PART I ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHING AND LEARNING

Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank for Roberts, Kellough, and Moore A Resource Guide for Elementary School Teaching Planning for Competence Seventh Edition prepared by Kay Moore Answers At The End Of Each Chapter 1 / 4

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PART I ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHING AND LEARNING

The four chapters of Part I provide the reader with an orientation to elementary school teaching,

especially about:

•Essential characteristics of exemplary elementary school education •Current trends, problems, and issues in American public elementary school education •Partnerships among the home, school, and community which support the education of children •Characteristics of elementary school children, how the children learn, think, and develop intellectually •The expectations, responsibilities, and facilitating behaviors of a competent elementary school classroom teacher •Preparing for and beginning the school year •Responsive practices for helping all children succeed in school •Styles of learning and teaching •Developing an effective classroom management system •The decision-making and thought-processing phases of instruction •Establishing and maintaining a safe and supportive classroom learning environment

CHAPTER ONE OUTLINE WITH NOTES

What Do I Need to Know about Today’s Elementary Schools?Note 1-1: Provide students with an orientation to the format of the textbook. Mention especially the objectives and visual chapter organizer listed at the beginning of each chapter. These can be used as purposes for the reading and study of each chapter. Also, call attention to the end-of-chapter materials and suggested readings. Students should also be made aware of the exercises, photographs, vignettes, and other study aids within each chapter. The Looking at Teachers section at the start and end of each chapter in the resource guide are useful to facilitate discussion about the content of each chapter.Although not included in the text, a useful exercise to assign to students at completion of each chapter

would be the following:

Select one of the topics listed on the Visual Chapter Organizer from the chapter. Research it beyond what is discussed in the text and write a one page essay explaining why this is important information to know as a beginning elementary school teacher. Share your essay with members of your class for their thoughts.Note 1-2: Students should become familiar with the various types of specialized schools. On page 4 of this chapter is a presentation about the various types that exist today, such as the magnet school, Core Knowledge school (see http://www.newspiritschool.com), open education school, year-round school, school that focuses on individualized learning, charter school, full-service school, Basic School (see http://www.soe.vt.edu/basicschool/about.html), and so forth. The T. J. Pappas Schools (Phoenix and Tempe, AZ) are two K-5 and one middle schools that are comprised entirely of homeless children. For

further information about full-service schools, see:

• R. Bronstein & T. B. Kelly, “A Multidimensional Approach to Evaluating School-Linked

Services: A School of Social Work and County Public School Partnership,” Social Work in

Education 20(3):152-164 (July 1998).

• Calfee, F. Wittwer, & M. Meredith. Building a Full-Service School: A Step-by-Step Guide.

San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998.

J.G. Dryfoos. (2003).“A Community School in Action.” Reclaiming Children and Youth 11(4), 203- 05.

• G. Dryfoos & S. Maguire. (2002). INSIDE Full-Service Community Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

Press.R.F. Kronick. (2002). Full Service Schools: A Place for Our Children and Families to Learn and Be

Healthy. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.

• L. Warger. (2002). Full Service Schools' Potential for Special Education. ERIC/OSEP Special Project,

Council for Exceptional Children. Arlington, VA: Council for Exceptional Children.

VISUAL CHAPTER ORGANIZER AND OVERVIEW 2 / 4

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LOOKING AT TEACHERS I: Integrated Technology, Computer Sources

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

Upon completion of this chapter, your students should be able to:

• Describe essential characteristics of exemplary elementary school education.
• Describe current trends, problems, and issues in American public elementary school education.
• Describe the significance of home, school, and community connections to a child’s education, and of

efforts being made by elementary school educators to enhance the connections among the home, school, and local and global communities.

• Reflect on their own elementary school experiences.
• Identify reasons why they have selected to pursue teaching as a career and personal/professional

characteristics of an effective teacher.

THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: GETTING TO KNOW IT

Primary and Elemiddle Schools

Note 1-3: From critics believing that there is not enough academic rigor and questioning whether separating students ages 12-14 from younger children is more academically appropriate, the middle school concept has been under scrutiny. See the themed issue of Middle School Journal (November 2003). One article from this issue is J.H. Lounsbury and G.F. Vars. “The Future of Middle Level Education: Optimistic and Pessimistic Views.” In September, 2005, Middle School Journal did a themed issue, K-8 Settings or Separate Schools: Is There a Best Way to Educate Young Adolescents? An informative article was H. Mizell’s, “Grade Configurations for Educating Young Adolescents Are Still Crazy After All These Years.” Other resources are A. W. Jackson & G.A. Davis. (2000). Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents in the 21st Century. Williston, VT: Teachers College Press. Other useful articles that set the stage for the discussion are J. A. Beane, “Middle Schools Under Siege: Points of Attack,” Middle School Journal 30(4-9):3-6 (March 1999) and

• A. Beane, “Middle Schools Under Siege: Responding to the Attack,” Middle School Journal 30(5):3-
• (May 1999).

Magnet Schools and Charter Schools Orientation Meetings for Teachers

Note 1-4: An informative exercise, not included in this text, would be to have students collect and compare mission statements from schools in their geographic area. How are statements of various types of elementary schools (e.g., charter, primary, elemiddle, magnet, private, full-service community) similar and how do they differ? Some students might be interested in searching for similar statements from schools of decades past and then comparing the mission statements of today’s elementary schools with those of past years.

School Schedules

Note 1-5: Sample teacher schedules are shown in Figure 1.2 (page. 7). Not included in this text, but an informative exercise nonetheless would be to have students collect and compare school calendars and schedules from schools in their geographic area.

Note 1-6: Although researchers have yet to show a direct correlation between learning and length of the school year, as a matter of interest and a possible point for class discussion, your students may be interested in the following 2010 data showing comparisons of the number of days of the school year for various countries, especially since there has been some movement in this country to extend the school year beyond the usual 180 days.Japan = 243 Israel = 216 Netherlands = 200 France = 185 USA = 180 South Korea = 220 Thailand = 200 England = 192 New Zealand = 190

Subjects of the Curriculum Team Teaching Looping

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Note 1-7: See J. Grant et al., “In the Loop,” School Administrator 57(1):30-33 (January 2000) for an early perspective and K. Hume. (2007). “Academic Looping: Problem or Solution,” Education Canada 47(2) (available online at: http://www.cea-ace.ca/media/en/At_Issue_Spring07.pdf) for a current overview of this organizational technique.

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