Full Description
Based upon the research of 45 interviews conducted in Texas and Arkansas, High-Stakes Teaching presents strategies that successfully blend child-centered and test-centered teaching into one focus, creating a consistently high-quality instructional environment. The teachers described offer their students an invitation to enter the realm of learning expectantly. Through their words, we visualize the educational scaffolding process, as students foster a love and an appreciation of critical thinking that promises to remain long after the last test question has been answered. Best practices emerge and are shared with the reader. Reflective questions and commentaries provide educators an opportunity to investigate their own philosophies of accountability testing and its place in the classroom.
This study offers the support and guidelines necessary to break the cycle of "teaching to the test." Let each educator teach so that every child can become an engaged learner, an explorer, an individual who recognizes and respects the opportunities available from gaining a real education that is not merely a cookie-cutter mantra.
Contents
Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 The Link between Student Achievement and Caring Teachers
Chapter 4 A Gem in the Making
Chapter 5 Caring in an Age of Accountability
Chapter 6 The Transformative Power of Relationships
Chapter 7 Do What They Say...Say What They Mean...One Thing Leads to Another
Chapter 8 The Impact of a Single Life
Chapter 9 The Science of Learning
Chapter 10 When All is Said and Done
Chapter 11 RIF: Reduction in the Force or Realization in the Future
Chapter 12 Opportunity in the Face of Failure
Chapter 13 The Choices We Make
