**The Science and Craft of Effective Teaching — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/science-craft-effective-teaching/

Explores how teaching expertise differs from experience and how deliberate practice can develop expert teachers.

## Key Takeaways

- Teaching expertise is distinct from mere experience and requires deliberate, focused practice.
- Professional knowledge alone is insufficient; practical application and feedback are crucial.
- Teacher quality has a lasting impact on student achievement, highlighting the need for effective teacher development.
- Schools and systems must reorganize to support the continuous development of teacher expertise.
- Expert teaching blends science and craft, demanding both knowledge and skilled application.

## What the video covers

- Experience alone does not equate to teaching expertise; expertise requires deliberate practice, feedback, and reflection.
- Teachers make 1,200 to 1,500 spontaneous decisions daily, termed 'micro calculations,' requiring skill and knowledge.
- Expertise in teaching is built, not instinctive or effortless, and involves continual refinement of performance.
- Teaching quality significantly impacts student outcomes, especially for disadvantaged students.
- The book 'Becoming an Expert Teacher' challenges current teacher preparation and professional development models.
- Effective teaching requires combining scientific knowledge with the craft of classroom practice.
- The development of expertise should be a normal part of a teacher's professional life, supported by schools and systems.
- Authors Nidi Sajdiva and Paul Kersner bring research-based insights into learning, cognition, and evidence-informed teaching.
- The discussion includes how to handle unexpected classroom events and make informed decisions in real time.
- The video includes a Q&A session addressing practical implications for educators and policymakers.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction and Overview of Expertise vs Experience
2. 04:20 Core Ideas of Becoming an Expert Teacher
3. 08:06 Teaching as Science or Craft
4. 17:17 Impact of Effective Teaching on Student Outcomes
5. 21:37 Craftsmanship and Decision Making in Teaching
6. 26:04 Practical Strategies for Teacher Improvement
7. 34:59 Bridging Knowledge and Practice in Teaching
8. 38:59 International Perspectives and Policy Implications
9. 47:22 Q&A and Final Reflections

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the main difference between teaching experience and teaching expertise?

Teaching experience refers to the number of years spent teaching, while teaching expertise involves deliberate practice, feedback, reflection, and continual refinement of skills to perform effectively in the classroom.

How many decisions do teachers typically make during a school day?

Teachers make between 1,200 and 1,500 spontaneous decisions daily, called 'micro calculations,' which involve managing pacing, questioning, student behavior, and other classroom dynamics.

Why is deliberate practice important for teacher development?

Deliberate practice helps teachers move beyond just knowing about good teaching to reliably performing effective teaching, enabling continuous improvement and expertise development.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:03

Speaker A

Good afternoon. I'm Robert Pandisio with the American Enterprise Institute. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. I'm delighted to be joined today by Nidi Sajdiva and Paul Kersner, authors of the forthcoming book, Becoming an Expert Teacher: Deliberate Practice for Effective Teaching. There's a simple but surprisingly provocative idea at the heart of their book. Experience is not the same thing as expertise. We tend to assume that teachers get better at teaching by teaching, and of course they do, particularly in the first years. But

00:21

Speaker A

surprisingly provocative idea at the heart of their book. Experience is not the same thing as expertise. We tend to assume that teachers get better at teaching by teaching and of course they do particularly in the first years. But

00:35

Speaker A

Nidi and Paul point out that improvement often plateaus. Doing something for 20 years can make you very experienced at doing it. It does not necessarily make you an expert. That observation would hardly be controversial in other performance professions. We don't assume

00:52

Speaker A

that musicians, athletes, surgeons, or airline pilots become experts simply by accumulating years on the job. Expertise requires knowledge certainly, but also feedback coaching focused practice reflection, and the continual refinement of performance. Yet, teaching is organized rather differently. Teachers

01:13

Speaker A

that musicians, athletes, surgeons, or airline pilots become experts simply by accumulating years on the job. Expertise requires knowledge, certainly, but also feedback, coaching, focused practice, reflection, and the continual refinement of performance. Yet, teaching is organized rather differently. Teachers

01:35

Speaker A

fluently that what they can they do or can do can look instinctive or even effortless. But they their authors the authors point out that expertise is neither instinctive nor effortless. It is built. And that raises what I think

01:49

Speaker A

make an astonishing number of decisions every day. Nidi and Paul estimate between 1,200 and 1,500 spontaneous decisions. They call these micro calculations. Decisions about pacing, questioning, explanations, student attention, misconceptions, behavior, feedback, dozens of other things. Expert teachers often make those decisions so

