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Sullivan: Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Clint Sullivan

Master’s Portfolio, ED 698

University of Alaska, Southeast

Philosophy of Education

Charles, C.M. (2011). Building classroom discipline (10th ed.). Allyn &Bacon.

In looking at various ideas and models for classroom management I look at an underlying

question, “What is the foundational beliefs that say there should be classroom

management?” or “What moral obligation or self-benefiting purpose does a student have to

follow the expectations of his/her teacher?” I have my personal answers to these

questions, and am still formulating how to express them in an educational, academic

setting, explaining both my foundational beliefs and the philosophies of classroom

management that are built upon them. One thing I do find is that I share parts of the views

of many while rarely wholeheartedly agreeing. One hope I have in my own classroom is to

encourage my students to look at the motivation for why they make the choices they do. I

hope that in doing so the students will take personal ownership both of his/her behavior

and of his/her education.

Kohn, A. (1996). Beyond discipline: Compliance to community. Association for Supervision

and Curriculum Development.

When I first heard Alfie Kohn I didn’t expect him to go under my books relating to my

philosophy. Both in listening to him speak, and in the writing in this book he comes across

a bit arrogant and judgmental. I don’t agree with some of thoughts on his view of

discipline, as I think he is so involved in his own thoughts and interpretation that he loses

some understanding. However, there are some core values that I agree with him about, as

evidenced by this quote from the book, “Children are more likely to be respectful when
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important adults in their lives respect them. They are more likely to care about others if

they are cared about” (p. 111). I didn’t remember a lot of names that came up in my classes,

yet even though he was only mentioned briefly, I remembered his name. People who make

statements such as he does forces you to really think about the topic and come up with a

clear way of expressing your own point of view, even if it is not always in agreement with

the author.

Development, Learning, and Motivation

Santrock, J.W., Deater-Deckard, K., & Lansford, J. E. (2014). Child development (14th ed.).

McGraw-Hill Education.

I suppose this book would be categorized as a textbook, though it does not feel like a

textbook when I read it. It was not dry, but very engaging and down-to-earth. As

evidenced by the title the textbook covers biological, emotional, social, and cognitive

development of children. I appreciate a chapter devoted to moral development, which

brought up the topic of spiritual development. The knowledge in this book is very

expansive, covering just about everything one would need on the topic. I also like the table

of contents, as it was one of the better ones I have seen; it is very easy to find the

information you are looking for in this 500-page textbook.

Slavin, R. (2015). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (11th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

This textbook looks at the role psychology plays in education. The author is the director of

the Center for Research and Reform in Education, John Hopkins University. The

information in the book was solid, though at times a little challenging to navigate. I
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appreciate how he starts each chapter with a narrative relating to the topic covered in the

chapter. This immediately relates the information covered to real-life practice. He covers

just about everything in the realm of education, from various theories of learning to the

actual practice of teaching to grades and standardized test.

Diversity and Differentiation

Banks, J. A. and McGee-Banks, C. A. (2019). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives

(10th ed.). Wiley & Sons.

The first 2/3s of the book provides a comprehensive overview of various categories of

multicultural education: gender, race, religion, and economic inequalities. They title the 2 nd

chapter “Social Class”, though they more closely mean economic inequalities and use this

term some in the chapter. I have never liked the term social class, as it seems to imply that

some people are better in some way due to the amount of money they have. I appreciate

how they closed out the last third of the book by looking at school reform and how

communities, parents and schools can work together. This book touches on so many areas

of multicultural education, many of which are not commonly addressed, such as being

culturally responsive within a special education program and working with parents with

special needs. By reading this book I thought of some new ideas and learned some new

things. I appreciate the mindset of this quote: “Learning is at the heart of schooling. If this

is the case, then student learning should be a major focus of school reform efforts” (p. 267).
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Tomlinson, C. A. (2014). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners

(2nd ed.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

As I have gone through the MAT program I have found that I like the idea of meeting my

students first, then adapting to them. It is one of the underlying philosophies I use working

as a para educator, as each student is a unique learner. Although this does not mean a

teacher cannot have a plan before the school year starts, having a set way of teaching in

place, regardless of the different possibilities of students, seems contrary to my instinct and

the philosophy of Tomlinson. To prepare for a future of differentiation, I imagine having

25-30 students in a class, with no other adult help, and ways I could make that a successful

learning experience for each child in the class.

