Starting Small

Teachers are often tasked with taking on new curricula, standards, mandates, and other changes, often with little time and few resources. However, teachers are nothing if not innovators. And many teachers leverage their assets to adopt new practices using small but meaningful changes that go beyond “box-checking” and encourage authentic learning and engagement. This book celebrates teachers' small steps by sharing examples of these excellent small changes. This book provides tips and tricks for making small but meaningful changes that make lasting impacts on teaching and learning. Contributors include academics, classroom teachers, and librarians, who offer suggestions for instructors across a wide span of ages, grades, and subjects. The book includes 24 straightforward chapters from a range of perspectives and subjects. Some are content specific, with concrete suggestions grounded in academic disciplines while others are broad and can be adapted to any learning environment.

Lauren Madden is a professor of Elementary and Early Childhood Education at The College of New Jersey, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate science teaching methods courses and degree capstone courses. She has published science education articles in many peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Science Teacher Education, Science and Children (NSTA), Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, Research in Science Education, Environmental Education Research, CITE Journal (Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education), and International Journal of Science Education. Her research interests include scientist-educator collaboration, intersections of Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core Curriculum Standards, preservice teacher perspectives and attitudes on STEM education, and the uses of interactive science notebooks.