Stobart, Gordon The Expert Learner (033524730X)

Drawing on studies about expertise The Expert Learner highlights the importance of:

• Providing opportunities and support to develop skills
• Being motivated to succeed
• Undergoing extensive deliberate practice
• Building powerful mental models to handle and organise information
• Receiving continuous and effective feedback to improve performance
• Developing self-regulation to monitor performance

With its rich source of ideas for expert teaching and learning, this book looks at some of the ways we can achieve 'wide-awake' thinking in the classroom.

'Highly readable, plenty of examples, and packed with the power of thinking about learning in a way that can make the difference.

This is a book full of optimism - it offers a way to positively think about learning and schools. We are not determined by birth, social status, poverty, wealth ... but we can invest in our learning if we 'think' appropriately. Stobart emphasizes not just practice, but deliberate coached practice, he shows the multiplier effect that comes from seizing opportunities or someone creating opportunities, and he shows the importance of risk taking, deep knowledge, creativity, and developing talk about progress.'
John Hattie, Director, Melbourne Education Research Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia

'If I were to recommend just one book that all teachers, parents, employers and politicians who are interested in education should read, it would be this one. Not only is it full of engaging stories, underpinned by important research, but it goes to the very heart of what it is to be a successful learner and effective teacher. It demolishes the myth of inherited ability as the overriding determinant of achievement and provides an alternative account by unpacking the opportunities, experiences and practices that lead to the development of true expertise. Read it and use the ideas to challenge backward thinking.'
Professor Mary James, University of Cambridge, UK

'With clear arguments and