A student’s long-term success depends on many things that have little to do with the classroom, including health, safety and a place to call home. Let's be clear: parents have a bigger influence on their children than schools do.

But when it comes to school, nothing matters more than the teacher. The next few lessons explore models of educational change related to improving the effectiveness of teachers and teaching.

What helps a teacher to be effective? The answer covers many different aspects of the profession, including who is recruited into teaching, how teachers are prepared, how they are compensated, what they do to improve their practice once they are in the classroom, and how their work is evaluated. This section of Ed100 takes on each of these topics separately, but of course none of them really stands alone. Rather, they all represent important aspects of what it takes to make sure that every child is taught by a qualified, effective professional.

What's in this Chapter?

We convinced Jeff to narrate a short video preview of each lesson. We hope you get a kick out of the awkward expressions we captured him in...