The Teaching Brain: An Evolutionary Trait at the Heart of Education - Hardcover

Rodriguez, Vanessa; Fitzpatrick, Michelle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1595589961 ISBN 13: 9781595589965

Publisher: The New Press, 2014

Synopsis

“A significant contribution to understanding the interaction among teachers, students, the environment, and the content of learning” (Herbert Kohl, education advocate and author).
 
What is at work in the mind of a five-year-old explaining the game of tag to a new friend? What is going on in the head of a thirty-five-year-old parent showing a first-grader how to button a coat? And what exactly is happening in the brain of a sixty-five-year-old professor discussing statistics with a room full of graduate students?
 
While research about the nature and science of learning abounds, shockingly few insights into how and why humans teach have emerged―until now. Countering the dated yet widely held presumption that teaching is simply the transfer of knowledge from one person to another, The Teaching Brain weaves together scientific research and real-life examples to show that teaching is a dynamic interaction and an evolutionary cognitive skill that develops from birth to adulthood. With engaging, accessible prose, Harvard researcher Vanessa Rodriguez reveals what it actually takes to become an expert teacher. At a time when all sides of the teaching debate tirelessly seek to define good teaching―or even how to build a better teacher―The Teaching Brain upends the misguided premises for how we measure the success of teachers.
 
“A thoughtful analysis of current educational paradigms . . . Rodriguez’s case for altering pedagogy to match the fluctuating dynamic forces in the classroom is both convincing and steeped in common sense.” ―Publishers Weekly

About this title

About the Author

Vanessa Rodriguez is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has presented her award-winning work in educational neuroscience in the United States and abroad. After teaching history, science, and English for over a decade in New York City's public schools, she now resides in Cambridge, MA. This is her first book. Michelle Fitzpatrick, a graduate of Harvard's master's program in Mind, Brain, and Education, has co-authored over thirty non-fiction books, including "What's Eating Your Child?" and the New York Times bestseller "Transition" by Chaz Bono. She lives in Dover, MA.

Edition details

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1595589961
• ISBN 13: 9781595589965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256