Teachers Like Examples
Teachers who participate in professional learning sessions to learn a new curriculum or program most often ask for one thing – more examples! As leaders and professional learning facilitators, we are happy to comply with this request. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that an educator would ask for an example or two when they are learning something new. After all, as humans we all learn through stories and images. We need images to help us think about how we would apply new knowledge or skills.
So Facilitators Create Lots of Examples
Professional learning facilitators often respond to this common request by making visible what teaching practices look like in the classroom. As I work with both education service providers and district level leaders across the country to establish action plans for professional learning, nearly all of them have listed the need to create a “bank of example videos” as one of their key plans for supporting teachers.
We create videos and provide examples because we believe that it is the most impactful way to communicate how instructional moves look in the classroom. However, I believe that we should tread with caution when providing teachers with examples in the form of co-observations, videos, or other images as they seek to apply principles of teaching to their own contexts.
But Why Do Teachers Ask for Examples?
Let’s first step back and try to explore what teachers may be trying to tell us with the request for more examples. One ought not generalize that all teachers have the same motivation for seeking examples, but it is a place to start. Here are a couple of reasons that easily come to mind:
- The teacher genuinely cares about “getting it right”: Teachers are telling us they are interested in learning more. This request is actually a very good indicator of interest and willingness to try something new. Most teachers genuinely seek to do what they believe is best for kids, and if they understood what an instructional practice “looked like in action,” they would strive to do it.
- This practice may be newer or more challenging to apply than we thought: In this light, therefore, teachers may also be communicating the size of the leap from their current practice to the new. As with any new learning, individuals need to be able to form a connection between what they already know and do and the new information. For some teachers, this connection is more challenging when they don’t have prior experience they can draw from to inform the new approach.
And now for some tough love.
There also may be cases where teachers are asking for examples for reasons we are often less willing to admit. Here are a couple more plausible reasons that may be more implicit:
- The teacher is seeking a shortcut: After learning a new principle or practice that has been identified by an expert as more likely to improve outcomes, teachers know that it often requires a substantial amount of effort to translate that principle or practice to the classroom. The reason it requires so much effort is because each classroom experience is unique, schools are complex adaptive systems, and there is no guarantee that the principle or practice will work for all students under all conditions. Teachers know this. They may intuit the amount of creativity, ingenuity, and wit that would be needed to integrate the new learning into their complex conditions, and may instead seek a faster way to get to the promised outcomes.
- The teacher is treating the classroom as a technical problem to be solved instead of as an adaptive challenge: As was stated before, classrooms are complex adaptive systems. To nurture them requires an acknowledgement that classrooms present adaptive challenges, but not technical problems to be solved. To ask for an example is to imply that there may be one “right way” of addressing what is being perceived as a technical problem in the classroom that can be “solved” by a leader with authority or an expert. But such a view can impede change, given the modern notion that those closest to the “problems” stand the best chance at identifying ways to “solve” them, and where they must “learn” their own way to “solutions”. For more information about adaptive leadership, please check out the HBR article by Heifetz and Laurie (2001).
If there is any truth to either of these last two reasons for seeking more examples, it may benefit us to view classrooms as environments composed of adaptive challenges instead of technical problems to be solved.
| Technical Problems | Adaptive Challenges |
| Easy to identify Often lend themselves to quick and easy solutions Often can be solved by an authority or expert Require change in just one or a few places, often contained within organizational boundaries People are generally receptive to technical solutions Solutions can be implemented quickly, even by edict | Difficult to identify Require changes in values, beliefs, roles, relationships, and approaches to the work People with the problem do the work of solving it Require change in numerous places; usually cross organizational People often resist even acknowledging adaptive challenges “Solutions” require experiments and new discoveries; they can take a long time to implement and connect be implemented by edict |
A Better Way to Provide Examples
To provide examples of high-quality teaching practices doesn’t necessarily impede efforts to build capacity to respond to adaptive challenges. But if we aren’t careful with how we provide examples, we may unintentionally communicate one or more of the following messages:
- “There is a right way to do this.”
- “You won’t have to change much of your existing values, beliefs, roles, or approaches.”
- “We the experts know better than you how to apply this in your classroom.”
- “This approach worked in other classrooms and it is guaranteed to work in yours.”
- “The work of teaching isn’t creative or adaptive, but is technical.”
- “There is no need to take time or effort to learn this through experimentation. You should be able to do this quickly.”
If we wish to avoid transmitting these messages, we can rethink how we provide examples to teachers. Here are a few ways we could do this:
- Bathe examples in deep conversation: Challenge teachers to reflect upon, discuss, and think about how the example may apply in their own context. By critically engaging with the elements of the example that are similar and different to their own context, teachers may be better equipped to integrate the new principle into their own practice, instead of blindly and artificially “copying and pasting” the practice into their own classroom.
- Strategically curate examples that serve a purpose: Not all examples are equal in their illustrative power. Many leaders may feel tempted to make sure that teachers have a large bank of examples to pick from, but this often only adds to the tension and confusion. By selecting images that exemplify key attributes or principles, and communicating the rationale for its selection, we can make sure to focus the cognitive load where it should be – on deep thinking and creative application to the classroom.
- Engage teachers to score examples using a rubric-based tool, and then let them disagree on scores: By asking teachers to score an example using a rubric, we can blend the two recommendations above into a meaningful collaborative learning experience. By structuring a place for developing habits of collaborative assessment during planning meetings, leaders can ask engaging questions to help teachers communicate a rationale for their scores. This helps leaders and teachers alike better understand the teacher’s knowledge base and opportunities for continued professional learning.
- Don’t forget to use unsuccessful examples: We often believe that the best way to educate around a new principle or practice is to provide an exemplar of that practice. However, we often learn better from failed attempts than exemplars. Seeing an unsuccessful practice in action, and then scoring it as such with a rubric (as stated above), is a strong anchor experience that triggers memories when teachers find themselves using the less successful practices in their own classrooms. Just as many people jest that as they age the things they say “sound more and more like their mother,” teachers will be able to recognize that their less successful practices and habits resemble those from the unsuccessful examples.
- Stop telling and start asking: To tell teachers what to do and how it looks in their classrooms is to delimit and constrict what is possible. Teachers must embrace the strenuous and creative work necessary to learn how to apply the practice in their context, or else it won’t become a habit that leads to change. We must lecture less and ask questions more if we wish to help teachers meaningfully use curated examples for their learning and growth.
Conclusion
Teachers may often seek technical assistance and examples because they worry about the strenuous amount of effort and time needed to learn a new practice or create something new in their own context. That is because as leaders, we often fail to give teachers the space and time to deeply reflect upon how a key principle or practice can apply in their classrooms. We unintentionally create a sense of urgency that can undermine our intentions toward a positive impact.
But if we wish to empower teachers to seek what is possible and identify new outlets for creative expression of key principles and practices, we must message that the challenges they face in their classrooms are not technical problems to be solved, but are adaptive challenges that will take creativity to address. To do this, we can provide examples, not as “exemplars” to copy and paste, but as unique moments in time that cannot be replicated. These unique moments in time demand that we critique, sit with, and learn from their successes and failures, if we will give ourselves permission to do so.