02:06

Speaker A

giving teachers information, courses, workshops conferences presentations. Nidi and Paul argue that professional knowledge matters enormously, but knowing about good teaching is not the same thing as being able to perform it reliably in a classroom. Teaching is both science and craft, and expertise

02:26

Speaker A

fluently that what they do or can do can look instinctive or even effortless. But the authors point out that expertise is neither instinctive nor effortless. It is built. And that raises what I think

02:42

Speaker A

teaching quality matters, what would we have to do differently to make the development of expertise a normal part of a teacher's professional life? So, we're fortunate to have both of these authors with us today. Nidi Such Diva is

02:56

Speaker A

is really the interesting question posed by their book. If expert teachers are made rather than born, are our schools actually organized to make them? We spend enormous amounts of time and money on teacher preparation and professional development. But much of it consists of

03:12

Speaker A

Paul Kersner also joining us is ameritus professor of education psychology at the open university of the Netherlands and one of the world's leading researchers and writers on learning cognition and evidenceinformed teaching. So here's how we'll be begin to spend our time for the

03:28

Speaker A

giving teachers information, courses, workshops, conferences, presentations. Nidi and Paul argue that professional knowledge matters enormously, but knowing about good teaching is not the same thing as being able to perform it reliably in a classroom. Teaching is both science and craft, and expertise

03:42

Speaker A

what schools and systems can do to make that development more likely. We will of course also leave time toward the end for your questions from the audience.

03:51

Speaker A

lies in bringing the two together. So, this is ultimately a book not merely about individual teachers getting better. It poses a challenge to schools, to teacher preparation programs, to professional development and educational leadership. If we genuinely believe that

03:57

Speaker A

Amazing. Thank you, Rob. Robert, it's really great to be here. I'll start by sharing the screen. Just give me a moment.

04:05

Speaker A

teaching quality matters, what would we have to do differently to make the development of expertise a normal part of a teacher's professional life? So, we're fortunate to have both of these authors with us today. Nidi Such Diva is

04:20

Speaker A

bringing out the gist of the book, Becoming an Expert Teacher, something Paul and I are really, really passionate about discussing, thinking, and working on.

04:29

Speaker A

a teacher educator at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and a professor of teacher expertise at Academica University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and chair of research at Canada.

04:42

Speaker A

want you to think about something. Think back to the last time something unexpected happened in your classroom if you're a classroom teacher. But if you're a school leader, you work with teachers, you walked around classrooms, think about something unexpected

04:53

Speaker A

Paul Kersner, also joining us, is emeritus professor of educational psychology at the Open University of the Netherlands and one of the world's leading researchers and writers on learning, cognition, and evidence-informed teaching. So here's how we'll begin to spend our time for the

05:00

Speaker A

Someone burst into tears. Technology failed. All of these are very, very possible scenarios. A question caught you off guard. The question is, what did you do? And more importantly, how did you know that this is what you needed to

05:14

Speaker A

next hour and 15 minutes. Nidi and Paul will begin by presenting the central ideas and arguments of their book Becoming an Expert Teacher. After that, I'll join them for a conversation about what distinguishes expertise from experience, how teachers develop it, and

05:21

Speaker A

So, as Robert mentioned, here's a number that should stop you in your tracks. 1,200 to 1,500.

05:30

Speaker A

what schools and systems can do to make that development more likely. We will, of course, also leave time toward the end for your questions from the audience.

05:40

Speaker A

Every single day. No autopilot, no co-pilot handing you a checklist. Just you. A room full of students and the accumulated weight of everything you know or don't yet know. So teaching doesn't make the headlines the way say medicine or technology does but it

05:58

Speaker A

So, let's start. Nidi and Paul, you're welcome to join us today, and the floor is yours.

06:13

Speaker A

to do and knew how to find out. And that's why this matters and that's why we're here.

06:19

Speaker A

Amazing. Thank you, Rob. Robert, it's really great to be here. I'll start by sharing the screen. Just give me a moment.

06:35

Speaker A

impact their students while students are sitting in their classroom. Rodstein's work showed that benefits of being taught by a highly effective teacher persist for at least three years after students leave that teacher's classroom.

06:51

Speaker A

Okay. Is everybody able to see the screen? Amazing. All right. Perfect. So, we want to talk about knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. And Robert, you did a really, really terrific job sort of explaining and

07:12

Speaker A

And here is where it really morally gets urgent. So teaching quality matters most for those with the least. The research is consistent and clear. The gap between a more effective teacher and a less effective one is largest for students

07:29

Speaker A

bringing out the gist of the book, Becoming an Expert Teacher, something Paul and I are really, really passionate about discussing, thinking, and working on.

