Teaching Challenges in Secondary Schools

Book excerpt: This case study book serves as a valuable tool for professors and instructors of educational psychology. It contains 17 cases that represent current areas of interest in Educational Psychology embedded within current challenges that teachers face in today’s middle and high school classrooms. The cases are organized into six major parts: Human Development, Individual Differences and Diversity, Learning Theories, Motivation, Classroom Management, Instructional Approaches, and Assessment and Evaluation.Each case describes a detailed teaching scenario written from either the student or the teachers’ perspective. To engage students in critical thinking, perspective-taking, analysis, problem solving and decision-making, the cases have been intentionally written without a conclusion. Because the cases are open-ended, it allows the professor or instructor more flexibility and autonomy in how they use the cases. Each case is followed by thought-provoking questions, highlighting the significant issues in the case, from which to analyze the case and apply various theoretical viewpoints. While the cases do not replace actual classroom experience, they present a way to immerse students in the classroom’s culture by providing them with real-life teaching examples.