Selma Wassermann's Books

This Teaching Life

How I Taught Myself to Teach

By: Selma Wassermann

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This Teaching Life

How I Taught Myself to Teach

By: Selma Wassermann

This memoir of professional development in action follows bestselling author Selma Wassermann from her dismal beginnings, struggling for control over her students, to enjoying the kind of teaching in which teacher and students are truly partners in the process.

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Page Count

176

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807745014

ISBN 13

9780807745014

Mastering the Art of Teaching

Meeting the Challenges of the Multi-Dimensional, Multi-Faceted Tasks of Today’s Classrooms

By: Selma Wassermann

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Mastering the Art of Teaching

Meeting the Challenges of the Multi-Dimensional, Multi-Faceted Tasks of Today’s Classrooms

By: Selma Wassermann

The complexity of what teachers do is incomprehensible to anyone who has not lived the experience. If one examines, in detail, the multi-dimensional, multi-layered, multi-faceted acts that a teacher performs each teaching day, it almost defies belief for it is beyond heroic. Done well, the impact is to influence students for all the days of their lives. Done well, it leaves students altered for the better. It takes a trained observer to perceive and comprehend the various acts, both overt and subtle, that a teacher carries out during the course of a school day. This is the onus of this book – to make explicit the professional tasks of a teacher in today’s fast changing world, where technology is rapidly replacing human interactions, where disinformation is daily fed to a gullible public, where funding and professional resources for schools are never enough, where students come to school carrying physical and emotional burdens that would daunt most adults, where the tasks of teachers are more demanding and more heartbreaking than ever before. How a teacher gives his or her all, and yet, manages to keep at the job without burning out is a significant feature of this book. Not only are these professional tasks identified and explained, but suggestions are offered for how new and practicing teachers may further hone those skills that each task demands. Knowing the tasks is not enough; learning to apply them successfully is the key to becoming that master teacher.

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Page Count

155

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475858663

ISBN 13

9781475858662

Opening Minds

A Parents' Guide to Teaching for Thinking at Home

By: Selma Wassermann

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Opening Minds

A Parents' Guide to Teaching for Thinking at Home

By: Selma Wassermann

When schools, libraries, daycares, and playgrounds closed during the pandemic, children were forced to spend a lot of time at home. These closures left parents responsible for providing educational opportunities for their children to ensure they did not fall behind academically. Today, even with schools and other centers of learning reopened, it is clear that online, in-home learning is here to stay. Opening Minds is a wonderful resource full of materials for parents of elementary and middle school children who want to expand their learning at home. Though it is not intended to replace or be a substitute for the standard curriculum of the grades, it provides parents with a variety of tools to promote and engage children’s thinking across various curriculum areas – critical thinking that can serve children at any grade level and give them a leg up to deal with whatever they will face.

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Page Count

113

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475859546

ISBN 13

9781475859546

What's the Right Thing to Do?

Promoting Thoughtful and Socially Responsible Behavior in the Early Childhood Years

By: Selma Wassermann

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What's the Right Thing to Do?

Promoting Thoughtful and Socially Responsible Behavior in the Early Childhood Years

By: Selma Wassermann

Making choices is one of the more pervasive acts of life. Almost every action we take demands that choices be made. Knowing how to choose wisely, to choose after reflection, to be aware of what motivates that choice, to see the consequences of that choice on others enables us to live healthier, more productive and more responsible lives. We now live in a world in which our traditional moral exemplars have been less than honorable in their public behavior. With fewer “heroes” and flawed role models, how are children to come to an understanding of what’s right, what’s good, decent and socially responsible? “Do as I say, not as I do” is hardly a viable tenet to guide children’s choices. This book offers important tools for carrying out effective strategies that build caring environments in the classroom and home; for teaching children to weigh decisions in the face of potential consequences, examine rationales for their choices, and study the effects of their choices on others, i.e., to think more carefully about ethical problems, in the presence of the moral freedom to determine for themselves what it means to lead a good and virtuous life.

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Page Count

109

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475848587

ISBN 13

9781475848588

Science as Active Inquiry

A Teacher's Guide to the Development of Effective Science Teaching

By: Selma Wassermann,J. W. George Ivany

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Science as Active Inquiry

A Teacher's Guide to the Development of Effective Science Teaching

By: Selma Wassermann,J. W. George Ivany

This new text lays out the rationale for teaching science as active inquiry and presents a “teaching for thinking” theoretical framework that is rooted in extensive field research and classroom practice. This introductory section is followed with information and guidelines for how teachers may organize their science programs with a focus on hands-on student involvement in active inquiry. The last section includes 60 “sciencing” activities that are grouped according to teachers’ expressed concerns about their “messiness.” With the current emphasis on distance learning, the use of IT as instructional tools and more child-centered practices, this new book should serve as a valuable resource for opening teachers’ and students’ minds to the values of teaching science in the ways in which scientists actually do their work. More than theory, the book offers practical and clear help to teachers to want to pursue teaching science as an investigative process.

