Full Description
Engaging students in worthwhile learning requires more than a knowledge of underlying principles of good teaching. It demands considerable practice as well as images of what good teaching in particular situations and for particular purposes might look like. This volume provides these images. These cases were written from authentic, unrehearsed lessons taught by upper-elementary classroom teachers to diverse groups of real students in intact classrooms. Each lesson contains elements of sound instructional practice from which both preservice and in-service teachers can benefit. Cases are not meant to be ideal, but rather to evoke ways of seeing and thinking about good classroom instruction for all learners. Accompanied by analytic commentaries from experts representing a particular perspective, such as special education and ESOL, these unrehearsed cases are written with the understanding that teaching is complex and multi-dimensional. The cases are drawn from a four-year study of 4th and 5th grade mathematics instruction of culturally diverse classrooms with relatively high rates of students from low-income families.
Contents
Preface
Alternative Thematic Frameworks
Introduction
Part I: The Teaching of Mathematics - Lesson Cases
Case 1: Promoting One of the Meanings of Multiplication: Requesting Alternate Methods in Order to Foster Understanding
Case 2: Fractions, Decimals and Percents: Evoking Student Reasoning
Commentary: A Teacher Educator Perspective
Case 3: Getting a Sense of Grams: Building Conceptual Understanding
Commentary: A Teacher Educator Perspective
Case 4: Converting Among Customary Units of Measure: Attending to Students' Developmental Levels
Commentary: A Teacher's Perspective
Case 5: Converting Units Within a System of Measurement: Encouraging Resourcefulness
Commentary: An English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Perspective
Case 6: Distinguishing Between Area and Perimeter: Using Multiple Representations to Aid Discrimination
Case 7: Exploring the Meanings of "Volume": Recognizing a Word's Everyday Meaning and its Mathematical Meaning
Commentary: An English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Perspective
Commentary: A Teacher's Perspective
Case 8: The Importance of Sample Size: Posing High Level Questions to Build Understanding
Commentary: A Teacher's Perspective
Case 9: Continuous versus Discrete Data: Using Concept Attainment to Define Mathematical Terms
Part II: Perspectives on Teaching - Commentaries
Learner-Centered Psychological Principles
Moral Perspectives on Teaching
Perspective from the Special Education Math Literature
A Principal's Perspective
References
List of Contributors
