Achieving Competence, Success and Excellence in Teaching
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Measuring the ability to teach is central to government policies to raise standards in schools. 'Successful teaching' is now measured through basic technical and personal skills in the context of the National Curriculum. Teachers are labelled successes or failures based on graded OFSTED inspections. This thought-provoking book explains how different levels or qualities of teaching can be identified and achieved. It outlines the criteria for competent, successful and excellent educational practice, whilst suggesting ways of achieving the highest possible measure of excellence. Uniquely, the authors separate the classical teaching approaches, teacher and pupil centred, from the more contemporary, partnership approaches. They look at a variety of models of successful and quality teaching and illustrate their virtues and limitations. The book also highlights ways in which inspection and appraisal strategies can be revised to meet criteria acceptable to both teachers and the groups to whom they are accountable.
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
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Views culturally responsive teaching as a contextual and situational process for both teachers and students--the students--including those who are from a diversity of languages, cultures, racial/ethnic backgrounds, religions, economic resources, interests, abilities, and life experiences.
Urban Education
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This handbook is a resource for parents, community members, teachers, and administrators who want to make a difference in their urban schools. Breault and Allen provide a way for stakeholders to see the roles they can play in building civic capacity for change in urban schools and communities. It also offers critical background information to help stakeholders recognize the complexity and necessity of their efforts. The authors organized this book around the need for beginning, continuing, and enacting conversations to emphasize the need for stakeholders to build relationships with one another in order to advocate for and act on behalf of urban students and communities. While this book eschews prescriptive and simplistic solutions, it does offer ways in which stakeholders create and support an infrastructure for change in their schools and communities. For example, this book helps stakeholders navigate the bureaucracy of urban school districts, build collegial communities of inquiry within schools, develop systematic ways of gathering important data schools and communities, organize the energy and efforts of those who want to get involved, seek out, and utilize various resources, and then use the infrastructure of knowledgeable and collegial stakeholders to bring about change. The authors realize how daunting these challenges may seem for stakeholders who want to make a difference in their schools and communities. In response, they offer images of positive changes including schools, parent associations, and networking strategies used in urban communities today as glimpses of what is possible through hard work, collaboration, and an imaginative spirit.
