Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional - Softcover

The first case-based introduction to education text, Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional guides readers through the profession, foundations, realities, challenges, and rewards of teaching. Each chapter begins with a case study that helps the reader understand how chapter topics relate to the real world of teaching. These cases and vignettes are integrated into every chapter to provide concrete frames of reference for educational concepts.

Features of the text:

• Online Portfolio Activities connected to INTASC Standards encourage students to evaluate their own professional growth.
• Reflect On This contains realistic cases that provide additional opportunities for professional growth through decision making.
• Teaching in an Era of Reform frames a reform issue as it relates to chapter content and asks students to make a personal evaluation of its potential.
• Exploring Diversity helps beginning teachers understand different aspects of diversity and how they can address these differences in their teaching.
• The Changing Role of Teachers translates chapter topics into implications for teachers and teaching as education moves into the 21st century.

Multimedia resources integrated into the text:

• Videos further extend the case studies as they present real-world classrooms, current issues, and research in the field.
• The Companion Website, www.prenhall.com/kauchak, provides an interactive environment for students and encourages them to use technology in meaningful ways.

INTRODUCTION: A CASE-BASED APPROACH

This highly applied text introduces beginning education students to teaching and attempts to present an honest look at the real world of students, teachers, classrooms, and schools. The topics included in this book and the ways in which they are presented are all designed to answer the question, "What does this have to do with me and my future life as a teacher?"

To answer this question, the authors have developed cases and features that highlight the issues and challenges important in teachers' everyday lives. Each chapter begins with a case study that helps the reader understand how chapter topics relate to the real world of teaching. Then, these cases and vignettes are integrated throughout every chapter to provide concrete frames of reference for educational concepts. Each concept and discussion is framed within a case, so throughout the book students are applying concepts to real situations that teachers face every day.

TEXT THEMES

The book is organized around three themes—Professionalism, Reform, and The Changing Role of Teachers—that provide the threads that bind the topics of the chapters together.

Professionalism

Professionalism ties together topics such as career selection, teacher working conditions, career-long development, teacher evaluation, and relationships with supervisors, peers, students, parents, and the community. The movement towards professionalism provides a tangible goal that can guide beginning teachers as they develop, and it has both short- and long-term potential for improving teaching. Professionalism also provides a framework for examining a number of important issues that developing teachers face, such as more rigorous standards, accountability and testing, and merit pay. At the end of each chapter, Online Portfolio Activities, which are connected to INTASC Standards, encourage students to evaluate their own professional growth. Reflect on This sections that appear within each chapter contain realistic cases that provide additional opportunities for professional growth through decision making.

Reform

Reform has always been a factor in our educational system, but at no time in the past have so many people called for changes in education. Standards, accountability, and testing—for teachers and students—are being proposed as solutions to both educational and societal problems. Reform efforts have already changed schools and will continue to shape the profession for new teachers. The Teaching in an Era of Reform section in each chapter frames a reform issue as it relates to chapter content and asks students to make a personal evaluation of its potential.

The Changing Role of Teachers

Changes in society and in our schools mean changes for teachers. Selected chapters include the feature Exploring Diversity: Considering Multiple Perspectives, which helps beginning teachers understand different aspects of diversity and how they can address these differences in their teaching. In addition, The Changing Role of Teachers sections translate chapter topics into implications for teachers and teaching as education moves into the 21st century.

FEATURES OF THE TEXT

The book is interactive, encouraging prospective teachers to make conscious decisions about the kind of teacher they want to become. To create this interactive environment, the text uses Theme features, Field Experience features, Video features, and Pedagogical features to enhance the content and aid prospective teachers in their journey.

Theme features highlight the three themes around which the book is organized—Professionalism, Reform, and The Changing Role of Teachers—and present the content in an interactive way.

Exploring Diversity. This feature examines an issue related to the chapter's content and for which the increasing diversity in today's students has important implications.

