The Best Teacher in You ― How to Accelerate Learning and Change Lives

What does teaching look like at its very best? How are great teachers able to ignite a love of learning and change students’ lives? What are the keys to accelerating learning for both teachers and students?The Best Teacher in You provides revealing answers to these important questions. Over the past six years, the authors have worked with highly effective teachers to examine the mindsets, behaviors, and change processes that accelerate and deepen learning. They discovered a common pattern in these teachers’ practices. Highly effective teachers stretch beyond conventional foundations of good teaching, such as content, pedagogy, and classroom management, to transform their classrooms into exciting, dynamic places where teachers and students cocreate the learning experience. These teachers cultivate a classroom community that gives rise to transformative learning. In this book you’ll learn from seven remarkable teachers and their stories of learning and, ultimately, deep change. The authors outline a framework that identifies four dimensions of effective teaching and learning that are integrated in the classrooms of highly effective teachers—you’ll discover how the framework helps you recognize and release the potential in you and others around you. You can begin using the strategies and tools included in the book today to become the best teacher in you.

Robert E. Quinn is the Margaret Elliott Tracy Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan.
Katherine Heynoski is senior specialist, powerful practices.
Mike Thomas is senior director, powerful practices, at Battelle for Kids
Gretchen M. Spreitzer is the Keith E. and Valerie J. Alessi Professor of Business Administration at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Quinn is cofounder, and he and Spreitzer are codirectors, of Ross’s Center for Positive Organizations.