Teaching Adolescents: Educational Psychology as a Science of Signs.

Employing a theoretical approach based on semiotics, Teaching Adolescents complements traditional educational psychology textbooks. Rather than focusing on observable behaviours of students, Smith encourages teachers to look for the meanings (or signs) of those behaviours. Smith terms his approach psychosemiotics, which is the study of how humans learn, understand, and use the signs of culture. Signs and semiotics are applied throughout the text, such as signs of exceptionality, signs of an excellent teacher, and signs of learning.

The text is divided into five sections, beginning with “A Semiotic View of Schooling and Teaching,” which serves as an introduction to semiotics and how this strategy can inform pedagogy. Other sections include “Signs in Communication and Classroom Management,” with a focus of nonverbal behaviour, classroom setup, as well as discipline issues, and “Biological and Cultural Signs in Adolescence,” applying psychological theory such as Kohlberg and Erikson, plus an overview of adolescent physical development. The last two sections, “Applying Signs at the Teaching Learning Interface” and “Cultural Signs Beyond the Classroom,” address emotion and motivation and childhood exceptionality, plus concentrate on community and cultural factors, as well as what makes an expert teacher.

Chapters begin with case studies or reflections from teachers that illustrate the concepts discussed, and each chapter concludes with resources and selected readings. Each chapter includes “Projects,” which are reflection activities for the reader, as well as numerous tables that compare theoretical approaches or review stage theories, such as Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning. Chapters also include a “Tips for Teachers” section, which provides practical recommendations for improving classroom climate and dealing with specific pedagogical or discipline challenges.

This book is a functional resource for pre-service teachers, as well as novice or veteran teachers who are working with adolescents. Although educational psychology theory is reviewed in a few chapters, Teaching Adolescents cannot be used as a substitute for a comprehensive educational psychology textbook. However, this resource provides a much more in-depth method to teaching adolescents specifically and is very useful supplement to a traditional text, especially for teachers of secondary students in Canadian schools.