James Johnson

Introduction to Teaching: Helping Students Learn provides students and instructors with the tools with which they can achieve the many goals of today's Introduction to Education course or its equivalent. The book introduces prospective teachers to the dynamic world of teaching and learning and to the realities of the classroom experience by providing engaging student-focused activities, rich real-life examples, and thoughtful reflective exercises that will encourage students to think critically and to develop their own ideas and personal philosophy of education. This active learning approach enables prospective teachers to develop both a knowledge core about education and the critical tools they will need to meet the challenges they will face as educators in today's fast-paced, highly connected society. By exposing students to the realities of teaching, the book will help students decide if teaching is the right career for them. This text is built around two themes that are central to an exploration of the professional education field: student learning and diverse voices. As students consider a teaching career, it is important that they not lose sight of what is the most fundamental goal of education—to help students learn. The text will encourage students to examine each aspect of education as it relates to student learning. Additionally, as students explore the possibilities in being a teacher, they will begin to develop their own philosophy of education. This text will provide the prospective teacher with opportunities to explore multiple perspectives on a variety of issues of importance to today's teachers, and encourage the reader to develop his or her own personal voice as an educator and to make that voice heard in the educational community.

Respected play scholars James Johnson and James Christie join esteemed author Francis Wardle in this exciting new text on the theorising and research of childhood play. Play is the universal language of childhood. In order to converse with new generations of children, today's teachers must prepare themselves and learn how this form of communication can be adapted to the classroom. Play, Development, and Early Education, challenges the reader to discover what play is and how to incorporate it into a curriculum for children from toddlerhood through the primary grades. Utilising three major ideas—the quality of play in early childhood, play as a means of self-expression, and play as a channel of communication to achieving social sense—the authors examine the beliefs, perspectives, and theories relating to play and what effects culture, media and technology have on play. In addition, the text addresses the role of parents in supporting and elaborating play, the direct connections between research and play practice, and the value of play in relation to the total development (cognitive, affective, emotional, social, and physical) of all children.