Our principal concern in this book is to understand three important ideas: learning, technology and innovation, and to examine these ideas and the relationships between them in situ; that is, we examine a number of cases of learning technologies in action in two countries, England and Brazil. The purpose of our study is to provide an explanation of the means to, and constraints on, improvements to educational policies and practices, with particular reference to innovation. We have a plethora of theoretical models that in attempting to deal with causal relations usually come to the conclusion that there are socio-economic-cultural constraints, but these observations largely remain at an abstract level and/or come to very general conclusions that are not of particular help to practitioners in the field. These issues can only be properly addressed after examining the empirical reality and having a spectrum of cases to analyze. By combining the theoretical and the practical, our aim is to explain how and under what conditions new modes of learning can be put into practice successfully and sustainably, in order for the learner to develop innovatory skills and dispositions for work and in the life course.

How do expert teachers do it? How do they enhance student learning? How do they manage the dilemmas and tensions inherent in working with 25 different students in every lesson? Internationally respected teacher educator John Loughran argues that teachers’ knowledge of what they do is largely tacit and often misunderstood. In this book, he distils the essence of professional practice for classroom teachers. Drawing on the best research on pedagogy, he outlines the crucial principles of teaching and learning, and shows how they are translated into practice using real classroom examples. He emphasises that teaching procedures need to be part of an integrated approach, so that they are genuinely meaningful and result in learning. Throughout, he shows how teachers can engage their students in ways that create a real ‘need to know’, and a desire to become active learners. What Expert Teachers Do is for teachers who want to become really accomplished practitioners.