Publisher's Synopsis
Classroom Windows Case Videos DVD
Now included as a DVD in the back of the text, these real-life, unrehearsed video cases present students with a glimpse into the world of professional teachers. Classroom Windows boxed features throughout the text connect the video episodes to chapter content. Activities and guided reflection questions enable students to explore topics and determine how these concepts and experiences relate to them as a professional.
Chapter 1: Classrooms in Action: The Real World of Teaching. This video segment looks at three teachers, teaching at different levels. Kindergarten. This interactive lesson shows a Kindergarten teacher using questioning to explore the topic of planting a garden with a class of inner-city students. Middle School. A seventh-grade science teacher wants his students to understand Bernoulli's principle, the physical law that explains why airplanes can fly. His teaching methods include reviewing concepts, demonstrating the principle and then introducing the students to the term Bernoulli's principle. High School. A high school English teacher is teaching her students about the character development in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". After briefly reviewing the book, she asks her students to break up into groups and assume the roles of two specific characters. Once the role-playing is completed, the students are asked to come back as a class to discuss their reactions to the characters.
Chapter 2: Working with Parents: A Parent Teacher Conference. Having examined barriers to parental involvement as well as strategies for involving parents, you now have the chance to observe a teacher conducting a parent-teacher conference. In this episode, a fifth-grade teacher, conducts a conference with a parent of a student who is struggling in her class. The parent is somewhat defensive at different points in the conference, and the teacher attempts to simultaneously support and disarm the parent by grounding her discussion with specific facts about the student's performance.
Chapter 6: Examining Philosophies of Teaching. This video segment illustrates different philosophies of teaching by presenting two secondary social study lessons. One is at the high school level and the other is at the junior high level. The junior high students are introduced to different climate regions of the U.S. by doing a hands-on project involving small groups. The high school teacher provides his students with historic background knowledge of the Vietnam War by presenting an organized lecture, using outlines and maps to illustrate main points.
Chapter 7: Within School Coordination: A Grade-Level Meeting. In this episode, a fifth-grade teacher, leads a grade-level meeting with her colleagues as they discuss various issues related to their duties as teachers in an elementary school.
Chapter 10: Math Curriculum in Elementary Schools. By using jelly beans, a second grade teacher teaches graphing skills. These skills are then applied to other problem solving situations.
Chapter 11: Learning About Balance Beams in Fourth Grade. A fourth grade teacher wants her students to know how to solve math problems using a balance beam and weights. After breaking the class up into small groups, a balance beam and weights are given to each group. The teacher asks students to find different ways to balance the scales. The students are encouraged to use number sentences like, 8 x 4 = 32 = (10 x 3) + 2 = 32 to explain their answers.
Chapter 12: Technology in Classrooms. The teacher in this video segment uses technology in a variety of ways to reinforce her students' developing understanding of graphing. In one segment, students call different pizza restaurants to find the price of pizza and graph their results. In another, students watch a video clip of students racing through alternate routes on an obstacle course. They are then asked to time and graph the runners' results. In another, students use computers to graph the results of a student survey on students' soft drink preferences.
Chapter 13: Demonstrating Knowledge in Classrooms. Having examined the kinds of knowledge that expert teachers possess, you now have the chance to see this knowledge displayed in four teaching segments with students at different ages. In the first segment, a kindergarten teacher, discusses uses hands-on experiences to teach about the properties of air. In the second, a seventh-grade teacher, illustrates the concept of symmetry for his students. The third shows a chemistry teacher, attempting to help her students understand Charles' Law of Gases, and in the final episode, a fifth grade teacher, brings in live examples to teach the concept of arthropods.
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