MSI Press Blog

      Available for download, article from JDLS 8: " Protocol-Based Formative Assessment: Evolution and Revolution at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center"  (Dr. Andrew R. Corin, DLIFLC, and Sergey Entis, DLIFLC) Abstract: Protocol-based formative assessment (PBFA) can be a powerful tool for enhancing learning and diagnosing learning challenges. Yet there is an inherent tension between effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of PBFA. This can be addressed through a variety of strategies: “rationing” PBFA to instances of individual learning difficulties, applying PBFA to all students but in fewer instances, or by engineering greater efficiency into the protocol. Regardless of the strategy adopted, it is taken for granted that PBFA should be maximally integrated with instruction-based formative assessment (IBFA) as an integral component of day-to-day classroom instruction. This article articulates the dilemma as it developed at the Defense Langua...

  What is a book jewel? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Starting in August, we will share near-daily, as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that. This month's book jewel is  Women, We're Only Old Once  by Bertha Cooper. Amazon review by Dianne Knox - The Truth Wish I had read this years ago. Ms. Cooper gives a good road-map of what to expect on this journey. Awards Kops-Fetherling International Book Awards/Phoenix Award for Best New Voice in Health and Fitness Winner, Best Indie Book Award Winner, Independent Press Award Winner, Pinnacle Book Achievement Award For more posts about Bertha and her book, click  HERE . Si...

  MSI Press author, Nanettte Hucknall (multi-award-winning  How to live from Your Heart  and  The Rose & the Sword ) was interviewed by Dr. Cameron Martin on the Path and Purpose Podcast in an episode called " Conversation with Your Higher Self ."  Awards Book of the Year finalist Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Best Books Award finalist Book Excellence Award Readers' Favorite Book Award finalist Kops-Fetherling Legacy Award, self-help For more posts about Nanette and her books, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? P...

  Books on discount through Kindle (Kindle Countdown) Christmas at the Mission   (Sula) 11/22 - 11/29 Heart to Heart Resuscitation  (Montgomery) 12/14 - 12/21 How to Stay Calm in Chaos  (Gentile) Kops-Fetherling International Book Awards, honorable mention, mind/body/spirit 11/27 - 12/4 Paperback formats (and in some cases, hard cover formats) of the above e-books can be purchased on discount at MSI Press webstore; use FF25 as a coupon code to get a 25% discount. Books on deep discount at  MSI Press webstore /books available while supplies last: 10 Quick Homework Tips  (McKinley-Alder & Trombly) 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents: Fun Ways to Help Your Child Succeed in Elementary School  (McKinley-Alder & Trombly) $5 book sale at  MSI Press webstore /books available while supplies last 100 Tips and Tools for Managing Chroni c Illness (Charnas) 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices for Busy Mamas  (Gentile) For posts on any of these books or t...

  Excerpt from  The Subversive Utopia   by Yasir Sakr - Preface It’s been 35 years since, as an undergraduate student, I first toured the new Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. As I walked its streets, observing its new architecture and urban space, the Quarter simultaneously attracted and alienated, impressing upon me a mysterious schizophrenic perception. For many years I was unable to explain this contradictory experience. Little did I know then that 10 years later, in 1988, my new job as an archivist in the Louis Kahn Collection at the University of Pennsylvania would yield the clues I needed to understand the Quarter’s ambiguous allure. I could not have predicted then that I would one day articulate the experience of the Jewish Quarter in such a way that it would shape its perceptions by Israeli architects and scholars among others. It’s been almost 20 years since I finished my PHD dissertation at the School of Architecture, University of Pennsy...

  MSI Press books have, historically, won many awards from a wide range of competitions. This is the first in a series of sharing the various awards that our books have earned. The first category is Best Indie Book Award. The following MSI Press books have been Best Indie Book Award Winners to date: A Theology for the Rest of Us (Arthur Yavelberg).  If God exists and is good, why is there evil? Avoiding such questions underlies the spiritual emptiness and anxiety in today's world. A Theology for the Rest of Us explores how to approach the divine through Eastern and Western religious traditions without dogma, challenging readers to "be you lamps unto yourselves."  This book also won the Literary Titan Silver Award. Read more about this book and its author  HERE . Andrew's Awesome Adventures with His ADHD Brai n (Kristin Wilcox & Andrew Wilcox).  T his book provides unique insights into ADHD behaviors and suggests highly pragmatic and successfully implemente...

  It is Tuesday. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side.  This week we look at the print on demand option for book printing. Authors generally think that understand POD (after all, it is a simple concept of just-in-time printing, right?), but they often do not. Authors may misinterpret/misunderstand POD in the nature, structure, and realizations of POD. Nature Print-on-Demand is an approach to publishing books as the demand (sales) for them are generated. Digital printing has allowed for the capacity to generate small numbers of books, even individual copies and has facilitated publishing/printing to join the growing numbers of businesses that rely on just-in-time inventory, saving the mas...

  Larry MacDonald, author of RV Oopsies , Travels with Elly , and a pandenic-era book, Diary of an RVer during Quarantine , routinely provides to tips to RVers on his website, Land Yachting . The first one is cited here; others will be shared later. Helpful Tips for RVers 1. TV Antenna up or down? Many an RV’er has been dreadfully reminded, often by a low tree branch or overpass, that they forgot to lower their rooftop TV antenna. And who hasn’t looked up during a walk around to ensure that their antenna is down? I thought of this tip while lying in bed one morning, wondering whether mine was up or down. To insure that it was “down,” I simply cranked the antenna handle until it was down completely and marked the ceiling at the end of the handle, using a stick-on label colored green for “Go.” Get it? On your mark … Go! When cranking up the antenna, I make sure that the end of the handle is on the opposite side of the mark. Now I just have to remember to check the position of my hand...

  We only get to die once (well, usually, NDEs aside). How we die can be just as important as how we live. I wish that thought had been top of the mind when Carl was dying; we might have done things differently. It is not, though, that we did not have examples. We did, actually. Dottie, a dear friend from Massachusetts, had been my secretary when I was in the Army and then opened her house to me and my infant son when, during my later reserve days, the barracks would not allow him in because of his severe breathing issues from which he was in danger of dying nearly every day. (He survived, grew up, and, still with some breathing issues, is living a robust life.) Through all the intervening years, even after I moved to California, Dottie stayed in touch. Then, she got terminal brain cancer. After some initial surgery (and more planned, which, she feared, she would not survive), she decided that she wanted to spend the time she had left visiting all her family, which had spread out a...