What If?: Promising Practices For Improving Schools

About the Book

Today, there is little deviation from the standard, business-as-usual practices in the world of education. What If? challenges these stale practices and asks the important questions that can improve schools beyond the current state of mediocrity. Written for administrators, supervisors, teachers, parents—even politicians and corporate executives—this book provides more than 25 specific problem-solving strategies for improving education without increasing costs.

Rita Dunn and Shirley A. Griggs use more than 40 years of background in education, as well the renowned Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Model, to focus on the ways in which we can truly improve schools. The model, which identifies elements within environmental, emotional, sociological, physiological, and psychological domains, reveals how individuals best understand and retain information. This basis is then applied to the What If? situations to unearth the most promising practices for school improvement.

What If Students Were to Write Their Own Honor Code? What if Principals Understood Each Teacher's Learning Style? What If Parents Knew How to Help Their Children Study at Home? These are just a few of the important situations analyzed by this book. The appeal is clearly widespread and covers the concerns of nearly every essential action-oriented community stakeholder group.

Table of Contents:

Part 2 Part I: Student Issues
Chapter 3 What If There Were a Bill of Rights for Students?
Chapter 4 What If Retention Were Not An Option?
Chapter 5 What If Students Were to Write Their Own Honor Code?
Chapter 6 What If Students Were Taught to Do Homework Using Their Learning-Style Strengths?
Chapter 7 What If At-Risk Student Understood How to Capitalize on Their Learning-Style Strengths When Entering High School?
Chapter 8 What If We Taught College Students the Way They Learn?
Part 9 Part II: School Issues
Chapter 10 What If Instruction Were Designed to Accommodate Differing Achievement Levels?
Chapter 11 What If Schools Were Designed around Each Child's Best Time-of-Day?
Chapter 12 What if Principals Understood Each Teacher's Learning Style?
Chapter 13 What If Students Were Grouped for Instruction by Gender?
Chapter 14 What If Teachers Were Taught Through Their Learning-Style Strengths?
Chapter 15 What If High Schools Started at Mid-Morning?
Chapter 16 What If We Taught Children to Read with Learning-Style Responsive Strategies?
Chapter 17 What If We Knew the Cause of School Violence and How to Prevent It?
Chapter 18 What If There Were No Clocks and Bells in Schools?
Chapter 19 What If Schools Met the Challenges of Talent Development?
Part 20 Part III: Societal Issues
Chapter 21 What If the Public Knew Why Many Children Have Trouble with Math?
Chapter 22 What If Parents Knew How to Help Their Children Study at Home?
Chapter 23 What If Counselors Used Techniques Compatible with Students' Learning-Style Preferences?
Chapter 24 What If Professors Practiced What They Preached?
Chapter 25 What If Politicians Understood the Research on Learning Styles?
Chapter 26 What If Teachers Were Culturally Responsive?
Chapter 27 What If the U.S. Constitution Were Amended to Include Educational Standards?
Chapter 28 What If Managers Understood Employees' Learning Styles?
Chapter 29 What If There Were a Truly Innovative Law School?
Chapter 30 What If Large Foundations Really Wanted to Improve Education?

About the Author :

Rita Dunn is the director of the Center for the Study of Learning and Teaching Styles and coordinator for the instructional leadership doctoral program at St. John's University in New York. Dr. Dunn is the author of 26 books and more than 450 published articles, research papers, and chapters.

Shirley A. Griggs is professor emeritus of counselor education at St. John's University in New York. Dr. Griggs has authored/edited 8 books and more than 170 published articles and chapters in books.

Review :
Too often, proposals to 'improve learning' are either impractical in the classroom setting or else not substantiated by rigorous research. This book offers both practical learning strategies and a solid base of research. If you are serious about improving teaching and learning in classroom settings, this is the book to keep on your desk. Finally we have a reference that describes opportunities for improving instruction and providing the professional knowledge and techniques to fulfill these opportunities. After four decades of prize-winning research, Rita Dunn and her colleagues are reaching out to communities at large, newspaper editors, parents, politicians, and anyone who remains concerned with quality education to become proactive advocates for teaching students in ways appropriate to how they learn and not as if one size fits all! This book details how to improve schooling K-adult without much cost. Anyone with children or grandchildren in school should bring this book to the attention of school boards and curriculum directors everywhere! Dunn and Griggs have synthesized 40 years of powerful research into useful, hands-on information that enables readers to imagine 'what if' as they grapple with current educational issues. It is a readable, sensible guide for educators, business leaders, and parents, providing concrete suggestions on how to maximize an individual's unique learning style for improved achievement and performance at all levels. Dunn and Griggs bring together 26 chapters on student, school, and societal issues that can help improve schooling. In this book, they provide educators, average citizens, legislators, parents, and politicians with suggestions for teaching the core curriculum more effectively for students with different learning styles and abilities. The brief chapters examine the idea of a student bill of rights, retention, honor codes, at-risk, students, college students, and instruction designed for differing achievement levels or a child's best time of day. Other questions considered are gender groupings, school violence, removing clocks and bells, parents helping children to study, and academics in education from the US. This book is a roadmap for changing school, college, and business practices to make them increasingly responsive to individuals' learning and productivity styles. Dunn and Griggs challenge educators, employers, foundation boards, lawyers, parents, and politicians to improve academic achievement and attitudes toward school based on valid experimental research findings.