Using a question-and-answer format, this book presents the teacher candidate with the opportunity to confront issues dealing with foundations, educational psychology, curriculum, methodology, or family involvement in the teaching process. Teacher candidates learn to reflect on classroom problems when they are confronted with curiosity, confusion, or uncertainty. The replies to those queries, within this book, are based on educational theory and practice that attempt to resolve various educational issues by indicating a variety of solution sets. Because its purpose is to stimulate reflective thought, Ask the Teacher is not for the passive reader but for one who desires a contextual intellectual discourse-a dialogue that promotes a genuinely reflective understanding of the diverse classroom in the 21st Century. Pre-service and new teachers.
Mark Ryan has taught at all grade levels, from elementary classes to university seminars. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz, a Master’s degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, and a Doctorate in Higher and Adult Education from Arizona State University at Tempe.
From 1994 through 1997 he wrote the Ask the Teacher column syndicated by Copley News Service and was regularly published in such newspapers as the Boston Herald, the Denver Rocky Mountain News, and the San Diego Union Tribune. In 2004 Dr. Ryan received the President’s Distinguished Teaching Award from National University. He recently co-authored Writing Effective Lesson Plans: The Five-Star Approach, with Peter Serdyukov.