What Does This Look Like in the Classroom?: Bridging the gap between research and practice

by Carl Hendrick, Carl Hendrick, Robin Macpherson

Educators around the world are uniting behind the need for the profession to have access to more high-quality research and evidence to do their job more effectively. But every year thousands of research papers are published, some of which contradict each other. How can busy teachers know which research is worth investing time in reading and understanding? And how easily is that academic research translated into excellent practice in the classroom.
In this thorough, enlightening and comprehensive book, Carl Hendrick and Robin Macpherson ask 18 of today's leading educational thinkers to distill the most up-to-date research into effective classroom practice in 10 of the most important areas of teaching.The result is a fascinating manual that will benefit every single teacher in every single school, in all four corners of the globe.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

Published May 16, 2023

Reviews

[Nic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I now read anything with Daisy Christodolou in it. Very practical and accessible read for all teachers. Pedagogical and assessment research tends to be obscured in a lot of academic jargon and this book really demystifies a lot of common misconceptions AND affirms intuitive teaching practices.

[Zdenek Kubik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Další kniha, z jejíhož "úvodního slova" se na vás usmívá Martin Roman, někdejší šéf ČEZu a podnikatel v oblasti výběrového školství pro boháče. Nepochybuji o tom, že ani tuto knihu nečetl, protože by tím pádem její překlad jen stěží podpořil. Kniha může být dobrá tak nanejvýš pro britského učitele po brexitu. Stejně jako Responzivní hodnocení je zpátečnická a ačkoliv se to snaží skrývat, vzývá herbartovské školství. Nicméně několik ojedinělých nápadů si z ní odnést při pečlivém čtení můžete. NEDOPO!

[Marek Lisý · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knížka, která vám nedá úplně detailní vhled do žádné z vybraných oblastí, ale ukáže, jakým směrem se v nich ubírá výzkum, dá spoustu nápadů a může vám ve více ohledech změnit pohled na různé oblasti vyučování, od příprav, přes známkování a testování až po digitální technologie. Kniha je poměrně krátká, takže bych ji doporučil každému, kdo si chce aktualizovat některé své pedagogické názory do 21. století.

[North Landesman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liked this book a great deal. The essays are good and the discussions are fun. Read like a Research Ed conference in book form. Well written and clear by Hendrick. I especially liked the ideas on teacher workload and retrieval practice. Recommended for teachers only. My only issue: as an American reader the British acronyms are unnecessary and unexplained.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent distillation of the educational research as it applies to teachers’ most pressing questions about what actually works and doesn’t work in the classroom. I especially liked how they organized the book: they divided the book into different topics and had experts in those different topics answer real questions from teachers. Teachers need more books like this!

[Bolexio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of research

[Georgina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential Reading. Anyone currently teaching, considering teaching or leading in education needs to read this book. Reflect on the key messages and put the knowledge it provides into practice.

[Oskars Kaulēns · Rating 5 out of 5]

ļoti labi aktualizē dažus no lielajiem jautājumiem izglītībā.

[Alice Visser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leading experts in pedagogy have worked together to create this book; the literacy and assessment/feedback chapters were particularly interesting.

[Michael Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessible language for teachers and the text's structure allows you to focus on areas that are important to you and skip area's that are not.

[Jacob Ortwein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Practical applications for teaching based on research. A much needed book in education.
Motivation was useful, especially the part about Success equals motivation. Challenge needs to be appropriate.

[Jon Margetts · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Hendrick writes at the beginning of What Does This Look Like in the Classroom?, teaching has seemingly suffered from a series of debilitating fads that have endangered learning outcomes in the classroom, and have increased the workload of stress of the teaching community, This has arguably lead to an exodus of new and experienced teachers alike from the profession. Having emerged from a year of university-based training in 2017, it was obvious that many of these myths, including learning styles, intelligent types, group-work, and 21st century skills were still being peddled, if not by lecturers who should know better then by current practitioners who have known no different and do not have appropriate access to implementable and actionable research. It took the multiplicity of opinion and debate on Twitter for me to cut through the haze of tired and ineffectual practise, and start developing as a stronger and more efficient teacher. I'm not there yet by any stretch of the imagination, but theories learnt have already seemingly set me on a straight and focused course to success.

The beauty of this book by Hendrick and MacPherson is how the two authors distill the ten most pertinent areas of current practise into concrete, useful and readable chunks by way of interviewing 18 leading educational thinkers. The interviewees consist of significant heavyweights in the teaching world, including most notable Paul Kirschner, Dylan Wiliam, Daisy Christodoulou, Doug Lemov, Tom Bennett, Alex Quigley, Martin Robinson, Lucy Crehan -- the list goes on. All participants are readable, knowledgeable and challenging. I'm quite sure any current teacher, old and new, could pick up this book and develop their understanding of how to implement the research. Advice isn't clouded in a miasma of references or oblique vocabulary, but in demonstrably useful language and accessible layout. With this book, teachers no longer need to dip their toes into what might be seen as the confrontational world of Twitter, and have the knowledge ready to go at any time.

But, not only is this book accessible and relevant, the content is of the highest quality. The chapters on Assessment and Feedback, Psychology and Memory, Classroom Talk and Questioning, and Learning Myths are particularly helpful in how they cut through the nonsense sometimes touted and focus on what makes the difference to learners. For example, low-stakes high-frequency knowledge quizzes are far more useful a way of learning than summative tests which, despite giving students (and parents!) a signpost as to where they are, are notoriously poor at developing learning. When giving feedback, focus on how the student can improve in the future. All valuable advice, especially in the face of teacher expectations to individually mark and comment on each piece of work by every student.

All in all, this book should come highly, highly recommended. I don't see why it shouldn't be compulsory reading material in the ITT classroom; not least of all to provide trainees with a launchpad from which they can explore narrower areas of educational thought, but also to give a detailed, insightful and necessary glimpse into what works in the classroom: a clear "road map" for ensuring greater pupil outcomes.