ABSTRACT
In this book and its companion volume (Brophy, Alleman, & Knighton, 2008), we have used Barbara’s teaching as a basis for offering numerous principles, supported by richly detailed and analyzed examples, of unusually coherent and powerful teaching of first and second grade students. Jere and Jan find Barbara’s teaching remarkable, among other things, for its establishment of home-school collaborations, maintenance of productive learning communities, coherence of instruction around big ideas linked to major goals phrased as intended student outcomes, emphasis on connections within and across curriculum components and between the curriculum and life outside of school, combination of interesting information presentation segments with social constructivist segments (whole-class discussions and collaborative independent work done in pairs or small groups) to systematically develop and apply big ideas, and incorporation of the inclusion philosophy and a great deal of personalization and individualization within ongoing whole-class instruction.
