Next On Your Reading List: Books from #naesp15 Speakers
Communicator
February 2015, Volume 38, Issue 6
What’s next in education? Look to the 2015 NAESP Annual Conference—Best Practices for Better Schools—for fresh ideas and new strategies. The premiere event for elementary and middle-level principals will be June 30-July 2 in Long Beach, California.
But what’s next for your reading list? Let this handy directory of top books from 2015 conference speakers—some of the most innovative voices in education—be your guide. Just choose the profile that sounds like you.
You’re looking for fresh inspiration.
Read: UNthink by Erik Wahl
A guide for anyone, not just painters or poets, to unlock creativity. In his keynote presentation at the conference, Wahl (an internationally renowned graffiti artist) will show you how to reimagine your thinking.
You’ve tiptoed toward flipped staff meetings, but just aren’t sure.
Read: Flipping Leadership Doesn’t Mean Reinventing the Wheel by Peter DeWitt
An easy-to-read manual on flipping staff and parent communication. DeWitt’s preconference workshop will explore how to build your personal learning network (PLN).
You need to raise some concerns with a teacher, but you’re dreading the talk.
Read: Having Hard Conversations by Jennifer Abrams
A definitive handbook for navigating the toughest conversations with supervisees, peers, and supervisors. Arm yourself with even more strategies by registering for communications coach Abrams’s full-day preconference workshop.
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You’re ready to up your school’s global game. 
Read: Leading the New Literacies, edited by Heidi Hayes Jacobs
A how-to book on incorporating digital and global literacies in the classroom. Jacobs, also author of Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World, will explore the future of education in her conference closing keynote.
You think your staff could use a mid-year pep talk.
Read: The Multiplier Effect by Elise Foster
A guide to how to transform yourself into a “multiplier” who brings out the best in your staff members. Sign up for Foster’s preconference workshop on the same topic to hear her strategies firsthand.
Your students are the ones who need that need a pep talk.
Read: The Highly Engaged Classroom by Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering
An in-depth look at cultivating student attention. Marzano will team up with Darrell Scott of Rachel’s Challenge for the keynote presentation of their book, Awaken the Learner: Finding the Source of Effective Education.
You could use a pep talk. Read: If You’re Riding a Horse and It Dies, Get Off by Jim Grant
A clever, funny look at education reform and when good intentions go awry. In his preconference workshop, Grant will examine a more serious topic: grit and determination.
You’re getting burned out in long staff meetings.
Read: The Ten-Minute Inservice by Todd Whitaker and Annette Breaux
Your go-to inspiration for short staff exercises to incorporate into your staff meetings. Don’t miss Whitaker and Breaux’s conference presentation on Tuesday, June 30 at 2 p.m.
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