Learning Environments

Fields, M.V & Boesser, K. (2014). Constructive guidance and discipline (6th ed.). Merrill

One aspect of discipline, which this book speaks about, that I hope to pursue in my

classroom is helping children understand the reason behind the behavioral expectations.

The book also speaks about how physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development

affect behavior. I agree with the authors view that children should begin to process their

own beliefs about what they view as proper behavior, rather than simply fall in line to my

or the school’s rules to avoid consequences. On idea I have thought of for my future

classroom, which I am still fine tuning, is the idea of actively growing this area teaching

children proper behavior. For example, I think of how you would not give a student 45 x 59

the first day dealing with multiplication, but your goal is to reach that question. In the
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same way, I look at student discipline as a content area where they need to grow and

develop. Lastly, the authors are proponents of modeling proper behavior by the teacher.

My attitude and behavior will set the tone for the learning environment in my classroom.

Scarpaci, R. (2007). Case study approaches to classroom management. Pearson Education.

On a first read of IOSIE the method seems to be common sense. However, after working in

a behavior program I find the value for teachers, or a group making a behavior plan, to use

something like this for clarity. Things can easily get muddled, the goals can change to fit a

situation that is not working out as hoped and expected, or the original is just dropped with

no one keeping accountability. If I had the chance to talk in depth to Scarpaci about one

letter it would be the “S” for solutions. This is the one I spent the most time reflecting on in

my case study behavior plan. Just thinking to myself, I wonder if the term “Plan of action”

might fit better than “Solution”.

Assessment and Student Learning

Overall, L., & Sangster, M. (2006). Assessment: A practical guide for primary teachers.

Continuum.

The book lists 4 types of assessment- summative, formative, diagnostic, and ipsative.

Although I was familiar with the first three words, I don’t remember seeing the word

“ipsative”. I found out that although the word was new, the concept I had been practicing

already in my classroom. Ipsative assessment is a form of formative assessment “where

progress is judged against previous performance: (p. 25). The idea is that a student’s

progress is judged based on he or her growth rather than simply achievement. The authors
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also say that constructive feedback is an important part of assessment, and that teachers

need to make sure feedback is positive. They also speak about the value in students

evaluating themselves, and that this self-evaluation should be specific. I have done some

formal student self-evaluation in the past using rubrics, but reading this makes me think I

would like to focus more on self-evaluation this upcoming school year.

Tomlinson, C. A., & Moon, T. R. (2013). Assessment and student success in a differentiated

classroom. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

This book suggests that differentiation goes beyond just instructional design but that

“robust teaching links five classroom elements so that each one flows from, feeds, and

enhances the others” (p. 1). The elements are learning environment, curriculum,

assessment, instruction, and classroom leadership and management. The book primarily

focuses on assessment- pre-assessment, ongoing assessment, and summative assessment.

There are four concepts important to effective grading practice- error, reliability, validity,

and teacher bias. The book supports grading based on a set criteria, and not comparative

and norm based. The authors do not support grading on a curve or focusing on student

rank compared to other students. The authors are proponents of the 3-P grading system;

the “P”s stand for participation, progress, and performance.

Content and Pedagogy: English Language Arts/Literacy

Atwell, N. (2015). In the middle: A lifetime of learning about writing, reading and adolescents

(3rd ed.). Heinemann.

adolescences. It speaks about subjects such as a writer’s workshop, students learning the

editing/revision process, mini-lesson and activities for reading, reading and writing poetry,

and a reading workshop.

Fletcher, R. & Portalupi, J. (2001).  Writing workshop: The essential guide. Heinemann.  

The title sums up this book nicely, as it is an in-depth look at the writer’s workshop. The

end of each chapter has a section titled “Making it Work”, which goes into how a teacher

can incorporate the topic of that particular chapter into his or her classroom. There are also

a lot of materials/forms for a teacher to use, found in the appendix section, such as a Daily

Record Sheet and an Editing Checklist.

Spandel, Vicki. (2004). Creating young writers: Using the Six Traits to enrich writing process

in primary classrooms. Pearson Education.

Spandel shows ways to teach the six traits- Voice, Ideas, Sentence Fluency, Organization,

Word Choice, Conventions- to children ages kindergarten through 3rd grade. The book

emphasizes time for writing, modeling by the teacher, use of literature to illustrate specific

traits, student independence, and assessment. I first dealt with the Six Traits by Spandel in

a middle school classroom. It is always been my belief that covering the topics can be

accomplished with even young primary students; this book shows effective ways how.

