We have a wide variety of resources available in Overdrive for your own professional development. We have homeschooling books, leadership books, books to help you with learning about inquiry and project based learning. We have placed all of these books into one collection on the main page, under More Collections – Professional Development.
Here is a small sampling of what is available:
A Biblical Home Education by Ruth Beechick
One of the most trusted homeschool voices today explains why and how the Bible should be the center of classroom learning and provides teaching helps for parents.
A Case for Classical Christian Education by Douglas Wilson
America’s public schools are failing. Douglas Wilson advocates are turn to classical Christian education with its discipline, hard work, and recovery of the ancient division of learning geared to child development stages.
David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell, the #1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw, offers his most provocative—and dazzling—book yet.
Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine , a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a pebble and a sling-and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David’s victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn’t have won.
Or should he?
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages-offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.
Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland’s “Troubles,” the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms—all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.
In the tradition of Gladwell’s previous bestsellers—-The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw—-David And Goliath draws upon history, psychology and powerful story-telling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.
The Element by Ken Robinson
A New York Times-bestselling breakthrough book about talent, passion, and achievement from the one of the world’s leading thinkers on creativity and self-fulfillment.Â
The Element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the Element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve at their highest levels. With a wry sense of humor, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the Element and those that stifle that possibility. Drawing on the stories of a wide range of people, including Paul McCartney, Matt Groening, Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and Bart Conner, he shows that age and occupation are no barrier and that this is the essential strategy for transformÂing education, business, and communities in the twenty-first century.
Guided Inquiry by Carol Kuhlthau
This dynamic approach to an exciting form of teaching and learning will inspire students to gain insights and complex thinking skills from the school library, their community, and the wider world.
Identifies and explains the five kinds of learning accomplished through guided inquiry
Includes a new chapter on how to meet current curricular standards throughout inquiry learning
Introduces the Guided Inquiry Design framework
Describes guided inquiry’s unique approach to transforming learning in today’s schools
Discusses how to embed student research in the inquiry process at all grade levels
Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller
In Reading in the Wild, reading expert Donalyn Miller continues the conversation that began in her bestselling book, The Book Whisperer. While The Book Whisperer revealed the secrets of getting students to love reading, Reading in the Wild, written with reading teacher Susan Kelley, describes how to truly instill lifelong “wild” reading habits in our students.
Based, in part, on survey responses from adult readers as well as students, Reading in the Wild offers solid advice and strategies on how to develop, encourage, and assess five key reading habits that cultivate a lifelong love of reading. Also included are strategies, lesson plans, management tools, and comprehensive lists of recommended books. Copublished with Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of Education Week and Teacher magazine, Reading in the Wild is packed with ideas for helping students build capacity for a lifetime of “wild” reading.
Start with Why by Simon Sinek (on audio)
Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their successes over and over?
People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in com- mon, but they all started with why. Their natural ability to start with why enabled them to inspire those around them and to achieve remarkable things.
In studying the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way—and it’s the complete opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. WHY is not money or profit—those are always results. Why does your organization exist? Why does it do the things it does? Why do customers really buy from one company or another? Why are people loyal to some leaders, but not others?
Starting with WHY works in big business and small business, in the nonprofit world and in politics.
Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And people follow them not because they have to; they follow because they want to.
Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire. This book is for anyone who wants to inspire others or who wants to find someone to inspire them.
The Way They Learn by Cynthia Tobias
Draw out the best in your children—by understanding the way they learn. If you’re frustrated that your child isn’t learning the way you did, chances are they are too! In this practical resource, Cynthia Ulrich Tobias explains that understanding how you both learn can make all the difference.
Using expertise in education and learning styles, Tobias offers practical guidance for teaching to your child’s strengths—both at home and in school—even when his or her learning style is very different from your own. Enlightening and informative, this book will help with these issues:
The different ways children perceive and order information
Four learning styles and how your style and your child’s may differ
How to bring out your child’s greatest strengths
Ways to help your child grasp and remember what’s being taught
Tips for advocating for your child with teachers
How your involvement can increase your child’s success at schoolWhether you’re a parent, grandparent, or teacher, this book offers concrete help for guiding the children in your care onto their very best path to learning—now and for a lifetime.
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