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Page Count

319

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475864876

ISBN 13

9781475864878

The New Teaching Elementary Science

Who's Afraid of Spiders?

By: Selma Wassermann,J. W. George Ivany

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The New Teaching Elementary Science

Who's Afraid of Spiders?

By: Selma Wassermann,J. W. George Ivany

This book is designed for teachers-to-be and practicing teachers who want to teach science with confidence and for those who are fearful of trying. It presents an inquiry-oriented method (instead of a smorgasbord of approaches) that capitalizes on childrens natural curiosity by emphasizing scientific exploration. The book removes the fear of teaching science by encouraging teachers to be scientific inquirers themselves, learning side-by-side with their students. The text features a theoretical model of inquiry-based teaching, Play-Debrief-Replay, that incorporates elements of investigative play with critical thinking skills. In the longest chapter, 60 fully developed, field-tested investigative science activities are included to promote experiential learning and concept development. Anxieties about teaching science are addressed head-on and dealt with sensitively and thoughtfully.

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Page Count

340

Publisher

Teachers College Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807735124

ISBN 13

9780807735121

Evaluation without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

By: Selma Wassermann

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Evaluation without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

By: Selma Wassermann

Teachers evaluate students’ work constantly. It is a built-in part of the job of teaching. Yet, what is hardly acknowledged is the subjectivity and unfairness of evaluation. Although grades and marks have long been discounted as having any reliability or validity, they endure as real and exact measures of ability and performance. Not only are they specious, they have little or nothing to do with the important goal of evaluation – that is to provide feedback to learners that enables their subsequent growth. Evaluation Without Tears provides teachers with specific examples of how they might provide evaluative feedback to students that is enabling and affirming, rather than punishing, respectful of the learner and protective of the learner’s dignity, recognizing that one person’s judgment is not truth. Teaching students to self-assess, an important dimension of growth and maturity, is a significant feature of the book.

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Page Count

153

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475853513

ISBN 13

9781475853513

Serious Players in the Primary Classroom

Empowering Children Through Active Learning Experiences

By: Selma Wassermann

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Serious Players in the Primary Classroom

Empowering Children Through Active Learning Experiences

By: Selma Wassermann

After 10 years of accolades for Serious Players in the Primary Classroom: Empowering Children Through Active Learning Experiences, Selma Wassermann provides readers with a second edition to her classic. Building on the original work, this new edition offers further insight into Wassermann's notion of organizing for instruction known as "Play-Debrief-Replay, a way of structuring curriculum experiences to promote children's active learning in cooperative groups and to foster independent thinking. The book also provides a theoretical framework for implementing teaching for thinking in primary classrooms. By updating references and adding a new chapter on moral dilemmas, including information that is consonant with constructivist ideologies, Wassermann continues to promote ways of teaching that stimulate children's appreciation for social and ethical issues. Her approach is holistic; it not only honors the play of children, but also the work of teachers. Accessible and enlightening, this new edition is a must-read for all early childhood professionals. Parents, too, will find this volume useful.

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Page Count

292

Publisher

Teachers College Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807739863

ISBN 13

9780807739860

Mastering the Art of Teaching

Meeting the Challenges of the Multi-Dimensional, Multi-Faceted Tasks of Today’s Classrooms

By: Selma Wassermann

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Mastering the Art of Teaching

Meeting the Challenges of the Multi-Dimensional, Multi-Faceted Tasks of Today’s Classrooms

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

155

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475858663

ISBN 13

9781475858662

Thinking Matters

A Guide to Making Wiser and More Thoughtful Decisions

By: Selma Wassermann

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Thinking Matters

A Guide to Making Wiser and More Thoughtful Decisions

By: Selma Wassermann

Making decisions intelligently, rationally and with a sense of personal investment requires a considerable degree of critical thinking. To choose badly based on disinformation or high emotionality, rather than on the intelligent interpretation of data, leads us down a path from which there is often no safe return. Thomas Jefferson wrote that a well-informed electorate is a prerequisite to democracy. That is why one of the most important attributes for citizenship in that democracy is our ability to use intelligent habits of mind to interpret data, to distill disinformation from sound information, to use the best information to make sound and rational decisions to solve the many complex and varied problems that arise. Thinking Matters: A Guide to Making Wiser and More Thoughtful Decisions offers readers an opportunity to examine what it means to use intelligent habits of mind to make wise, rational and informed choices, and deal more logically with problems that impact their lives.

