An Imaginative Approach To Teaching

In this book, award-winning educator Kieran Egan shows how we can transform the experience of K-12 students and help them become more knowledgeable and more creative in their thinking. At the core of this transformative process is imagination which can become the heart of effective learning if it is tied to education's central tasks. An Imaginative Approach to Teaching is a groundbreaking book that offers an understanding of how students' imaginations work in learning and shows how the acquisition of cognitive tools drives students' educational development. This approach is unique in that it engages both the imagination and emotions. The author clearly demonstrates how knowledge comes to life in students' minds if it is introduced in the context of human hopes, fears, and passions. To facilitate this new educational approach, the book includes a wide variety of effective teaching tools - such as story, rhythm, play, opposition, agency, and meta-narrative understanding - that value and build upon the way children understand their experiences. Most important, Egan provides frameworks for lesson planning and more than a dozen sample lessons to show how teachers can use these tools to awaken intelligence and imagination in the classroom.

Introduction : imagination underfoot -- A tool kit for learning : story, metaphor, binary opposites, rhyme, rhythm, and pattern, jokes and humor, mental imagery, gossip, play, mystery, embryonic tools of literacy -- A tool kit for literacy : sense of reality, extremes of experience and limits of reality, association with heroes, sense of wonder, collectuins and hobbies, knowledge and human meaning, narrative understanding, revolt and idealism, changing the context, literate eye, embryonic tools of theoretic thinking -- A tool kit for theoretic thinking : sense of abstract reality, sense of agency, grasp of general ideas and their anomalies, search for authority and truth, meta-narrative understanding -- Conclusion : imagination every day -- Appendix A. Mythic framework -- Appendix B. Romantic framework -- Appendix C. Philosophic framework.

This book is about imaginative approaches to teaching and learning school science. Its central premise is that science learning should reflect the nature of science, and therefore be approached as an imaginative/creative activity. As such, the book can be seen as an original contribution of ideas relating to imagination and creativity in science education. The approaches discussed in the book are storytelling, the experience of wonder, the development of ‘romantic understanding’, and creative science, including science through visual art, poetry and dramatization. However, given the perennial problem of how to engage students (of all ages) in science, the notion of ‘aesthetic experience’, and hence the possibility for students to have more holistic and fulfilling learning experiences through the aforementioned imaginative approaches, is also discussed. Each chapter provides an in-depth discussion of the theoretical background of a specific imaginative approach (e.g., storytelling, ‘wonder-full’ science), reviews the existing empirical evidence regarding its role in the learning process, and points out its implications for pedagogy and instructional practices. Examples from physical science illustrating its implementation in the classroom are also discussed. In distinguishing between ‘participation in a science activity’ and ‘engagement with science ideas per se’, the book emphasizes the central role of imaginative engagement with science content knowledge, and thus the potential of the recommended imaginative approaches to attract students to the world of science.

An eminently practical guide, Teaching as Story Telling shows teachers how to integrate imagination and reason into the curriculum when planning classes in social studies, language arts, mathematics, and science. In his innovative book, Kieran Egan refashions the ancient function of the storyteller with such clarity that any teacher can step into the role with confidence. Not only does Egan's book make the reader look anew at what is too often taken for granted about the ways in which children learn, it opens up a range of critical questions about our orientation to "objectives" and to either/ors when it comes to the affective and the cognitive. - Back cover.

This engaging book presents a frontal attack on current forms of schooling and a radical rethinking of the whole education process. Kieran Egan, a prize-winning scholar and innovative thinker, does not rail against teachers, administrators, or politicians

Meaningful, lasting learning comes from childlike curiosity and play. The approach of this book is to make relgious instruction fun, spontaneous and deeply spiritual. Godly Play is a practical yet innovative approach to religious education--becoming childlike in order to teach children.

Now that art is a National Curriculum subject, teachers are looking for useful approaches to the teaching of art. This book offers an approach that has been developed by the three authors and has been shown, through research in schools, to improve

Master the 3 + 3 = 33 equation for successful first days at school-at any grade level! Research shows that time invested during the first three weeks of school to teach Routines, Rubrics, and Rules-the three R′s-leads to higher student achievement throughout the remaining 33 weeks of school, or 3 + 3 = 33. This wonderfully practical and effective new book from bestselling author Elaine McEwan will help any teacher through those critical weeks and show how truly "with-it" teachers (WITs) can manage more easily the three critical facets of every teacher′s day: classroom management and organization, student engagement, and time management. WITs from K-12 classrooms share their specific personal routines, rubrics and rules to help you survive and thrive in those first three weeks of school, including Designing and organizing your classroom to support learning Teaching routines, rubrics, and rules to maximize learning time Creating organizational, academic, and social routines Choosing rules and rewards to build character and motivation Using the "With-It" teacher list, including attention-getters, noise-breakers, timesavers, routines, and homework helpers With the power of 3 + 3 = 33, and the secrets of WITs, you can chart a sure-footed course for those all-important first weeks of school, and help guide your students successfully through the school year!