Secrets of Great Teachers

You can abandon rote learning with this middle and high school teaching guide. Encouraging both students and teachers to unlock their creativity, the authors provide guidance in lesson planning and ideas for creating unconventional homework, projects and tests that are cost-free and easy to implement. This book leads teachers away from endorsing competition and teacher-pleasing behavior, and offers ideas for independent thinking that will strengthen students’ decision-making, deductive reasoning and emotional intelligence.

With more than twenty years of hands-on teaching experience, Elisheva Zeffren relishes experimenting with innovative strategies to reshape the learning experience. An educational consultant and high school teacher in Brooklyn, New York, she confers closely with principals and faculty, who have welcomed her assistance.

A New York state licensed psychologist, Perella Perlstein has a private practice in Brooklyn, New York, and is an assistant professor in the psychology department at Lander College for Women.

Elisheva Zeffren with Perella Perlstein
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 250
Bibliographic Info: 4 photos, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7030-0
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3054-0
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix

Preface 1

 1. Finding the “Hot Spots” 5

 2. Blending and Broadening Teaching 11

 3. Moving Away from Useless Teaching 19

 4. Choosing Less to Produce More 36

 5. Promoting Discovery 44

 6. Blossoming with Bloom 50

 7. Giving Homework a Brain 62

 8. Employing Visual Aids 73

 9. Maximizing Children’s Books 83

10. Implementing Recordings and Video Clips 89

11. Getting Down to the Actual Lesson Plan 102

12. Seeing the Lesson Plan Unfold 112

13. Liberating the Struggling Student 129

14. Cutting Competition 139

15. Pulverizing Prizes 151

16. Purging Pleasing 155

17. Promoting Healthy Independent Thinking 161

18. Cultivating the Critic 169

19. Restocking the Shelves of Our Book Bankrupt Society 182

20. Putting Literacy to the Test 193

21. Testing and Grading Made Easy 207

22. Giving Specific Praise and Constructive Criticism 224

Bibliography 233

Index 238

“Offers a multidimensional perspective on teaching and emphasizes a variety of strategies that can help improve overall instructional practices… The writing is simple and clear; bullet points keep the reader focused on important ideas throughout. The book offers strategies that can be considered universal and can be applied to a wide range of school subjects in middle schools and high schools…. valuable…recommended”—ARBA.