Teaching in the Secondary School: An Introduction - Softcover

Armstrong, David G.; Savage, Tom V.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0134964985 ISBN 13: 9780134964980

Publisher: Merril Pr, 1997

Synopsis

Targets the issues and concerns in American education, while providing an overview of the mechanics involved regarding instructional planning and procedures. This book gives an explanation of issues and methodologies that are relevant to the evolving world of secondary education.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Features new to the fifth edition include:

• Three new chapters:
  – The Changing World of Teaching
  – Accommodating Diversity
  – Small-Group and Cooperative Learning
• More from the Web boxes in every chapter direct readers to websites that expand upon chapter content.
• For Your Portfolio sections help readers embed chapter content as part of a personal professional development plan.
• Refelctions at the end of each chapter encourage further examination of critical issues.
• Integrated Companion Website:
  www.prenhall.com/armstrong

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Good teaching helps your students deal with two competing needs. On the one hand, it gives them a sense of efficacy that allows them to respond to present realities. On the other hand, it gives them confidence as they adapt to a world where frequent change challenge's them to look beyond traditional ways of doing things. Your task is to help young people acquire knowledge in ways that will not commit them permanently to patterns that may not serve them well in future years.

History tells us that even bright people sometimes convince themselves that present assumptions are unerring and that those who would challenge them express views not meriting serious consideration. Look over some of these now-amusing predictions by people who were willing to go public with their own versions of unalloyed "truth."

• "There are defects about the electric light which, unless some essential change takes place, must entirely prevent its application to ordinary lighting purposes."
• "Jupiter's moons are invisible to the naked eye, and therefore can have no influence on the earth, and therefore would be useless, and therefore do not exist (Comments made by Aristotelian professors who were Galileo's contemporaries).
• "The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near future, in spite of many rumors to that effect."
• " . . . The advancement of the arts from year to year taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when further improvements must end" (Comments by Henry L. Ellsworth, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, 1844).
• " . . . It was argued that inoculation of the kind employed by Jenner would produce a cow-like face; that those who had been vaccinated . . . would grow hairy and cough like cows . . . . " (Reaction of some members of the English medical establishment in 1796 to Dr. Edward Jenner's efforts to develop a vaccine for smallpox).
• "'Knife' and 'pain' are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the A consciousness of the patient. To this compulsory combination we shall have to adjust ourselves (Comments of Alfred Velpeau, a famous surgeon, in 1839).
• " . . . That any general systems of conveying passengers would answer, to go at a velocity exceeding 10 miles an hour, or thereabouts, is extremely improbable."

These statements reflect the views of individuals who were imprisoned by learning rather than liberated by it. It was not the case that they failed to master what they were taught. Neither did their teachers fail to impart the best available wisdom. Instead, the culprit was a faulty assumption. These people mistakenly concluded that their teachers' interpretations appropriately explained reality for all time. They could not deal with a world in which confounding new information could successfully challenge tradition.

As you work with students, you need to encourage a perspective that inclines them to remain open to new ideas. If they leave your care convinced that education is a lifelong process of personal growth and development rather than something that is bounded by their experiences in the school, you will have done your job well. At the same time, you, too, need to guard against the luring appeals of the presently known and familiar. Times change. Patterns that make sense given your situation today may be ill-suited to meet demands you will confront later in your career. Build on your experiences, but don't be held hostage by your own educational history.

Organization

Students in both undergraduate and graduate courses have successfully used earlier editions of Teaching in the Secondary School. We have designed the book for introduction to secondary education classes, introduction to teaching classes, foundations of education classes, secondary curriculum classes, issues in education classes, and problems in education classes. In addition, much of the material will be useful to you as a reference once you begin your career as a secondary-school educator.

Part 1 is titled "The Setting Today." Chapter 1 illuminates many changes influencing secondary school teaching today. You will also have an opportunity to engage in a self-diagnostic activity related to some of your personal beliefs about teaching. Chapter 2 introduces material related to student diversity, development, and potential for alienation as well as content related to types of secondary schools and characteristics of those that are especially effective. Chapter 3 provides a sound overview of principles associated with reflective teaching. In Chapter 4 you will encounter material dealing with legal issues that concern both students and teachers.

