Summer Reading List for Middle School Teachers

Welcome to Solving for the Undefined podcast. I’m your host, Johanna, founder of Miss Kuiper’s Classroom, the place that equips teachers and creating a healthy math classroom where students can thrive, no matter their academic abilities. But it’s not always about the numbers. And that’s why I’m here, bringing you the formulas to solve your problems, math and otherwise, plus strategies on cultivating that necessary math mindset. And that’s what you can count on. 

 All right. Hello, hello, and welcome to episode 35. Today, I’m going to be sharing the three teacher books that I am going to be reading this summer, and why I chose those books. I feel like during the school year, I don’t have as much dedicated time to read. So I like to stuff it all in during the summer. I mean, I listen to audiobooks in the car. But I typically like to listen to fun books over educational books when I’m driving just because it holds my attention a little bit more. Plus, I feel like the audio version of an educational nonfiction book is not going to be very exciting to listen to. 

So the first book that I chose for my teacher reading list this summer is teaching with poverty in mind by Eric Jensen. Now, I believe back in episode 29. That is the episode where I talked about five ways to engage all of your students. And a lot of the ways that I talked about came from Eric Jensen’s other book, engaging students with poverty in mind, I am a title one teacher or I work at a title one school. And this means that the majority of the students that come to our school their families are lower income or below the poverty line. And research shows that the way students brains work when they come from a poverty background is going to be different than someone who comes from a middle class or upper class world. And this book, teaching with poverty in mind addresses a couple of things that are going to help me when I’m teaching this demographic of students. I’m going to read you the back cover of the book because that’s going to give you a better synopsis than what I could explain to you in teaching with poverty in mind what being poor does to kids brains and what schools can do about it. veteran educator and brain expert Eric Jensen takes an unflinching look at how poverty hurts children, family and communities across the United States and demonstrates how schools can improve the academic achievement and life readiness of economically disadvantaged students. Jensen argues that although chronic exposure to poverty can result in detrimental changes to the brain, the brain’s very ability to adapt from experience means that poor children can also experience emotional, social and academic success, drawing from research experience and real school success stories. Teaching with poverty in mind reveals what poverty is and how it affects students in school. What drives change both at a macro level within schools and districts, and at the micro level, inside a student’s brain effective strategies from those who have succeeded and ways to replicate those best practices at your own school, and how to engage the resources necessary to make change happen. Too often, we talk about change while maintaining a culture of excuses, we can do better. Although no magic bullet can offset the grave challenges faced daily by disadvantaged students. This timely resource shines a spotlight on what matters most providing an inspiring and practical guide for enriching the minds and lives of all your students. Now, before I move into the second book that I’m going to be reading this summer, I just had an idea, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. But it’d be really cool to do a book study on one or more of these books. So if that is something that you would be interested in, please let me know I think I’ll do a poll on my Instagram and see if there’s interest there as well. But I think this book that I just talked about, or one of the two that I’m going to be talking about next will be really cool books to do a book getting on with some friends. So if that’s of interest to you send me a message on Instagram or send me an email, I’d love to know if you’re interested.

Alright, so the second book that I’m going to be reading this summer, and if you could see it is way bigger than the first one I talked about. But it’s called fair isn’t always equal by Rick warmly. Now, something that’s really cool is Rick warmly, as well as Eric Jensen came and talked to our district and our school a few years ago. So I had some personal one on one experience with them, which I think is always super cool. Anyway, fair isn’t always equal, is a book about assessment and grading in a differentiated classroom. Now I’ve read snippets of this book, because our school maybe three years ago now made a huge switch from doing grades as an ABCDE, F to a 1234 and an N E. So we don’t do zeros, we do an E, meaning there’s not enough evidence. And with that shift, we started doing this thing called proficiency based teaching and learning. And so this book talks about that and give some insight into the thought process behind proficiency based teaching and learning, and why it can be more beneficial than just your quote unquote, standard classroom. So the reason why I wanted to read this book is yes, my school does proficiency based teaching and learning. But because of the things I want to implement in the fall with what I’ll talk about for Book Three, I feel like this coincides really nicely. So this book talks a lot about how students have real understanding and real learning, and how assessment should be a part a portrayal of that, and not a gotcha of you didn’t learn this well enough. Now you get enough, and now you’re going to flunk this class forever, but more so it should be a reflection of what they have learned. And that’s why I use the term celebration of learning in my classroom. I think I’ve talked about that before. But I don’t necessarily call them tests, quizzes, sometimes assessments most of the time, it’s a celebration of learning because anything that they’ve learned so far is worth celebrating, it means that your mind is growing and changing. And that is something that needs to be celebrated. So that is the reason why I wanted to read this book is just to dive in deeper of how I can make that a reality for my students. So I’m going to read you the back cover same as I did with the first book. Differentiated Instruction is a nice idea. But what happens when it comes to assessing ingredient students what’s both fair and leads to a real student learning? an internationally recognized expert on grading practices? Rick warmly first examined these questions 10 years ago in the first edition of fair isn’t always equal. In this thoroughly updated second edition rip provides a catalyst for serious reflection on current grading and assessment practices in differentiated classrooms. The book outlines coherent and effective standards based grading practices for a high stakes accountability focused world. Recognizing the importance of having a shared school vision for assessment and grading rubric addresses the challenges for teachers and administrators alike. Educators from kindergarten to high school will find real examples and gray areas of grading. Rick tackles important and sometimes controversial assessment and grading issues constructively incorporating modern pedagogy and the challenges of working with diverse groups of students new sections address sports eligibility, Honor Roll, descriptive feedback techniques and gifted talented students. chapters on test questions, reduce retakes, grading scales, and grading efforts and behavior have been revised extensively. This important book clearly explains the principles behind best grading practices so you are ready for all grading questions, or realities that you may encounter in your classrooms and schools. I’m always extremely impressed about the wordings or the verbiage on the back of books. Like that was some incredibly descriptive words within a short period of time. That is impressive. I need to take note on this and use this for my own business. Anyway, so that is fair isn’t always equal by Rick warmly. It is definitely a longer read, but it does have some amazing things inside of it. As I’ve read previously. 

