Chapter 5
Samantha Schneider Wilson
“At its heart, teaching involves being able to ‘unpack’ something one knows well to make it accessible to and learnable by someone else”(Ball & Forzani, 2011, p.41). In the beginning of the chapter the layers of teaching was explained like baking. There are many elements that have to go together to make teaching effective none of them work alone. The chapter also explains that many beginning teachers master the science of teaching and may implement some of the art. To me wouldn’t it be much easier to teach the art and add the science. Teaching what we know well and then adding in the standards and curriculum. They both have to work together just like baking a cake, but to me some ingredients make a bigger difference. When a teacher is enthusiastic about what they are teaching the students notice that and feed off of it just the same as if the teachers was negative. In the teaching in focus section, the teacher Chris Roberts is interested in adventuring. He doesn’t teach “how to be an adventurer” but he does incorporate his interests into his classroom, which makes teaching fun for him and his students. Some of the instructions that are implemented in US schools that connect with the art of teaching are Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Teaching through Inquiry and Technology. The great thing about all of these strategies is that they can be taught through just about any topic/subject. For example the 3rd grade class I have observed has a unit on Sage Grouse. The teacher is very interested in native animals and really enjoys the art of teaching this to her students. She incorporates the strategies I mentioned above by taking the class on a field trip to visit the sage grouse. They have to learn about how the grouse live, how they survive and how to keep them protected. Teaching through Inquiry really stood out to me in my observations. Some of the