Class Acts are part-opening vignettes from real pre-service and in-service teachers that give students a personal insight into why people become teachers.
Portfolio Building
Inter-missions are innovative part-ending sections which help students reflect on teaching, build a portfolio, and enhance their understanding of the text's concepts. The numerous portfolio activities, keyed to INTASC standards, give the student many opportunities to reflect on the reading and what being a teacher really means.
News Stories
In the News is a feature which provides education-related stories from relevant news and media sources.
Visual History
Photos in Contrast offer visual evidence of how education is shaped by time, economics, and culture.
Student Aids
Focus Questions and Chapter Previews prepare students for the material ahead.
Main Ideas
Chapter Summaries and Key Terms and People are student aids that pull together the main ideas discussed in each chapter.
Multicultural
A Thorough Multicultural Focus - Special attention is given to the topic of student diversity, possibly the single most critical issue facing our schools and society in the decades ahead. Student Diversity (Chapter 4) has been thoroughly updated and diversity has been integrated throughout the text to truly reflect its role in all educational issues.
Technology
Technology in Education - A new Technology in Education chapter (Chapter 14) offers insights into the latest computer technologies and their use in schools and the new ways, such as through the virtual classroom, technology is influencing education today. Technology coverage has been greatly expanded throughout the text with Internet citations and technology references.
Induction
Your First Classroom - This new chapter (Chapter 15) explores and addresses the issues new teachers will face with their initial teaching experiences and their own first classroom, something that all future teachers are curious about.
Governing and Financing
Governing and Financing America's Schools chapters have been combined to create an efficient, integrated look at these aspects of education.
Ethics
The School Law chapter has been retitled School Law and Ethics and reshaped to include an extended discussion of ethics.
Choice Issues
The chapter on Schools and Beyond now includes more on choice and options issues.
Educational Equality
The discussion of Women's Struggle for Educational Equality has been reorganized.
Proven Features
Creative Presentations
A deliberately informal and highly engaging writing style is punctuated throughout with interesting sidebars: pro and con balance sheets, illustrative vignettes, self-assessment quizzes, and personal portraits.
Issues Orientation
Over 50 contemporary issues are discussed throughout the text. A special guide to these issues is included in the book's front matter.
Observation Handbook
A forty-page observation handbook at the end of the book provides both general guidelines and specific activities for observing in schools and classrooms. It is ideal for introductory courses that have a field component.
