Becoming a Student of Teaching: Methodologies for Exploring Self and School Context (Critical Education Practice)

Based on 10 years of classroom experience, this work challenges the traditional view of beginning teachers as passive recipients of expertise. It demonstrates how novice teachers can be encouraged to discover their skills and talents, gain new insights, and become active and enthusiastic participants in their own instruction. The first chapter lays out a solid theoretical base built around nine methods for guiding and shaping a future teacher's education. The methodologies are based on the authors' own extensive expertise and scholarship, and reflect recent work being done in the field. Each methodology is explored in its own chapter that includes an overview of the guiding principles, how to achieve successful interaction with students, samples of student work accompanied by commentary, and suggested ways for teacher educators and their classes to further explore the methodology.While the primary focus of the book is on preservice teacher education, the final chapter discusses inservice on the grounds that teacher education reform must include a linking of preservice and inservice.