Teachers in OECD countries work an average of 41 hours a week, according to the OECD’s TALIS 2024 survey, and corporate trainers rarely report lighter loads. This guide picks four recent learning books and podcasts, published between December 2025 and October 2026, that give educators, L&D teams and teacher trainers in Europe and Africa ideas they can use the following Monday.
Key facts
- TALIS 2024, released by the OECD on 7 October 2025, puts the average lower secondary teacher’s week at 41 hours, of which 22.7 are spent teaching.
- Introducing the Learning Sciences, a 212-page Routledge book by five researchers at the University of Nottingham, came out on 5 May 2026.
- The second edition of Teaching with AI by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 400 pages, USD 25.95) was published on 2 December 2025.
- The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) released three podcast episodes in August 2026 on foundational learning, early childhood and gender in the education workforce.
Why time is the real constraint for trainers
Hours are the budget. TALIS 2024 found that the OECD average teacher spends about three hours a week on administration, and in some systems the figure is far higher: Australian lower secondary teachers report 4.7 hours, according to an analysis of the same data by Trevor Cobbold of the campaign group Save Our Schools.
So the test for this list was simple. Each title had to be recent, written by people who work with evidence, and short enough to fit around a full timetable. They save time by helping you drop activities that do not work.
Which learning books and podcasts are worth the hours?
Book: Introducing the Learning Sciences (Routledge, May 2026)
Shaaron Ainsworth, Pryce Davis, Peter Woods, Jonathan Halls and Lenka Schnaubert of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham organise their book around one metaphor: the teacher as an architect who balances research principles with professional judgement. Six chapters cover cognitive, constructive, socio-cultural, emotional and representational aspects of learning, and the final chapter looks at critical perspectives and artificial intelligence. The university says the book “will help teachers use the learning sciences to support their practice”, and it works well as a shared text for a department or a trainer community of practice.
Book: Teaching with AI, second edition (Johns Hopkins University Press, December 2025)
The first edition appeared in spring 2024, which in generative AI terms is a long time ago. The update adds chapters on custom bots and on ethics, privacy and the environmental cost of AI, plus guidance on reasoning models and agents. For trainers, the most practical sections deal with assignment design and with alternatives to AI-detection tools.
Podcast: The LDA Podcast (Learning Development Accelerator)
Matt Richter and Clark Quinn host an evidence-focused show for workplace learning professionals. Their 5 January 2026 episode, with guest Kat Koppett, asks whether critical thinking can be taught as a general skill. The shorter “Show Me How You Do It” series, hosted by Sofie Willox, runs 11 to 26 minutes. In the 2 March 2026 instalment, Melanie Martinelli describes three low-cost ways to improve learning transfer: manager engagement, peer support and action planning. It fits a commute.
Podcast: ADEA’s education podcast
For an African policy view, ADEA’s podcast is the most regular source. Episodes published in August 2026 track how Sierra Leone has kept foundational learning a national reform priority since the FLEX 2024 conference, unpack Kenya’s commitments on early childhood development, and feature Dr Martha Muhwezi, Executive Director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), on building a more equitable education workforce.
| Title | Format | Date | Best for | Time needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing the Learning Sciences | Book, 212 pp. | 5 May 2026 | School teachers, teacher trainers | About 6 hours |
| Teaching with AI (2nd ed.) | Book, 400 pp. | 2 Dec 2025 | Lecturers, instructional designers | Dip in by chapter |
| The LDA Podcast | Podcast | Every two weeks | Corporate L&D, HR | 11 to 60 minutes |
| ADEA podcast | Podcast | August 2026 episodes | Policy makers, school leaders in Africa | Single episodes |
One more show deserves a mention. The Learning & Development Podcast, hosted fortnightly by David James, Chief Learning Officer at 360Learning, has passed 200 episodes; a recent one with Andrew Jacobs asks the blunt question “What is L&D for?”
What this means for educators and trainers
Treat these learning books and podcasts as a plan for one term, not a reading pile. A department head could assign one chapter of the Nottingham book per staff meeting and ask each teacher to redesign one activity using it. An L&D manager could pick the Martinelli episode and test one of its three transfer tactics on the next programme.
Protect the time explicitly. If administration takes three or more hours of your week, as TALIS suggests for the average teacher, swapping even 30 minutes of it for structured professional reading is a measurable change. Log what you read and what you changed in class, because that record is the evidence many continuing professional development (CPD) schemes ask for. For more on how educators keep learning, see our pieces on three lifelong learning scenarios for educators and on the science of brain learning.
FAQ
Are the podcasts free?
All three podcasts mentioned here are free to stream on the usual podcast platforms. The books are paid titles, though university libraries often hold e-book copies.
Can professional reading count towards CPD hours?
It depends on the scheme. Many CPD frameworks accept self-directed learning if you record what you studied and how it changed your practice, so keep brief notes.
Sources: Routledge; University of Nottingham; Johns Hopkins University Press; The LDA Podcast; ADEA podcasts; Asia News Network on TALIS 2024; Pearls and Irritations on TALIS 2024.