07:47

Speaker A

issue, we'd say we don't know what does. And we want to talk about briefly this longitudinal study. This was conducted between 1997 and 2000 by researchers named Babu and Menro and this was done in the Dallas Independent School District. What their

08:06

Speaker A

So we will be speaking, both of us, not at the same time, over the next little bit and just want to walk you folks through the core of the matter. But before we say anything, we

08:24

Speaker A

students were assigned to effective teachers three years in a row, they were twice as likely to pass the seventh grade math test. Meanwhile, almost all high performing students passed regardless of teacher quality. This is a stark reminder that excellent teaching

08:42

Speaker A

want you to think about something. Think back to the last time something unexpected happened in your classroom if you're a classroom teacher. But if you're a school leader, you work with teachers, you walk around classrooms, think about something unexpected

08:52

Speaker A

This is the tendency for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer in learning. Now by providing sustained highquality instruction, expert teachers don't just accelerate progress for all students. They help close ever widening gaps by lifting up those who start

09:12

Speaker A

happened in your classroom or in the classroom that you were watching. A student said something that you hadn't expected. A lesson went off the rails.

09:23

Speaker A

But this is an important question that brings us to so what is an expert teacher? So far we've been trying to say that we know teacher expertise matters and we know that it has measurable lasting effects. We also know that it's

09:36

Speaker A

Someone burst into tears. Technology failed. All of these are very, very possible scenarios. A question caught you off guard. The question is, what did you do? And more importantly, how did you know that this is what you needed to

09:53

Speaker A

standards as well. But what do we actually know what expert teaching looks like? Can we name it precisely enough to develop it? And the truth is in other fields we can, but in teaching that's still a question. So real quick, some

10:09

Speaker A

do? How did you know what you should do? I want you to hold on to that thought because we're going to come back to it later.

10:27

Speaker A

that I really enjoy that sport. Um we have point system, world championships, we have Olympic medals, we have golden boot in football, soccer. But then the question is what about teaching? So this is the point. Most fields have clear

10:46

Speaker A

So, as Robert mentioned, here's a number that should stop you in your tracks. 1,200 to 1,500.

11:08

Speaker A

don't have agreed upon metrics. And so what should we be looking at for in great teaching? And how do we know what we're looking at is successful teaching?

11:19

Speaker A

That's the number of unplanned, spontaneous decisions a teacher makes every day. Decisions that directly affect whether and how students learn.

11:37

Speaker A

And so Lord Kelvin said if we cannot measure it you cannot improve it. Um and we say it in the book you cannot develop what we cannot name. Now, this may be the single most important sentence in the presentation because if we cannot

11:53

Speaker A

Every single day. No autopilot, no co-pilot handing you a checklist. Just you. A room full of students and the accumulated weight of everything you know or don't yet know. So teaching doesn't make the headlines the way, say, medicine or technology does, but it

12:10

Speaker A

So, what is an expert teacher? And this is the question that Paul Kersner, my amazing co-author, and I have been working through. And we want to offer you something more precise.

12:24

Speaker A

shapes the people who are going to be doing all those things. Every expert who builds a better city or looks through a telescope or develops a vaccine or designs an unimaginable bridge. They all had teachers. So teachers who knew what

12:50

Speaker A

Paul, over to you. Yeah, this is a a question that I've been dealing with for years and years and years and that's the question of is teaching a science or is teaching a craft or an art?

13:07

Speaker A

to do and knew how to find out. And that's why this matters and that's why we're here.

13:14

Speaker A

As you can see here, it's actually the intersection of the two. Science is the understanding of learning and teaching. It's knowledge. It's knowledge gained through good research.

13:30

Speaker A

And yes, routine is important and it's useful, but expertise is essential. And we're saying that this is not just a philosophical idea. Let's talk about what the research tells us. The research shows that the best teachers don't only

13:42

Speaker A

But it's also a craft because that knowledge alone and I'll get to that a little bit later isn't enough. It's also uh the practical insights that we have. It's the accumulated practical wisdom in action that comes from years and years in the

14:01

Speaker A

impact their students while students are sitting in their classroom. Rodstein's work showed that benefits of being taught by a highly effective teacher persist for at least three years after students leave that teacher's classroom.

14:07

Speaker A

Neither of them alone is enough. A teacher who knows the science but has no craft can be technically correct but pedagogically lifeless.

14:20

Speaker A

Three years of measurable difference in a child's learning trajectory from one teacher. Now think about what that means when you scale it across a career. One teacher, hundreds and hundreds of students each time that three years of measurable experience and difference.

