Powerful Pedagogy

How can we teach better quicker? In Powerful Pedagogy, Ruth Powley, Love Learning Ideas blogger and experienced teacher and school leader, debunks teaching and learning myths and shows how the more we know about pedagogy, the more able we are to make informed and efficient choices about our practice, saving ourselves valuable time. Focusing on building sequences of learning rather than one-off lessons, it is an antidote to ‘quick fix’ books, empowering teachers as professionals in possession of ‘powerful’ pedagogical knowledge that can be used to improve teaching in a sustainable way. Powerful Pedagogy draws extensively from a wide range of educational writers and research, offering an accessible synthesis of what really works in the classroom. Together with strategies to put theories and research into practice, each chapter contains a handy list of questions for the reflective practitioner. It explores reasons for the confusion over what constitutes effective pedagogy in recent years and presents practical research-based solutions, outlining successful and efficient: Modelling of excellence Explaining for understanding Practising to fluency Questioning as assessment Testing to permanency Marking for improvement Effective planning of lessons and curriculum sequences. Powerful Pedagogy allows teachers to understand how to make the best choices about what works in the classroom, improving the quality of teaching. It is an essential companion for trainee and experienced teachers in all sectors, and for school leaders and educational trainers.

Powerful Pedagogy: Self-Study of a Teacher Educator’s Practice is the outcome of the author’s systematically questioning her assumptions about teaching and, in various ways, gives voice to the many individuals who have had an impact on the development of the author’s pedagogy as a mathematics teacher educator. Using self-study as both a lens and a methodology to research her practice over the past three years, the author examines the impact of reflection and reflective practice in pre-service teacher education; voice, silence and that which remains “unsaid”; the ways in which teacher identities emerge and develop, and the role of authority and power in learning about teaching.

What is trauma and what does it mean for the literacy curriculum? In this book, elementary teachers will learn how to approach difficult experiences through the everyday instruction and interactions in their classrooms. Readers will look inside classrooms and literacies across genres to see what can unfold when teachers are committed to compassionate, critical, and relational practice. Weaving her own challenging experiences into chapters brimming with children’s writing and voices, Dutro emphasizes that issues of power and privilege matter centrally to how attention to trauma positions children. The book includes questions and prompts for discussion, reflection, and practice and describes pedagogies and strategies designed to provide opportunities for children to bring the varied experiences of life, including trauma, to their school literacies in positive, meaningful, and supported ways. “This stunning book about trauma interrogates the very notion. Dutro excels at interweaving her stories with those of teachers and students and at challenging readers to find their way into the fabric. I recommend this book to teachers so that they might accept her challenge to explore and understand the importance of both witnessing and testimony in relation to trauma in literacy curriculum and pedagogy.” —Mollie Blackburn, The Ohio State University

For preservice candidates and novice teachers facing the challenges of feeling underprepared to teach in urban schools, this book offers a framework for conceptualizing, planning, and engaging in powerful teaching. Veteran teacher educator Etta Ruth Hollins builds on previous work to focus on transformative practices that emphasize the purpose and process of teaching. These practices are designed to improve academic performance, transform the social context in low-performing urban schools, and improve the quality of life in the local community. The learning experiences provided in this book guide readers through a sequence of experiences for learning about the local community that include an examination of history and demographics, community resources, local city and federal governance structures, and collaborating with other professionals. Focus Questions and a dedicated Application to Practice section in each chapter further guide learning and help make real-world connections. Designed to enable readers to bridge the gaps between theory and practice and the actual needs of urban students and their communities, this groundbreaking text helps prepare preservice candidates to make a successful transition and aids novice teachers in developing teaching practices that support academic excellence. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The Teaching Delusion 3: Power Up Your Pedagogy has been written to address the issue of teachers receiving poor feedback in our schools. As a self-improvement and coaching resource, it is essential reading for all teachers and school leaders.|Hands up if you’ve ever been given lesson observation feedback that you didn’t understand, didn’t agree with, or just thought was plain rubbish. If your hand is in the air, you’re in good company! When it comes to teachers receiving high-quality feedback that helps them improve their teaching, we have a serious issue in our schools. Teachers want to improve their teaching. They embrace any opportunity to learn. They want other professionals to watch them teach and to get into conversations about developing their practice. What they don’t want is to be criticised, patronised, sent down blind alleys, or left utterly confused. Those who’ve been giving feedback telling teachers to ‘differentiate more’, ‘talk less’, or ‘let students lead their own learning’ have a lot to answer for. The Teaching Delusion 3: Power Up Your Pedagogy has been written to address the issue of teachers receiving poor feedback in our schools. As a self-improvement and coaching resource, it is essential reading for all teachers and school leaders. Through a detailed exploration of 12 key elements of pedagogy, author Bruce Robertson sets out a clear, researched-informed guide to improving pedagogy in every classroom, across every school. By highlighting key features of effective practice and a broad range of techniques teachers can focus on developing, this practical guidebook will be valued by professionals in all sectors, regardless of experience. The Teaching Delusion 3: Power Up Your Pedagogy completes The Teaching Delusion trilogy with a bang!

In this revolutionary book, a renowned computer scientist explains the importance of teaching children the basics of computing and how it can prepare them to succeed in the ever-evolving tech world. Computers have completely changed the way we teach children. We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers. Technology changes every day, but the basic ways that computers can help us learn remain. For thousands of teachers and parents who have sought creative ways to help children learn with computers, Mindstorms is their bible.

Powerful Pedagogy: Self-Study of a Teacher Educator’s Practice is the outcome of the author’s systematically questioning her assumptions about teaching and, in various ways, gives voice to the many individuals who have had an impact on the development of the author’s pedagogy as a mathematics teacher educator. Using self-study as both a lens and a methodology to research her practice over the past three years, the author examines the impact of reflection and reflective practice in pre-service teacher education; voice, silence and that which remains “unsaid”; the ways in which teacher identities emerge and develop, and the role of authority and power in learning about teaching.

This book is of interest to mathematics educators, researchers in mathematics education, gender, social justice, equity and democracy in education; and practitioners/teachers interested in the use of project work in mathematics teaching and learning. The book builds theoretical ideas from a careful substantial description of practice, in the attempt to improve both theory and practice in mathematics education. It thus interrogates and develops theoretical research tools for mathematics education and provides ideas for practice in mathematics classrooms.