Making Learning REAL: Reaching and Engaging All Learners in Secondary Classrooms

We believe that good teaching not only supports the intellectual development of adolescents-it nourishes their spirits and touches their hearts. Students want teachers who care about them; they want coursework that connects to their lives and the world they live in; and they want to be academically challenged and held accountable for meeting those challenges. Making Learning REAL showcases proven classroom practices that increase students' motivation, effort, and engagement in learning and enable teachers and students to become partners in a high performing community of learners.

Making Learning REAL is organized around seven core practices:
1. Developing Positive Relationships Among and Between Students and Teachers
2. Personalized Student-centered Learning
3. Multiple Ways of Knowing and Learning
4. Establishing Clear Norms and Boundaries
5. Building a Cohesive Community of Learners
6. Providing High Expectations and High Student Support
7. Affirming Diversity in Your Classroom

A set of readings link theory and research to each of the core practices. The book also includes a guide for assessing student learning, preparation and start-up of the new school year, the first day of class, and the first month of school. Over 60 protocols in a special appendix offer suggestions for incorporating topics from Making Learning REAL into school-based professional development and education courses.

Carol is a national leader in integrating principles of prevention, personalization, and youth development into everyday practices and structures for secondary schools. Carol has taught students at all grade levels and in 1973 co-founded a small urban secondary school in St. Louis. She has served on education faculties at University of Missouri, and National-Louis, Lesley, and Washington Universities. Facilitating healthy development and academic success for every student has been at the heart of her work with ESR. She has supported principals, leadership teams, and faculty in their efforts to personalize learning in large and small schools, create more coherent systems of discipline and student support, and develop effective teaming and professional learning communities. She is the author of many books, including Partners in Learning about best practices in secondary classrooms, the bestselling resource The Advisory Guide on planning and implementing student advisory programs in secondary schools, and Conflict Resolution in the High School.