Customer Reviews

Activators: Activity Structures to Engage Student's Thinking Before Instruction

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I bought the following books as one complete package:

1. Activators: Activity Structures to Engage Students' Thinking Before Instruction;
2. Summarisers: Activity Structures to Support Integration & retention of New Learning;

Both books are written by Jon Saphier & Mary Haley from the Research for Better Teaching, Inc., formed by a group of educators. Essentially, they are great tools for English & reading teachers!

I am very impressed by their work, even though their books are spring-bound & stretching only from 40 to 60 odd pages. Content-wise, they share some similarities with the work of Rick Wormeli, who wrote 'Summarisation in Any Subject', which I have reviewed earlier. Nevertheless, there are still more different tools & strategies not covered at all in Rick's book.

I believe these two books can serve as companions to Rick's book. I did not realise that these books were written much earlier.

Undoubtedly, Activating (i.e. getting students mind active & engaged) & summarising (i.e. getting them active in discerning what is important, what they have learned, how it is important &/or how it fits with what they already know) are important part of effective study skills. I will go on to say that they will serve as powerful life skills for the students in the long term.

I like the authors' fundamental premise: There is no one right way or best way. There exists a repertoire of ways. Hence the many tools & strategies outlined in these two books, plus Rick Wormeli's book, will continue to expand your teaching repertoires.

In this respect, I am still quite intrigued by an earlier negative review from a Masters in Education graduate.

I have a masters degree in education and this book is way overpriced. It is only 43 pages long and paperback, so the price is inflated. The graphics and ideas in it are also fairly common, so there was nothing new about these ideas. If you are a college student, buy this book used because it is not worth $20, it is a very thin book with few good ideas.

Book was in great shape, better than advertised. The book also arrived BEFORE the estimated arrival time. Would definitely use this vendor again!