A Learning Community in the Primary Classroom

This richly detailed description and analysis of exemplary teaching in the primary grades looks at how a teacher establishes her classroom as a collaborative learning community, how she plans curriculum and instruction that features powerful ideas and applications to life outside of school, and how, working within this context, she motivates her students to learn with a sense of purpose and thoughtful self-regulation. The supporting analyses, which ground the teacher’s practice in principles from curriculum and instruction, educational psychology, and related sources of relevant theory and research, are designed to allow teacher-readers to develop coherent understanding and appreciation of the subtleties of her practice and how they can be applied to their own practice.

Resulting from a lengthy collaboration among an educational psychologist, a social studies educator, and a classroom teacher, the aspects and principles of good teaching this book details are widely applicable across elementary schools, across the curriculum, and across the primary grade levels. To help readers understand the principles and adapt them to their particular teaching situations, an Appendix provides reflection questions and application activities.

Janet Alleman is Professor of Teacher Education, Michigan State University.

Barbara Knighton is an Early Elementary Educator, Waverly Community Schools & Winans Elementary School, Michigan.