While grading the final exams for her middle-grades methods class, Ms. Clement realized that, in her own lesson planning, she had been asking the wrong question. AS SIT writing the syllabus for my middle-grades methods class, continue to ask myself, Is this enough? know that mine is just one class and that the students have already succeeded in their courses on introduction to education, educational psychology, and curriculum, or they wouldn't even be in my class. They should already have learned about adolescents, about teacher roles, about the school as a workplace, and about building ties between the school and the community. In my class, they learn how to teach, and my syllabus begins with a unit on lesson planning. They will do assignments in which they compare and contrast plans, and that exercise should help them write usable plans. After all, compare and contrast are at the evaluation level of Bloom's taxonomy. teach one class with my own plan on the overhead projector for the entire time, so that my students see that even college professors write plans. Keep me honest, say. Let me know if leave out any step that have written. They know and know that don't write a plan quite that lengthy for every class teach, but teachers must model. For each class, write a note on the board stating, By the end of this hour you should know about or be able to . We have a great text for this class. It includes 15 instructional strategies and offers minichapters about teaching with technology and incorporating English-as-a-second-language strategies into the teaching methods. In another class, give a short lecture on my hometown. Then we divide into groups, and each group gets to teach some facts about my hometown in an enhanced lecture. The students add visuals, ask higher-level questions, and create clever presentations. They vow never to bore students by being a sage on the stage in front of their classes. They are convincing when they tell me that they will always use active learning. They microteach lessons that involve role playing, case studies, creative thinking, and graphic organizers. Will they remember this, or will they succumb to teaching as they were taught? wonder again. After three weeks, we become a site-based class. We spend a three-hour block every Thursday morning at a local middle school, where each student is assigned to a classroom teacher. They observe classes and write about critical incidents in their journals. They begin to participate in the classes they have been observing, and they even co- teach a little. Then they get to teach three lessons that they have developed. have also taught the cooperating teachers about how to observe and give feedback. The teachers tell me that they conduct a preconference, write verbatim notes, and complete a postconference meeting with the practicum students, and still a few students think that their teacher doesn't understand what they tried so hard to teach. One of each student's three lessons must be videotaped, and, after viewing the tape, the students must reflect on what they would change. I have to lose weight, one reflects. I don't think look like a teacher, another writes, adding that maybe he should grow a moustache to look older. write a few comments on their reflection papers: What were the students doing after you asked the second question? …