NU OER Archive (Open Access)
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This collection contains open educational resources (OER) created by NU faculty and staff. This repository is open access.
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Item Beyond the Bell: Creating Learning-Friendly Environments Through Classroom Management(2025) Ryan, MarkEffective classroom management is essential because it forms the backbone of any successful learning environment. Without it, even the most innovative lesson plans can fail to land. Classroom management creates the structure students need to feel safe and focused. When your classroom operates on a foundation of clear expectations and consistent routines, you remove distractions and foster stability. This, in turn, allows students to channel their energy toward learning and growth.Item Ask the Teacher: A Practitioner's Guide to Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom(2008) Ryan, MarkUsing a straightforward and versatile question and answer approach, the Second Edition of Ask the Teacher speaks directly to the teacher candidate with a wealth of tips about educational issues in foundations, history, psychology, curriculum, methodology, classroom management, and family involvement. Designed to guide the student throughout the curricula of a professional education program, this text poses universal questions and provides responses that are grounded in educational theory and practice as well as the expertise of the author, Mark Ryan. Because its purpose is to stimulate reflective thought, Ask the Teacher is not for the passive reader but for one who desires a contextual intellectual discourse--a dialogue that promotes a genuinely reflective understanding of the diverse classroom in the 21st Century. This useful, comprehensive handbook on teaching can be used as a core text or supplement in introductory education courses. Its targeted and useful information will also continue to be of use to the beginning teacher in their formative years of teaching.Item Myths Among Us: When Timeless Tales Return to Life(2018) Chalquist, CraigThe world is indeed enchanted--but you wouldn't know that from the unimaginative ways we learn to think about it! The magic becomes visible in myth: myth not as outworn science or cold ideology, but as the language of past and present humanity. Myth reveals through story and ritual the perennial presences that haunt us until we learn how to listen for them and respond creatively to their summons. Offering an applied practical course on world mythology, Myths Among Us retells more than 100 traditional tales to examine how the plots, images, and motifs of myth dwell among us today: in our dreams, conflicts, families, relationships; in film, politics, industry, and finance; and in current events whose innermost workings the lens of myth allows us to discover.Item An American Paradox: A Monolingual Nation in a Plurilingual World Volume 1(2025) Ryan, Mark; Cheung, George T.; Thorsos, Nilsa J.American Paradox combines professional expertise with advanced writing tools to streamline creativity and enhance engagement. The editors skillfully integrated traditional methods and modern technologies—such as spell check, thesauruses, AI prompts, n-gram analysis, and Smart Art—to achieve clarity, precision, and structure while crafting a unified and compelling narrative. The book delivers accessible insights into the latest neurolinguistic research, particularly its application to lesson planning, alongside strategies to nurture inclusive and supportive learning environments. It highlights how improved communication through teachers learning their students' language can enhance educational outcomes. By embracing plurilingualism, educators can pave the way for equal opportunity and equity in meeting diverse student needs. Designed for K-12 teachers and teacher candidates, the book serves as a roadmap to address the shortcomings of American language education while advocating for progressive policies to bridge those gaps. It calls for a new generation of multilingual educators to foster hope, inclusion, and positive connections with millions of public school students by sharing the experience of plurilingualism. As the book suggests, teachers who understand their students' languages can build rapport and foster enriched interactions, emphasizing the undeniable benefits of multilingual comprehension.Item Coming to Terms: Clarifying Pedagogical Language for Teaching and Research(2025) Ryan, MarkThe relationship between language and learning has always been as complex as it is fascinating, a fluid interplay of words that convey and define the very essence of pedagogy. It is within this intricate landscape that my journey as a writer and an educator began, and it is this journey that has shaped the creation of Coming to Terms: Clarifying Pedagogical Language for Teaching and Research. In this book, I delve into the etymology, historical usage, and present-day application of selected pairs of specific words that are often mistakenly viewed as synonymous. My hope is that through careful examination, readers will develop a clearer understanding of how language evolves and impacts the educational discourse, leading to the correct usage of terms vital to both teaching and research.