This chapter proposes a differentiated framework for understanding teacher expertise that identifies both the most commonly reported (often shared) features of teacher expertise and those features that seem to vary more, particularly in the global South. Commonly identified features are presented as ‘generalisable’ components alongside ‘variable’ and provisional ‘Southern’ components; elements that are likely to be more commonly encountered in the South due to the frequently shared constraints, challenges and affordances resulting from lower financial investment in education and income across Southern communities. It uses the same 12 structuring categories as Chapter 9 (knowledge base, cognitive processes, beliefs, personal attributes, professionalism, interpersonal practices, languaging practices, lesson planning and preparation, balancing between structure and freedom, interaction dynamics, pedagogic strategies and assessment practices), also justifying the components included in each category briefly. It concludes by discussing a number of potential uses of the framework in teacher education, curriculum development and future expertise research.

This chapter offers a detailed ethnographic description of one of the participant teachers in the study as a concrete example of how teacher expertise may manifest itself in one of the many challenging contexts frequently found in the global South. It begins by summarising key features of her contexts and the challenges she faced in her work, also offering an overview of her personal background and her beliefs about teaching and learning. The chapter then discusses her interpersonal practices (relationships with learners) and her languaging practices – the complex ways in which she and her learners made use of resources from varied languages in the classroom. After this, I discuss how she managed curriculum content, developed resources and planned lessons before offering a detailed account of her classroom practices – how she structured lessons, balanced between whole class and learner-independent activities and offered individual support to learners in large classes. It also offers an account of her knowledge, reflection and professionalism, and closes with brief comparison of her expertise with the findings of prior expertise research, identifying both important similarities and insightful differences. Numerous lesson and interview extracts are provided to support the discussion and claims made.

This chapter addresses two theoretical issues of importance to this book. The first involves ‘Southern theory’ in the social sciences, discussing the extent to which the author’s research may contribute in this emerging area. It argues that, by presenting concrete suggestions for how we may learn ‘from the South’ (not simply ‘about the South’), it may help to provide the foundations for what might be called ‘practical Southern theory’ in the social sciences. Example constructs and terms are offered for how this may be achieved, both from this study and others. The second area of theoretical interest involves how teacher expertise studies may contribute to a wider systematic and sustainable framework for building context-specific understandings of teacher expertise. The proposed framework is oriented around collaborative inquiry and practitioner research and may contribute both to the identification of appropriate good practices for a given context, and to supporting and encouraging practitioner-led (bottom up) teacher professional development within the wider educational system.

This chapter looks at the construct of expertise in detail, investigating how and why it is simultaneously useful yet problematic, arguing that it is, nevertheless, the most appropriate measure of quality among teachers. It begins by looking at prior definitions of expertise in education, identifying two key tendencies within these definitions – tendencies towards norm-referencing and criterion-referencing. Norm-referenced expertise is further subdivided into product-referenced (expertise as outcome) and community-referenced (expertise as role) expertise, and criterion-referenced expertise is subdivided into competence-referenced (expertise as attribute) and process-referenced (expertise as process/practice) expertise. The chapter then goes on to investigate two often-perceived proxies of teacher quality in educational research, teacher effectiveness and teacher experience. It provides extensive evidence to support the assertions that teacher effectiveness is too narrow a construct to encapsulate all that we value in teacher quality and that teacher experience is too wide, and does not correlate consistently enough with quality. It argues that there is a somewhat ‘fuzzy’ nature to the relationship between these three concepts, which necessarily overlap and exhibit porous borders. The chapter concludes by offering a working definition of teacher expertise that is capable of being sufficiently flexible to different communities and value systems around the world.

This chapter begins by exploring the methodological challenges encountered when conducting a teacher expertise study, particularly those challenges that become more prominent when researching in the global South. It then presents a set of minimum requirements for an appropriate, ethical study of expertise in the South, also discussing a continuum of participation from non-participatory to fully participatory research, rather than seeing these as dichotomous. The chapter then summarises the design solution adopted in my own PhD study, including one preparatory stage and seven main stages. As well as discussing participant selection criteria, data collection and analysis procedures, the details of the eight participant teachers and their teaching contexts are also provided. Towards the end of the chapter, full details are given on the quantity and type of data collected, the varied outputs of the study – including the publication co-authored by the eight participant teachers – and the research questions that were investigated. The chapter concludes with a revised and updated overview of participant selection criteria for teacher expertise studies in all contexts worldwide, based on a review of studies conducted to date, supporting Palmer et al.’s (2005) call for multiple criteria selection, yet recommending somewhat different criteria to theirs.