14:30

Speaker A

Together they form something more powerful than either alone. in in in almost the last I think it was the last slide that um Nidi presented she presented a bullet list. I'm I'm now going to try to unmask or or go a little

14:52

Speaker A

And here is where it really morally gets urgent. So teaching quality matters most for those with the least. The research is consistent and clear. The gap between a more effective teacher and a less effective one is largest for students

15:09

Speaker A

That's not that they know the facts. They didn't, you know, like learn it the evening before. They have this deep conceptual knowledge of the facts, the relationships, all of those things within their area that they're teaching.

15:24

Speaker A

who are already disadvantaged. Not marginal, largest, which means that when we fail to develop teacher expertise, we're not even failing equally. We're failing the students who can least afford it the most. If that doesn't make teacher development a social justice

15:43

Speaker A

see when a student is not getting something but also can understand why they're not getting something because you know what that piece of information is related to and you can see what that student isn't actually understanding.

16:02

Speaker A

issue, we'd say we don't know what does. And we want to talk about briefly this longitudinal study. This was conducted between 1997 and 2000 by researchers named Babu and Menro, and this was done in the Dallas Independent School District. What their

16:26

Speaker A

called um gastrointestinal system. Yeah. If that doctor doesn't know, doesn't understand how that system works, what enzymes are in the mouth, what acids are in the stomach, if that doctor doesn't know the difference between a bacteria and a virus,

16:50

Speaker A

analysis showed was that variation in teacher effectiveness was one of the strongest predictors of student achievement even after accounting for prior achievement and socioeconomic background. They found that this variance mattered most for low-performing students. So when these

17:01

Speaker A

them to understand it. And then we come to the third step and that's instruction. If you know what you're supposed to teach and you understand how people how how how people learn the next step is what instructional tools in the

17:17

Speaker A

students were assigned to effective teachers three years in a row, they were twice as likely to pass the seventh-grade math test. Meanwhile, almost all high-performing s

17:28

Speaker A

Those are the it's it's knowing uh for example that if our working memory is small that we have to give a um beginner information in smaller pieces and smaller steps and those are certain instructional approaches.

17:54

Speaker A

Having done all those three you say now we're in the classroom. How am I going to do it? Am I going to give a lecture?

18:02

Speaker A

Um, am I going to have them carry out a project? Um, am I going to use collaborative learning? Am I going to let's go through the whole budge. Do I use deliberate practice? All of these types of things.

18:18

Speaker A

That's what we use. And finally, it's what we call here the pedagogy. Um, pedagogy is how we bring in the Netherlands. That's how that's the upbringing of children. It's the the the the moral normative aspects. Uh, creating a physically and

18:41

Speaker A

psychologically safe environment that the students can learn in. An expert teacher has expertise in all five of those fields. And please don't get me wrong that I said domain first and pedagogy last doesn't mean I'm putting them in in in in a certain order

18:59

Speaker A

because you can know your domain and cognitive psychology, but if kids are throwing paper and spitballs and screaming and doing all those types of things, all of those other things, the domain, the cogai, the instruction, the tools are worthless if you don't have

19:14

Speaker A

the pedagogy down. So they're all necessary and play a different role. The next one, Nidi.

19:25

Speaker A

Yep. Um, a colleague of mine in the Netherlands years and years ago who moved to Australia defined the craft of teaching as follows. He defined it as the integrated knowledge which represents teachers accumulated wisdom concerning their teaching progress practice. Sorry.

19:49

Speaker A

And that's important because we've gone a step further than just knowledge. It's the accumulated wisdom. It's not the rules. It's not the algorithms. It's not the it's it's it's it guides your action in in in in in practice. It's not only

20:08

Speaker A

knowing that something needs to happen differently, but knowing exactly what to do at that moment.

20:15

Speaker A

That's the craft of teaching. It's as it says here is wisdom and action. It's not an abstract theory.

20:26

Speaker A

It's knowing and and and even maybe feeling when you should apply something, how an approach should be adopted adapted and how to balance the competing demands in real time. You want to get students to learn something, but you have to take

20:45

Speaker A

care of this and that child has this special problem and all of a sudden the fire alarm goes. How do you juggle all of these things all at the same time?

20:56

Speaker A

Now, that's the wisdom in action. is the result of thousands and thousands and thousands of experiences that you've gone through and that you've taken the time to think about it that you've taken time to reflect upon and learn from.

21:13

Speaker A

That's what it is. Um this is one of my favorite sayings um when I try to explain to people what the difference is between knowledge and wisdom. I say, well, knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. It's

21:29

Speaker A

not a vegetable. But wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

21:37

Speaker A

That's the difference. You also know when something fits but doesn't fit. Yeah. Okay. That's craftsmanship.

21:46

Speaker A

Now, you can see it here and it and that they're both incredibly necessary. Mhm.

