Great learning starts when students believe in their academic abilities. In You Can Learn!, authors Tim Brown and William M. Ferriter introduce intentional and purposeful steps collaborative teams can take to increase the self-efficacy of every learner. By incorporating the book's research-backed practices, professional learning communities will cultivate a culture where students at every grade level see themselves as competent learners fully capable of succeeding in school and beyond.
Discover key instructional strategies to develop and reinforce student learning and achievement:
- Understand why self-efficacy in the classroom is important for student achievement and well-being.
- Extend the PLC at Work® process into your classroom and share it with students in order to motivate, inspire, and guide learning.
- Discover how to implement efficacy-building practices designed around foundational PLC elements.
- Study a research-based approach to student engagement that spans grade levels and subject areas.
- Review recommendations for how to start utilizing the strategies outlined in each chapter.
- Utilize reproducible templates and tools to enhance individual and team understanding of the material.
Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Building a Commitment to Learning in Students
Chapter 2: Helping Students Understand the Expectations for a Unit of Study
Chapter 3: Helping Students Assess Their Progress Toward Mastery
Chapter 4: Helping Students Take Action
Epilogue
References and Resources
Tim Brown has been a principal at the elementary, middle, and high school levels and has implemented the Professional Learning Communities at Work® model in his district. At his last school, Campbell Elementary in Springfield, Missouri, where 87 percent of the student population was eligible for free and reduced lunch, Tim and his staff instituted the PLC process with amazing results. The school became a flagship of success and has been recognized as one of Missouri's Most Improved Schools. The school also received recognition as an Exemplary Practices School and gained national recognition for its unique model of connecting the school to the business community.
With over 20 years of experience in administration at both the elementary and secondary levels, Tim excels at creating a positive school climate based on collaboration among educators. After retiring from Springfield Public Schools, Tim became a project director for the Missouri Professional Learning Communities Program. Working at a variety of school sites, he developed presentations and training programs, conducted team meetings, and helped teams examine data and write SMART goals. The schools he worked with all reported increases in student achievement. In 2005, he was selected to represent his state as the National Distinguished Elementary Principal. Now a full-time Solution Tree associate, Tim has been active in numerous professional committees and task forces and received several awards and honors for his leadership.
Tim holds a bachelor's degree in special education from the University of Central Arkansas, as well as master's and specialist degrees in educational administration from Missouri State University.
William M. Ferriter is a sixth-grade language arts and social studies teacher in a PLC school near Raleigh, North Carolina. He has designed professional development courses for educators nationwide. His trainings include how to use blogs, wikis, and podcasts in the classroom; the role of iTunes in teaching and learning; and the power of digital moviemaking. Bill has also developed schoolwide technology rubrics and surveys that identify student and staff digital proficiency at the building level. He is a founding member and senior fellow of the Teacher Leaders Network and has served as teacher in residence at the Center for Teaching Quality.
An advocate for PLCs, improved teacher working conditions, and teacher leadership, Bill has represented educators on Capitol Hill and presented at state and national conferences. He is among the first 100 teachers in North Carolina and the first 1,000 in the United States to earn certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and has also served on the board. He has been Teacher of the Year in North Carolina, and his blog, The Tempered Radical, earned Best Teacher Blog of 2008 from Edublogs.
Bill has had articles published in the Journal for Staff Development, Educational Leadership,, and Threshold Magazine. A contributing author to two assessment anthologies, The Teacher as Assessment Leader and The Principal as Assessment Leader, he is also coauthor of Building a Professional Learning Community at Work®: A Guide to the First Year.
Bill earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in elementary education from the State University of New York at Geneseo.
