Читать книгу Awesome Sauce - Josh Stock - Страница 10

I just finished my tenth year of teaching. Over that time, I’ve read hundreds of articles and books about teaching. I love learning new tools and tricks for the latest apps. I love being inspired to work with the most challenging students and encouraging them to carpe diem. I love the opportunity to explore new areas to grow. Some of the things I have read have been amazing and some not quite what I was looking for. The world of educational texts is overloaded with different genres, categories, and subcategories. However, it seems to boil down to two main approaches: the why and the how-to.

The why books are those educational books meant to inspire you to action, the books that send tingles down your spine and motivate you to be a better teacher. The why books are the keynote presentations of the educational world. They get you hyped up and ready to take on any challenge. A great why book makes you feel something and gets you ready to go and do something.

How-to books, on the other hand, give you real-world, step-by-step instructions for implementing a strategy or technology. A great how-to guides you through all the minute details that can help make implementation a resounding success. When you are ready to dive deep and get things going in your classroom, these are the books that get you jump-started. A great how-to book is like a great session you might attend at a conference: it tells you how to do something amazing in the classroom, laying the groundwork for the nuts-and-bolts systems that enable initiatives to roll out successfully.

Most books have some elements of both why and how-to , but ultimately they lean toward one end of the spectrum or the other. Each one has its merits and can help teachers move to the next level of awesomeness. An effective why book gets you so hyped up or emotionally invested that you want to move mountains to try to get things done—but a poor one will leave you with nothing but a scenic view. (I’ve finished the last page of many why books and had to ask myself, “Now what?”) A great how-to book can provide the fundamental elements needed to go into your classroom the next day and implement something right away. However, how-to books can sometimes come across as sterile, with nothing that drives you to complete the steps they recommend.

Both types of books have a place in my tool box, and I find myself leaning more toward one or the other depending on my needs. Sometimes I want that reminder of why I do what I do, and other times I’m already hyped up and need a great set of action steps.

This book is intended to be a combination of why and how-to . Each chapter begins with the story of why I use the strategy. I want you to know why I bother putting effort into these activities. It requires a lot of work to try something new. I want you to see what you’ll get out of trying the strategy. Along with each chapter is a set of how-to recipes to show you how to actually create the Awesome Sauce that your videos will become.

I hope that offering you the why and the how-to will help you create your own epic, Awesome Sauce videos!