The AISD Professional Library is located at 7200 I-40 West at the Rod Schroder Education Support Center, Room 318. We are a member of the Harrington Library Consortium which is an established and successful resource-sharing network currently having over 130 full members.
Even on Your Worst Day, You Can Be a Student's Best Hope by As Manny Scott travels the world speaking to students and educators, he meets young people whose stories sound a lot like his own--a childhood that was marked by poverty, instability, violence, and despair until a few caring educators showed him how to find meaning in the classroom and gave him a glimpse of his own possibilities. So many kids he meets today need this kind of hope and practical assistance. But with all that is already on educators' plates, what can an individual teacher do to help traumatized children believe in themselves, succeed in school, and graduate prepared for work and life?Here, you'll find answers. With the same passion that inspires so many who hear him speak, Scott presents an approach informed by the teachers who helped him and honed through years of connecting with kids who desperately need someone to show them a path to a more positive future. He shares the little things you can do to prepare yourself for the hard work of making a difference and offers advice for bridging cultural divides, earning students' trust, and equipping them to take responsibility for their own success.This book is a reminder of the incredible power every teacher has to help young people rewrite their destinies--and it's a call to action for all who read it.
Shifting the Balance by 
All Learning Is Social and Emotional by An ASCD Bestseller While social and emotional learning (SEL) is most familiar as compartmentalized programs separate from academics, the truth is, all learning is social and emotional. What teachers say, the values we express, the materials and activities we choose, and the skills we prioritize all influence how students think, see themselves, and interact with content and with others. If you teach kids rather than standards, and if you want all kids to get what they need to thrive, Nancy Frey, Douglas Fisher, and Dominique Smith offer a solution: a comprehensive, five-part model of SEL that's easy to integrate into everyday content instruction, no matter what subject or grade level you teach. You'll learn the hows and whys ofBuilding students' sense of identity and confidence in their ability to learn, overcome challenge, and influence the world around them.Helping students identify, describe, and regulate their emotional responses.Promoting the cognitive regulation skills critical to decision making and problem solving.Fostering students' social skills, including teamwork and sharing, and their ability to establish and repair relationships. Equipping students to becoming informed and involved citizens.Along with a toolbox of strategies for addressing 33 essential competencies, you'll find real-life examples highlighting the many opportunities for social and emotional learning within the K-12 academic curriculum. Children's social and emotional development is too important to be an add-on or an afterthought, too important to be left to chance. Use this books integrated SEL approach to help your students build essential skills that will serve them in the classroom and throughout their lives.
Cultivating Curiosity in K-12 Classrooms by Curiosity comes from within--we just have to know how to unleash it.We learn by engaging and exploring, asking questions and testing out answers. Yet our classrooms are not always places where such curiosity is encouraged and supported. Cultivating Curiosity in K-12 Classrooms describes how teachers can create a structured, student-centered environment that allows for openness and surprise, where inquiry guides authentic learning.Award-winning educator Wendy L. Ostroff shows how to foster student curiosity through exploration, novelty, and play; questioning and critical thinking; and experimenting and problem solving. With techniques to try, scaffolding advice, and relevant research from neuroscience and psychology, this book will help teachers harness the powerful drive in all learners--the drive to know, understand, and experience the world in a meaningful way.
Cultural Competence Now by What will it take to create equitable educational opportunities for all students? According to veteran educator Vernita Mayfield, teachers and school leaders need to learn how to recognize culturally embedded narratives about racial hierarchy and dismantle the systems of privilege and the institutions that perpetuate them with knowledge, action, and advocacy. Cultural Competence Now provides a structure to begin meaningful conversations about race, culture, bias, privilege, and power within the time constraints of an ordinary school. The 56 exercises include activities, discussions, and readings in which to engage during each of the four quarters of the school year. School leaders will discover how to facilitate learning through the four steps-awaken and assess; apply and act; analyze and align; advocate and lead-as you and your colleagues * Increase your awareness of privilege and bias. * Adapt your professional practices to meet the needs of all students. * Examine policies and practices that inhibit opportunities for marginalized populations. * Align resources to eradicate inequity in your school.Mayfield offers advice on establishing a safe environment for professional conversations, setting goals for cultural competency, overcoming resistance, reviewing school data and the school's vision and mission through the lens of race and culture, and strategically managing what can be a transformative yet uncomfortable change process. Cultural Competence Now responds to the urgent need to build the cultural competency of educators-for the sake of children and in the interest of supporting and retaining all educators.