21:53

Speaker A

Um, if you only have craft without the science, it can lead to ineffective, inefficient, idiosyncratic behavior. Your risk is you do things, you have a routine, you have habits that you've already done, but those are things that either don't work

22:10

Speaker A

or don't work well. That's science without a craft. And I must admit some of my colleagues from cognitive psychology and educational psychology are still not convinced of this. Science without a craft is very abstract, sterile and practical. You

22:30

Speaker A

know what should happen but it will never happen in a classroom. So the risk is that you come up with techniques and tools for teachers that really don't work or don't work well.

22:47

Speaker A

Next one, dear. I feel like some game show, you know, asking my assistant, you know, please turn the tiles. Um, the question is, how do you get there?

23:02

Speaker A

Every teacher has first gone to initial teacher training, initial teacher education. There they've learned the science and then they get into the school and hopefully they stay long enough to gain the wisdom through induction programs, constant professional development so that they can develop

23:24

Speaker A

their craft. Yeah. But that's not enough. Those are the two major roots. But there's also a third route and that's what our book is about.

23:39

Speaker A

Um, we have experience. That's when you just gain routine when you've done it again and again and again. And it's really important to have a routine. It's not the case that routine is bad. And so let's just go

23:59

Speaker A

over to the next uh next phase. It's really important to get experienced. It's a it what's called it it's called in English it's a necessary but not sufficient thing the second is CPD and training that's that's really great that CPD and

24:20

Speaker A

training that's the place where you hear about new things where you spend a half a day or a day talking with your fellow teachers talking with people like me who have studied this and you come up with new

24:37

Speaker A

ideas. You learn about things that you've never heard of like like like desirable difficulties or generative learning activities, those types of things. That's really good and really important to gain that knowledge. But what happens after that? You spent a day

24:53

Speaker A

doing that, maybe even two days, and then the weekend comes at Monday, it's back to business as usual.

25:05

Speaker A

Yeah, I know that I should make use of things like generative activities, but yeah, I have to teach.

25:12

Speaker A

I have to have the students learn this. So, what do we do? Having done those two types of things, and both of them are necessary, neither of them are we saying in any way is something that's not needed.

25:27

Speaker A

The third is deliberate practice. And that's the engine behind all expertise. Now we have a problem with the word with the phrase deliberate practice because when you say to your child did you break that vase deliberately which means did

25:49

Speaker A

you do it intentionally did you do it on purpose or was it just an accident? Um I used to I knew um And this Ericson who came up with the term deliberate practice. Um I had meetings with him in

26:04

Speaker A

Florida. I ate crispy creams with him in Florida. But I didn't have the wherewithal to say to him or maybe I didn't have the knowledge at that time to say to him and that's the dumbest name that I ever heard of because it

26:20

Speaker A

gets people thinking the wrong thing. So, what isn't it? Okay. Now, what it isn't is intentional practice. It's not like, okay, my music teacher said I have to practice the piano 30 minutes a day, so I'm going to do that. I'm going to go

26:38

Speaker A

home and I'm going to do it, and every day I'm going to intentionally practice.

26:42

Speaker A

That isn't it? It's not trying hard. It's not lots and lots of practice. that idea of Malcolm Gladwell Gladwell who bastardized um this Ericson's work who said well anybody become an expert with 10,000 hours of practice. No, it's not locks of

27:01

Speaker A

practice. It's not going to to to trainings. It's not automating things. Yeah, automating is important. It gets you to be able to do it quickly without thinking. And sometimes you have to do things without thinking. But none of

27:14

Speaker A

that is deliberate practice. But what is it? Deliberate practice is having very clear and specific goals.

27:25

Speaker A

Those goals are sometimes very very small. It's a constant focus on what you're doing and a commitment to get it done better.

27:35

Speaker A

Um if we look at a worldclass tenniser, let's take Raphael Nadal. He goes to a tournament and he's got two coaches or trainers along with him.

27:52

Speaker A

Every time he goes on the court to practice before a match, he's got these people by with him and they all of a sudden they say, "Yeah, but Raph, your serve should be one cimeter clo centimeter closer to the net." and

28:09

Speaker A

they'll spend the next week or two weeks practicing how to get that ball going at 160 kilometers an hour or more, one centimeter closer to the net, which will give the reaction time of the other person a split second less time and make

28:29

Speaker A

it easier to win the service point. That's not I want to serve better. That's a vague, worthless goal. It's I want to serve at 160 kilometers an hour with the ball going 1 cm closer to the net.

28:51

Speaker A

And then you have to get direct and and truthful feedback. You don't need someone telling, "Yeah, you did it." Okay. Want someone who can give you truthful feedback that it hurts. Nidi and I call uh uh uh call deliberate

29:10

Speaker A

practice self-inflicted pain. Yeah. And it is repetition. It is practice. But re with refinement. It's not just doing the same thing over and over.

