Ellen Schwartz

Making Space for Active Learning: The Art and Practice of Teaching - Practitioner Inquiry Ellen Schwartz

''This book is a moving and powerful collection of teachers' work that holds the possibility of inspiring and changing new teachers' practice.''
--Kathy Schultz, Dean and Professor, School of Education, Mills College

''For teachers oppressed by state-imposed regulation, for those preparing to teach and just entering the schools, the stories in this book are lifelines to the future. These are stories that safeguard and illuminate a vision of classrooms, of children, of teaching as an art--of what can be, of what is possible. Educating children to be makers of works, to be pursuers of learning for its own sake, is what this vision is about.''
--From the Introduction by
Patricia F. Carini, co-founder, Prospect School

This powerful collection will inspire new and veteran teachers to ''make space'' for children's interests, for teaching as relational and intellectual work, and for new insights and ideas. The authors introduce the Prospect Center's Descriptive Review of Practice, a collaborative inquiry process that provides an opportunity for teachers to examine their practice and gain new perspectives from other participants. The contributors to this volume respond to each child's modes of thinking as they develop curriculum or find ''wiggle room'' in curricula they are given. By demonstrating how it is possible to pursue careful knowledge of craft, this book offers ways of teaching that allow for continuing growth and change.

Book Features:

* An inquiry methodology that assists teachers to reflect on the classroom and develop curriculum that responds to children's interests and needs.
* Specific examples of a variety of sources teachers can draw on and think about to improve practice.
* A method of data collection that can inform practice while allowing for the unevenness, messiness, and essential humanness of teaching and learning.