Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning

Very fun and uplifting book with great examples on how to empower students. It’s a quick and easy read with a lot of quotable lines and takeaways. I’d recommend it to any teacher or coach!

As a huge fan of books and learning, I was SO excited for Empower! I knew it would be different, something that would offer new ideas. What I didn't anticipate was how much the stories and questions would touch my heart, as well as my mind. I took 5 days to finish a book that I could easily have read in a few hours. It is a fast read, but it provokes SO much reflection, introspection, and creative thinking that it demands more time or perhaps a second or third reading to fully digest it. The impact on me, as a teacher, has already been powerful. The messages reaffirm the student empowerment practices I already have in place. The authors also manage to use humor, graphics, and questions to challenge readers to do more, think bigger, be fearless!I'm hoping to share this book with teachers at my school because I believe the impact could be EPIC for both learners and teachers. Kudos to John Spencer and A.J. Juliani for being brave enough and creative enough to deliver such an AMAZING book! Perhaps the authors have started an Education Revolution! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

This books read more like a magazine/graphic novel than a text book. It was really good. Inspiring us as teachers to empower our students to take ownership of their learning. Just wish it had more examples.

Amazing book! I read this after John Spencer came on my podcast, the History Teachers Club, and shared so many great ideas but this book has so many more.It comes down to being brave enough to go 'off roading' however much you can in your classes to allow for more student voice and choice. Education is about empowering students and if they are just following directions and never getting in the driver's seat, they won't be ready for the fast changing world when they graduate.This should be mandatory reading for teacher education programs.

Probably the BEST book I have read on transforming learning and education for students in a very long time. I read about a book a week on education/teaching, so that is high praise. This book has inspired me to make some big changes in my classroom. I'm sure I'll make mistakes along the way, but I feel energized and excited. (I teach Precalculus and Geometry) If you are connected to education in any way (and by the way, we are all connected to education) you will appreciate this book in so many ways.

My principal highly recommended I read this book before I start my first year of teaching and I am so excited to implement genius hour binders. My school used this book for our staff seminar in 2017 and we will definitely be circling back to this book again soon.

This book really made me think about compliance versus empowerment. I loved the way it was written. I loved the graphics... I was surprisingly inspired by this book. I bought this book with 3 others, and it was originally the one I planned on reading last, but it was so interesting that I moved it to the top of the pile and tore through it. I highly recommend this book!!! I know I won't use all of the ideas, but it's still Ann amazing resource.

I don't want to be the negative one here, but I was disappointed. There didn't seem to be anything novel. It came across as just some big ideas that may or may not work. The authors themselves mention that they're still learning about the subject, which is understandable of course, as we are all lifelong learners, but I felt like they should have been a little further along in the learning process before writing a book. The layout of the book is like a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" for adults. Half the book is black pages with a small quote on it, and the rest of the pages are half text and half useless drawings that do nothing to further explain what you just read. You could read it in a few hours, which is probably why there's not much to take out of it. Wow. I kind of sound like a jerk. There were a few tidbits I was able to pull out, such as, "What am I deciding for my students that they could be deciding for themselves?" Anyways. That's my two cents. Hopefully it helps.