29:26

Speaker A

Either something that works or something that doesn't work. It's constantly being refined. So if we want to go from what we normally hear in the classroom to what we should be hearing if you want to become an expert teacher, you won't hear

29:45

Speaker A

things you shouldn't hear things like I want to get better at asking questions. Now what does that mean? You there are no criteria. It's there's no specific skill identified. You you don't have feedback mechanism for that. You have no

30:00

Speaker A

way to know if it's it's gotten better. It's more like I'll improve my use of cold calling.

30:08

Speaker A

And the reality of that is I want to have all students respond at least twice per lesson. I can measure that. If that's my goal and I don't get it, then I have to do something else to get from every student responses at a

30:25

Speaker A

lesson. You have to practice it with a colleague. Record your lessons. Look at them. Look at them with others. Be open to the comments in a nonjudgmental environment. Yeah. And your review is data driven.

30:42

Speaker A

Two, have they learned more? What's the achievement of my students? Those are the things we can measure and say whether or not it's been achieved.

30:58

Speaker A

Thanks, Paul. Yeah. Um, so that that was that was a really clear great way of explaining what deliberate practice is and what it isn't. But what's really important to briefly mention here and discuss is that unfortunately most teaching environments are not designed

31:15

Speaker A

to support use and implica in and in integration of deliberate practice in in in our profession. No systematic feedback. Most teachers rarely receive structured specific feedback on their instruction, especially feedback that's tied to evidence of student learning. As Paul

31:32

Speaker A

was saying, the datadriven uh sort of repetition, not just if I uh did cold calling and if I was able to get answers from two students in each class, but also using data of student learning rather than just observer impression.

31:47

Speaker A

There's also no time for focused rehearsal. The structure of the school day leaves almost no room for the kind of targeted low stakes practice the deliberate practice requires. There's also no clear improvement criteria.

31:59

Speaker A

Without shared standards for what better looks like at each career stage, teachers really have no map for what to work on next. Now, this is a design problem in our profession. It is not a teacher problem and it is solvable but

32:14

Speaker A

only if we name it clearly and then decide to do something about it. So individual commitment is useful but it is not enough. But I also want to say that it's not nothing. It's something it's really powerful. What teachers can

32:31

Speaker A

do is they can identify a specific aspect of teaching to improve. They can seek feedback actively and not to wait for it. They can treat student learning data as professional feedback. They can build in regular reflection with a

32:44

Speaker A

concrete focus, find or create peer learning partnerships and continue to work towards getting better in service of student learning. And what stu schools can provide and what must they provide? protected time for focused professional practice. Structured feedback tied to student outcomes,

33:04

Speaker A

coaching cultures, not just evaluation cultures, clear career stage criteria for what growth in our profession looks like. And leaders who model and value deliberate practice improvement, they they need to do that. And the conditions matter as much as the will of

33:21

Speaker A

a teacher. Because if we only ask teachers to do more while providing no systematic support, systemic support and systematic support, we are setting individuals up for exhaustion, burnout, frustration, feelings of overwhelm rather than expertise.

33:41

Speaker A

So we want to be very clear becoming an expert teacher is demanding. It requires sustained effort. It requires us all to be open to feedback even when the feedback is uncomfortable and a willingness to challenge our own assumptions including the ones that make

33:59

Speaker A

us feel most natural at a moment uh most practiced most you because it's such a routine. It is about problematizing your own routines but it is also deeply rewarding when we do that. Expertise enables teachers to work more

34:15

Speaker A

effectively with less wasted effort. More efficiently, doing the right things, not just more things, and with greater professional confidence and satisfaction. Now, expertise is not an end point. It's a direction. It's a journey. Self-inflicted pain pretty much for the rest of your life, but it's

34:33

Speaker A

rewarding kind of pain. And striving for expertise is not merely a personal ambition. We genuinely and truly believe that it's a professional and moral responsibility to our profession and to the students lives that we're going to touch. So going back to where we

34:48

Speaker A

started, the moment I asked you to remember the unexpected thing that happened in your classroom and how you knew what to do when you didn't know what to do and maybe you had an answer, maybe it was just a feeling of an

34:59

Speaker A

answer. But that gap between knowing and not knowing, between craft that's grounded and craft that's guessing, and that's what this whole talk's been about. So how do we know what to do when you don't know what to do? Well, the

35:13

Speaker A

answer is you build it deliberately, repeatedly on purpose, with refinement, with feedback. And really, that is the answer. There is no secret sauce, no magical answer, no hidden agenda. It's not talent. It's not um time served as Paul was saying. It's a whole lot of

35:33

Speaker A

deliberate practice. So, the book's coming out soon and if you'd like to uh order it or look into it, the QR code's right in front of you folks and we received a 20% discount coupon as well that's in front of you as

35:47

Speaker A

well. Um, as clicking back would say, this is the shameless commerce department. Yes, apologies for this. I'll move away from this one to our if you want to be in touch with us. Uh, there's multiple ways. Uh, we're on LinkedIn. we share

36:04

Speaker A

some thoughts on X as well and both Paul and I have our own Substack where we write. Um yeah, thank you.

