Your Introduction to Education Explorations in Teaching

by Sara Davis Powell

YOUR INTRODUCTION TO EDUCATION

This is the book - built entirely on authentic classroom experience - that empowers future teachers to explore content and classrooms, reflect on what they’re learning, and develop their own sense of the kind of teacher they aspire to be.

EXPLORE:

Explore authentic classrooms

· Teaching in Focus sections that open the text, begin each chapter, and are peppered throughout chapters allow you to get to know ten teachers and twelve students from four different schools as they help you examine all the issues related to education today.

Explore your own positions on education

· Where Do I Stand? Inventories beginning every chapter, and Where Do I Stand Now? features at each chapter's end, provide an opportunity for you to examine and re-examine your own notions about teaching

Explore issues of diversity

· Diversity Dialogue features in every chapter give our focus teachers the chance to discuss an issue they’ve come across that relates to the increasing diversity - cultural, ethnic, language, socioeconomic, ability, and sexual identity - seen in contemporary classrooms.

REFLECT

Reflect on your evolving understanding of education and of yourself as an educator

· Points of Reflection features throughout every chapter draw your attention to important ideas and ask you to consider your own thoughts on these issues.

Reflect on educational issues

· In the News features examine an ABC News video clip and ask relevant questions to provide you the opportunity to consider issues from all sides.

DEVELOP

Develop your opinions of different issues in contemporary education

· Letter to the Editor features in each chapter explore issues in education by examining an actual letter published in a newspaper, and asking you to consider your own opinion on the issue and compose your own response.

Develop your sense of yourself as an educator

· Developing Professional Competence features ending each chapter provide practice for licensure exams and help you absorb and apply all you’ve covered in the chapter. Beginning with a short case from the classroom of one of our featured teachers, you’ll be asked a series of licensure-type questions and provided an opportunity to consider the impact of standards on the case and on your answers.

Genres: Education, Textbooks

Unbound

First published January 11, 2011

Reviews

[Vanessa]

I read this whole textbook for class, so you can bet your ass it’s going towards my reading goal.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Six chapters of this book was included in the custom textbook for my foundations of education masters class.

Overall, I found the information to be well presented. The headings are color coded which really helps when dissecting the text (trust me, at masters level, you do so much reading that you have to learn to skim very well and the better the text features, the better your skimming). There are also nice charts and graphs that enhance the text content.

The only section I had a problem with was the "Schools" chapter. The author has a very obvious bias toward traditional public schools and it interferes with the information presented. The author also needs to check her facts on school choice. She insinuates that private schools involved in school choice can pick and choose what students they take. Had she done her research, she would have found that in Milwaukee School Choice (one of the oldest and most successful school choice systems), this is not true at all and that students also have the right to opt out of religious instruction. If this is not true in another system, it would have been better to specify the specific source of this information.

The other chapters are fine, therefore, I gave the book (what I read of it) three stars.

I did not use the quizzes at the beginning and end of the chapters but I would totally use them in class with undergrads (even if you don't have this text as the text you are using).

[Yasmeen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very googd and consise for those wanting to be teachers. Covers all the basics and everything you need to know.

[Jennifer Margeson]

I found this textbook more helpful than the other we used in my Democracy in Education course - the online features were especially beneficial