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.