelle Miller
• Theme: Using technology to effectively enhance critical thinking and reasoning in the classroom

Arguably, one of the best education books of this past school year, Miller’s Minds Online provides an authoritative overview of the impact of technological innovation upon the classroom. Well balanced, Miller argues that the mere presence of technology does not promote learning. However, her synthesis of current research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology provides practical insights that can enable educators to amplify the instructional methods that they use on a daily basis. If you are looking for a primer on the state of teaching and learning in the digital age, this is a great place to start. More importantly, the thirty pages of footnotes and the 250 pages of research will easily establish you as the “most intellectual” pool side reader.

• The Thriller
• Title: Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
• Author: William Deresiewicz
• Theme: Defining the true purpose of education

If anything, this work by a former member of the Yale faculty and Admission’s Committee is both thoughtful and controversial. Like other “thrillers”, this over 200 page monologue moves from scandal to scandal in an attempt to diagnose a disease and prescribe a cure. As the pages turn, the reader realizes that Deresiewicz is not simply talking about a few schools or a few states; his target is the larger “elite subculture” of parents, teachers, and institutions that have confused money with meaning, success with significance, and grades with good. Deresiewicz argues that this subculture has constructed an assembly line-like institution (the broad elite education system) to sustain its way of life by producing robots devoted to the tenants of elite success. If you are passionate about education and your students, this book will elicit strong emotions as it takes you on a journey to self-reflection. It may be often that the typical reader will find themselves in disagreement with Deresiewicz. However, if the book forces the reader to consider the “why” of education… well, that’s the point.

• The “Reference & Insight” Book
• Title: How College Works
• Authors: Daniel Chambliss and Christopher Takacs
• Theme: Personal relationships determine college success

Applying over a decade of research, the authors provide an intriguing argument related to college success. Simply, human contact generates a tremendous influence both on what students choose to study and if they succeed in these studies. As the author’s summarize, “what really matters in college is who meets whom, and when”. This illuminating research study of 200 pages provides insights to curriculum, student-professor relationships, sports, building architecture, residence hall floor plans, extra-curriculars, and even the importance of the type of college bathroom experience. If you are involved in advising college going students, this easy to read and insightful research study should be required reading this summer.

• The “Outside the Box” Provoker
• Title: Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools
• Authors: Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker
• Theme: Implementing blended-learning techniques in traditional classrooms

As Clayton Christensen remarks in the foreword, “We stand at the vanguard of a shift in education”. The existence of, necessity of, and/or desired direction of this shift is one of the most explosive issues in education today. Working from the theoretical arguments of Christensen’s 2008 work entitled Disrupting Class, Blended provides a practical framework for educators who are looking to implement a more student-centered environment within their schools. The first two chapters provide a clear and concise definition of “blended learning” and forecast both the limits and potential of this methodology. The entire book is filled with thoughtful, research-based dialogue that will equip any educator with insight into what the future of education might become. For the educator looking to discover how to use online learning to support student success, this serious work of 300 pages should be required reading.