Strickland, D., Ganske, K., & Monroe, J. K. (2001). Supporting struggling readers and writers:

Strategies for classroom intervention 3 – 6. Stenhouse.

This book deals with supporting and teaching 3rd-6th grade students who need are

struggling in the areas of reading and writing, or both. It is divided into two parts- the first

part takes up most of the book and follows a normal book format, while the second part are

specific strategies for incorporating the books idea’s into a classroom; the headings for the

second part are- Instruction, Assessment, Test taking, Home/School Connection, and

Professional Development. The first part of the book covers many areas, such as reluctant

readers and writers, reading fluency, English language learners, small group instruction,

and spelling.

Content and Pegadogy: Social Studies

Lesh, B.A. (2011). “Why won’t you just tell us the answer?”. Stenhouse Publishers.

This book is a discussion on how the traditional approach of teaching history, i.e. rote

memorization of facts, needs to be readjusted to a process he calls “historical thinking”. I

appreciate Lesh’s viewpoint on how history should be taught, notably seeking to

understand history in context and as it is applicable to students today. This is a book I

would keep, primarily because of its application of his ideas. At times education theory

books are heavy on the theory, and do not give a lot of guidelines on how to apply theory.

Lesh’s book is not like this. On the first read through there were some practices of his I

would like to try in a classroom. On a second or third glance, I am sure other practices will

stick out. In addition, the book itself is useful for learning history, not simply how to teach

history.
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Moline, S. (1995). I see what you mean (2nd ed.). Stenhouse Publishers.

This book discusses a concept he calls “Visual Literacy”, being able to “read” various forms

of visuals, such as graphs, maps, and charts. The thing that stuck out most to me in this

book was the overall theme that the reading of visuals needs to be addressed just as

reading the English language is addressed. Although I have thought of using visuals in

lessons, I have never specifically thought of teaching visuals as a type of literacy. This book

would be useful to keep as a resource if I am looking to add some type of visual to a lesson

and need a place to go for ideas. For instance, when introducing young children to the

concept of a map, he has many ways to address the idea.

Content and Pedagogy: Arts Integration

Lancaster, J. (1990). Art in the primary school. Routledge.

Lancaster was the head of art teacher training at Bristol Polytechnic; he is a practicing

artist and has written or edited eleven books on art. I really like Lancaster’s view that

“there is a creative urge in every human being- younger and old alike- for we all have a

natural desire to use our hands and materials as vehicles for artistic expression” (p. 6). I

agree with his mindset that all children, and people, have the ability to be creative, even if

they do not have formal artistic skill and training. The book lists 7 objectives teachers

should have when teaching art to younger students; these include children developing

knowledge of materials through free experimentation, children expressing themselves

emotionally through their art experiences, and children being involved in project work in

other content areas where art in an active component. One interesting idea that the book
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speaks about is using art to develop problems solving skills; this is an idea I would like to

pursue more in my classroom.

Prince, E. S. (2008). Art is fundamental: Teaching the elements and principles of art in

elementary school. Zephyr Press.

This author also wrote the book Art Matters; she is an art teacher at Sycamore School. Her

book starts with a nice, basic overview of various aspects of teaching art, such as

integrating art into all content areas and dealing with mistakes students make in their art.

The majority of the book is made up of actual lessons and unit that teachers can teach. Her

approach to the lessons is very professional, almost something a university art student

would take rather than elementary lessons. I like that because it provides elementary

lessons that really seem to be looking for students to grow as artists, not simply do fun art

projects.

Content and Pedagogy: Science

Almarode, J., Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Hattie, J. (2018). Visible learning for science: What works

best to optimize student learning. Corwin Publishing.

All four authors of this book are university professors in the field of education; the primary

author, Almarode, began his career teaching mathematics and science to grades K-12. This

book looks at the value of visible learning for the content area of science; visible learning

basically says that the most effective learning takes places when students are able to

visually see what they are learning. There is a focus on how best students take in
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information, rather than on what teaching method is easiest or best for the teacher;

“science classrooms where teachers see learning through the eyes of their learners and

learners see themselves as their own teachers provide the greatest learning environment”

(p. 7).

Salmon, W. C. (2017). The foundations of scientific inference: 50 th anniversary edition.

University of Pittsburgh Press.

