The Joy of Teaching: Making a Difference in Student Learning

A fresh approach to teaching that puts student learning at the center of teachers’ work, reflecting new thinking in the field emerging from the accountability movement, research on teacher effectiveness from educational psychology, and current accreditation requirements for student outcomes.   Using a multitude of examples from the working lives of teachers, this book propels students into the world of teaching by pairing rich examples and real-life stories with practical applications.  Rather than taking a superior stance toward its readers, it meets them where they are in their professional development, anticipating and addressing questions about today’s schools and students and what actually happens in the daily lives of today’s teachers. 

Hall

The Joy of Teaching: Making a Difference in Student Learning

ISBN: 0205405592

“I have been looking for a text to switch to for quite a while…This one will be it…The writing style is clear and the tone is very positive throughout. I like that because we must begin to teach our future teachers that their attitudes and dispositions are crucial to their and their students’ successes…I was engaged in the text as I read it and loved that the author profiled real educators who are successful and convey their passion and love of the profession to the reader. This text is a wonderful and refreshing variation on the typical introductory text.”

―Carlise Womack, Bainbridge College

            Using a multitude of examples from the working lives of teachers, The Joy of Teaching propels students into the world of teaching by pairing rich examples and real-life stories with practical applications.  Rather than taking a superior stance toward its readers, it meets them where they are in their professional development, anticipating and addressing questions about today’s schools and students and what actually happens in the daily lives of today’s teachers.  While recognizing that becoming a teacher is hard work, this book also celebrates teaching as a satisfying journey filled with joy, happiness, laughter, and personal reward. Each chapter begins with the real-world perspective from a teacher that enhances the content of that chapter. All text content anticipates what teacher education candidates will need to know and be able to do on state licensure tests, keeping INTASC standards close at hand as a guide for readers and instructors.

Features:

• Educators in Real Schools opens each chapter with an interview with a real teacher or principal, who is asked to describe his or her school and current job, and how they define and seek to achieve joy, excellence, and personal fulfillment in teaching.
• Teachers and the Law features present legal topics of specific relevance to each chapter in a way that emphasizes their day-to-day relevance for teachers. 
• Challenging Assumptions features present counterintuitive research results about teaching and student learning that challenge implicit assumptions many teachers might have and encourage them to be discriminating in their selection of strategies and practices.   
• The Teachers’ Lounge presents stories and reflections gathered from teachers around the country, who’ve shared their personal, inspirational, and often hilarious stories about teaching.
• Classroom teaching vignettes occur several times in each chapter, introducing each major section by describing a teaching situation relevant to the upcoming text.  Follow-up discussions about the vignettes occur in the Revisiting sections that conclude each major chapter section.