36:12

Speaker A

Yeah, and and both of these folks are are folks that you should be following on social media as as I do. Time well spent. Um this is such a compelling and I almost want to say obvious way of

36:25

Speaker A

viewing the profession. Um that said, and I and I think I know how you're going to answer this question, but I want to ask anyway. Um, can you describe in your view what is the most important difference between an experienced

36:38

Speaker A

teacher and an expert teacher? My my sense and I'm I'm speaking as a as a US educator. Um, that we have a sense that somebody who who has taught successfully for for 20 or 30 years is an expert. So,

36:51

Speaker A

so how do you when you walk into a classroom, how do you know the difference?

36:56

Speaker A

You want to take that first, Diddy? Um, sure. I always defer Not ladies first because that's sexist and gender unequal but she's the first author.

37:09

Speaker A

Oh dear goodness. Okay. But you are Paul Kushner. Okay. But I'll try. So um well experience if you really look at the word it really means years of repetition. And repetition doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing something new each time or you're

37:23

Speaker A

looking at the data. You could be doing 20 years but one the same thing 20 times, right? And that's the biggest difference I would say. Expertise on the other hand means a body of refined feedback tested skill um that produces

37:39

Speaker A

consistently strong learning outcomes for students. So yeah, someone can absolutely teach for 20 or 30 years without becoming an expert because once a routine feels comfortable, most teachers stop receiving the kind of concrete or corrective feedback that would actually keep pushing their

37:56

Speaker A

performance forward. Um, expert requires that years be spent in self-inflicted pain. If you look at any of the um, yeah, it's the truth. And if you look at any of the uh, goats, you know, greatest of all times, first on court, last off

38:13

Speaker A

court. Um, I've had a chance to sit through a fireside chat with Simone Biles and you learn their practice and it's like, oh, but she must know how to do it. And it's like no, but there's like I want to create a new skill and I

38:27

Speaker A

want to do something never have been done and will be named after me. And so I think experience produces routine.

38:34

Speaker A

Expertise produces something way more fascinating and pushes the boundaries and creates something incredibly amazing. Oh yeah, Robert, your your your question um is actually something that I deal with constantly and that's the fact that people tend to look at all different types of things

38:59

Speaker A

differently than the way they look at education and teaching. Sure. Um, I would never I I have never found a parent who thinks that a child should learn to swim by discovery.

39:16

Speaker A

Let's hope or that they should learn to cross a street by playfully crossing the street and discovering. I give a lecture about that, about how I taught my four-year-old granddaughter how to cross busy intersections in the city of And I always end it with the

39:38

Speaker A

same line. And that's and now I would like to invite all of my colleagues who think that a four-year-old can't learn through explicit instruction.

39:48

Speaker A

Yeah. And who who who think that you can only playfully learn. I'd like to invite them along with me to this intersection and I will explicitly instruct my granddaughter. You let your granddaughter or grandson playfully learn to get to the other side

40:08

Speaker A

and at the end of the day we'll see who has more grandchildren left. So you're not completely sold on self-inflicted pain at least.

40:18

Speaker A

Um very good. Um but that's that's just an example of how people look at teaching.

40:25

Speaker A

Yeah. And learning differently. You said in your introduction to to to this question that Nidi so perfectly answered. You said well most people will see that will think that experience lots of experience.

40:40

Speaker A

But if you say to them, do you think Raphael Nadal or uh uh Bobby Fischer or Simona Biles or whomever has reached that stage by just practicing and practicing and practicing?

40:56

Speaker A

Yeah, I practice a lot of things, but I will never I used to play baseball and I went to practice and I loved it, but I never got a million dollar contract.

