Teaching as Decision Making: Successful Practices for the Secondary Teacher

This constructivist-based text examines teaching at the secondary level through discussion of five key factors involved in its practice: Students, Content, Pedagogy, Philosophy, and Context. To help prospective teachers develop a set of skills, without oversimplifying the complexity of teaching, much of the text's content is devoted to the design of curriculum, teaching approaches, classroom management, and adaptation/differentiation of instruction for students with special needs of all types. Numerous examples drawn from secondary school lessons and units are examined through reflection on each strategy's strengths/weaknesses, where/when/with whom it would be most effective, how to modify it to meet the needs of special learners, and what values and/or social relationships it promotes. In addition, a case study involving a multidisciplinary middle-school unit on Zimbabwe ties text-sanctioned practices to unit/lesson planning that meets state and local standards.

Georgea M. Sparks-Langer is a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University and coordinator of a grant to improve teacher quality through a student teaching performance assessment that documents K-12 student learning gains. A former foreign language teacher, she has presented workshops nationally and internationally for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), Phi Delta Kappa, and numerous states, countries, districts, and schools. She has published extensively in the areas of staff development (as Georgea M. Sparks), teacher education, and teachers' reflective decision making in journals such as Journal of Educational Psychology, Educational Leadership, Journal of Teacher Education, and Journal of Staff Development. She is coauthor (with Amy Colton and Loretta Goff) of Collaborative Analysis of Student Work to Improve Teaching and Learning (ascd.org).

Alane J. Starko is Department Head and professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University. A former elementary classroom teacher and teacher of the gifted, she has been an active consultant in the areas of classroom differentiation, creativity, and education of the gifted and talented. Alane has been a board member and service publications editor for the National Association for Gifted Children. In addition to her work on both editions of Teaching as Decision Making, she is author of Creativity in the Classroom: Schools of Curious Delight, It's About Time, and a variety of articles, and she is coauthor (with Gina Schack) of two books on authentic research with young people.

Marvin Pasch recently retired from his role as a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University and is now the Senior Editor for Social Studies for the State of Michigan Merit Award Program's Sample Curriculum and Plans for Education (SCOPE) project. During his higher education career, he was a college administrator at EMU and Cleveland State University for 16 years and a faculty member for almost 30 years. He taught junior and senior high school social studies for 11 years. He has a 35-year interest in instructional planning and program evaluation and has published articles in the Journal of Staff Development, Journal of Teacher Education, Social Education, Science Teacher, and Educational Leadership.

Wendy Burke is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University. A former high school English teacher, she has been an active consultant in the areas of novice teacher induction and mentoring, professional development, and school reform. Wendy is on the Editorial Review Board of The Teacher Educator.

Christella D. Moody was a public school teacher in Chicago Public Schools for 11 years and then spent 15 years in the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Public Schools as a teacher, school administrator, coordinator of multiethnic instruction, and coordinator of staff development. She has consulted in more than 10 states on effective teaching and multicultural education. She is the historian of the National Alliance of Black School Educators and the developer of the Young Educators Society for the State of Michigan. She is currently president of Current Directions Publishing Co. and executive director of the C. D. Moody Educational Foundation.

Trevor G. Gardner is Vice President for Academic Administration at Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Jamaica. A former professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Eastern Michigan University, he was also an elementary and secondary teacher, a high school principal, and a school board member. He is an international consultant in school discipline and positive parent participation, having created the Rational Approach to Practical School Discipline (RAPSD), which is featured in Chapter 12, as well as the Participating Parents for Progress (PPP). Over the past 19 years he has consulted with more than 100 schools and colleges on discipline, multicultural education, and desegregation.