Teaching Content Outrageously: How to Captivate All Students and Accelerate Learning, Grades 4-12 - Softcover

Pogrow, Stanley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470180269 ISBN 13: 9780470180266

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2008

Synopsis

A powerful instructional method for "hooking" students on academic learning

Drawing from a teaching model designed to banish boredom and student apathy, this book explains how dramatic practices can serve as powerful tools for enlivening lessons and captivating students, even the most resistant learners. Filled with intriguing classroom examples, Pogrow shows how any teacher can make use of dramatic techniques, such as surprise, humor, fantasy, role plays, games, and simulations to create standards-based content lessons that are riveting, effective, and meaningful. The author explains how to design such lessons into any content area.

Stanley Pogrow (San Francisco, CA), a noted authority on teaching practices for disadvantaged students, is professor of educational leadership at San Francisco State University, where he coordinates the Educational Leadership for Equity Program.

About this title

From the Back Cover

For teachers who struggle to connect with students who seem restless, bored, and indifferent, Teaching Content Outrageously offers the perfect antidote. In this book, Stanley Pogrow shows teachers how to transform standards-based content lessons into dynamic and "outrageous" learning experiences that leave students so enthralled and fascinated they readily meet the learning goals. Drawing from a model successfully used with underperforming students, the author introduces the "Outrageous Teaching" method showing how teachers can integrate humor, surprise, imagination, character, and dramatic storyline to create lessons that are riveting, effective, and meaningful. The book includes:

• Detailed guidance on implementing the method in any content area in grades 4-12
• Vivid classroom portraits of teachers making use of the method to teach math, science, language arts, and social studies lessons
• Advice on applying the techniques to improvediscipline and classroom management

The author reveals how all teachers can tap into their own imagination and creativity to construct lessons and units that are mesmerizing and that efficiently increase student performance on content.

Praise for Teaching Content Outrageously

"Pogrow's new book is a must-read for teachers seeking to find new ways to engage and successfully teach their students who would otherwise be left behind. The combination of cognitive science, humor, insight, techniques, and examples will make you laugh, inspire you, and give you the practical tools to create imaginative and original ways to teach key content objectives."
―Dr. Pedro Portes, director, Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education, andprofessor of education, University of Georgia

"Is holding students' attention becoming more and more difficult? Let Stanley Pogrow show you how dramatization and humor can help you teach any content far more effectively to a wary classroom audience."
―Carol Jago, teacher, Santa Monica High School,Santa Monica, CA

"Dr. Pogrow gives priceless solutions and clear methods that work for making teaching and learning more fun and effective in today's classrooms. This is the one book that should be read by all those who want to make a difference by captivating, inspiring, and empowering all learners."
―Dalia Johnson, science and Spanish teacher, middle school director,¿ MS 188, New York CityPublic Schools

From the Inside Flap

Raising the Grade

"This is an excellent book. Governor Wise uses a very effective blend of hard data, clear examples, vivid metaphors, and personal anecdotes to make the case for high school reform—and the specific actions that need to be taken. Every policymaker from the schoolhouse to the statehouse, and from the classroom to Congress, should read this book."
—Gaston Caperton, president of College Board andformer governor, West Virginia

Written by Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and current president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, Raising the Grade describes the alarming cost of the nation's long-time neglect of secondary education. At a time when technology and postsecondary education requirements in the workplace are rising dramatically, the literacy skills of adolescents are not keeping pace. With most federal dollars targeted to elementary schools and higher education, few resources are allocated to improve high schools, especially to address the achievement gap threatening nearly 6 million students at risk of dropping out every year. Raising the Grade is rooted in the stories of real Americans whose high school experiences failed to engage or adequately prepare them for work or college.

In Raising the Grade, Bob Wise calls for epic changes in how we invest in and support our secondary education system. Pointing to the many model public high schools that are serving our students well, he spells out practical solutions for reform, especially at the federal level, to give all students a quality high school education. Issuing a call to action- he asks every American who cares about the fate of our nation to jo in the growing movement to revitalize our secondary education system and recognize the moral and economic imperative to ensure a better future for our youth.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0470180269
• ISBN 13: 9780470180266
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256