Thinking Like a Teacher

Dr. Jo-Anne Kerr taught high school English for 25 years and is now Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where she teaches English and English education methods courses and supervises student teachers. Jo-Anne is director of IUP’s English Education Program. Dr. Linda Norris taught English at the secondary level for over 15 years and is currently Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where she has taught English, secondary English preparation courses, and has supervised student teachers for the past 24 years. Linda received the 2007 Richard A. Meade Award from the National Council of Teachers of English and the 2009 Pennsylvania Teacher Educator of the Year Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators.

This engaging collection of beginning English teachers’ narratives portraying how they coped with the particular challenges of implementing instructional plans in their classrooms addresses a major challenge facing teacher educators—how to help pre-service and novice teachers adapt and alter their teaching ideas according to the particularities of their own unique classrooms and students. In these narratives, new teachers add descriptions on their adaption processes as well as respond to Kerr and Norris’s useful questions and prompts that serve to model ways of reflecting on how to cope with these challenges. In responding to these narratives, pre-service and novice teachers can then compare their own challenges to those portrayed in these narratives, leading to development of self-reflection practices and pedagogical content knowledge. This book therefore serves to foster what Norris describes as ‘situational pedagogy’ essential for pre-service and novice teachers achieving success in the classroom.

• DedicationForewordAcknowledgmentsForeword—Janet AlsupIntroduction—Linda Norris and Jo-Anne KerrPreface—Sara Kirkpatrick RhodesSection I Chapter 1: Of Early Dismissals and Observations—Ian CunninghamChapter 2: One Size Never Fits All: Teaching the Same Lesson with Differing Outcomes—Samantha DiMauroChapter 3: The Best-Laid Plans?—Emily DuPlessisChapter 4: The Fault of Technology: When the Projector Dies—Alexander HagoodSection II Chapter 5: Creating an Atmosphere of Respect and Rapport—Scott GibbonsChapter 6: Many Things to Many People: Life as a New Teacher—Heather LowrySection III Chapter 7: A Horse to Water—Shane ConradChapter 8: A Tumultuous First Year—Richard CourtotChapter 9: Teaching to an Empty Desk—Edward LitzingerChapter 10: An Unexpected Teachable Moment—Michael TostiSection IV Chapter 11: Teacher-Parent—Tara BrodishChapter 12: Lessons that “Stick”—Nicole FrankenfieldChapter 13: Teaching a Student with Depression—Patrick GahaganChapter 14: The Pang of Terror—Janel PrinkeyChapter 15: Defending and Protecting My Students—Caroline LehmanAfterword—Sara Kirkpatrick Rhodes, Linda Norris, Jo-Anne KerrAppendices A and BReferencesAbout the ContributorsIndex