Teaching for Real Learning: Classroom Applications, Grades 4-12

Here is a roadmap to success affecting the growth and achievement of all students. This book integrates research about teaching and learning using a variety of sources, both popular and academic, to create a readable text. The author offers: A description of current practices in schools that successfully promote positive relationships, Strategies to handle persistent and difficult discipline problems effectively, Examples of observations of teachers-in-action and materials developed by preservice and novice teachers in their first three years of teaching, A discussion on building rapport and conducting successful tutoring sessions, Results of tutoring programs, Interactive teaching strategies based on models of teaching that improve student engagement and performance with examples from different subject fields, Technology applications, including virtual field trips and webquests that promote critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity are described. Accountability is a natural concern for beginning and experienced teachers. Teaching for Real Learning offers practical informal strategies to assess what students learn from discussions. The text relates guidelines for developing teacher-made tests, essay questions, performance-based tasks, portfolios and affective measures, and provides classroom samples. Steps to develop checklists, rating scales, and rubrics are offered with content-related examples. Rubric banks and generators are cited for immediate use. For beginning teachers and preservice teachers in classes on instructional methods, grades 4-12.