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Page Count

115

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475873891

ISBN 13

9781475873894

What's the Right Thing to Do?

Promoting Thoughtful and Socially Responsible Behavior in the Early Childhood Years

By: Selma Wassermann

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What's the Right Thing to Do?

Promoting Thoughtful and Socially Responsible Behavior in the Early Childhood Years

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

109

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475848587

ISBN 13

9781475848588

Conversations and the Human Experience

A Self-Instructional Program to Improve How We Talk to Each Other

By: Selma Wassermann

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Conversations and the Human Experience

A Self-Instructional Program to Improve How We Talk to Each Other

By: Selma Wassermann

The main thesis of this book is that words have power. They have power to nourish – to add substantially to the way people feel about themselves. They also have power to hurt – to diminish another’s feelings about self. The words we use to each other can bring us closer together or drive us further apart. The materials in the book provide readers with opportunities to examine and reflect on the relationship between human interactions and the development of positive human relationships, specifically how conversations work to enable positive relationships or diminish them. These include being able to “tune in” to what the other person is saying, freeing oneself from the need to judge, being respectful, and having a clear and non-defensive idea of what is coming out of one’s mouth. The materials in the book also provide a self-instructional program to develop one’s skills in using human interactions that build more positive relationships.

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Page Count

113

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475867557

ISBN 13

9781475867558

Teaching Social Issues in the Middle Grades

A Teacher's Guide to Using Case Studies to Promote Intelligent Inquiry

By: Selma Wassermann

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Teaching Social Issues in the Middle Grades

A Teacher's Guide to Using Case Studies to Promote Intelligent Inquiry

By: Selma Wassermann

Teaching Social Issues in the Middle Grades: A Teacher’s Guide to Using Case Studies to Promote Intelligent Inquiry provides a collection of ten cases for use in the middle grades that focus on many of the critical social issues we face today. It also includes materials to enable teachers to become more skilled in using case teaching methods. The cases and the teaching strategies are designed to “develop students’ appreciation for their roles and responsibilities in relation to social and civic affairs and help them develop the critical thinking abilities to prepare them as competent and concerned citizens.

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Page Count

132

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475861060

ISBN 13

9781475861068

Opening Minds

A Parents' Guide to Teaching for Thinking at Home

By: Selma Wassermann

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Opening Minds

A Parents' Guide to Teaching for Thinking at Home

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

113

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475859546

ISBN 13

9781475859546

Rethinking Teacher Education

A Bold Alternative to Pre-Service Programs

By: Selma Wassermann

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Rethinking Teacher Education

A Bold Alternative to Pre-Service Programs

By: Selma Wassermann

The book offers concrete and specific suggestions for improving teacher education programs, including improved strategies for selection into the program; key ingredients for pre-service course work; courses that emphasis skill development in critical areas of teaching practice and more effective evaluation of student teaching that emphasizes professional development.

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Page Count

119

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475863373

ISBN 13

9781475863376

Serious Players in the Primary Classroom

Empowering Children Through Active Learning Experiences

By: Selma Wassermann

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Serious Players in the Primary Classroom

Empowering Children Through Active Learning Experiences

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

292

Publisher

Teachers College Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807739863

ISBN 13

9780807739860

The Play's the Thing

Promoting Intellectual and Emotional Development in the Early Childhood Years

By: Selma Wassermann

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The Play's the Thing

Promoting Intellectual and Emotional Development in the Early Childhood Years

By: Selma Wassermann

Because unsupervised free play is nature’s way of teaching us the skills we need as adults – the skills of cooperation, making and enforcing rules, compromise, negotiating conflicts, accepting defeat, children have been dependent on others to regulate them. More and more they have become “other directed.” It is no surprise then that during the days of self-quarantine, when schools, playgrounds and other recreational activities were shut down, children were subject to the emotional stresses of having to find their own way. Their self-direction having had little chance of development failed them when they needed it most. This is a book for teachers and parents as well who seek to develop such self-directed, “can-do” children.

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Page Count

169

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475869983

ISBN 13

9781475869989

Teaching for Thinking Today

Strategies, and Activities for the K-8 Classroom

By: Selma Wassermann

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Teaching for Thinking Today

Strategies, and Activities for the K-8 Classroom

By: Selma Wassermann

This is the inspiring story of a group of teachers that engaged in inquiry about their own practice in order to support inquiry learning in their students. The Supporting Knowledge Integration for Inquiry Practice (SKIIP) is an exciting new professional development program that brings together the strengths and benefits of several existing models: participant-directed inquiry, school/university partnerships, and the shared pedagogical improvement model of Japanese lesson study. Based on the work of urban, public school teachers over the course of three years, the SKIIP approach was developed to assist teachers in the daunting task of integrating new pedagogies, curricula, and technologies into their practice.

