Practice Perfect


Book Description

Rules for developing talent with disciplined, deliberate, intelligent practice We live in a competition loving culture. We love the performance, the big win, the ticking seconds of the clock as the game comes down to the wire. We watch games and cheer, sometimes to the point of obsession, but if we really wanted to see greatness—wanted to cheer for it, see it happen, understand what made it happen—we'd spend our time watching, obsessing on, and maybe even cheering the practices instead. This book puts practice on the front burner of all who seek to instill talent and achievement in others as well as in themselves. This is a journey to understand that practice, not games, makes champions. In this book, the authors engage the dream of better, both in fields and endeavors where participants know they should practice and also in those where many do not yet recognize the transformative power of practice. And it’s not just whether you practice. How you practice may be a true competitive advantage. Deliberately engineered and designed practice can revolutionize our most important endeavors. The clear set of rules presented in Practice Perfect will make us better in virtually every performance of life. The “how-to” rules of practice cover such topics as rethinking practice, modeling excellent practice, using feedback, creating a culture of practice, making new skills stick, and hiring for practice. Discover new ways to think about practice. Learn how to design successful practice. Apply practice across a wide range of realms, both personal and professional The authors include specific activities to jump-start practice Doug Lemov is the best-selling author of Teach Like a Champion A hands-on resource to practice, the rules within will help to create positive outliers and world-changing reservoirs of talent.




Teaching Core Practices in Teacher Education


Book Description

In Teaching Core Practices in Teacher Education, Pam Grossman and her colleagues advocate an approach to practice-based teacher education that identifies “core practices” of teaching and supports novice teachers in learning how to enact them competently. Examples of core practices include facilitating whole-class discussion, eliciting student thinking, and maintaining classroom norms. The contributors argue that teacher education needs to do more to help teachers master these professional skills, rather than simply emphasizing content knowledge. Teaching Core Practices in Teacher Education outlines a series of pedagogies that teacher educators can use to help preservice students develop these teaching skills. Pedagogies include representations of practice (ways to show what this skill looks like and break it down into its component parts) and approximations of practice (the ways preservice teachers can try these skills out as they learn). Vignettes throughout the book illustrate how core practices can be incorporated into the teacher education curriculum. The book draws on the work of a consortium of teacher educators from thirteen universities devoted to describing and enacting pedagogies to help novice teachers develop these core practices in support of ambitious and equitable instruction. Their aim is to support teacher educator learning across institutions, content domains, and grade levels. The book also addresses efforts to support teacher learning outside formal teacher education programs. Contributors Chandra L. Alston Andrea Bien Janet Carlson Ashley Cartun Katie A. Danielson Elizabeth A. Davis Christopher G. Pupik Dean Brad Fogo Megan Franke Hala Ghousseini Lightning Peter Jay Sarah Schneider Kavanagh Elham Kazemi Megan Kelley-Petersen Matthew Kloser Sarah McGrew Chauncey Monte-Sano Abby Reisman Melissa A. Scheve Kristine M. Schutz Meghan Shaughnessy Andrea Wells




Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education


Book Description

A pedagogy of teacher education must go well beyond the simple delivery of information about teaching. This book describes and explores the complex nature of teaching and of learning about teaching, illustrating how important teacher educators' professional knowledge is and how that knowledge must influence teacher training practices. The book is divided into two sections. The first considers the crucial distinction between teaching student-teachers and teaching them about teaching, allowing practice to push beyond the technical-rational, or tips-and-tricks approach, to teaching about teaching in a way that brings in the appropriate attitudes, knowledge and skills of teaching itself. Section two highlights the dual nature of student teachers’ learning, arguing that they need to concentrate not only on learning what is being taught but also on the way in which that teaching is conducted.




Developing Teachers and Teaching Practice


Book Description

Pressure is increasing on all those involved in education, from teachers to policy-makers, to transform schools as organisations, while continuing to implement effective new approaches to teaching and learning. The demand is not only to reach attained targets, but also to be accountable for teaching methods. Developing Teachers and Teaching Practice brings together a selection of papers given at the ninth conference of the International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching (ISATT). The collection takes as a central theme the issue of education as a key concern within the international rhetoric of globalisation. The book offers insights in to the nature of teaching and learning, including the key new research area of emotions. It then goes on to explore the nature of teacher learning before looking at the impact of major policy initiatives on the work of teachers internationally. Developing Teachers and Teaching Practice contains contributions from some of the best-known academics in the field, and will be of great interest to teacher educators and educational researchers around the world.