Part 2, titled "Planning," features three chapters that include information you can use to plan instructional programs. Chapter 5 provides guidelines that are useful in selecting content. Chapter 6 includes a comprehensive discussion of practical approaches for matching instruction to special needs of students from varied cultural, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds. Chapter 7 introduces practical approaches to planning both instructional units and lessons.

The title of Part 3 is "Instructing." Chapter 8 presents basic information relating to direct-instruction approaches. In Chapter 9 you will learn techniques for implementing various small-group and cooperative learning models. Chapter 10 features an emphasis on individualized instruction. Chapter 11 introduces ways to develop lessons that will promote students' higher-level thinking skills.

Part 4, "Assessing and Managing," includes two chapters. Chapter 12 introduces approaches to authentic instruction, as well as models for preparing a large number of formal and informal teacher-prepared assessment devices. Chapter 13 includes content that will help you discharge your important classroom management and discipline responsibilities.

Part 5, "Teachers' Performance and Growth," focuses on your career-long needs as an educator. Chapter 14, "Evaluating Teacher Performance," introduces specific approaches you can use to monitor your work in the classroom with a view to improving your instructional practices. Chapter 15 explains that your education as a teacher is a process that will continue throughout your years in the field. You will find material here that is useful for designing a long-term professional development plan.

Special Features of This Text

• More From the Web (NEW!) features in each chapter. These provide opportunities for you to enrich your understanding of new content by going to listed sites on the World Wide Web.
• Bulleted objectives at the beginning of each chapter draw your attention to important chapter content.
• Links to the Companion Website (NEW!), located at http://www.prenhall.com/armstrong, are embedded at various points throughout the text and will help you derive more value from the text.
• Introductions at the beginning of each chapter set the stage for information to be presented.
• Graphic organizers (NEW!) at the beginning of each chapter provide a convenient graphical summary of chapter content.
• For Your Portfolio (NEW!) sections, included in chapters in Parts 2, 3, and 4, provide you with opportunities to embed new information in your own professional-development portfolio.
• Figures in each chapter provide opportunities for you to reflect on issues that are introduced.
• Critical Incidents in each chapter provide opportunities for you to engage in higher-level thinking as you reflect on situations faced by teachers today.
• What Do You Think? features provide opportunities for you to examine your personal convictions and consider your positions on key issues.
• Cartoons (NEW!) appear periodically to remind you that education, while a serious business, need not be grim.
• Key Ideas in Summary sections at the end of each chapter will help you to review important information.
• Reflections (NEW!) sections at the end of each chapter will engage you in critical thinking about various issues that have been raised.
• Learning Extensions (NEW!) material at the conclusion of each chapter will suggest things you can do to apply and extend what you have learned.
• References at the end of each chapter direct you to source materials used by the authors.
• A Glossary (NEW!) at the end of the book provides you with a convenient way to review your understanding of meanings of specialized terms.

New to This Edition

• A new introductory chapter titled "The Changing World of Teaching" (Chapter 1)
• A new chapter titled "Accommodating Diversity" (Chapter 6)
• A new chapter titled "Small-Group and Cooperative Learning" (Chapter 9)
• Important information about Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) Standards and National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS)
• New content on homeschooling
• Continued and broadened coverage of topics associated with Managing and Controlling Students in a chapter titled "Management and Discipline" (Chapter 13)
• Expanded coverage of portfolios both for assessing students and for self-monitoring your own development as a teacher
• New content associated with standards-based education, service learning, and parent involvement
• Greatly expanded coverage of issues associated with school violence and characteristics of outstanding schools in a chapter titled "Students and Schools" (Chapter 2)
• Useful and appealing new chapter features, including Graphic Organizers, More from the Web, Reflections, What Do You Think?, Learning Extensions, Critical Incidents, For Your Por...

Edition details

• Publisher: Merril Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0134964985
• ISBN 13: 9780134964980
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 472