Here you will find things to help you out as you teach.
Find here the 2008 edition of Breaking it Down: The Basics of Teaching. This is a brief introduction to the theory and practice of teaching, along with some handy tools to use this summer. Please be sure to let me know what you think, and how we can make this tool more useful for you.
The guidebook requires the use of the free Adobe Reader.
- Breaking it Down: Complete Guidebook (PDF-1.8MB)
- Intro: How to Use this Book (PDF-470k)
- Part I: The Breakthrough Movement (PDF-365k)
- Part II: Multicultural Education (PDF-197k)
- Part III: Learning and Teaching (PDF-325k)
- Learning and Teaching Toolkit (DOC-178k)
- Part IV: Lesson Development and Preparation (PDF-395k)
- Lesson Development Toolkit (DOC-262k)
- Part V: Classroom Management (PDF-346k)
- Classroom Management Toolkit (DOC-516k)
- Part VI: Teachers as Learners (PDF-140k)
- Part VII: Education A-Z (PDF-140k)
- Appendix: Appreciations/Bibliography (PDF-140k)
This guidebook is meant to supplement the training and support you will receive from your directors and Mentors during orientation and through the summer. The writing in here is meant to be clear, engaging, and precise, and you would do yourself a favor by reading as much as you can before the summer begins.
Chapters provide solid top-level descriptions of teaching theory, much of which will be familiar to you if you’ve taken any Ed classes. There is also some procedural instruction for developing plans and lessons, and some good things to pay attention to in your classrooms. Following instructional chapters are “Toolkits.” These are worksheets and items to print out and use directly in your planning or teaching. New teachers can lose a lot of hours creating materials from scratch. Experienced teachers know that the thoughtful “borrowing” of lessons and tools is an essential skill that allows you to stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before you. The Toolkits will also be available in an editable Word Doc format, allowing you to personalize printouts for your classes. Whatever you need that isn’t in the toolkit is probably floating around the office somewhere, so be sure to ask your Mentors and directors for help navigating your resource room.
Breaking it Down is an electronic resource that you should have available to refer to time and again throughout your service. You can print the whole thing out, if you choose, you can keep it on your laptop or desktop or in a key drive in your pocket, or you can print out pages and sections as you need them.
It’s no secret that you are the best resources we have for improving our systems and programs, so please be sure to send me your feedback. What could use more clarification? What’s hard to use? What great resources did you create this summer that you think the rest of the Collab could use? Your input will be folded into everything we do here, and good stuff will be shared with the other teachers on TeachBreakthroughs.org, the Breakthrough Teacher Blog.
-Bobby Cupp, Teacher Excellence Specialist
