The new teacher's handbook for understanding the roles, responsibilities, and relationships of teaching! Teaching is one of the most exciting careers you can choose. It’s also one of the most challenging, especially when you are first stepping into your new classroom. Presenting time-tested strategies specifically for new classroom instructors, Starting Strong, Second Edition, is the ideal survival guide for navigating through your crucial first year of teaching. Starting at the beginning, the authors offer basic classroom layout suggestions for an optimal learning environment and frameworks any novice teacher can use to establish procedures that promote positive individual and group behavior. Moving from classroom management to instructional responsibilities, this indispensable resource offers clear guidelines for designing curriculum and instruction and methods for effective assessment. Additional how-to features include: • Samples of oral and written communication for parents and colleagues • Ways to create classroom newsletters • Techniques for using Web sites for interactive learning • Reflection questions for teachers at the end of each chapter With plenty of food-for-thought ideas to evaluate your own practice, this invaluable text helps teachers gain confidence and competence and reduce stress during that all-important first year!