Table of Contents
Each chapter describes the growth patterns that helps teachers achieve high competence in a particular area of teaching. Click here to read sample chapters.
Chapter 1 – Knowing the Subject
How teachers gradually build a rich understanding of the subject and display the ability to organize and re-organize whatever knowledge they have in order to make it accessible to learners.
Chapter 2 – Using Knowledge of Teaching and Learning
Contains examples of how great teachers merge general information about learning with possible teaching methods and then adapt their plans to fit a specific class, as well as the groups and individuals within that class.
Chapter 3 – Solving Problems
Suggests ways in which teachers can learn to imagine the learning task from the student’s perspective and adapt lessons to those needs in advance through awareness of a broader array of instructional goals.
Chapter 4 – Improvising
Explains factors which underlie the learning of improvisational techniques so as to comfortably use the Socratic method or other highly interactive approaches, and to respond to the unexpected query.
Chapter 5 – Managing a Classroom
Delineates the growth patterns that allow teachers to see the reasons behind students’ behaviors and adjust their own teaching and procedures to increase the likelihood that learning will occur anyway.
Chapter 6 – Interpreting Events in Progress
Discusses approaches to noticing more of what is occurring in the classroom and making choices that change the direction of interaction and instruction, in spite of numerous distractions.
Chapter 7 – Being Sensitive to Context
How the wisest teachers come to understand their own outlooks in relationship to the personal, social, and cultural characteristics of their students and then make continual adjustments to balance the complexities that connect these factors.
Chapter 8 – Monitoring Learning
Explores how teachers learn to continually sample students’ understanding in order to determine their comprehension level and notice whether students are attentive or need redirection.
Chapter 9 – Testing Hypotheses
Traces how to effectively identify the real problems before making guesses about what might work or attempting solutions, as well as the importance of considering and evaluating numerous alternative hypotheses rather than just the first one that comes to mind.
Chapter 10 – Demonstrating Respect
Considers ways for teachers to reduce the vulnerability of those they work with in order continuously demonstrate a concern for the best interests of each individual with whom they have contact.
Chapter 11 – Showing Passion
Explores the power and importance of expressing commitment to both to teaching and student learning and of working with a sense of mission..
Chapter 12 – Helping Students Reach Higher Levels of Understanding
Discusses how teachers can lead a larger percent of their students to try harder to do more as well as helping students to find intrinsic satisfaction in learning.
Chapter 13 – Helping Students See Complexity
Identifies the trajectory by which teachers can increasingly show students how to mull over facts, synthesize their meaning and form new interpretations and evaluations based on those facts.
Chapter 14 – Helping teachers grow
Since it takes up to 10,000 hours of teaching before the skill is mastered to a level of high expertise, this chapter offers further suggestions for personal and collective growth.
