These sixteen fascinating essays investigate how political, economic and material changes in the sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe also transformed the perception of nature, ideas about science, art and technology. Topics include:
* the Dutch tulip-mania of 1637
* alchemy and commercial exchange in the Holy Roman Empire
* the role of merchants in the origins of the Wunderkammer
* and Spanish sea charts and territorial claims.

This book investigates the ways in which pre-service teachers develop and articulate their professional knowledge by presenting their reflections on contemporary issues and topics they have explored during their own teaching practicums. It uses reflective practice to connect pre-service teachers' personal backgrounds with their placement experience concerning a self-selected topic, including teacher educators' reflections on the pre-service teachers' reports on these placement topics. By illustrating the broad range of issues encountered by pre-service teachers, sharing multiple perspectives on the complexity of classroom practice, and demonstrating the importance of reflective practice, it also provides a valuable mentoring framework. Moreover, the book studies how examining pre-service teachers' life experience can facilitate in-depth understanding, specifically in the context of pre-service teachers' reflections on their own practices in different educational settings. In short, the book helps current and prospective pre-service teachers and teacher educators get to know their students and themselves better using reflective practice.

This book presents thirty-one accounts by final-year pre-service teachers, providing guidance and insights for less advanced teacher education students, and illustrating the use of life history and narrative stories as methods for pre-service teachers to explore educational issues in classroom practice. This life-history approach identifies those political, economic, and social forces that have impinged on the individual at different points in their life and contributed to the process of changing their identities. These stories are not written by established specialists in the areas they deal with, but instead by novice teachers at the beginning of their paths towards mastering the intricacies of teaching and learning in school settings. As such the book provides a mentoring framework and a means of helping pre-service teachers share their valuable experiences and insights into aspects such as how to manage practicum requirements. It helps establish a supportive relationship among pre-service teachers, providing them with access to valuable peer experiences. In addition it helps pre-service teachers make sense of their own practicum experiences and reflect on their own beliefs and professional judgement to develop their approaches and solve problems in their own classroom practice.

This book presents thirty-one accounts by final-year pre-service teachers, providing guidance and insights for less advanced teacher education students, and illustrating the use of life history and narrative stories as methods for pre-service teachers to explore educational issues in classroom practice. This life-history approach identifies those political, economic, and social forces that have impinged on the individual at different points in their life and contributed to the process of changing their identities. These stories are not written by established specialists in the areas they deal with, but instead by novice teachers at the beginning of their paths towards mastering the intricacies of teaching and learning in school settings. As such the book provides a mentoring framework and a means of helping pre-service teachers share their valuable experiences and insights into aspects such as how to manage practicum requirements. It helps establish a supportive relationship among pre-service teachers, providing them with access to valuable peer experiences. In addition it helps pre-service teachers make sense of their own practicum experiences and reflect on their own beliefs and professional judgement to develop their approaches and solve problems in their own classroom practice.

These sixteen fascinating essays investigate how political, economic and material changes in the sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe also transformed the perception of nature, ideas about science, art and technology. Topics include:
* the Dutch tulip-mania of 1637
* alchemy and commercial exchange in the Holy Roman Empire
* the role of merchants in the origins of the Wunderkammer
* and Spanish sea charts and territorial claims.

This book investigates the ways in which pre-service teachers develop and articulate their professional knowledge by presenting their reflections on contemporary issues and topics they have explored during their own teaching practicums. It uses reflective practice to connect pre-service teachers' personal backgrounds with their placement experience concerning a self-selected topic, including teacher educators' reflections on the pre-service teachers' reports on these placement topics. By illustrating the broad range of issues encountered by pre-service teachers, sharing multiple perspectives on the complexity of classroom practice, and demonstrating the importance of reflective practice, it also provides a valuable mentoring framework. Moreover, the book studies how examining pre-service teachers' life experience can facilitate in-depth understanding, specifically in the context of pre-service teachers' reflections on their own practices in different educational settings. In short, the book helps current and prospective pre-service teachers and teacher educators get to know their students and themselves better using reflective practice.

Long hidden in archives, Laura Ingalls Wilder's original handwritten autobiography is a tribute to her family and her experiences as a pioneer. Written for an older audience, Pioneer Girl is her first-person narrative of the settling of Dakota Territory, the building of the railroad west, and life as a pioneer. The stories in this autobiography formed the basis of Wilder's international best-selling autobiographical novels, known as the Little House Series. For the first time, readers will have full access to the original manuscript that began it all. Written in six tablets on lined paper, Pioneer Girl follows the Ingalls family through Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, back to Minnesota, and on to Dakota Territory over a sixteen-year period. Using revised Pioneer Girl manuscripts edited by Wilder's daughter Rose Wilder Lane, letters written between Wilder and Lane, photographs, newspapers, and other sources, Pamela Smith Hill and other editors of the Pioneer Girl Project lead readers through Wilder's early recollections and her first attempts at publication. While Laura Ingalls Wilder is a familiar figure, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography re-introduces readers to the woman who defines the pioneer experience and gives new insight into her motivations and experiences. For more information visit: www.pioneergirlproject.org

In Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life, Pamela Smith Hill delves into the complex and often fascinating relationships Wilder formed throughout her life that led to the writing of her classic Little House series. Using Wilder's stories, personal correspondence, an unpublished autobiography, and experiences in South Dakota, Hill has produced a historical-literary biography of the famous and much-loved author. Following the course of Wilder's life, and her real family's journey west, Hill provides a context, both familial and literary, for Wilder's writing career. Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life is the first book in the South Dakota Biography Series, which highlights some of the state's most famous residents.