Becoming a Reflective Mathematics Teacher: A Guide for Observations and Self-Assessment: [Book Review]

Reviews the book, Becoming a reflective mathematics teacher: A guide for observations and self-assessment, 2nd Edition by Alice F. Artzt, Eleanor Armour-Thomas, and Frances R. Curcio (2008). This is a book intended to be used actively by preservice and in-service teachers as well as by teacher educators. A tangible sign of its practical character is the set of appendices that make up about a third of the entire text: these contain observation guidelines, rubrics and portfolio guidelines, and blank forms and checklists—all ready for use. But what is a practical guide for teachers? There are few rules or recipes for teaching, especially for the kind of 'student-centered teaching' that the authors endorse. The book comprises three parts. Part I is not so much philosophy as an explication of the authors’ model for how teachers can frame their observations and reflections on their own and others’ teaching practice. Part II of the book is by far the longest part, and rightly so. Besides breathing life into the model presented in Part I, this part most clearly shows us what a practical guide for teaching might be. Part III of Becoming a Reflective Mathematics Teacher is called 'Evidence—The Model in Action.' Weighed in the balance, however, I would say this is a book that should find a warm spot in the libraries of mathematics educators, teachers, and scholars alike. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)