Presents a model for ensuring quality teaching that balances the necessity of research-based data with the equally vital need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of individual students.
Since teaching is a practical activity, efficient problem-solving skill is one of the fundamental competencies teachers need to possess. All teachers face challenging school situations during teaching-learning process no matter where they teach or since when. Despite similarities appearing on the surface, every school situation is unique and depends on several internal and external factors that should have been taken into account. Therefore, in many problematic cases it is not enough to deal with the symptoms, but teachers need to go deeper. This book provides a theoretical and practical background for this step-by-step problem solving-oriented thinking process. The practical activities can help teachers to frame and identify their challenges, to analyse the cause and effect of their situation, and also to find their own solutions and strategies. The material in this book can be used in pre-service or in-service teacher training that deal with pedagogic cases, or challenges of teaching and learning processes. However, most of the tools can also be used individually by teachers at any stage of their career, including any type of compulsory education, thanks to the clear description of each technique.
How can we help both beginning and experienced teachers engage students in today's diverse classrooms? How can we focus on actual problems that teachers face? This book offers a learning tool--problem-based learning (PBL). PBL is an instructional method that encourages learners to use critical thinking and problem solving as they apply content knowledge to real-world problems and issues. Editor Barbara Levin and the book's contributing authors believe that if teachers are to use PBL effectively with their K-12 students, they need to personally experience PBL themselves. Levin provides field-tested examples of how teacher educators have used PBL in many professional development settings. Based on actual PBL units and activities contributed by various authors, the book describes how teachers tackled authentic problems that required them to find, evaluate, and use resources to learn, just as they expect their students to do when using PBL. A brief introduction explains why and how to use PBL with teachers. Chapters 1-5 focus on how the chapter authors used PBL in different teacher preparation courses at several universities. Chapters 6 and 7 show how the authors, working with experienced teachers, used PBL in inservice and staff development settings. The final chapter offers answers to frequently asked questions about using PBL with teachers.
Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay offers a timely analysis of professional dissatisfaction that challenges the common explanation of burnout. Featuring the voices of educators, the book offers concrete lessons for practitioners, school leaders, and policy makers on how to think more strategically to retain experienced teachers and make a difference in the lives of students. Based on ten years of research and interviews with practitioners across the United States, the book theorizes the existence of a “moral center” that can be pivotal in guiding teacher actions and expectations on the job. Education philosopher Doris Santoro argues that demoralization offers a more precise diagnosis that is born out of ongoing value conflicts with pedagogical policies, reform mandates, and school practices. Demoralized reveals that this condition is reversible when educators are able to tap into authentic professional communities and shows that individuals can help themselves. Detailed stories from veteran educators are included to illustrate the variety of contexts in which demoralization can occur. Based on these insights, Santoro offers an array of recommendations and promising strategies for how school leaders, union leaders, teacher groups, and individual practitioners can enact and support “re-moralization” by working to change the conditions leading to demoralization.
This volume provides the first comprehensive, research-based examination of metacognition in literacy learning. Bringing together research findings from reading, linguistics, psychology, and education, it is logically organized as follows: Part I provides the theoretical foundation that supports the teaching of metacognition; Parts II and III provide new methods for metacognitive assessment and instruction in literacy contexts at all grade levels; and Part IV provides new information on integrating metacognition into professional development programs. Key features include: *Chapter Structure.Teacher reflections at the beginning of each chapter illustrate teacher thinking about the chapter topic and metacognitive connections at the end of each chapter link its content with that of the preceding and following chapters. *Contributor Expertise. Few volumes can boast of a more luminous cast of contributing authors (see table of contents). *Comprehensiveness. Twenty chapters organized into four sections plus a summarizing chapter make this the primary reference work in the field of literacy-based metacognition. This volume is appropriate for reading researchers, professional development audiences, and for upper-level undergraduate and graduate level courses in reading and educational psychology.
The premise of the 15th ICMI Study is that teachers are key to students' opportunities to learn mathematics. What teachers of mathematics know, care about, and do is a product of their experiences and socialization, together with the impact of their professional education. The Professional Education and Development of Teachers of Mathematics assembles important new international work- development, research, theory and practice - concerning the professional education of teachers of mathematics. As it examines critical areas to reveal what is known and what significant questions and problems warrant collective attention, the volume also contributes to the strengthening of the international community of mathematics educators. The Professional Education and Development of Teachers of Mathematics is of interest to the mathematics education community as well as to other researchers, practitioners and policy makers concerned with the professional education of teachers.
Recent research in problem solving has shifted its focus to actual classroom implementation and what is really going on during problem solving when it is used regularly in classroom. This book seeks to stay on top of that trend by approaching diverse aspects of current problem solving research, covering three broad themes. Firstly, it explores the role of teachers in problem-solving classrooms and their professional development, moving onto—secondly—the role of students when solving problems, with particular consideration of factors like group work, discussion, role of students in discussions and the effect of students’ engagement on their self-perception and their view of mathematics. Finally, the book considers the question of problem solving in mathematics instruction as it overlaps with problem design, problem-solving situations, and actual classroom implementation. The volume brings together diverse contributors from a variety of countries and with wide and varied experiences, combining the voices of leading and developing researchers. The book will be of interest to any reader keeping on the frontiers of research in problem solving, more specifically researchers and graduate students in mathematics education, researchers in problem solving, as well as teachers and practitioners.
When we tell kids to complete an assignment, we get compliance. When we empower learners to explore and learn how to make an impact on the world, we inspire problem solvers and innovators.
The future of learning depends absolutely on the future of teaching. In this latest and most important collaboration, Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan show how the quality of teaching is captured in a compelling new idea: the professional capital of every teacher working together in every school. Speaking out against policies that result in a teaching force that is inexperienced, inexpensive, and exhausted in short order, these two world authorities--who know teaching and leadership inside out--set out a groundbreaking new agenda to transform the future of teaching and public education. Ideas-driven, evidence-based, and strategically powerful, Professional Capital combats the tired arguments and stereotypes of teachers and teaching and shows us how to change them by demanding more of the teaching profession and more from the systems that support it. This is a book that no one connected with schools can afford to ignore. This book features: (1) a powerful and practical solution to what ails American schools; (2) Action guidelines for all groups--individual teachers, administrators, schools and districts, state and federal leaders; (3) a next-generation update of core themes from the authors' bestselling book, "What's Worth Fighting for in Your School?" [This book was co-published with the Ontario Principals' Council.].