Teaching in an Era of Reform. These special features provide an in-depth analysis of a reform topic related to the content of each chapter. At the end of this section, You Take a Position invites the reader to further investigate the reform by going to the Education Week Website, reading articles that discuss the reform, and taking a personal position (on the Companion Website) with respect to the issue presented in the chapter.

Reflect on This. This feature is an exercise that promotes personal connections by presenting realistic dilemmas in the form of cases that ask students to make professional decisions. Students can then compare their solutions to these educational dilemmas with feedback found on the book's Companion Website.

The Changing Role of Teachers. This chapter-closing section integrates chapter topics into implications for contemporary teachers. Prospective teachers are encouraged to consider the implications these changing roles have for their development as a professional.

Online Portfolio Activities. Students are encouraged to begin constructing professional portfolio entries tied to each chapter's content. These activities are linked to INTASC Standards and involve students in a range of activities including visiting the websites of professional organizations, beginning work on their philosophy of education, and connecting with local districts and state offices of education.

Field Experience features engage students in real or virtual classroom experiences to enhance their understanding of chapter content.

Going into Schools. At the end of each chapter students are invited to apply the information in the chapter to themselves and to school settings. Through focused observations and interviews, students connect to the schools and classrooms in which they'll teach.

Virtual Field Experience. This extension of the Going into Schools feature allows students who do not have a formal field-experience component as part of their course to explore issues and topics through the Internet. This feature can be found in the Field Experience Module of each chapter on the Companion Website.

Video features use videos of real-world situations and issues to connect with concepts presented in the text.

Looking Through Classroom Windows. Students are provided with realistic glimpses of teachers working in real classrooms. This boxed feature contains a summary of the real-world, unscripted, and unrehearsed video episodes that accompany the text. Students view the video episodes and then respond to questions asking them to apply what they've seen to the content of the chapter. A written transcript of each video episode and feedback for the students are available on the Companion Website. Looking Through Classroom Windows features are found in Chapters 1, 6, 10, 11, and 12.

Video Perspectives. Students investigate chapter topics through ABC News video segments focusing on controversial educational issues. Each Video Perspective section offers a short summary of the episode and asks students to think about and respond to questions relating to the video and chapter content. Video Perspectives are found in Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 13.

Video Discussion Questions. Students view video clips of educational leaders (such as Theodore Sizer and John Goodlad), answer discussion questions online, and receive immediate feedback through the text's Companion Website (Chapters 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, and 10).

Pedagogical features provide additional instructional support for students in their understanding of chapter content.

Chapter Introductions and Focus Questions introduce chapter content and identify major issues and questions.

Integrated Case Studies. Each chapter begins with an introductory case study. Additional cases throughout the text provide concrete examples of the topics discussed in the chapter. Within the chapter text, references to case studies are highlighted by a case icon.

Increasing Understanding Questions. Located in the margins of each chapter, these questions encourage students to think more deeply about chapter content and apply their understanding of the chapter topics to real-world situations. Students can answer these questions and receive immediate feedback on the Companion Website.

Chapter Summaries. Each chapter concludes with this concise recap of the major ideas discussed within the chapter.

Important Concepts. Also located at the end of each chapter, this section lists key concepts that are set in boldface type within the chapter.

Discussion Questions. Thought-provoking chapter-end questions provide opportunities for students to integrate and personalize the content in the chapters as they interact with their peers in discussion formats.

ORGANIZATION OF THE TEXT

Part 1, The Profession, includes Chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 1 invites readers to consider their beliefs and reasons for wanting to become a teacher. In addition to describing the themes for the book, the chapter analyzes reasons for entering teaching and factors that influence those reasons. Chapter 2 examines the characteristics of the present teaching force and analyzes teaching using professionalism as a framework. The chapter also considers the complexities of teaching, the multiple roles of teachers, and the characteristics of the present teaching force.

