K-12 Classroom Teaching A Primer for New Professionals

By learning you will teach; by teaching you will learn. - Latin proverb K-12 Classroom Teaching: A Primer for New Professionals,Second Edition, is a core text for elementary and secondary preservice teachers who are taking introduction to teaching courses, field experience courses, or general methods courses. It is also a quick but thorough core text for inservice teachers who are gaining certification at the same time they are beginning to teach. Instructors of specialized methods courses or foundations of education courses will find this primer a useful supplemental text. K-12 Classroom Teachingpresents useful, practical points of view that can provide meaning and direction behind new teachers' actions related to a number of central educational issues. It uses clear, reader-friendly language to concisely explore key aspects of classroom teaching, including the context of teaching today; strategies for learning about students; educational stances; planning and assessment; instruction and instructional strategies; classroom management and discipline; and professional growth. Chapters include a balance of up-to-date discussions of educational issues, recent research findings, and practical advice. The selection and presentation of topics is guided by a conceptual approach that emphasizes the active nature of learning to teach. COCEPTUAL APPROACH K-12 Classroom Teaching: A Primer for New Professionalsis based upon the premise that teaching is goal-directed, interactional, and mindful of the local setting in its efforts to encourage learners' growth. Two core convictions are that classroom teaching is complex and that today's teachers face special difficulties given current demands- and events at home and abroad. It takes the conceptual approach that, in the face of these challenging conditions, teachers at their best are guided by: a clear sense of what they hope to accomplish an understanding of what research shows to be effective a set of professional knowledge and skills a sense of ethics concerning what is right a sense of responsibility to value and enhance the learning of every student Building these dispositions, commitments, and understandings is hard work, so this text approaches the process of learning to teach (and of learning in general) as an active, social one. Through its content and through its approach, the text encourages readers to reflect on past experience, to question assumptions, to consider multiple sources of information, and to commit to enacting well-defined notions of good practice that address learners' diverse needs and honor the dignity of the human experience. ORGANIZATION OF THE TEXT Chapters are arranged topically, and content of later chapters draws from the work the reader accomplishes in earlier chapters. In Chapter 1, the text begins with an exploration of the distinct character of classroom teaching. Chapter 1 explores this character through six propositions of teaching that lay a foundation for the entire text through their content and their implications for chapters' presentation of information. These propositions include: Teaching looks easy . . . from the outside. Every teacher is part of a system. Teaching is directed toward the goal of fostering change. Teaching is more than telling. There is agreement on what teachers need to know and be able to do. Teachers can be effective and yet not just alike. Chapter 2 stresses the importance of understanding the philosophical bases found in educational practice and of developing one's own stance toward education. Subsequent chapters ask readers to use their stance to guide their decisions related to the chapters' content. Chapter 3 explores the growing range of strengths and needs exhibited by students in American schools and urges new teachers tGuillaume, Andrea M. is the author of 'K-12 Classroom Teaching A Primer for New Professionals', published 2003 under ISBN 9780130496942 and ISBN 0130496944.