Powerful Task Design: Rigorous and Engaging Tasks to Level Up Instruction(Corwin Teaching Essentials)

This book will help teachers use the Powerful Task Rubric using an easily digestible format to help them delve into the tool's design components. They'll be able to use technology to complete interactive tasks, and understand first-hand how technology is a critical design component in student task design that brings about more profound and relevant learning. It will also help them to identify opportunities for creating powerful tasks in the areas of engagement, academic strategies, questions, and cognition. Student performance has a direct correlation to the power of the learning task - this book will help positively impact both.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments About the Authors Introduction: The Power of the Task 1. The Work of School A Task Is a Task Task Predicts Performance The Design Components of a Task Technology in a Working Model, or When Terri Met Sally (Ahem, John) The Powerful Task Rubric for Designing Student Work 2. Analyzing Learning With the Powerful Task Rubric One Content, Five Tasks Where Was the Power? 3. The Power of Engagement The Qualities of Engagement Interaction as Engagement A Task Is Powered Up 4. The Power of Academic Strategies It Starts on the Playground Strategies of Personal Response Identifying Similarities and Differences Summarizing and Note-Making Note-Taking Becomes Note-Making Reflection in Note-Making Nonlinguistic Representations Generating and Testing Hypotheses Reflection and Closure 5. The Power of the Question Where Does a Question Come From? See-Think-Wonder Where Do Teacher Questions Come From? How to Open a Question Technology and Questions 6. Engaged in What? The Power of Cognition Cognitive Demand Learning Through Accepting Meaning Thinking and Making Meaning Making Meaning on Top of Meaning Sliding Across the Cognitive Continua: A Hierarchy, Not a Sequence Math Cognition and the Task Rubric Encoding and Memory 7. Power Up: Using the Diagnostic Instrument to Analyze Learning The Diagnostic Instrument to Analyze Learning Premises and Research Behind the DIAL Using the DIAL Three DIAL Implementations Tips for the Tool 8. Putting It All Together Final Thoughts References Index

About the Author :
John Antonetti is a learner. He has had the great fortune to visit classrooms throughout North America in an effort to answer the question "What truly engages learners?" From thousands of students in pre-K through Graduate School, John has learned the three facets of powerful learning tasks--intellectual, academic, and emotional engagement. John Antonetti is a teacher. He has taught A.P Chemistry and Kindergarten and most grades in between in his home state of Arkansas. Once described by Larry Lezotte as a "teacher's teacher," Mr. Antonetti works with schools across the country and Canada on student engagement, writing, rigor and relevance, powerful task design, and high-yield best practices. As the former Director of Curriculum in the Sheridan School District in Arkansas, he took what he learned in his home district and developed strategies and protocols that work across all school types. He has partnered with five school districts that were awarded the nationally-recognized Broad Prize for Urban Education. While hands-on work in schools is his passion, John is also a highly-sought keynote speaker. His humor and parables are recognized by teachers, administrators, and parents as relevant examples of the power of teachers. Antonetti is the author of the book, Writing as a Measure and Model of Thinking which utilizes the engagement cube and practical tools to increase student thinking in all subject areas. With his late business partner and friend, Jim Garver, John co-authored the ASCD best-seller 17,000 Classroom Visits Can't be Wrong: Strategies that Engage Students, Promote Active Learning, and Boost Achievement. Whether he's on the Kinder carpet or in front of 4000 teachers at an international conference, Antonetti continues to learn. ?Terri Stice transitioned to education 23 years ago when she accepted a position as a preschool teacher. Shortly thereafter she moved to K-12 public schools where she truly found her passion, sharing her technical expertise with students, teachers, and administrators both from the classroom and as District Technology Coordinator. In July 2000, she joined the GRREC staff as Technology Coordinator and in 2005 her position was transformed into Director of Instructional Technology and Support Services. During her tenure at GRREC she has been selected as a National Professional Development provider for Discovery Education, and The Verizon Foundation. Terri has received the honor of being named an Apple Distinguished Educator, an Apple Certified Foundations Field Trainer, a Google Certified Teacher, a School Culture Assessment Trainer and a Kentucky Colonel. She has earned a Master of Science degree in Instructional Media Education, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Education.

Review :
"An easy-to-follow tool for educators wishing to reflect on the rigor of their classroom tasks with excellent tips to take learning to the next level!" "It is painfully obvious that something needs to be done to do more than simply engage students; we need to cognitively engage them and this book gives you the tools with which to do just that. Everything is here for you to make those changes." "Finally! A resource that focuses first on the TASK (what it is we are asking of our students) and then the RESOURCES (what technology is at our disposal to accomplish the task?). For decades now, the process has been backwards and the focus has become bells-and-whistle-technology that is mistaken for authentic engagement. This book will give tangible tools for the teacher toolbox while keeping the eye on the rigor prize for students." "With this collaboration, John′s expertise with designing engaging and rigorous student tasks is combined with Terri′s vast knowledge of effective technology use in the classroom.  Both John and Terri have worked with our district′s teachers and administrators and have helped bring about increased teacher effectiveness.  This book is the perfect next step resource for our district′s continuous improvement journey as well as for any educator ready to effectively take their student task design practices to the next level and meaningfully engage today′s ′techie" student.′"  "As educators we are on a continuous journey to stretch and grow to our fullest potential and we all have a ‘ceiling’ of effectiveness. The interactive approach of #Powerful Task Design will serve as a valuable tool for educators as the stretch and growth toward a higher ceiling." "Are you grappling with how to create an instructional task that both challenges and engages? Do you continue to struggle with issues related to effective integration of technology into lesson designs? Are you seeking to understand how rigor and engagement can move beyond overused and empty clichés? Explore these and other essential questions in this highly practical, well-researched book that offers practitioner-friendly tools brought to life by a treasure-trove of examples across the content areas of k-12 classrooms. Inviting reflection and personal response at strategic points, the authors skillfully integrate video and other technology with written text to create a book that exhibits the design principles they propose. Powerful Task Design is a must-read for individual educators and a practical guide for PLCs." "Powerful Task Design will help you rethink how to get the full value from the technology tools you have available in your classroom. I found John and Terri’s work to be both practical and transformative. Teachers will come back to this book time and time again as we are challenged to find ways to push thinking, rigor and engagement to a higher level for your students." "Antonetti and Stice push educators to create well-designed tasks that fully engage students and create powerful results. We want the students to learn first and then utilize technology tools to make learning more meaningful.  Combining Antonetti’s brilliant work with his engagement cube and Stice’s technology genius is ′just mind-blowing.′" "Antonetti and Stice once again provide outstanding leadership, research, and guidance through an ever expanding and vital conversation on learning design. This book further shifts the conversation from technology to learning, from simply rehashing techno-centric approaches, to ready-to-implement rich learning experiences for students further empowered through digital tools and resources.       In this book, you′ll discover creative solutions to interesting digital instructional design challenges from real classrooms and real students. These best practice models will help any teacher, new or experienced, formulate a blueprint for digital learning experience design - with a tremendous emphasis on learning and cognitive engagement. I especially love the connections made in Chapter 5 with technology and questions. Through this book, John and Terri demonstrate that they are two highly connected teachers who ′get it.′" "John and Terri turn the bubble-sheet culture on its head – offering readers a path for implementing rigorous and engaging tasks that promote meaning making and sustained learning.  Through Powerful Task Design, they provide a way of thinking about our main goal in the classroom – creating rigorous and engaging tasks that power up learning.  I love this book!  The cognitive demand, thinking strategies, and engaging qualities of this book WILL change the way I interact with my own learners…and my two small children."