Faye's Reading List

 

Here are some of the books I am reading at the moment...

Quiet Leadership - David Rock - Just finished this and loved it.  It links science about the brain/mind with a coaching method that realises the potential of people.  Lots of useful strategies and suits my own leadership style.  Also the fact that it is based on how our mind works really appeals to me.

Disrupting Class - Clayton Christensen - Clayton is an innovation expert that looks at the future of education from an innovation perspective.  Although written for USA education system, it has lots of sections that apply to NZ.  In particular, the use of technologies such as wikis is deemed as the way forward for student centred learning.

Wikinomics - Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams - Just starting this book, (appropriately as I am launching into Wikieducator training), and have been introduced to the concepts (relating to businesses) of Being Open, Peering, Sharing and Acting Globally.

Fish - Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen - Most of you have probably heard of this book.  I love its simplicity - improving morale and results at work comes down to 4 things.  Choose your attitude (positive), Having fun, Being present and Making their day.  A really quick and easy read that will make you think about your own approach to your work.  Have just run a professional development session based on Choosing your attitude.

Motivation for Achievement - M. Kay Alderman - A very clever colleague of mine mentioned this book and I have just got it out of the library.  I am hoping it will give me some good ideas/tools for working with my students, some of whom are definately lacking motivation. Update:  am now halfway through this book and the main thing I am getting out of it is the importance of the quality of feedback that we give to the learners, particularly in relation to the successful use of learning strategies. I have been making this my focus and am already seeing anecdotal evidence of greater self belief in my learners.

Visible Learning - John Hattie - A slowly working my way through this book.  It too emphasizes the importance of quality feedback, and despite the instinctive gut reaction most teachers have to 'class sizes not having a significant effect on learning', I think what it is getting at that an effective teacher, is effective regardless of class size.