Synopses & Reviews
What type of teaching produces powerful learning? This book summarizes what is known about effective teaching and learning in three major areas: reading / literacy, mathematics, and science. It includes an examination of project-based learning, performance-based assessment, and cooperative learning to see how they measure up against the demands of today's classrooms.
Recent reports and analyses show that meaningful learning is largely missing from many of the nation's classrooms. Students who are taught in meaningful ways are able to think critically, engage in flexible problem solving, and apply learned skills and knowledge to new situations. Linda Darling-Hammond and a team of content area experts carefully examine this dilemma and present classroom vignettes which represent the best of what we know.
Focusing on K-12 language arts, math, and science, the authors answer such important questions as how to support productiveinquiry-based learning, how to connect reading and writing for maximum comprehension, how to ensure sense-making in math, and how to link science concepts to the world outside the laboratory/classroom. In addition to classroom practice, the authors look at school redesign programs--where the ultimate goal is a coherent system, from one classroom to the next and from grade to grade.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Teaching and Learning for Understanding
Chapter 1: Teaching for Meaningful Learning
Chapter 2: Teaching Reading for Understanding
Chapter 3: Teaching Mathematics for Understanding
Chapter 4: Teaching Science for Understanding
Conclusion: Creating Schools that Develop Understanding
Synopsis
In
Powerful Learning, Linda Darling-Hammond and an impressive list of co-authors offer a clear, comprehensive, and engaging exploration of the most effective classroom practices. They review, in practical terms, teaching strategies that generate meaningful K–2 student understanding, and occur both within the classroom walls and beyond. The book includes rich stories, as well as online videos of innovative classrooms and schools, that show how students who are taught well are able to think critically, employ flexible problem-solving, and apply learned skills and knowledge to new situations.
Synopsis
Powerful Learning
Linda Darling-Hammond, Brigid Barron, P. David Pearson, Alan H. Schoenfeld, Elizabeth K. Stage, Timothy D. Zimmerman, Gina N. Cervetti, Jennifer L. Tilson
Powerful Learning is a comprehensive and engaging record of the most effective K12 teaching practicesincluding project-based learning, cooperative learning, performance-based assessment, as well as instructional strategies in literacy, mathematics, and science. The authors explore the ways in which these models generate meaningful student understanding through rich classroom stories and correlating online videos of innovative teaching (located at www.edutopia.org). This book offers insights into how educators can enable students to think critically, transfer skills and knowledge, and be flexible problem solvers?both inside and outside the classroom walls.
Praise for Powerful Learning
"Powerful Learning is a great compendium of approaches to teaching that can generate real learning. It reviews the relevant research base, offers practical examples of the research in use, and focuses on long-term goalsand how various teaching and learning activities support these goals."
Catherine Snow, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
"This outstanding book is a 'must read' the authors make so many crystal clear and helpful arguments for the need to teach for understanding."
John Bransford, James W. Mifflin University Professor of Education and Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle
"We are extraordinarily lucky to have this highly readable book that helps us make 'powerful learning' not just a slogan, but a reality. "
Deborah Meier, senior scholar and adjunct professor at New York University's Steinhardt School of Education
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- Teaching for Meaningful Learning
- Teaching Reading for Understanding
- Teaching Mathematics for Understanding
- Teaching Science for Understanding
- Creating Great Schools that Develop Understanding