Becoming a Teacher/How to Develop a Professional Portfolio

by Forrest W. Parkay

Current and comprehensive, Becoming a Teacher, Eighth Edition, takes a straightforward look at what it means to be a professional teacher in today's climate of accountability, high-stakes testing, and new government legislation by covering key issues in a personal, interactive, and no-nonsense style. Building upon a strong “mentoring” message that has long been the tradition of Becoming a Teacher, the eighth edition helps students make difficult decisions about their teaching future by fostering an awareness of the realities of teaching in America today. This down-to-earth and straightforward approach provides students with the tools and information necessary to answer the questions, “What does it take to become a high quality teacher?” and “Do I want to teach?” Along the way, the authors provide practical perspectives for meeting the challenges of teaching. Organized into four parts, the book addresses both functional and foundational topics to give readers a well-rounded view of the teaching profession. The new eighth edition contains even more features that the book has long been known for – numerous boxed features authored by experienced teachers and directed to future teachers. The new edition also includes an increased focus on technology and how teachers can engage their students by utilizing and integrating the most current technologies into the classroom.

Genres: Teaching, Textbooks, Education

584 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1989

Reviews

[Celeste]

For those who are being told to buy the 9th or 10th edition for school, this 8th edition seems to be pretty much identical and if this is cheaper for you, definitely go with this. I would recommend comparing the table of contents with classmates or online before buying, though. For me, the 8th edition was identical in terms of the table of contents to the 9th edition that I was told to buy and it was considerably cheaper. It's a very informative book and doesn't sugarcoat teaching or anything surrounding the field, helping you to get a good grasp on whether or not the profession is really something that you'd like to go into.

[Sofia]

This book is a good starter book, but most of the information it covers and provides are common sense and straightforward. If you ever just paid attention to your teachers, and noticed what they did that made you learn in class, you've essentially covered what's in this book.
It's an alright source, but definitely not worth the price charged.

[Rin]

Complete! I might go back and do the optional writings and print out the portfolio ideas for later but I've completed the readings and quizzes!

This was decent. There was a lot of focus on what the Trump Administration did which impacted schools and education, and so I'm sure the next edition will be all about what Biden does and if anything's actually fixed. Anyway idk it's a textbook but it was engaging so...4 stars? That sounds fine.

[P.]

Becoming A Teacher is a great textbook. Anyone who is looking into wanting to become a teacher should review the literature in this textbook before taking the steps towards the process of acquiring a degree in education.

It's very informative, current and give you tons of knowledge about the field.

[Ann Tracy]

Read this for class for the post-degree teacher certification program, and I feel like I learned a lot from it.

[Shelly]

Informative.

[Jennah]

I used this book for a college class that involved quizzes, dicussion posts, midterm, exam and online assignments.

[Katie]

It was a textbook. Enough said.