This book is a 50th anniversary reprinting of a book written by Wesley C. Salmon, a noted

philosopher of science who passed in 2001. He looks at the “philosophical underpinnings

of scientific investigation” (p. x), about how and why scientific inquiry should be carried

out, and how to can succeed. This book is an academic read, at times requiring me to

reread a section to make sure I understood what I just read. That being said, although the

writing and terminology at times is pretty academic, Salmon’s approach is not

“mechanical”: “the discovery of hypothesis requires insight, ingenuity, and originality. The

process of finding answers to scientific questions cannot be transformed into a mechanical

machine. Science, they say, is not a sausage machine into which you feed the data and by

turning a crank produce finished hypotheses” (p.111).

Content and Pedagogy: Math

Abdallah, L. (2020). Science and mathematics education in multicultural contexts: New

directions in teaching and learning (S. A. Forawi, Ed.). Common Ground Research

Networks.
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This book was intriguing as the editor for the book has a varied educational background.

Forawi currently is a Professor of Science Education in Faculty of Education at British

University in Dubai; his own studies were in Eygpt, Sudan, and the United States. Most of

the authors of the chapters have names that appear to be Arabic. There are many

references in the book to the United Arab Emirates. I appreciate hearing from people

whose educational experiences are mostly outside the U.S. and Western Europe, just

because there is a possibility of a different perspective. Even though this book was very

academic in nature, it was pretty easy to read and understand. I mostly used it for the area

of mathematics, but it touches on all the STEM content areas. Also, the book addressed

incorporating writing into math by keeping a math journal; I have never done that, but plan

to consider it for future classes.

Van de Walle, J.A. Karp, K.S., & Bay-Williams, J.M. (2013). Elementary and middle school

mathematics: Teaching developmentally (8th ed.). Pearson.

The book opens with the first seven chapters laying a groundwork of what mathematics is

and how it should be taught. Van de Walle et al. focus a lot on the value of building

mathematical concepts over memorizing methods, and strongly support planning a

problem-based classroom. The rest of the book greatly deals with ways of developing

various mathematical concepts, such as decimals, fractions, and multiplication. One

takeaway from this book was how they addressed incorporating other things into math, not

simply doing math problems. They spoke about sharing and reflection time, which made

me think about students sharing with the class how they did a math problem, similar to

how they would share a story they wrote.

Moore, C., Toth, M. D., & Marzano, R. J. (2017). The essentials for standards-driven

classrooms: A practical instructional model for every student to achieve rigor.

Learning Sciences International.

This is a really interesting book for me, as it supports using standards as the foundation for

instructional planning, and I work in a standard-based school district. The authors state,

“standards are not just about the what; they implicitly direct the pedagogy (p. 8). The book

describes a new model called “The Essentials for Achieving Rigor” model:

Component 1: Begin by looking at the “Standard”

Component 2: “Criteria for Success” looks at how teacher can be successful, such as

providing rigorous learning targets.

Component 3: “Instruction” has 13 instructional strategies, such as “previewing new

content” and “reviewing” content (p. 13)

Component 4: “Conditions for Learning” focuses on a maintaining positive classroom

environment by using engagement strategies, establishing effective

relationships, and communication high expectations for

students, to name a few.

Component 5: “Formative Assessment” encourages use of formative assessment date

to make instructional decisions.

Component 6: “Collaboration” is described as “the oxygen in which the other

components thrive” (p. 19).

In my teaching now, I begin by looking at my district’s standards as I design my instruction.

This model really gives a comprehensive way to go about designing and teaching lessons.
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One idea that is found throughout this model, which I appreciate, is rigor; rigor is

challenging students’ learning and thinking in new and interesting ways.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Association for

Supervisors and Curriculum Development.

This book looks at a philosophy of approaching unit and lesson design. It is a philosophy

more than a specific method, as the authors state: “Understanding by Design is not a

prescriptive program. It is a way of thinking more purposefully and carefully about the

nature of any design that has understanding as the goal. Rather than offering a step-by-

step guide to follow . . . the book provides a conceptual framework” (p. 7). The main idea is

on the order of approaching unit/lesson design. Stage 1 focuses on the end result- what

students should know, understand, and be able to do. Stage 2 moves to how you will assess

that the student reached those goals. Stage 3 has the teacher developing the actual lessons

and activities. The mindset of this design is for teachers to be very mindful what they want

the students to learn and be able to do. Instead of beginning with a lesson that they are not

sure what students will learn, they begin with the goal to help lead the focus of the lessons

and activities.

Professionalism

Perrone, V. (1991). A letter to teachers: Reflections on schooling and the art of teaching.

Josey Bass Publishing.

