Vanessa Rodriguez, a researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, was a middle-school humanities teacher in the New York City public schools for over ten years. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Michelle Fitzpatrick is a writer and educator who has co-authored numerous books on women's health, psychology, sexuality, and education. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Teaching Brain: An Evolutionary Trait at the Heart of Education
eBook
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ISBN-13:
9781620970225
- Publisher: New Press, The
- Publication date: 11/11/2014
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 256
- File size: 3 MB
Available on NOOK devices and apps
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What is at work in the mind of a five-year-old explaining the game of tag to a new friend? What is going on in the head of a thirty-five-year-old parent showing a first-grader how to button a coat? And what exactly is happening in the brain of a sixty-five-year-old professor discussing statistics with a room full of graduate students?
While research about the nature and science of learning abounds, shockingly few insights into how and why humans teach have emergeduntil now. Countering the dated yet widely held presumption that teaching is simply the transfer of knowledge from one person to another, The Teaching Brain weaves together scientific research and real-life examples to show that teaching is a dynamic interaction and an evolutionary cognitive skill that develops from birth to adulthood. With engaging, accessible prose, Harvard researcher Vanessa Rodriguez reveals what it actually takes to become an expert teacher. At a time when all sides of the teaching debate tirelessly seek to define good teachingor even how to build a better teacherThe Teaching Brain upends the misguided premises for how we measure the success of teachers.
This game-changing analysis of how the mind teaches will transform common perceptions of one of the most essential human practices (and one of the most hotly debated professions), charting a path forward for teachers, parents, and anyone seeking to better understand learningand unlocking the teaching brain in all of us.
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Rodriguez, a 10-year veteran teacher from the New York City public school system, explains the evolution of the learning mind, and though she is not as successful in translating the consequences of this process for the use of teaching brain, she nonetheless provides a thoughtful analysis of current educational paradigms. Avoiding an academic tone, she presents scholarly findings that compare behavioral models of instruction, which posit that students learn best when treated as “empty vessels,” with more cognitive methods, which recognize learning as a dynamic process beginning at birth. Rodriguez uses ample evidence from her own teaching experience to buttress her assertion that teachers must incorporate students’ innate knowledge into the classroom to be effective. She argues that a greater degree of flexibility in educational policy is required for this type of teaching. Rodriguez’s case for altering pedagogy to match the fluctuating dynamic forces in the classroom is both convincing and steeped in common sense. (Nov.)
—Deborah Meier, author of In Schools We Trust