Throughout the world, the challenges facing modern education are formidable. Although some of the challenges facing are unique to each educational jurisdiction, there are also some important commonalities that transcend jurisdictions. Irrespective of the nature of these challenges, there is an increasing focus on teacher quality – what it is and how to enhance it. To date, research tells us what expert teachers should be doing in their classrooms. This approach is based on the idea that teaching expertise is nothing more than the accumulation of specific skills and knowledge, and as teachers acquire these skills and knowledge most of our educational challenges can be overcome. This book questions this idea by asking 37 teachers who are already recognised as experts to share their classroom secrets. Importantly, the teachers come from diverse cultural contexts, including Australia, Finland, Hong Kong and the US, and they share: how they became expert teachers; their expectations for every student when they enter their classroom; how they view and encourage teacher–parent partnerships; and what skills and knowledge they consider important for expert teaching. To our knowledge, this is the first book that compares and contrasts the approaches taken by expert teachers from four very different cultural groups. The book helps to demystify the work of the modern teacher – what they do and the challenges they face. If you aspire to be an expert teacher, this book provides a clear model of how to approach the process. If you are an education researcher searching for ‘impact’, this book outlines what are some of the emerging hot topics in education research. If you are involved in teacher education then this book offers some new approaches to initial teacher education. If your focus is on educational policy, this book helps make sense of the links between the classrooms of expert teachers, education research and academic achievement. Finally, this book will help parents understand how best to partner with their child’s teacher in order to enhance their learning.

Throughout the world, the challenges facing modern education are formidable. Although some of the challenges facing are unique to each educational jurisdiction, there are also some important commonalities that transcend jurisdictions. Irrespective of the nature of these challenges, there is an increasing focus on teacher quality - what it is and how to enhance it. To date, research tells us what expert teachers should be doing in their classrooms. This approach is based on the idea that teaching expertise is nothing more than the accumulation of specific skills and knowledge, and as teachers acquire these skills and knowledge most of our educational challenges can be overcome. This book questions this idea by asking 37 teachers who are already recognised as experts to share their classroom secrets. Importantly, the teachers come from diverse cultural contexts, including Australia, Finland, Hong Kong and the US, and they share: how they became expert teachers; their expectations for every student when they enter their classroom; how they view and encourage teacher-parent partnerships; and what skills and knowledge they consider important for expert teaching. To our knowledge, this is the first book that compares and contrasts the approaches taken by expert teachers from four very different cultural groups. The book helps to demystify the work of the modern teacher - what they do and the challenges they face. If you aspire to be an expert teacher, this book provides a clear model of how to approach the process. If you are an education researcher searching for 'impact', this book outlines what are some of the emerging hot topics in education research. If you are involved in teacher education then this book offers some new approaches to initial teacher education. If your focus is on educational policy, this book helps make sense of the links between the classrooms of expert teachers, education research and academic achievement. Finally, this book will help parents understand how best to partner with their child's teacher in order to enhance their learning.

In the belief that power is something that is negotiated by participants in the instructional process and with the goal of understanding how communication and power interact, this book looks at power and instruction in many different ways. Drawing from the lessons of the social sciences generally, it examines research that has been conducted by instructional communication specialists, looks at newer approaches to power, presents a status report on what is now known, and points to the divergent directions that offer opportunities for future scholarship.

“A significant contribution to understanding the interaction among teachers, students, the environment, and the content of learning” (Herbert Kohl, education advocate and author). What is at work in the mind of a five-year-old explaining the game of tag to a new friend? What is going on in the head of a thirty-five-year-old parent showing a first-grader how to button a coat? And what exactly is happening in the brain of a sixty-five-year-old professor discussing statistics with a room full of graduate students? While research about the nature and science of learning abounds, shockingly few insights into how and why humans teach have emerged—until now. Countering the dated yet widely held presumption that teaching is simply the transfer of knowledge from one person to another, The Teaching Brain weaves together scientific research and real-life examples to show that teaching is a dynamic interaction and an evolutionary cognitive skill that develops from birth to adulthood. With engaging, accessible prose, Harvard researcher Vanessa Rodriguez reveals what it actually takes to become an expert teacher. At a time when all sides of the teaching debate tirelessly seek to define good teaching—or even how to build a better teacher—The Teaching Brain upends the misguided premises for how we measure the success of teachers. “A thoughtful analysis of current educational paradigms . . . Rodriguez’s case for altering pedagogy to match the fluctuating dynamic forces in the classroom is both convincing and steeped in common sense.” —Publishers Weekly

Why top scholars make the best university leaders Socrates in the Boardroom argues that world-class scholars, not administrators, make the best leaders of research universities. Amanda Goodall cuts through the rhetoric and misinformation swirling around this contentious issue—such as the assertion that academics simply don't have the managerial expertise needed to head the world's leading schools—using hard evidence and careful, dispassionate analysis. She shows precisely why experts need leaders who are experts like themselves. Goodall draws from the latest data on the world's premier research universities along with in-depth interviews with top university leaders both past and present, including University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann; Derek Bok and Lawrence Summers, former presidents of Harvard University; John Hood, former vice chancellor of the University of Oxford; Cornell University President David Skorton; and many others. Goodall explains why the most effective leaders are those who have deep expertise in what their organizations actually do. Her findings carry broad implications for the management of higher education, and she demonstrates that the same fundamental principle holds true for other important business sectors as well. Experts, not managers, make the best leaders. Read Socrates in the Boardroom and learn why.

In this revolutionary book, a renowned computer scientist explains the importance of teaching children the basics of computing and how it can prepare them to succeed in the ever-evolving tech world. Computers have completely changed the way we teach children. We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers. Technology changes every day, but the basic ways that computers can help us learn remain. For thousands of teachers and parents who have sought creative ways to help children learn with computers, Mindstorms is their bible.

How academics and researchers can influence education policy: putting research in a policy context, finding unexpected allies, interacting with politicians, and more. Scholarly books and journal articles routinely close with policy recommendations. Yet these recommendations rarely reach politicians. How can academics engage more effectively in the policy process? In Teach Truth to Power, David Garcia offers a how-to guide for scholars and researchers who want to influence education policy, explaining strategies for putting research in a policy context, getting “in the room” where policy happens, finding unexpected allies, interacting with politicians, and more. Countering conventional wisdom about research utilization (also referred to as knowledge mobilization), Garcia explains that engaging in education policy is not a science, it is a craft—a combination of acquired knowledge and intuition that must be learned through practice. Engaging in policy is an interpersonal process; academics who hope to influence policy have to get face-to-face with the politicians who create policy. Garcia’s experience as trusted insider, researcher, and political candidate make him uniquely qualified to offer a roadmap that connects research to policy. He explains that academics can leverage their content expertise to build relationships with politicians (even before they are politicians); demonstrates the effectiveness of the research one-pager; and shows how academics can teach politicians to be champions of research.