Becoming an Expert Teacher: Deliberate Practice for Effective Teaching($46.99Value)

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Becoming an Expert Teacher equips educators with the attitudes, skills, and practices they need to reach their full potential and profoundly impact students’ lives. A wealth of research has confirmed the powerful influence high-quality teaching has on student learning and achievement. But what does expert teaching actually look like? How do we begin to define and measure it let alone develop it? This informative and inspirational book distills evidence-informed principles of effective instruction into clear, actionable insights while motivating teachers to commit to the science and craft of expertise. Drawing on evidence from cognitive science, teacher-effectiveness research, and the study of expert performance, the authors show how great teaching is developed―not simply through experience alone, but through purposeful improvement over time. Teachers tend to grow in their practice along three main routes: classroom experience, professional development, and deliberate practice. Experience and professional learning matter, but do not reliably lead to sustained expertise. Over time, growth can slow as routines stabilise. Expert teachers continue to improve through a different path. They engage in deliberate practice: intentional work on specific instructional decisions, refined through feedback and evidence of student learning. Rather than settle for basic competencies and checklists of techniques, readers will gain a deeper understanding of what expert teachers do differently, how they think about teaching and learning, and what they need to do to become expert teachers. What makes great teaching, and can it be measured? Drawing on research evidence and real classroom examples, Nidhi Sachdeva and Paul Kirschner make a persuasive case that great teaching can be developed and measured. Their central argument is that great teaching is built, not innate, and that teachers and students deserve the professional environments where great teaching can thrive. The analogies and stories make this an enjoyable read and contribute to the clarity with which they explain evidence-informed practice. This book is a must-read for teachers who want to improve their practice, administrators who want to create conditions for great teaching, and policymakers looking to reform the systems that make great teaching possible. Anna Stokke, Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Winnipeg We know how surgeons and chess masters and elite athletes become great―but teachers? We've left them to figure it out alone. Sachdeva and Kirschner change that, showing exactly how teaching expertise is built, one deliberate step at a time. Every teacher deserves this book. More importantly, every student does. Barbara Oakley, PhD, co-creator of Learning How to Learn , one of the world's most popular online courses, and author of A Mind for Numbers and Uncommon Sense Teaching Teaching is often described as an art or a calling. This book shows, convincingly, that it is also a discipline, and one that can be studied, practised, and improved. Sachdeva and Kirschner offer a thoughtful and deeply informed guide to what expert teaching looks like and how it develops over time. It will challenge assumptions and sharpen practice in equal measure. If you care about moving beyond “experience” to real expertise, read this. Dr Carl Hendrick, Professor of Applied Sciences, Academica UOAS Teaching expertise is “dynamic and develops over time through deliberate effort, feedback, and professional judgment, shaped by both research-informed principles and lived experience” as the authors of Becoming an Expert Teacher describe, and their book builds a road map for the means by which schools and training organizations can honor teachers and turning their experience reliably and intentionally into expertise. Doug Lemov, author Teach Like a Champion Becoming an Expert Teacher is a welcome, rigorous, and compelling account of what professional expertise in teaching is, and how teachers can become more expert in their practice. Sachdeva and Kirschner have drawn on a wide range of research, including cognitive science, expertise, and teacher professional development, to produce a clear, evidence-informed framework for any teacher, wherever they are in their career, to improve their practice. What I found particularly useful was the structure they have used, with an advance overview, a clear summary of the relevant research, a summary, key take-aways, self-audit checklists (for both teachers and leaders) and well-designed reflection prompts. The result is a rare combination―a guide that is both rigorous and practical. Wherever you are in your career as a teacher, as someone who supports teachers, or as a policymaker, if you care about improving the quality of teaching and learning, you should read this book. Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK Nidhi Sachdeva and Paul Kirschner are bot