Tune Up Your Teaching and Turn on Student Learning

Move from Common to Transformed Teaching and Learning in Your Classroom

Teachers want their students to think, learn, and understand. Some teachers are more successful than others in achieving those goals. * What do teachers who achieve those goals do differently than those who don't? * What can new teachers do to help support students progress toward those goals without "giving the answers" to early in the learning process? * What can experienced teachers do to improve their percent of their students who are successful in achieving of those goals? Without realizing it in many cases, most teachers provide options for students that allow their students to complete required tasks with minimal effort on their part. The problem is how to avoid the “TMI” trap. In "Tune Up Your Teaching and Turn On Your Students", Dr. Chuck Downing and Dr. JoAnn Jurchan, two veteran educators with over 75 years of combined experience at multiple student levels, provide a clear and detailed description of how to help teachers change their methods and raise the level of both thinking and learning in their classrooms. Neither a “cookbook” nor a “one size fits all” solution, "Tune Up Your Teaching and Turn On Your Students" instead describes a research-based process that can be personally tailored by any teacher to her or his situation. Regardless of the tenure of your teaching experience, you will find both guidance and pearls that will help and motivate you to transform your teaching. Written in a conversational style, Dr. Jurchan and Dr. Downing, using concrete examples in all core areas of how to transform common activities into hotbeds of thinking. To clarify critical points, the authors include “He Said She Said” dialogues between one another, providing insight into their thought process. This is a map of the change process “with GPS coordinates included.”