Commentary

Abstract

The question of most interest to me in regard to future use of Graham Nuthall’s exemplary research is how we might best use that research to help prospective teachers begin to understand his activity theory of learning. As Nuthall himself notes, “The underlying problem seems to be that teachers are not only unaware of individual student experience and learning, but also have no procedures for dealing with this lack of awareness” (Nuthall, this volume, p. 131). Given Nuthall’s emphasis on an individual student's experience and learning, a logical place to begin working with prospective teachers would seem to be one of the early field experiences common to many United States teacher education programmes: observing and tutoring an individual student in a basic subject matter area over several weeks, and writing a report on what the student learned during that period, as well as what the prospective teacher learned about the process of contributing to student learning.