This chapter begins by describing the circumstances and challenges faced by teachers working in the global South, including challenges the learner faces, challenges the teacher faces, challenges within the school environment and challenges of the wider education system, to provide a rounded account of the characteristics that often typify educational systems in low-income countries. It also defines ‘effective teaching’ for this book. The chapter then provides a second detailed literature review, in this case documenting the findings of prior research into effective teaching in low-income contexts worldwide in an attempt to make sense of what research to date seems to tell us about appropriate good teaching practices in the South. It offers observations on aspects of teacher knowledge and beliefs, teacher professionalism and a number of areas of pedagogic practice reported from this body of literature. This review is then briefly compared with the expertise review in Chapter 3. The chapter closes with a critical conclusion, observing that the majority of research into teacher effectiveness in low-income countries either reports on the introduction of exogenous innovations and reforms or focuses on problems and inefficacies in existing provision, rather than attempting to seek out endogenous effective practice.

In Chapter 3 we looked at the ways in which learning theory could provide a lens on the use of digital technology but this is not going to be helpful if technology itself is not being taken up very much in schools, colleges or universities in the first place. In fact, there is an often-reported paradox: technology seems to offer considerable benefits to teachers and learners, teachers are generally keen, or say they are keen, on using it and learners seem motivated by using it so why does technology seem so little used in practice? We turn to looking at ways in which researchers have tried to explain this ‘paradox’. The chapter is divided into five sections:

• • Listing the factors: an under-theorised approach

• • What do we know about school leadership and school reform?

• • Activity theory (a framework on practice)

• • Ecological approaches

• • Theories compared

Listing the factors: an under-theorised approach

When computers were first being introduced in schools, at least into those educational systems which could afford them, understanding the take-up of technology did not seem such a difficult issue. The problem was primarily one of access: there were more teachers wanting to use the machines than machines available. As access grew so would use in the classroom. Research could still be carried out, but this was more about mapping the use of particular tools, for example, showing how to support the revising and editing of writing using a word processor, how to organise groups when working on Logo, how to make use of databases and spreadsheets for interrogating large sets of data and so on. Yet as access grew there were still problems with adoption and it was being noted that computer use by teachers was sporadic and tended to be used for ‘supplementary activities’. Moreover, those supporting computers in education had long argued their use would lead to changes in teaching methods and in ways of accessing information (for example, Watson, 2001). However, such a transformative impact was difficult to detect.

There were then two problems about take-up: technology was not being used enough and technology was not being used as intended.

In Chapter 1 we saw that theory was a multi-faceted concept but carried within it a common idea: theory abstracted from the data in order to explain what was happening and why it was happening. Moreover, a theoretical explanation was expected to contribute to a discourse about technology and learning, and make justifiable, critically aware claims backed up with content knowledge and knowledge of research methodology. This was helpful, but I did not explain how researchers might go about the work of developing theory and, more specifically, how they might move from describing to explaining what they had found. This gap is addressed in this chapter, which looks at theorising. It is divided into three sections, which cover:

• • Describing and explaining: how do they differ?

• • Does theorising require another way of thinking?

• • Is theorising making it up?

Describing and explaining: how do they differ?

What are researchers doing when they are theorising and how does theorising look different to other kinds of research reporting? To address these two questions I begin by focusing on the difference between describing and explaining set out in Chapter 1: describing is about what happened while explaining is about why it happened. Both are core to research output, and the differences between them can be subtle. For example, statisticians talk of descriptive statistics (in contrast to inferential statistics) not only when they categorise data but when they explain by drawing attention to associations between variables, say, in the form of scatter plots or statistical tests. Moreover, qualitative researchers differentiate between thin and thick description. Thin description describes actions as they appear on the surface, while thick description covers the meaning of actions and represents a theoretical contribution in its own right. For example, the discussion of routines in Olson (1988) might be thought of as an example of thick rather than thin description.

It seems then that categories are helpful in drawing attention to different kinds of reporting and the approach I take here is to differentiate between basic, interpretative and analytical description and between narrow and wide types of explanation (see Table 2.1).

If we are looking at the question ‘How can we theorise better?’, then we need to start by looking at the idea of theory. In fact theory is a slippery concept. So what then is theory? I address this and other questions in the following sections:

• • What is the problem with theory?

• • How theory appears in different types of research

• • What is a theoretical contribution and are we making one?

What is the problem with theory?

The problem with discussing theory is that many of us have different ideas as to what theory is and rather than get to the root of these differences we end up avoiding discussion of theory altogether. Thus, the request to be more theoretical in an article, thesis or dissertation can cause unease, even panic, especially for those in practice disciplines such as education. Kiley illustrates this point by citing a doctorate student looking back on the experience of being examined in a viva: ‘people kept asking me about my theoretical perspective, but I didn't have a clue what they were talking about’ (2015: 57).

Rather than being flummoxed by the request for theoretical insight, we could, of course, reject such a request as out of order. After all, most of us who see ourselves as part of an education research community accept the idea that our work should be practical and inform practice, rather than address theoretical questions. To back this up, there is a long tradition that argues what matters to the practitioner is not formal knowledge of teaching, but practical know-how, in particular an understanding of what to do in a new situation by calling up, and reflecting on, past experience. Moreover, the search for theoretical alignment can seem off-putting or even dangerous as it appears all-encompassing. For example, practitioners fear being characterised as aligned to cognitivist, social constructivist or behaviourist positions as they know that their practice is varied and what they do in the classroom is tailored to circumstance.