Part 2, Students, includes Chapters 3 and 4. In Chapter 3 learner diversity is described as both a challenge and an opportunity facing tomorrow's teachers. Differences in ability and background knowledge require curricular and instructional adaptations. Cultural diversity, including language differences, requires educational adaptations. In addition, efforts to help both boys and girls as well as students with exceptionalities reach their full potential pose additional challenges. In Chapter 4 the changing American family, shifts in demographic and socioeconomic patterns, and other changes in society are analyzed, and their implications for teaching are discussed. Challenges facing modern youth, including alcohol and drug use, violence, suicide, child abuse, and increased sexuality are discussed. Educational efforts to assist American youth in facing these changes and challenges are described in terms of community, school, and instructional efforts.

Part 3, Foundations, includes Chapters 5 through 9. Chapter 5 discusses the history of education in the United States and focuses on changing conceptions of teachers and teaching. Using the changes in aims of education as a frame of reference, the chapter analyzes the evolving role of education in the United States. Chapter 6 describes the influence of different philosophical movements on schools and schooling. Traditional philosophies, such as idealism, realism, pragmatism, and existentialism, together with their educational counterparts, perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and postmodernism, are discussed, and their implications for teaching are examined. The final section of the chapter helps developing teachers formulate their own evolving philosophy of teaching.

In Chapter 7 school aims, which were introduced in Chapter 6, are used to analyze different school organizational patterns. Developmental needs of learners and school responses are considered for the preschool, primary, middle, and high school levels. Research on effective schools is discussed and its implications for teaching are presented. Chapter 8 describes the uniquely American configuration of school governance and finance. Constitutional law is used as a framework to analyze the interconnected forces influencing both the governance and finance of American education. Recent innovations such as charter schools, vouchers, and school choice are used to analyze governance and finance issues. Chapter 9 begins by examining how ethics and law influence professional decision making. The U.S. legal system is described as an overlapping and interconnected web of federal, state, and local influences. The concepts of rights and responsibilities are used to frame legal issues for both teachers and students.

Part 4, Teaching, includes Chapters 10 through 12. In Chapter 10 the formal and informal curricula are described, and reform movements in education are placed within a historical context and used to analyze current curricular trends. Curriculum controversies are described using ideological struggles over the control of American education as a framework. Specific examples such as textbooks, banned books, and underrepresented minorities are used to illustrate these ideological conflicts. Chapter 11 begins by examining the effective teaching literature and continues with a historical look at two views of learning: behaviorism and cognitive psychology. Implications of the cognitive revolution in teaching are described in terms of learner-centered instruction, learner self-regulation, social influences on learning, and changing views of assessment. Chapter 12 begins with a brief history and overview of technology and teaching. Different ways that technology can influence learning are described and linked to different teaching functions. The chapter concludes with an examination of issues for the future and a look at how technology will change teaching.

Part 5, Careers, is the final part of the text and includes Chapter 13, which examines lifelong teacher development from multiple perspectives. The chapter begins by discussing the types of knowledge teachers must acquire in learning to teach. It continues by examining the characteristics of beginning teachers, including their beliefs, concerns, and experiences. The chapter closes with specific information about finding and obtaining a teaching position.

ANCILLARY MATERIALS FOR THE INSTRUCTOR

The text has the following ancillary materials to assist instructors in their attempts to maximize learning for all students.

Instructor's Manual/Media Guide. Concrete suggestions to involve students actively in learning and to promote interactive teaching. This manual contains many aids for instructors as they teach chapter topics and integrate the accompanying media to the fullest extent.

PowerPoint and Acetate Transparencies. Instructors can use transparencies to present and elaborate on topics covered in the text. These transparencies are available both on the Companion Website and as acetates.

Test Bank. Instructors are given access to multiple choice, critical thinking, and extended response questions for each chapter. These questions are available on CD-ROM in Mac and PC formats.

Looking Through Classroom Windows. Case videos, connected to Chapters 1, 6, 10, 11, and 12, provide realistic looks at teachers in classrooms.

ABC News Video Library: Critical Issues in Education, Vol. 1. News segments from ABC television programs such as Nightline, 20/20, and Good Morning America are tied to chapter topics and can se...