The Skillful Teacher

This book has become a standard text in many teaching courses. Designed for both the novice and the experienced educator, The Skillful Teacher is a unique synthesis of the Knowledge Base on Teaching with powerful repertoires for matching teaching strategies to student needs. Designed as a practical guide for practitioners working to broaden their teaching skills, the book focuses on 17 critical areas of classroom performance. Numerous examples illustrate teaching approaches, and chapter-by-chapter bibliographies provide additional sources for further research. This expanded fifth edition includes new chapters on Assessment, Expectations, Classroom Climate, The Importance of Teacher Beliefs, and Conditions for Teacher Learning.

Energize your classrooms with these key techniques for college teaching Students say the best teachers get them excited about learning, stretch their thinking, and keep them actively involved in class. But with increasingly diverse classrooms and constantly changing technology, each semester throws up new challenges for engaging students. Discover how to keep your teaching, and your students, energized with The Skillful Teacher, a practical guide to effective techniques, approaches, and methods for today's college classrooms. Providing insights, reflections, and advice from his four decades of college teaching, Stephen Brookfield now adapts his successful methods to teaching online, working with diverse student populations, and making classrooms truly inclusive. As well as being completely revised, updated, and rewritten, this edition adds six brand new chapters on: Teaching critical thinking Using play and creativity in the classroom Teaching in teams Helping students take responsibility for learning Teaching about racism Exercising teacher power responsibly Readers will delve into what learning feels like from a student's perspective, as well as absorb the wisdom of veteran college faculty with whom the author has worked. Themes from the bestselling previous editions remain, but are revisited and expanded with the perspective of an additional decade in the classroom. This authoritative guide is now even more comprehensive to better serve teachers looking to improve. Whether you are new to the classroom or are looking to rise to new challenges, The Skillful Teacher will provide answers, expand your repertoire of techniques, and invigorate your teaching and your classrooms.

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.

All teams face hurdles. What distinguishes the skillful team leader from a less effective one is his or her approach in overcoming them. Whether you are a team leader or a trainer of team leaders, this book is an essential resource for you.Elisa MacDonald offers a skillful approach to team leadership rooted in values, mindset, intelligence, and skill. Readers will learn from reality-based examples illustrating common team hurdles in collaboration, shared leadership, goal setting and attainment, rigorous discourse, and continuous improvement.

Praise for Powerful Techniques for TeachingAdults "Stephen Brookfield has used his gifts for clear thinking andlucid writing to produce this theoretically informed, immenselypractical book on how the dynamics of power and adult teachingintersect. It should be required reading for everyone who teachesadults." ??—Ronald M. Cervero, professor and associatedean, College of Education, University of Georgia "In one of his most personal, emotionally candid, and accessiblebooks yet, Stephen Brookfield shares his passionate andindispensable commitment to empowering the learner both inside andoutside the formal classroom, offering a trove of exercises,stories, and practical teaching tips to confront the hiddencurriculum of power head on. For any teacher, coach, supervisor, ormentor who cares deeply about adult learning, here's a true gemfrom one of our great contemporary adult educators."—Laurent A. Parks Daloz, senior fellow, The WhidbeyInstitute "This book is not about increasing your power as a teacher— it is about the dynamics of power in the adult classroom,challenging power structures, and the techniques teachers can useto empower learners. Brookfield's uses the lens of 'power' todistill, for the practitioner, ??a lifetime's work of scholarly andpractical engagement with adult teaching and learning.'—Mark Tennant, emeritus professor, University ofTechnology, Sydney, Australia "Brookfield writes in a nice easy-to-read autobiographicalstyle. He explains and fully discusses many good techniques forteaching in an effective and humane manner. Everybody who teaches,whether they teach children or adults, will benefit from readingthis interesting book and learning from his lifetime of experienceas a teacher." —Peter Jarvis, emeritus professor of continuingeducation, University of Surrey

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.