In this book I set out to inquire into the state of theorising about technology in education and in this final chapter I reflect back on what has been covered and suggest ways in which we can improve the way we theorise. The chapter is divided into three sections:

• • What then is theory?

• • Developing a research community

• • How can we theorise better?

What then is theory?

In the book I have explored both theory and theorising, before going on to look at the ways in which research has been carried out in learning with technology, teaching with technology and technology itself. Many of the examples presented in the book concern technology in schools but informal learning, general engagement with technology, professional learning, preschool and post-school settings are also there. There are areas I could have gone into in greater depth (for example, using AI; technology in particular subject areas; virtual presence and embodiment; policy making; the ‘Internet of Things’) but there is only so much room. As it is, the range of examples enables me to say some things about theory and emphasise again the different meanings attached to it. Indeed, in Chapter 1 I suggested that theory should not be associated with a single kind of research activity; whenever we are noticing and explaining patterns in the use of technology backed up using concepts and ideas from a wider field of study then we are making theory. This very flexible and inclusive view means that many different types of output can be seen as theoretical (see Table 7.1).

Theory works by saying what the important elements are in an intervention or phenomenon and how these different elements fit together. All the examples of research in Table 7.1 achieved this. For example, Teague et al (2015) picked out three stages of development in programming; Ertmer (2005) identified factors that influenced take-up of ICT; Cole and Engestrom (1993) offered a model of an activity system; and Nikolaidou (2012) modelled collaborative interactions. Four different kinds of contributions over time but each allowing what was learnt in one study to be transferred to another.

I have now looked at theories that have emerged, first, to explain the contribution of technology to learning and, second, how teachers use technology. In this chapter I turn to technology itself. In an obvious way the whole book has been about technology but technology deserves a chapter in itself as researchers have not always been explicit or consistent when discussing the user's relationship to digital tools. There are six sections:

• • What is a technocentric view of technology?

• • The idea of an affordance

• • We live in hybrid environments

• • We participate in assemblages of people and objects

• • The social shaping of technology

• • Is the important question: ‘what ought technology to be?’

• • How then should we think about technology?

What is a technocentric view of technology?

The use of a tool will always be influenced by who is using it and the purposes they have in mind, but a technocentric view assumes that there is something invariant, something that remains constant, even as it is used across different contexts. This often means that technocentric writers will see tools as having a power to both disrupt and change existing practice. For example, technocentric writers may see great historical movements as caused by technology inventions: the Enlightenment was made possible by the printing press; the steam engine literally powered the industrial revolution; the internet created the Information Age.

When it comes to education, policy makers have often veered towards a technocentric view of ICT, seeing it as a solution to problems such as access to education, inequality in outcomes and gaps in vocational preparation. Thus, they have often prioritised getting the equipment in schools (and other institutions), believing that this will make a difference, while giving less thought to the support and resources needed for teachers to use new technology on their own terms. A technocentric view, further, distorts the way that technology is evaluated. If we believe that ICT has invariant features then it makes sense to treat it as an ‘independent variable’ and to measure its impact on learning, not worrying too much about the differing contexts in which it is used.

I have looked at theorising learners and learning, teachers and teaching, and finally technology itself in the previous three chapters and I can now step back to consider a wider theme: how far should we see technology, including its impact on education, in positive or negative terms? This represents a change of perspective. This is looking at wider narratives about technology, not just at theories developed within academia. This is important as what we think about technology is heavily influenced by a wider discourse and in this chapter I present two starkly different kinds of narratives. I go on to then suggest that a more balanced approach is possible. I cover:

• • Optimistic accounts of technology

• • Pessimism about technology

• • Comparing optimistic and pessimistic perspectives

Optimistic accounts of technology

The optimistic view is informed by the idea that technology has enabled fantastic scientific and cultural achievements and made us who we are today. Our history as a species is an uninterrupted line of technological development, going right back to the invention of neolithic stone tools. This idea is captured in iconic form in Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film famously begins with an anthropoid monkey that picks up an animal bone, and realises this can be transformed into a tool, in the story the bone becomes a club. With tools begins language and with tools plus language everything is possible. To stress the point, the film fast forwards to a space station of the future; from a simple realisation that artefacts can become tools we end up being able to traverse the universe.

For the optimist, technology makes our lives longer, more comfortable, more varied, more interesting. Tools can be used destructively for sure, but optimists stress our ability to tame baser instincts and channel tool use into creative and unselfish ends. This is captured powerfully in the advertising of digital tools. Apple in the 1980s managed to re-invent personal computing from something geeky or business oriented into something cool. In time Microsoft followed: ‘Where do you want to go today?’