Visual Thinking Strategies In Montessori Environments

Visual Thinking Strategies in Montessori Environments

Montessori Assessment Playbook

Can we measure what we treasure? Can we build and sustain truly excellent schools focused on the ambitious goal of human flourishing? And can we hold ourselves accountable to the children and families we serve in ways that harness data to advance that goal? The National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector says “yes”! The Montessori Assessment Playbook shows us how to do it. Organized around 33 discrete tools, the Playbook provides a clear and actionable scaffold for building an assessment protocol that captures compelling student outcomes, such as perseverance, compassion, and creativity, and that links those outcomes to the investments we make to classrooms and schools. Emphasizing both coherence and precision, the Montessori Assessment Playbook shows us how to develop and implement a comprehensive assessment framework focused on human flourishing and, just as important, why such a framework is urgently needed.

Visual Thinking Strategies for Preschool

Visual Thinking Strategies for Preschool shows how teachers can add visual thinking strategies (VTS) to their existing curriculum to encourage language, critical thinking, and social skills for children ages three to five. In this sequel to his popular book, Visual Thinking Strategies, author Philip Yenawine describes using art and other visual experiences to create powerful learner-centered environments for young children just beginning their formal school experience. Drawing on interviews with preschool teachers from public, private, and charter schools from around the country, Yenawine highlights the benefits of these discussions for students, including English language learners and students with special needs. "VTS masterfully encourages children to see, think, speak, and analyze--enhancing vocabulary and fostering creative thinking. Philip Yenawine provides a step-by-step guide on how to implement VTS in a classroom with young children, while providing an in-depth overview of the theory behind the method." --Keith Whitescarver, executive director, National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector "Visual Thinking Strategies for Preschool is a wonderful resource for early child educators! Drawing upon theorists from Piaget to Vygotsky, the methods of Montessori and Reggio Emilia, and the practices from early childhood classrooms across the country, Yenawine provides innovative strategies for creating environments rich in language and visual stimuli for teaching young children." --Martha Barry McKenna, university professor, director of Creativity Commons, Lesley University "One can learn much, with pleasure, from this book. Yenawine shows that children in preschool learn that images can be interpreted with simple strings of words which, as the children realize they are being listened to, become sentences describing their own interpretations, and thus their own stories." --Lella Gandini, US liaison for the dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach Philip Yenawine is a cofounder of Visual Understanding in Education, former director of education at the Museum of Modern Art, and a recipient of the National Art Education Association's Award for Distinguished Service.