I am interrupting today’s episode to talk to you about the reignite the math classroom conference. The special thing about this self paced conference is that it is professional development for math teachers by math teachers with nine professional development topics plus three bonus presenters. This conference is something you will not want to miss when you purchase your ticket you will get access to an exclusive Facebook group with other reignite the math classroom students inside this group, each of our presenters will go live to answer any questions you have regarding their sessions. July 7 is gonna come faster than you think. So go ahead and purchase your ticket now. So you can start the process of reigniting your math classroom. 

And finally, moving into our third book, you’ve heard me talk about this one before I have had two or three podcast episodes dedicated to things I’ve learned from this. It’s called Building thinking classrooms and mathematics by Peter Lilienthal. Now, I started reading this book back in March, I think, maybe April. And I know I said, I don’t listen to educational book audiobooks. But this one was the exception, mostly because I had an audible credit. And I didn’t want to buy the book online. But surprisingly enough, the audiobook, or I guess the way the book is written is very narrative format, rather than, here’s the research, here’s the facts. Here’s the conclusions. So it’s been quite pleasant to listen to. I stumbled across this book, because I was researching how to help students understand the Pythagorean Theorem, without just giving them the formula. And I know there’s plenty of ways to do that. But I wanted some lesson plan that would just tell me how to do it because it was near the end of the school year. And I just needed that. When I came across this book, I realized that there was an entire Facebook group and following dedicated to the practices that are within building thinking classrooms and mathematics by Peter Lilia doll. And within that group. There are 1000s of tasks that people have created, that are dedicated to helping students understand the reason why behind the math, and not just here’s the formula now do it. Which kind of makes sense of why the book is more narrative than fact driven. And of course, you know, me, I like to dive headfirst into anything new that I find. And I’m really like, so I did just that. I downloaded the book on Audible. And I started listening to it. And I got one chapter and before I was like, oh, yeah, I’m going to be doing everything that is in this book. And that is when I changed the setup of my classroom to be groups of three, I ditched the seating chart and started doing random groupings, excuse me visibly random groupings, and started to make the activities we were doing more project based and more discovery based then let’s see some notes now practice these problems based on what we learned in our notes. And I have absolutely loved it. And so I read through Chapter two and three, I think I got to chapter four. But then, you know, end of the school year, lots of things happening and I haven’t picked it up since. So that is why it is on my summer reading list. Because if like the three things I’ve learned so far have made me change everything in my classroom, then the rest of the book has got to be pretty dang good. So that is why it’s on my reading list. And I’m excited to share more as I go through the book. Now I can’t exactly read you the back of the book as seeing as I have the audible version or the audiobook version, but I’ll read you the summary that they have. A Thinking student is an engaged student. Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculation. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling non thinking student behavior sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematic tasks to engage students in deep thinking. Peter Lilienthal has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom building thinking classrooms in mathematics grades K through 12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide one provides the what why and how of each practice and answers teachers most frequently asked questions to includes first hand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples. So Three offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves and rich tasks to get started, and four organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order or built on throughout the school year. When combined, these unique research based practices create the optimal conditions for learner centered, student owned deep mathematical thinking and learning and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before. Don’t on dawn, I feel like that part needed to be added. Anyway, as you can hear throughout that description, it’s very on point with what I love about teaching math is I want it to be a student centered classroom, where students are deeply understanding the math and learning to love it, because that my friend is how we change the world’s view on math. 

In conclusion, the three teacher books that I am reading this summer is one teaching with poverty in mind by Eric Jensen to fair isn’t always equal by Rick warmly and three building thinking classrooms and mathematics by Peter Lilia doll, I will definitely keep you updated. As I read through these books, definitely check out my Instagram stories because that is where I will do most of the updating as well as inside my group, a fraction of math teachers. If you haven’t joined a fraction of math teachers Facebook group yet please do so I would love to have you in a community with me where I can have a two way conversation with you instead of just this podcast where I get to talk at you. So I’d love for you to join I’ll put a link in the description as well as the show notes on my website. Please join and I will share all the updates as I go through these books. And with that old calculator. 

Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode. To find all the links and resources to things talked about in this episode, head on over to Miss Kuiper’s classroom.com and click on podcast