Education in Edge City: Cases for Reflection and Action

Education in Edge City, Second Edition is a unique collection of cases designed to provide preservice teachers with opportunities for realistic decision making. A hypothetical city, residential communities, a school district, and school buildings are described. Within this setting, students, teachers, administrators, parents, and board members are all introduced and portrayed in varying detail. Students are asked to step into their shoes to solve their problems. Professors who have used the first edition attest to the power of this text to trigger debate and discussion, to cause students to appreciate the fundamental issues in education, and to motivate them to use other resources to deepen their understanding of those issues. Features: A series of cases, all dealing with characters and situations in the Edge City context, provide students with experience in making professional decisions and in dealing with the consequences of those decisions. No textbook can take the place of actual experience, but the hands-on and "minds-on" exercises in this casebook will help future teachers see the big picture of what teaching entails. Students have the opportunity to examine issues of classroom management, assessment, diversity, professionalism, school governance, and more. Each chapter in the book includes a short introduction to a case, focus questions related to the issues of the case, the case itself, questions for reflection and discussion about the issues raised, class and individual projects related to the case, additional teaching and learning activities which include role play opportunities and ways to examine the issues in the students' local school community. There are also suggestions for further reading. Detailed information on the elements in this book and how they are organized is contained in the Introduction. Following Part I, the topics and organization of the book parallel those found in many introducti