Education Workforce Council

Teaching Students to Become Self-Determined Learners explores the how and why of self-determined learning and provides practical advice to support educators in motivating their students to become self-determined learners.

When adults learn new things, it is usually because they wish to, or because the subject matter is important to them. That option is often not given to children. Throughout this book, Wehmeyer and Zhao explore the importance of autonomy and choice in learning, discussing how the concept of self-determined learning can reach a wider audience of learners.

Designed to assist educators in providing students with the independence to guide their own learning, this book provides strategies and techniques about how the approach can be implemented.

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Our annual lecture: Professionally Speaking 2022 with Professor Yong Zhao – Students as owners of learning and partners of educational change

In our 2022 lecture, critically acclaimed international thought leader, educator, and renowned author, Professor Yong Zhao, focussed on bringing the learner back to the centre of practice, discussing the significance of learner diversity, learner intention, and learner engagement in educational changes, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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A Toolkit for Action Research is a comprehensive and practical handbook. Suitable for using alone, or alongside other more traditional action research texts, this accessible book provides hundreds of easy to follow frames, tools and templates to support researchers.

Alber’s approach is likely to be particularly useful for less experienced researchers, helping to bridge the gap between theory and real world situations, steering the reader through all stages of their research project- from selecting a topic for study to completing final reports.

In the latest edition of this accessible and engaging book, David Hopkins, a former secondary school teacher, who is currently Chair of Educational Leadership at the University of Bolton (as well has having acted as Chief Advisor on school standards to three secretaries of state) provides a one-stop guide for anyone interested in improving the quality of teaching and learning.

The book outlines how to get started on classroom research and details key principles and methods (including advice on interpreting and analysing data). Hopkins also advises on how to report findings from classroom research projects and explains how research findings can be applied to teaching and learning.

Featuring a range of insightful case studies, A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Research offers friendly and practical advice whilst providing a clear framework for carrying out effective classroom research.

In this inspirational book, Professor Kehinde Andrews looks at how the Black supplementary school movement developed in the UK over a 50-year period. He outlines the dynamic nature of the movement and the role volunteers, teachers, parents, churches and community groups played in developing it.

The book explores the history of supplementary schools, and the experiences of those who have been involved with them. It argues that the movement played a key role in combatting educational inequality and improving the life chances of Black children in mainstream schooling.

‘It's not just about Black and White, miss’ focuses on primary school children’s attitudes towards race and cultural diversity in the UK. In the book, Sally Elton-Chalcraft interviews nine and ten year olds from two mostly white schools and two ethnically diverse schools. In recording their views on race and culture, she found that they had ‘internalised the prevailing western mindset – whatever their own ethnicity’.

The author puts the children’s views into context, using both her observations of school life and teachers’ views and practices. The book is enlightening and enjoyable and, whilst it’s likely to interest primary school teachers and trainees, it’s also food for thought for senior leaders.

This engaging book on the science of learning offers useful advice to teachers, trainers, students and others interested in lifelong-learning and self-improvement, arguing that 'learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow'.

Drawing on cognitive psychology and other fields, Make it Stick suggests techniques for becoming more productive learners and argues these are often counterintuitive. Brown, McDaniel and Roediger also argue that taking a positive attitude towards one’s own abilities and willingness to ‘tackle the hard stuff’ can play a crucial role in enabling an individual to achieve their goals.

What do Amadeus Mozart and David Beckham have in common? This is the question that that Gordon Stobart poses at the beginning of The Expert Learner. Attacking the ‘myth of ability’, Stobart argues that, like many others who achieve excellence within their field, Mozart and Beckham did so largely as a result of practice and tenacity, rather than innate ability or genetic fortune.

The Expert Learner highlights the importance of good teaching practice in developing ability. Using engaging examples from sport, science, medicine and music, Stobart examines the most effective ways of supporting and developing skills and also addresses how teachers (and leaders) can motivate the unmotivated and stretch their higher achieving students.