Judith Brough, co-author of Reducing the Risk, Increasing the Promise: Strategies for Student Success, was awarded the prestigious John H. Lounsbury Award at the 2012 Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) Conference.

The award is the highest award given by AMLE.

Jeremy Koselak has worked for eleven years with at-risk high school students across all content areas, in a variety of settings, with a focus on mathematics. In 2003, he was recognized as Teacher of the Year by the Colorado Association of Family and Children Agencies. He is currently the RtI coordinator and director of the Student Support Center at an urban high school. Read below for an Author Spotlight on Jeremy Koselak, author of Transforming High Schools through Response to Intervention: Lessons Learned and a Pathway Forward.

Sally Zepeda, author of Professional Development: What Works, 2nd Edition, has been named one of University of Georgia's Distinguished Research Mentors for the 2011-2012 academic year. The College Of Education Research Office is awarding $4,000 to the four faculty mentors to help support their ongoing research activities. The 2011-12 Distinguished Research Mentors were recognized at the Fall Faculty Meeting on September 14th.

The Voices from the Learning Revolution Blog by Powerful Learning Practice (PLP) recently reviewed Wikis for School Leaders: Using Technology to Improve Communication and Collaboration by Stephanie D. Sandifer.

The author of the post, Sister Geralyn Schmidt, SCC, is currently the Wide Area Network Coordinator for the Diocese of Harrisburg, PA and has been a high school tech coordinator and graphics design teacher in the past. Of Sandifer’s chosen subject, Schmidt states:

Franklin Schargel's new book, Dropout Prevention Fieldbook: Best Practices from the Field, is currently available for back order. (The book will be in stock August 26th.) This new title addresses a broad range of educational challenges, including school safety, cyberbullying, and poor attendance. Teachers, administrators, counselors, and special educators can use this book to predict and prevent student dropouts, improve the quality of their schools and raise student achievement.

It is with great sadness that I announce that after a brief illness Betsy Moore passed away in late July.

Betsy served as a Consultant for Eye On Education and was the author of I Have the Data... Now What?: Analyzing Data and Making Instructional Changes, one of our 2011 publications. She was also the co-author with Todd Stanley of three other Eye On Education titles: Formative Assessments in a Professional Learning Community; Critical Thinking and Formative Assessments: Increasing the Rigor in Your Classroom; and Short Cycle Assessment: Improving Student Achievement Through Formative Assessment. Betsy also served as Executive Director of Teacher2Teacher, an educational consulting company based in Columbus, Ohio.

We are proud to announce that Tony Thacker, co-author of Schools Where Teachers Lead, Creating School Cultures That Embrace Learning, and From At-Risk to Academic Excellence will be featured in the new documentary "American Teacher" directed by Vanessa Roth and Brian McGinn. The documentary follows teachers as they face day to day struggles and is interspersed with interviews conducted with experts. Tony Thacker was chosen to be interviewed following a presentation he gave at a NCTAF Conference in Washington D.C – a sizeable portion of his interview was used in the documentary.

We are proud to announce that Dr. Anna Battle, co-author of The Principal as Student Advocate : A Guide for Doing What's Best for All Students, has been awarded the 2012 Arizona High School Principal of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). She was given the award at the Arizona School Administrator’s conference on June 13th, 2011.

MindShift, a technology-focused blog that covers the future of learning in all dimensions, recently covered the Future of Education's "Passion-Based Education" online panel discussion. The post, titled "Nine Tenets of Passion-Based Learning," reflects on the nine key points from the panel that address the issues around passion-based learning.

In a recent article written by Heather Wolpert-Gawron titled “Teaching Tomorrow’s Skills to Today’s Students” in Education Week's Teacher Leaders Network, Wolpert-Gawron discusses valuable student skills that can be carried into future work environments.

Wolpert-Gawron addresses key skills that are fundamental in to stakeholders in higher education and business. Recently, she conducted a survey of fellow teachers to determine the most important of these skills. The top five skills include: communication, collaboration, problem solving, questionning, and independent learning. She also offers tips on implementing teaching strategies that hone in on these skills.

Kappa Delta Pi's New Teacher Advocate recently published an article by Eye On Education author Rebekah Stathakis. The article, titled "The First Minutes," provides ideas and activities for the very beginning of a class period. Specifically, Stathakis discusses establishing a warm-up routine and effective warm-up activities.

Did you miss Heather Wolpert-Gawron's webinar on "The Skills of Tomorrow for the Students of Today?" Access the recording here by signing up for Eye On Education's Insights eNewsletters!

In this webinar, Heather explored the top five skills that students need for school and their future. She also presented classroom-tested strategies to motivate and engage students to master this skill set:

In the May 2011 edition of Educational Leadership, published by the ASCD, Larry Ferlazzo wrote an article titled "Involvement or Engagement?" In this piece about parent involvement in schools, Ferlazzo writes, "We need to relate to families not as clients, but as partners in school and community improvement."

On Thursday, June 9th Nancy Sulla held a book signing for new book: Students Taking Charge: Inside the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom. The signing took place at the s.h.e. gallery (supporting human equality) in Boonton, New Jersey. Nancy Sulla is the founder and President of IDE Corp and part-owner of the gallery.

In his post titled "Achieving Transformational Leadership - Wikis for School Leaders," Miguel Guhlin reviews the new book by Stephanie D. Sandifer: Wikis for School Leaders: Using Technology to Improve Communication and Collaboration. The review lists 24 "valuable takeaways" from Sandifer's book, including "how to embed web 2.0 tools in wikis" and "use of wikis to facilitate meetings."