Delaney Mary Kay, Mayer Susan Jean (eds.) In Search of Wonderful Ideas: Critical Explorations in Teacher Education

Teachers College Press, 2021. — 216 p. — ISBN 9780807765180, 080776518X.Drawing on the work of Eleanor Duckworth, this volume examines Critical Exploration in the Classroom (CEC)-a learning-teaching research practice that positions teachers as researchers of their students' sense-making and learners as theorizers and investigators. By integrating CEC into their teacher education classrooms, chapter authors have found that they can reliably unsettle their teacher candidates understandings about the nature of teaching and learning and recenter their attention on the intellectual originality and creativity of all young people. In this way, CEC provides valuable tools in the work of creating more equitable and democratic classrooms. Such tools are needed in a broader environment that overvalues instrumental approaches to achieving specified learning outcomes. Readers will find practices that empower and sustain the deep intellectual engagement of all learners. Integrating classroom narratives and other forms of documentation, this resource illustrates the kinds of profound changes in understanding that have occurred for teacher candidates as a result of working with CEC.Introduction. Mary Kay Delaney and Susan Jean Mayer
Beginnings. Eleanor Ruth Duckworth
Pedagogy as Counternarrative. Mary Kay Delaney and Susan Jean Mayer
Engaging the Subject Before the Word. Bonnie Tai
Awakening to Teaching: Critical Explorations, Imagination, and Equity. Mary Kay Delaney
Teaching and Learning for Deeper Learning. Fiona Hughes-McDonnell
Give Them the Butterflies. Lisa Schneier
Meeting Student Resistance. Susan Rauchwerk
The Teaching and Learning of Elementary Social Studies. William Shorr
A “Why” Approach to Mathematics Teacher Education. Houman Harouni
Observing, Exploring, and Learning in Science and Its History. Elizabeth Cavicchi
Vital Experience. Keri Gelenian and Yeh Hsueh
Looking Back and Moving Forward. Susan Jean Mayer
NotesAbout the Contributors