Graham Nuthall
The Hidden Lives of Learners takes the reader deep into the hitherto
undiscovered world of the learner. It explores the three worlds which together
shape a student’s learning – the public world of the teacher, the highly
influential world of peers, and the student’s own private world and experiences.
What becomes clear is that just because a teacher is teaching, does not mean
students are learning.
Using a unique method of data collection through meticulous recording -audio,
video, observations, interviews, pre and posttests - and the collation and
analysis of what occurred inside and outside the classroom, Graham Nuthall has
definitively documented what is involved for most students to learn and retain a
concept. In the author’s lifetime the significance of his discoveries and the
rare mix of quantitative and qualitative methods were widely recognised and
continue to be one of the foundation stones of evidence-based quality education.
This book is the culmination of Professor Graham Nuthall’s forty years of
research on learning and teaching. It is written with classroom teachers and
teachers of teachers in mind. But realising time was short and that his life’s
work was laid out in learned papers for fellow researchers, he wrote this brief
but powerful book for a much wider audience as well: for all those who seek a
better understanding of classroom learning.
After completing his PhD at the University of Illinois, Graham Nuthall
returned to take up academic positions at the University of Canterbury New
Zealand. Throughout his long and distinguished career he continued to work
closely with his academic colleagues in the USA and other countries
He served on the editorial boards of international journals including Journal
of Education for Teaching, Social Psychology of Education, Journal of Classroom
Interaction and was Joint Editor of Teaching and Teacher Education: an
International Journal of Research and Studies. His work has been translated into
several languages and he was a visiting fellow at Stanford, London, Illinois and
other universities. The recipient of many awards including The Royal Society of
New Zealand’s Science and Technology Medal, The McKenzie Award for Excellence in
Research in Education, Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, his students
and those he worked with remember him as warm, empathetic, and inspiring.
"Teachers who care about students and learning will be fascinated
by the student voices that speak on the pages of this book, and what those
voices reveal about learning in classroom settings, The Hidden Lives of Learners
is a generous gift from Graham Nuthall to teachers everywhere."
- Greta
Morine-Dershimer
NZCER Press, 2007
ISBN 978-1-877398-24-7 | 
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