Professor John Loughran of Monash University shares his ideas about how to become an expert teacher. Do you agree? What are your individual opinions about how to become an expert teacher? Metacognitive abilities? Ability of selecting among procedures?

There are many theories in this page that we should be interested in in this page as learning sciences students. An example of two groundbreaking research results in learning sciences is (1) Entwistle's Phenomenography theory This conceptual framework focuses on the experience of learning from the student's perspective and is based upon a phenomenological approach to research. Entwistle explains: "Our task is thus to describe more clearly how learning takes place in higher education and to point out how teaching and assessment affect the quality of learning. From these descriptions teachers should be able to draw their own lessons about how to facilitate their students' learning" (Marton, Hounsell & Entwistle, 1984, p.1). (2) Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance. In the case of a discrepancy between attitudes and behavior, it is most likely that the attitude will change to accommodate the behavior.

One of the key issues to look at when examining any Learning Theory is Transfer of Learning. Indeed, this is such an important idea, that it is a field of research in its own right. Researchers and practitioners in this field work to understand how to increase transfer of learning -- how to teach for transfer.

This paper is about functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a groundbreaking research for learning sciences. It allows learning scientists to understand which brain parts are activated during learning. For example "lateralization of brain" hypothesis (it was saying that one hemisphere is responsible for wholistic-creative learning one is for analytical) is refuted using fMRI. Because both hemispheres were active no matter when people engaged in creative thinking or analytical thinking.

Given the option, would you want to think faster and have sharper attention? Please see "more on this story" part at the end of www.bbc.com/health 27343047 page if you are interested in math teaching.