Core Practices for Project-Based Learning


Book Description

Core Practices for Project-Based Learning offers a framework and essential set of strategies for successfully implementing project-based learning (PBL) in the classroom. Centering on teaching practice, this work moves beyond project planning to focus on the complex instructional demands of the student-centered PBL approach. Pam Grossman and her colleagues draw on their research with teachers, educational leaders, and curriculum designers to identify the instructional goals, practices, and mindsets that enable educators to effectively facilitate deep learning in PBL environments. The authors first define the four primary teaching goals of the PBL model: supporting subject-area learning, engaging students in authentic work, encouraging student collaboration and agency, and building an iterative culture where students are always prototyping, reflecting, and trying again. They then equip educators with ten key practices that serve these goals. These practices include methods to elicit higher-order thinking, engage students in disciplinary and interdisciplinary practice, and mentor student decision making. The authors guide educators from a clear starting place through a series of concrete, manageable steps that apply whether they are initiating PBL or working to improve the quality of existing PBL implementation. Extended case studies illustrate the use of the core practices in real-world situations. Core Practices for Project-Based Learning is an invaluable resource to help educators realize their instructional vision and create meaningful student experiences.




Developing Teachers


Book Description

Effective schools or improving schools are fashionable terms in the rhetoric of recent education movements, yet the heart of these movements is often more to do with teaching quality than with school practice. This book takes a holistic view of teacher development, examining the contexts and conditions of teaching: school leadership and culture; teachers' lives and histories; change; teacher learning, competence and expertise; and the moral purposes of teaching. Day looks at the conditions under which teacher development may be enhanced, and brings together research and other information, from the UK and overseas.




Developing Language Teachers with Exploratory Practice


Book Description

This edited collection explores the use of Exploratory Practice (EP) by language teachers in classrooms. Written by practitioners, the chapters showcase unique examples of each principle of EP, with topics ranging from mentoring practitioner researchers, to teaching and learning in EAP, and investigating curriculum development in language teaching programs. The book provides example EP studies and gives voice to practitioners’ experiences of the challenges they experienced as well as the benefits. Examples include tackling intercultural communication in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms; pedagogy and curriculum design in language teaching; explorations of continuing professional development in language education. In doing so, it offers tools that can be transferred to other classroom contexts and used to aid teacher development. The concluding chapter highlights critical aspects of Exploratory Practice which emerge in the studies and examines how practitioners advanced their understandings. This book will appeal to those working in Applied Linguistics, TESOL research, as well as language teachers and teacher educators.







The Professional Development of Teachers: Practice and Theory


Book Description

Hopkins, Bruce Joyce, Michael Huberman, Matthew Miles, and Virginia Richardson. But we have chosen to present our own experience and empirical data first and then, in Part 3, to show how this experience and data relates to models which have been proposed by others. We will address here methodological issues concerned with collecting and interpreting evidence of relationships amongst the many individual and situational factors associated with PD, and re-visit the arguments about ‘process-product’ research on PD. In the light of our experience, we will interrogate models of PD which have been proposed by others and attempt to move forward our total understanding of the process of the professional development of teachers for educational change. In conclusion, we will look at some current national practice in professional development, concentrating on the recent English experience of introducing ‘strategies’ into schools but referring also, by way of contrast, to the situation in the United States. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? Why has the professional development of teachers already exercised so many good minds for so long? And how can we justify adding another book to this field? The answer to both questions must lie in the continuing demand from society in general (at least as interpreted by politicians and newspaper editors) for improvements in the quality of education.




Developing Writing Teachers


Book Description

The premise of Developing Writing Teachers is this: When teachers of writing identify as writers, it adds a special dimension to their writing pedagogy. Practical and accessible while drawing on a range of relevant research and theory, this text is distinguished by its dual focus—on teachers as writers and the teaching of writing. Part I addresses the question, What does it take for a teacher of writing to develop an identity as writer? Using case studies and teacher narratives, it guides readers to an understanding of the current status of writing as the 21st century unfolds, the role of expressive writing in developing a writing identity, the relationship of writing to genre and rhetoric, writing and professional identity, and writing as design. Part II focuses on pedagogical practice and helping writer-teachers develop a toolkit to take into their classrooms. Coverage includes building a community of writing practice; the nature of writing as process; the place of grammar; the role of information, communication and representational technologies; and how assessment, properly used, can help develop writing. Ideal for for pre-service and in-service courses on the teaching of writing, the Companion Website provides aadditional readings/documents; PowerPoint presentations; assessment resources; and lesson and unit plans and planning guides.