Elementary Educator's Guide to Primary Sources by Focusing on student analysis of primary sources, this book explores several proven analysis strategies to use with students, including methods from the Library of Congress, the Stanford History Education Group, and Harvard's Project Zero. * Explains how to identify compelling primary sources by searching online and local resources * Helps readers to recognize the role primary source analysis can play in student learning across subject areas and grade levels * Offers readers an understanding of an array of primary source analysis techniques as well as well as ways to modify those techniques in unique situations
How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students, 2nd Edition by Properly crafted and individually tailored feedback on student work boosts student achievement across subjects and grades. In this updated and expanded second edition of her best-selling book, Susan M. Brookhart offers enhanced guidance and three lenses for considering the effectiveness of feedback: (1) does it conform to the research, (2) does it offer an episode of learning for the student and teacher, and (3) does the student use the feedback to extend learning? In this comprehensive guide for teachers at all levels, you will find information on every aspect of feedback, including Strategies to uplift and encourage students to persevere in their work. How to formulate and deliver feedback that both assesses learning and extends instruction. When and how to use oral, written, and visual as well as individual, group, or whole-class feedback. A concise and updated overview of the research findings on feedback and how they apply to today's classrooms.In addition, the book is replete with examples of good and bad feedback as well as rubrics that you can use to construct feedback tailored to different learners, including successful students, struggling students, and English language learners.The vast majority of students will respond positively to feedback that shows you care about them and their learning. Whether you teach young students or teens, this book is an invaluable resource for guaranteeing that the feedback you give students is engaging, informative, and, above all, effective.
The Innocent Classroom by When children of color enter their classrooms each year, many often encounter low expectations, disconnection, and other barriers to their success. In The Innocent Classroom, Alexs Pate traces the roots of these disparities to pervasive negative stereotypes, which children are made aware of before they even walk through the school door. The cumulative weight of these stereotypes eventually takes shape as guilt, which inhibits students' engagement, learning, and relationships and hurts their prospects for the future. If guilt is the primary barrier for children of color in the classroom, then the solution, according to Pate, is to create an Innocent Classroom that neutralizes students' guilt and restores their innocence. To do so, readers will embark on a relationship "construction project" in which they will deepen their understanding of how children of color are burdened with guilt; discover students' "good," or the motivation behind their behaviors, and develop strategic responses to that good; and nurture, protect, and advocate for students' innocence.Ultimately, students will reclaim their innocence and begin to make choices that will lead to their success. Teachers will renew their commitment to their students. And the current ineffective system can give way to one that reflects a more enlightened understanding of who our children are--and what they are capable of.
Letter Lessons and First Words by If you're not sure how phonics fits within your daily instruction, or crave a more effective process for teaching phonics, Heidi Anne Mesmer is here to help. In Letter Lessons and First Words, Heidi Anne provides a research-based vision of what lively, engaging phonics instruction can look like, along with practical, classroom-tested tools to make it happen in your classroom. Heidi Anne provides a one-stop shop for phonics instruction, including a clear scope and sequence of what to teach, a quick assessment to differentiate instruction, a simple lesson framework, and three activity-filled units matching key developmental milestones. More than twenty classroom videos bring the content to life, showing children working with letters, words, and books at various stages of learning. Additional resources include: A "know the code" chapter explaining English spelling (and online glossary) Answers to common questions Guidance about choosing books for readers at different stages new info about how children cognitively store words and why inductive tension is important. Isn't it time to re-imagine how you teach phonics? Letter Lessons and First Wordswill show you the way toward joyful instruction for today's classrooms.The Guinness Book of World Records holds the record as the most frequently stolen library book.
America's first lending library was established in 1731, Philadelphia, by Benjamin Franklin. It was a paid subscription-based service, but paved the way for the library systems we use in North America today.
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DIGITAL RESOURCES
For login information,
contact Valarie Olson at
806-326-1285
valarie.olson@amaisd.org
The Amarillo ISD Professional Library supports the district mission and goals by making
resources available that will enable professional staff develop excellence in teaching and learning. Our extensive collection of books, videos, journals and digital resources are devoted to providing necessary tools for staff development.
An HLC library card will be needed for checkout. All AISD employees may obtain a library card at the Professional Library, any public library, or your campus library card may be used. These library cards may be used at any Harrington Library Consortium member library.
All employees of the Amarillo Independent School District may use and borrow materials.
Community members who have a Harrington Library Consortium card may use and borrow
material with the discretion of library personnel.
All books and DVDs are available for checkout for a term of 30 days; periodicals are available
for a term of 8 days. Material can be requested by telephone, email, or in person. There is
no limit to the number of items that may be checked out. When material is needed for a
longer period of time, it can be renewed by calling the Professional Library at 326-1285. We
do not charge for overdue material.
