Fixing Instruction

Resolving Major Issues with a Core Body of Knowledge for Critical Instruction

By (author) Victor P. Maiorana

Hardback - £60.00

Publication date:

30 October 2015

Length of book:

172 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475822281

A professional core includes a common language of practice, foundation principles and skills, and related standards. Such a core is present in the medical, engineering, and legal professions. Instructionally, it is not present in the teaching profession. There is no core foundation for critical instruction. Such instruction, long sought but unrealized, leads students to think, read, and write critically for content comprehension. These issues obstruct critical instruction:

  • There is no uniform use of instructional terms.
  • Conventional serialism-based instruction blocks the mind’s nature to think critically. Rote learning is the result.
  • Teaching is based on thinking directed at subject matter. Yet, we practice without a universal foundation in either.
  • Teacher preparation programs have no foundation courses for critical instruction.
  • There are no teacher-educator, teacher, or student standards for critical thinking for comprehension, the basis of critical reading and writing.

These issues result in weak instructional preparation and practice and poor student achievement. Fixing Instruction resolves the issues. It provides, for the first time, teacher-educators, teacher-candidates, teachers, and professional developers with an explicit core body of knowledge for critical instruction.
Fixing Instruction is a must read for all prospective classroom teachers and educators. It is a valuable tool to critique present instructional practices and foster the development of a core foundation for critical instruction. The concepts defined in Fixing Instruction demonstrate a new paradigm for successful instruction to better prepare educators to meet the needs of students in the 21st century. The tenets of the book must be infused into present teaching practices.
Fixing Instruction introduces a core body of knowledge for critical instruction, an area that has been largely ignored. Education programs and teacher training will benefit from the supposition to include critical thinking in the process of subject matter comprehension, the development and utilization of uniform instructional terms and the desperately needed creation of educational standards for critical thinking.
I have just concluded 55 fulfilling years as an educator. My teaching expertise spans from elementary education to graduate level. As a seasoned teacher and teacher trainer, I can say with authority that this is the finest and most comprehensive attempt to prepare the new generation of teachers with a core body of knowledge necessary to meet the challenges and educational expectations of the future.