From the Back Cover
Now, as a teacher with your own classroom and students to care for, you'll want to create a classroom environment that supports each student as an individual while drawing the class together as a thriving learning community.
Creating Your Classroom Community offers the basics of effective elementary school teaching. You'll explore ways to
- create a classroom that supports what we know about learning;
- build a sense of community through shared daily celebrations while helping each of your students to develop and practice self-responsibility;
- organize your classroom workspace to best support learning;
- construct a curriculum that focuses not only on what you will teach but how you will teach and evaluate it.
- draw on learning resources beyond the classroom door-how to turn to parents and the larger community for classroom support.
Lois Bridges draws on years of teaching experiences and on the expertise of more than twenty talented classroom teachers from across the country. These educators generously shared their experiences and strategies for creating and maintaining a successful classroom learning community. Their stories inspire, their tips and techniques for effective teaching enlighten, and, in general, what works for them can work for you.
Most important, you'll not only learn what to do to create a classroom community that fosters each student as a learner, but why to do it. You'll learn to take your instructional cues from your students rather than from textbooks or teaching manuals. And you'll learn how to use assessment data to guide your instructional decision making.
You'll also learn how to revise your teaching through self-reflection. What seems to work well in your classroom and why? What isn't working as well and why? What do you need to rework and how should you go about it? Such questions lead to changes, to appraisal of the results, and to further revision, leading to ever-more effective teaching.
With the author as your guide, visit the classrooms of twenty-one talented elementary school teachers. Their vision and expertise form the heart of this inspiring guide to effective teaching.
