Yes, But...If They Like It, They'll Learn It!: How to Plan, Organize, and Assess Learning Experiences with Meaning, Purpose, and Joy - Softcover

Church, Susan; Baskwill, Jane; Swain, Margaret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551382113 ISBN 13: 9781551382111

Publisher: Pembroke Publishers, 2007

Synopsis

In today's results-based classrooms, student engagement and fulfillment are too often left behind as teachers strive to meet external standards. This innovative book explores best practices and projects designed to meet the literacy learning needs of a diverse range of students. It is committed to connecting student knowledge, experience, and interests to literacy learning that is relevant and valuable.

Providing detailed descriptions of actual classroom practices and practical suggestions for positive change in the classroom, the authors challenge teachers to reflect on both the projects described and their own teaching style:

• how were learning outcomes, objectives, or standards addressed?
• how did the teacher support and extend student literacy learning?
• how did classroom assessment practices support student growth?
• how were parents and the wider community involved from the beginning?

Based on decades of work in schools and rooted in extensive research, the book presents an effective framework for designing a curriculum that fosters student engagement. It explores all aspects of evaluation and suggests novel ways to use student self-assessment to help students recognize their own individual learning style.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan received her bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin, her M.Ed. degree in secondary education from Boston University, an M.A. in special education from Acadia University, and her Ph.D. from the University of South Australia.

She has served as a classroom and resource teacher, special education consultant, curriculum and subsystem supervisor, superintendent of education services, assistant superintendent of schools, and graduate and undergraduate teacher educator. She is currently a part-time faculty member at Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia. In recent years she's also worked as a curriculum consultant and writer for literacy materials in Jamaica, and recruited educators in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

"For most of the last two decades of my career in public education, I was a central office administrator," Susan says. "While that leadership work had its rewards, it took me away from teaching. Now, however, as a teacher educator, I have come full circle, back to the direct interaction with learners that I enjoyed so much when I began my career. I value the intellectual engagement, the opportunity both to share what I've learned over the years and to learn from my students, and the time I now have to read and consider the current professional and scholarly literature in a more leisurely and thoughtful manner. It's a particular delight to be working in the area of literacy again, where I can explore the pleasures and power of language with my undergraduate and graduate students and through my own reading and writing."

About this edition

• Publisher: Pembroke Publishers
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1551382113
• ISBN 13: 9781551382111
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128