Approaches to Teaching, 3rd Edition

This widely used text has been updated and expanded to include important new research and practices that have developed since publication of the second edition.

Approaches to Teaching, Third Edition features additional reflection on the three basic approaches to teaching:

• The executive approach views the teacher as a skillful manager of learning who brings about high levels of students’ achievement― features a new emphasis on competence.
• The therapist approach views the teacher as an empathetic, caring person who helps students reach high levels of self-actualization―features a new emphasis on caring, nurturing, and fostering achievement of each student’s potential.
• The liberationist approach views the teacher as a liberator of the mind and a developer of the students’ intellectual and moral virtues―features a fuller treatment of emancipatory/critical pedagogy and a broader view of teaching as initiation.

Plus a completely new section on the multicultural aspects of approaches to teaching.

Using realistic case studies, the authors explore the strengths and weaknesses of each approach so that teachers can critically assess their own philosophical positions on teaching. Teachers are urged to ask themselves such questions as: What is the main goal of teaching? What is the most important purpose of education? What do I expect my students to eventually become? Is the way I structure my teaching influenced by how I view my role and goals?

Approaches to Teaching is one of the five books in the highly regarded Teachers College Press series, Thinking About Education, now in its Third Edition. All of the books in this series are designed to help preservice and in-service teachers bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Educational Theory says…

“(This series) does a masterful job of bringing together the basic issues and teaching methods that should frame social and philosophical foundations curricula.”

reviewing the first edition

Gary D Fenstermacher is Professor of Educational Foundations at the University of Michigan. Jonas F. Soltis is William Heard Kilpatrick Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.