Teaching on Solid Ground
Nuance, Challenge, and Technique for the Emerging Teacher
- Dominic Belmonte - Golden Apple Foundation, Chicago, IL
Foreword by Martin J. and Patricia Koldyke
Teaching Methods & Learning Styles
North Bay Elementary School, Bay Saint Louis, MS
This sequel to Dom Belmonte's acclaimed Teaching From the Deep End takes beginning teachers from their first year of classroom teaching into years 2 through 5, the most difficult years for teacher development and retention within the profession.
Moving from the novice teacher's earliest concerns about standing at the Big Desk, the author now addresses the beginning teacher's instructional issues, offering guidance on 15 teaching topics, including student learning groups, instructional pacing, open-ended questioning, grading, motivators, keeping an ear to classroom tone (and undertone), and more.
Five sample lessons are offered and analyzed in core curriculum areas to illustrate teaching methods as practiced by master teachers, and the book closes with a variety of challenges critical to the emerging teacher's resilience and success. The author's tone throughout is engaging, humorous, and encouraging, with a focus on the rewards of having chosen the teaching profession, making this an ideal resource for teacher induction, mentoring, and support programs.
"Provides motivation and a sense of commitment even to a veteran teacher (me!)...a book I will refer to often, as well as use for the teachers I mentor."
"Offers encouraging, uplifting advice and support to help teachers remember the purpose and importance of their profession...The examples and vignettes offer a wealth of fresh, energizing techniques, along with ideas to pump life into stale and chalky routines. Thanks for the inspiration!"
"Provides a resource for developing teachers to reflect on their current practices and craft, identify areas of strength and needed change, and provides a beacon for knowing when they are becoming master teachers."
"I put down the book feeling proud to be a teacher...someone understands that I care more about my students than about politics, money, or prestige, and that my focus on students has inherent worth far beyond a paycheck!"
"Offers intellect, relevant statistics, human examples, teacher stories, witty analogies, practical solutions, and most of all, hope for those at any point in their teaching career...what I am most impressed with is that the author does not continually blame the system or others but gently reminds us, chapter after chapter, that just as our students come to the pivotal point of taking responsibility for learning, we as teachers must look inward and reflect upon our responsibility to really, really do the teaching."
"Belmonte offers advice on how to become a grounded teacher by advocating discussions instead of lectures and profiling the techniques of teaching veterans."
"Teaching on Solid Ground really is an overall ‘reader friendly’ reference and guide for becoming an ideal and appropriate teacher, very strongly recommended to all teachers, new and experienced, for its exclusive ability to relate to its readers and its deeply accurate reasoning for taking its recommended approaches."
"Both new and experienced teachers will enjoy Belmonte's humorous and heartfelt reflections on the rewards of teaching. The author focuses on 15 ways to master classroom pacing, outlines 5 sample lessons, and suggests reflective approaches to testing, bridging the achievement gap, and other challenges."