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Page Count

255

Publisher

Teachers College Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807771422

ISBN 13

9780807771426

Teaching in the Age of Disinformation

Don't Confuse Me with the Data, My Mind Is Made Up!

By: Selma Wassermann

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Teaching in the Age of Disinformation

Don't Confuse Me with the Data, My Mind Is Made Up!

By: Selma Wassermann

Teaching in the Age of Disinformation makes a case for the importance of developing students’ intelligent habits of mind so that they become more discriminating consumers of the information that comes at them from the Internet, social media, television and the tabloid press in this “alternate truth” era. Part I sets the stage for the need for an informed citizenry, given the many and varied sources of disinformation that they are exposed to and what the implications are when they are unable to make such distinctions. Part II deals with the specifics of how teachers may develop curriculum activities that call for higher order thinking, within the many and diverse subject areas of elementary and secondary education. Hundreds of examples of curriculum activities are included, as well as suggestions for how teachers use higher order questioning strategies in classroom discussions to enable and promote student thinking. “A pleasure to read,” the book draws on the author’s long and extensive experience in teaching, writing and research with “teaching for thinking,” and offers teachers research-tested ways to incorporate the development of students’ intelligent habits of mind in their daily classroom work.

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Page Count

184

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475840993

ISBN 13

9781475840995

Thinking Matters

A Guide to Making Wiser and More Thoughtful Decisions

By: Selma Wassermann

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Thinking Matters

A Guide to Making Wiser and More Thoughtful Decisions

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

115

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475873891

ISBN 13

9781475873894

Teaching in the Age of Disinformation

Don't Confuse Me with the Data, My Mind Is Made Up!

By: Selma Wassermann

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Teaching in the Age of Disinformation

Don't Confuse Me with the Data, My Mind Is Made Up!

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

184

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475840993

ISBN 13

9781475840995

Teaching for Thinking Today

Strategies, and Activities for the K-8 Classroom

By: Selma Wassermann

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Teaching for Thinking Today

Strategies, and Activities for the K-8 Classroom

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

255

Publisher

Teachers College Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807771422

ISBN 13

9780807771426

Teaching Social Issues in the Middle Grades

A Teacher's Guide to Using Case Studies to Promote Intelligent Inquiry

By: Selma Wassermann

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Teaching Social Issues in the Middle Grades

A Teacher's Guide to Using Case Studies to Promote Intelligent Inquiry

By: Selma Wassermann

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Page Count

132

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1475861060

ISBN 13

9781475861068

The Art of Interactive Teaching

Listening, Responding, Questioning

By: Selma Wassermann

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The Art of Interactive Teaching

Listening, Responding, Questioning

By: Selma Wassermann

In this book, Selma Wassermann, international expert on classroom interactions, sets the stage for the relevance of the interactive teaching method, provides data and classroom examples that support its effectiveness at all student learning levels and in different subject areas, and offers detailed and specific help for teachers who are considering embarking on this approach to teaching. Coverage includes "teaching to the big ideas," preparing students, and the basics of developing good listening, responding, and questioning skills in an interactive discussion. A chapter on learning to become reflective practitioners deals with how teachers may become more aware of what they are saying and in better control of framing responses and questions in the art of interactive teaching. The book draws from the author’s long experience and study of interactive teaching using the case method rooted in the Harvard Business School’s approach to large class instruction.

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Page Count

224

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1351704370

ISBN 13

9781351704373

Introduction to Case Method Teaching

A Guide to the Galaxy

By: Selma Wassermann

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Introduction to Case Method Teaching

A Guide to the Galaxy

By: Selma Wassermann

This book is for teachers at all levels and in all subject areas, who are interested in exploring this pedagogy. In the introductory chapters, the theoretical bases of case method teaching are examined. The rest of the book offers specific and practical help with the various aspects of case method instruction, selecting appropriate cases, organizing for instruction, orienting students, and mastering the art of leading a case discussion. More than offering information and advice about effective classroom practices in case method teaching, Selma Wassermann provides potential and practicing case method teachers assistance in their development as effective practitioners. This book can be used as a companion text to Wassermann's Getting Down to Cases.

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Page Count

245

Publisher

Teachers College Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807733679

ISBN 13

9780807733677

Evaluation Without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

By: Selma Wassermann

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Evaluation Without Tears

101 Ways to Evaluate the Work of Students

By: Selma Wassermann

This tackles the fallacies of marking and grading students' work and provides teachers with specific examples of how they might provide evaluative feedback to students that enables and promotes their subsequent growth on learning tasks.

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