Teaching for Tomorrow: Teaching Content and Problem-Solving Skills

By Frank S. Kelly

Book Overview

"McCain′s insights as an educator go way beyond the classroom. He truly grasps the need for schools to prepare young people for life in an increasingly dynamic world. This book continues Ted′s tradition as a writer who speaks with great insight and clarity."
David Thornburg, Director
Thornburg Center for Professional Development

"In our current NCLB-test driven-environment, this book provides a guide for teachers who want their students to be life-long learners with real-world problem solving skills."
Michael A. Burke, Director, District Media and Technology Services
Edina Public Schools, MN

"Ted McCain gives readers clear, detailed, and readable strategies in order to engage students in active learning. The real-world content for students is key to an authentic, sustainable ability to problem solving."
Guylene Robertson, Assistant Superintendent
Cleveland Independent School District, Texas

Reconsider the relevancy of what you teach and discover how to get students to develop "real-world" problem-solving skills

Through first-hand experience, author and educator Ted McCain concisely lays out the argument for preparing students for their world, guiding them to become independent and successful critical thinkers. Teaching for Tomorrow brings everyday life encounters and situations as text to the classroom, challenging students to engage more deeply in their learning and teachers in their teaching. By eliminating the typical stand and deliver approach, McCain hopes educators will now focus on using instruction that allows students to create knowledge for themselves.

Major components of the book include:

Role-playing scenarios Mapping out 6 changes to teaching that enable teachers to use problem-solving, project- based instruction effectively Outline of the 4 D′s (Define, Design, Do, and Debrief), a step-by-step process for student work and for problem solving applicable to virtually any field By gaining real-world skills rather than just "school" skills, students are engaged in thoughtful work, learning to collaborate, taking responsibility for their own time and tasks, and becoming creative problem solvers in the classroom and for life beyond.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1412913845
• ISBN13: 9781412913843
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Corwin Publishers
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Every teacher should have a copy

This is an excellent book for any practising teacher. We all know "content" is required to be taught by syllabi and we all know students simply memorize, re-gurgitate and forget such content. Ted McCain shows you how to deliver content in ways the students will remember and by which they will acquire problem-solving skills as well - the skills needed by our students for the "real world". The other beauty of this book is its size - you can absorb the contents and start using the ideas within a week. Yet, you can return after a module and refine your practice further. I sincerely believe it made me a better teacher even after 15 years teaching experience.

Rethinking Pedagogy

Teaching for Tomorrow is a quick (90 page) book that lays out a great rationale for changing pedagogy towards real-world project-based-learning where the teacher steps away from "telling" mode. Chapter one is "How I discovered I was a highly educated useless person." Then McCain outlines six proposals that would help schools create graduates who are not "useless": 1) resisting the tempatation to "tell" 2) providing context to content, 3) fostering independent thinking, 4) moving to problem solving, 5) withdrawing from helping students, & 6) reevaluating evaluation. Along the way he touches on the importance of failing and how we learn more from mistakes than from success. The author is a technology coordinator and he provides several examples for the kinds of role-playing problems solving that he is advocating, but this is not a book about technology. It is applicable to all disciplines. You can "look inside" the book at Google Book Search. I identified with McCain's story that described how he felt like he didn't have real world skills after graduating from his university. He argues that schools currently are good at giving students "school skills" but they don't give students real-world skills. His six proposals are not new, and they are included in educational degrees for teachers, but the reality in many classrooms is that these approaches are not used. By and large, we are still using a curriculum defined by text books and focused on preparation for high-stakes tests. McCain recognizes the importance of accountability and testing but suggests that there is more value in a pedagogical approach that creates real-world skills while still delivering the content we want students to absorb. My only criticism of the book is it doesn't go into the dynamics of a classroom of 20+ students. He has some good examples of role-playing and problem-solving scenarios that you can easily imagine a group of 3-4 students excelling at, but classroom management of this approach for 20 students becomes more complex. This could use some explication.