Expert Teachers ─ An International Perspective

The concept of the ‘expert teacher’ is now a global phenomenon. Over the last 20 years the world’s most developed systems have devised policies to identify and deploy the very best teachers. This stems from the recognition that any system, however well resourced, is only as good as its teachers. Governments, often obsessed with ‘Standards’, are prepared to invest significant finances into identifying and rewarding the best teachers, as long as they then raise standards. This overly simplistic view of expert teaching is highly questionable and the book reviews in depth how the value of such teachers can be evidenced in much more subtle and powerful ways.

This book examines the rise of the expert teacher and provides a detailed account of the most successful models. It brings together, for the first time, evidence and research from around the world, to offer a truly international perspective on models of excellent teaching.

Through careful comparative analysis, this book explains the different values and roles of the main expert teacher policies in existence from the Advanced Skills Teacher in England and Australia, the Highly Accomplished Teacher in the USA, the Chartered Teacher in Scotland and more recent models emerging in Europe and Asia. It will be an invaluable resource to anyone interested in understanding how teachers develop, how the effective teacher can become the expert teacher and how a range of countries have created fascinatingly different models in practice.

Andrew Goodwyn is Professor at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, UK

Carol Fuller is Professor at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, UK

Ellie Francis-Brophy is Professor at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, UK