Reviews for Ways of thinking, ways of teaching

The average rating for Ways of thinking, ways of teaching based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-04-04 00:00:00 Calib Batten In someways, Hillocks' conclusions don't seem so radical: the ways teachers think influence the ways they teach. But the hours of observational research into the specifics of how these teachers teach are amazing. For instance, the biggest distinction Hillocks makes is between optimistic/pessimistic teachers. In other words, do you hate your students? Okay, hate is strong, but do you expect them to do well, to handle difficult work, to come up with conclusions without you? If so, you're liable to include more "interpret and defend" projects (18), more complex lesson plans, more small group work (48), more substantive teaching and less declarative knowledge and less "building block" pedagogy (106) less likely to be delivered in a lecture. Here's a lovely conclusion "the curricula cannot be represented as a body of preexisting knowledge, except in the most general sense. Teachers transform even that general body of knowledge for their own use. Both curricula and goals are clearly influenced bu a teacher's epistemological-rhetorical stance" (118-9) But one thing that was fascinating/shocking to me is how many teachers in this study are so current-traditional in the derogatory sense of the word. In the 80s, there were actually teachers who considered it the best use of class time to give dictation and reading aloud. I wonder if these archaic methods are still used now. I wonder if there's any value to them at all.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-03-09 00:00:00 Tory Ficarola Hillocks examines what makes teachers change their practice and comes up with some not-so-encouraging results.