Becoming A Critically Reflective Teacher

A practical guide to the essential practice that builds better teachers. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher is the landmark guide to critical reflection, providing expert insight and practical tools to facilitate a journey of constructive self-critique. Stephen Brookfield shows how you can uncover and assess your assumptions about practice by viewing them through the lens of your students' eyes, your colleagues' perceptions, relevant theory and research, and your own personal experience. Practicing critical reflection will help you... Align your teaching with desired student outcomes See your practice from new perspectives Engage learners via multiple teaching formats Understand and manage classroom power dynamics Model critical thinking for your students Manage the complex rhythms of diverse classrooms This fully revised second edition features a wealth of new material, including new chapters on critical reflection in the context of social media, teaching race and racism, leadership in a critically reflective key, and team teaching as critical reflection. In addition, all chapters have been thoroughly updated and expanded to align with today's classrooms, whether online or face-to-face, in large lecture formats or small groups. In his own personal voice Stephen Brookfield draws from over 45 years of experience to illustrate the clear benefits of critical reflection. Assumptions guide practice and only when we base our actions on accurate assumptions will we achieve the results we want. Educators with the courage to challenge their own assumptions in an effort to improve learning are the invaluable role models our students need. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher provides the foundational information and practical tools that help teachers reach their true potential.

A practical guide to the essential practice that builds better teachers. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher is the landmark guide to critical reflection, providing expert insight and practical tools to facilitate a journey of constructive self-critique. Stephen Brookfield shows how you can uncover and assess your assumptions about practice by viewing them through the lens of your students' eyes, your colleagues' perceptions, relevant theory and research, and your own personal experience. Practicing critical reflection will help you… Align your teaching with desired student outcomes See your practice from new perspectives Engage learners via multiple teaching formats Understand and manage classroom power dynamics Model critical thinking for your students Manage the complex rhythms of diverse classrooms This fully revised second edition features a wealth of new material, including new chapters on critical reflection in the context of social media, teaching race and racism, leadership in a critically reflective key, and team teaching as critical reflection. In addition, all chapters have been thoroughly updated and expanded to align with today's classrooms, whether online or face-to-face, in large lecture formats or small groups. In his own personal voice Stephen Brookfield draws from over 45 years of experience to illustrate the clear benefits of critical reflection. Assumptions guide practice and only when we base our actions on accurate assumptions will we achieve the results we want. Educators with the courage to challenge their own assumptions in an effort to improve learning are the invaluable role models our students need. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher provides the foundational information and practical tools that help teachers reach their true potential.

Find out how to apply learning science in online classes The concept of small teaching is simple: small and strategic changes have enormous power to improve student learning. Instructors face unique and specific challenges when teaching an online course. This book offers small teaching strategies that will positively impact the online classroom. This book outlines practical and feasible applications of theoretical principles to help your online students learn. It includes current best practices around educational technologies, strategies to build community and collaboration, and minor changes you can make in your online teaching practice, small but impactful adjustments that result in significant learning gains. Explains how you can support your online students Helps your students find success in this non-traditional learning environment Covers online and blended learning Addresses specific challenges that online instructors face in higher education Small Teaching Online presents research-based teaching techniques from an online instructional design expert and the bestselling author of Small Teaching.

Just as successful athletes must identify strengths and weaknesses, set goals, and engage in focused practice to meet their goals, so must teachers. Learn how to combine a model of effective instruction with goal setting, focused practice, focused feedback, and observations to improve your instructional practices. Included are 280 strategies related to the 41 elements of effective teaching shown to enhance student achievement.

Build teams, make better decisions, energize groups, and think out of the box Do you need a resource that you can pull out of your pocket to liven up meetings, trainings, professional development, and teaching? The fifty easily applied techniques in this timely manual spur creativity, stimulate energy, keep groups focused, and increase participation. Whether you're teaching classes, facilitating employee training, leading organizational or community meetings, furthering staff and professional development, guiding town halls, or working with congregations, The Discussion Book is your go-to guide for improving any group process. Each of the concrete techniques and exercises is clearly described with guidance on selection and implementation, as well as advice on which pitfalls to avoid. All of the techniques: Offer new ways to engage people and energize groups Get employees, students, colleagues, constituents, and community members to participate more fully in deliberative decision-making Encourage creativity and openness to new perspectives Increase collaboration and build cohesive teams Keep groups focused on important topics and hard-to-address issues Derived from the authors' decades of experience using these exercises with schools, colleges, corporations, the military, social movements, health care organizations, prisons, unions, non-profits, and elsewhere, The Discussion Book will help you guide discussions that matter.

Solidly grounded in theory and research, but concise and practice-oriented, Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice is perfect for master’s-level students and practitioners alike. Sharan Merriam and Laura Bierema have infused each chapter with practical applications for instruction which will help readers personally relate to the material. The contents covers: Adult Learning in Today’s World Traditional Learning Theories Andragogy Self-Directed Learning Transformative Learning Experience and Learning Body and Spirit in Learning Motivation and Learning The Brain and Cognitive Functioning Adult Learning in the Digital Age Critical Thinking and Critical Perspectives Culture and Context Discussion questions and activities for reflection are included at the end of each chapter.

This book offers a systematic look at the connections between learning and leading and the use of learning to inspire and organize for change. It explores two interrelated dimensions of learning leadership: the ways leaders themselves learn about leadership practice, and the way leaders foster the learning of those they work with. The book focuses on a number of important leadership activities and adopts a case study approach to illuminate how leaders themselves learn, how they impart knowledge to others, and how they support others in becoming more effective and enduring learners.

Now in Paperback! "Insights and practical suggestions to college educators for whom teaching students is a major part of their professional responsibility.... [Brookfield] will become to the field of education what Peter Drucker has become to management: a scholar who educates and influences practitioners in the field through incisive and challenging writing." --Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education "Readable, innovative, and perceptive. . . . The final chapters on the political realities and phenomenological truths of college teaching alone are worth the price of the book, especially for prospective, new, or veteran college, adult, or continuing education teachers." --Choice Brookfield shows new and veteran teachers how to thrive on the unpredictability and diversity of classroom life. He draws from his own teaching experience and extensive research to identify critical areas in the teacher-learner relationship--such as building trust with students and overcoming resistance to learning.