A Mount Saint Mary College Education professor and her former student recently wrote a book to help teacher-candidates make a smooth transition to proactive educators. 
Pedagogy into Practice: A Handbook for New Teachers, written by longtime Mount professor Frances Spielhagen and alumna Nicole Speranzo ’15, MSEd ’17, a special education teacher at Valley Central High School, was published earlier this year by Information Age Publishing.
You can order the book at retailers like Amazon or at this link: https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Pedagogy-into-Practice
Pedagogy into Practice helps new teachers to translate what they have learned in classes into realistic practices. This book will help these candidates put good educational pedagogy to use and understand the connections between theory and practice. It will also explain the logical connections between standard curriculum theory and certification examinations like the edTPA. Pedagogy into Practice also answers the question of how to teach in a virtual setting during the COVID-19 pandemic by offering up-to-date information on virtual learning.
Writing the book “was a labor of love,” explained Spielhagen. “I was particularly pleased to be collaborating with a young educator I had the pleasure of teaching when she was a student at the Mount.”
Spielhagen is no stranger to print: she has written several books, including a series of Latin primers for elementary and middle school children. Casus Fabulae Romanae I follows the life of the title character, Caecilia, in ancient Rome, and includes the full text of the first two volumes of Spielhagen’s Latin curriculum series: Ecce Caecilia et Verusand Caecilia et Verus in Foro Romano. These primers are in use in classrooms and homeschool settings across the United States.
In addition, Spielhagen is a co-director of the Mount’s Center for Adolescent Research and Development (CARD) and was instrumental in establishing the college’s Teach the Change program, which creates opportunities and interest in the teaching profession for first-generation and underrepresented college students. In 2018, Spielhagen earned the Mid-Hudson School Study Council’s Educational Leadership Award.