GET FIT! THE PERSONAL TRAINER FOR ACADEMIC TEAMS
by Randy Thompson
For any additional information please feel free to email Randy, or visit the website.
Email: gator@edugator.com
Website: www.edugator.com
Here is a look at the book and its contents.
Chapter 1 The Team Assessment
Before any training begins, the team needs to assess it’s strengths and areas that need improvement. This comprehensive self-assessment will help teams assess their performance in all areas of teaming.
Chapter 2 Interdisciplinary Team Management
Great athletes get the very most out of every minute of their workouts. Like great athletes, high performing teams get the most out of each team meeting. This chapter will help teams develop the management skills to make every minute of team meeting time count!
Chapter 3 Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development
Developing interdisciplinary curriculums is like writing and performing a symphony. Like the various instruments in a symphony, the various content areas in the school need to know when to work independently and when to work together. This chapter will demonstrate an easy method to develop an integrated approach to developing and delivering symphonic curriculums and, without the arbitrary “themes” teachers used to be forced to participate in.
Chapter 4 COMPASS (COMmunity Partnerships Assuring Student Success)
Developing Meaningful Community-Team Partnerships
All sports teams depend on their community for support. The focus of this chapter is to demonstrate how to develop, maintain, and expand the community involvement with interdisciplinary teams and the school. Teams will learn how to develop meaningful community-team partnerships that are curriculum-based and developed around specific content topics.
Chapter 5 Team Identity
Colleges spend a great deal of effort and resources to develop their identity and school spirit. The more students and members of the community identify with the school, the more support the school receives and the more successful the school will be. The same is true for interdisciplinary teams. This chapter will show teams how to develop a strong team identity that will develop the ownership and support of the students and community.
Chapter 6 Positive Reinforcements
Teams have long understood the importance of motivation. Unfortunately, teams spend a large amount of their meeting time focused on dealing with students with academic and behavior challenges, deciding on the consequences, and doing all of the necessary follow-up. Teams need to find ways to spend as much time on positive reinforcement systems as they do on dealing with negative behavior. This chapter will help teams with specific strategies for motivating students.
Chapter 7 Positive Reinforcements and Pro-Active Student Management
Most discipline systems for teachers and teams are set up to be reactive to student behaviors. Personal trainers help athletes avoid injuries before they happen. This chapter of the personal trainer will help teachers and teams work with their administrators and counselors to become pro-active with student management. When teams, administrators and counselors have systems to identify and intervene with discipline issues very early, they can dramatically reduce the referral rates.
Chapter 8 Student Management
Casey Stengel said “Getting good players is easy. Getting them to play good together is the hard part.” This chapter demonstrates how teams, administrators and counselors can best work together to deal with the discipline issues that actually result in referrals.
Chapter 9 Great Parent-Team Conferences
Parent-Team conferences can potentially have tremendous impact on student performance, if the group can put together a game plan for the student. This chapter demonstrates how teams can quickly plan for, and implement, congenial and productive parent conferences.
Chapter 10 Flexing the Team Schedule for Instructional and Assessment Options
Differentiated instruction and/or authentic assessment are greatly dependent on the time-frame the teacher has to work with. This chapter will make the teachers on the team instructional and assessment contortionists.
Chapter 11 Inclusion on the Team
Great sports teams are constantly making adaptations and modifications to enhance their performance. Most teams have students on the team that require adaptations and modifications. I would argue that all students fall into this categoryJ. The good news is that there are teachers to help the teams with the adaptations and modifications. Since all students benefit from this planning, teams get much stronger when Special Needs teachers are working with them. This is especially true when inclusion with co-teaching is included.
Chapter 12 The Four Stages of Team Development
All teams go through four developmental stages, and their training regiment changes depending on their stage of development. This chapter will help teams recognize the levels of team development and assess where they are on the continuum.
Chapter 13 Advisory Programs
The heart is the hardest working muscle in the body. The heart determines how the muscles will develop and will greatly determine how much endurance the body will have. A team-based and skill-focused Advisory Program can be the heart of the school that helps every area of the school develop to the fullest potential.
Chapter 14 Team Goals
Getting in shape requires setting goals along the way. This chapter will help teams determine what they want to achieve and then write the corresponding affective and cognitive goals that will get them there. Once goals have been established, benchmarks can be determined and teams can monitor their progress.
Chapter 15 Using Teams to Increase Student Test Scores
This chapter will help teams outscore the opponents every time. By the way, the opponents would be the state testsJ.