Perrone was a faculty member of Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has

experience teaching in elementary, high school, and university. His book is as if he is

by reform I mean his looks at the way schools should operate. I appreciate the

straightforward way he presents his ideas, as they are easy to follow and understand. He

uses the phrase “teacher empowerment”, which challenges teachers to take ownership of

their teaching and take upon themselves figuring out how and why they teach the way they

do. He believes teacher should be students of teaching, always growing and challenging

themselves. Teachers need to be ready to answer questions like “Why do you organize that

way and not another?” or “Why that array of materials and not another?” Although he

often challenges educators to think critically about their practice, he does not across as

judgmental. I found this book to be one of the easier and most enjoyable to read in my

graduate studies.

Sulentic-Dowell, M. M., & Meidi, T. D. (2017). Expanding elementary teacher education

through service-learning: A handbook on extending literacy field experience for 21 st

century urban teacher preparation. Rowman & Littlefield.

The words “service-learning” in the title drew my attention to this book; service-learning is

the idea where learning objectives are met while doing community service. I also found it

interesting as it’s intended audience is teacher educators, not teachers. The overall

message of the book is encouraging teacher educators to include service-learning into their

teaching students field experience. Even though I am not a teacher educator I found this

book applicable to me for a couple reasons- 1) I have considered in the future taking on a

student teacher or doing some type of other work that may have me oversee student

teachers or teachers (i.e. being a principal), and 2) this gave me the idea of applying this to
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my own teaching. I like the idea of finding ways for my current students to meet their

learning objectives while doing community service. I have done this some in my classroom,

but I could really expand this. It is interesting to think about an elementary curriculum that

was specifically design around this idea of service-learning.

Parents/Community

Lickona, T. (1994) Raising good children, Bantom.

I was thinking some today about my own views of importance is raising my children, as I

was dealing with some troubling behavior from a couple of students. Specifically, I was

thinking about how addressing certain societal expectations, such as saying please when

asking for something, were farther down my list. Lickona states that we should give

children love, which in turn helps them develop a “positive self-concept”. This idea goes

along with what I thought as some of my primary focuses of as a parent- enjoying my

relationship with my children and their company, focusing more on my own behavior and

role-modeling it for them, teaching them by engaging with them (such as praying with my

daughters). This does not mean there is not a time to teach certain behavioral

expectations, but I believe if some of the other practices are in place the child’s ability to

take in and learn these behaviors will be greatly enhanced.

MacKenzie, R. (2010) Setting limits in the classroom. 3rd ed. Prima.

One thought of MacKenzie with which I agree is to not assume the children coming into the

classroom will hold the same logical views of what their own behavior will be as that of the
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teacher. I think a healthy approach for myself, though it can never be perfectly done, is to

not take any behavior for granted. Something I may view as an absolute given for moral

decency may be different from what has been instilled in my students from their parents,

previous teachers, or others. I believe strongly in making my expectations very clear to the

students, following through on my words, being patience with disobedience, and seeking to

understand the motivations for my students’ actions.

Educational Technology

Born-Selly, P. (2017). Teaching STEM outdoors: Adventures for young children. Redleaf

Press.

Born-Selly is a professor of Environmental Education at Hamline University, and has

worked in classrooms preK- 5th. As the title suggests the beginning of the speaks to the

value of getting students outdoors and hands-on learning using technology. For example, I

did a project where the students built underwater remote-controlled submarines; the

students attached digital cameras to them and took videos and pictures of the submarines

operating in the ocean. Next, she breaks down her philosophies of the 4 STEM content

areas- Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. The final part of the book explains how

to mold the 4 content areas together. She is a strong believer in students ability to learn

through asking questions, and sees herself more as a facilitator than a teacher.

National Forum on Education Statistics (U.S.) Technology in Schools Task Force. (2002).

Technology in schools: Suggestions, tools, and guidelines for assessing technology in

elementary and secondary education. National Center for Education Statistics, U.S.
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Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS33011  

This book was published by the National Center for Education Statistics, which is within the

U.S. Department of Education. Thirteen people worked on this book, with Tom Ogle as the

chair; Ogle is the Director of School Core Data in the Missouri Department of Elementary

and Secondary Education. The book begins by looking at how schools are addressing

technology planning, such as money being spent towards technology and technology

maintenance and support. There is a chapter devoted to professional development for

teachers. This is an important area I think, as technology is advancing quickly, but

technological training for teachers is not always being done by districts. The last chapter of

the book looks at how teachers and students are engaging with technology and if they are

proficient in using technology.