41:07

Speaker A

No, it's coming. It's coming. would have gotten that. I wouldn't be your writing this book with you. Um, but so in the real world, people seem to understand those types of things and it intrigues me why when it comes to

41:26

Speaker A

teaching and learning, all of a sudden they don't understand it. Okay. And they think differently. one one of the reasons I was looking forward to this conversation um and I'm I'm going to tell on myself here um in the US we

41:41

Speaker A

require roughly 4 million teachers full-time teachers in in American classrooms and and I think I made myself a little bit unpopular over the years by by pointing out that like look when you have this large of a number of people

41:56

Speaker A

doing a job then then the job has to be doable by as I say mere mortals. Um so so this this way of thinking experts versus expertise frankly challenges my assumptions about about can we get four million experts or or teachers with

42:14

Speaker A

expertise. So this is your opportunity to to reassure me that we can do so. The answer to that is yes and an emphatic yes because if you have those four million who are all striving towards expertise. If we go back to one of the

42:31

Speaker A

last slides that Nidi was talking about that you need people peer coaching you need them giving feedback. You need all of those things. Then each teacher has 3,999,999 other people that they can fall back upon to help them on their road to

42:52

Speaker A

deliberate practice. We need it's not the number of teachers. We need school environments that allow that because mentoring or or or or peer coaching someone also is a skill that needs to be learned. It's also an extra job that you have to be freed from other

43:17

Speaker A

things in order to do that. If we look what what what what England did is they um gave uh in the induction period they gave these new teachers paid for it 20% of their time to learn while they were teaching.

43:40

Speaker A

But they not only did that, they gave their mentors also 20% of their available time and taught them how to be a mentor.

43:51

Speaker A

Okay? So it's the four million makes it easy. Um you always have all of these people around you and you have people who do things better than you. If if in your school you'll have if you want to

44:07

Speaker A

improve your questioning, you'll find a teacher there who has better questioning techniques than you do.

44:14

Speaker A

Yeah. Okay. But the book comes out next week, but I assume you've obviously spoken to a lot of folks in whether they are in uh schools of education in in institutions themselves. To what degree um are you hearing this message that either well

44:30

Speaker A

yes of course this is how we do it or yes this is how we need to do it uh I think from what I have experienced Robert it's it seems like a how we need to do it more has been my my reaction

44:49

Speaker A

that I've been collecting and also a bit of a response of um a bit of a surprise eyes in the sense to your point, you know, that we we should just create teachers. We should create good enough teachers versus we're

45:03

Speaker A

demanding, we're asking, we should be creating great teachers because don't our students deserve any like our students don't deserve any less, right?

45:11

Speaker A

Like just kind of like we would want a doctor who is very very uh confident and knows what they're doing. So the response so far has been um and it's mostly from the teachers I would say and from school systems too is that yeah

45:25

Speaker A

we're not doing this yet but we should be doing it um and I do always like to say and I would love to see the faculties of education getting involved because I think the start of the pipeline is there right because we're

45:39

Speaker A

saying that teacher expertise is built we're saying that it's not mere talent because if it was then either you're born with it or you're not and then the conversation is over. But we're saying that it's built. So the faculties of

45:52

Speaker A

education, you know, your 4 million number that you said, a lot can be sort of streamlined from that point on, right? Because if the science and the foundation is solid, then the craft that wisdom in action has a better chance to

46:09

Speaker A

survive and then do the work that we want and then also survive the deliberate practice. But yeah, my response has been more of we need to do more of this and this is not happening.

46:18

Speaker A

Paul, what are you finding in the Netherlands? There's a fundamental problem. Nidi and I discussed this um last week when she was in in Rotterdam. There's a fundamental difference between being an expert, which we want everyone to try to

46:33

Speaker A

become an expert, and gaining expertise. Okay. Um it's um um not everyone will become a grandmaster or a concert pianist like Vladimir Hovitz, but that doesn't mean that everyone shouldn't strive to getting as close to that as possible.

46:57

Speaker A

So it's an it's an attainable goal. It's the idea of I'm here now and it can get me better instead of get me more fluent or get me doing something more quickly.

47:15

Speaker A

Um, deliberate practice is a tool to help you learn and experience how to do things better and it accumulates just like the wisdom over the years with small increments not thinking that if I do this a miracle will happen

47:34

Speaker A

but after 40 years of deliberate practice man you'll win hands down teacher of the year award every year.

47:42

Speaker A

Yeah. You know, I I think most of our listeners are uh practitioners, you know, teachers, administrators, etc. But as as AEI, certainly a large number of our audience are folks in the public policy world. So, at at the risk of

47:56

Speaker A

being too granular, can you spend a minute or two discussing what you describe as as as expertise and and and student outcomes as evidence of it?

48:06

Speaker A

Because my assumption is a lot of folks in the public policy world will say, "Well, of course we do that. That's why we administer a reading test. That's why administer we administer math tests so we can tell who is expert. So c can you

48:18

Speaker A

can you unpack for that for us a little bit for our for our public policy listeners as to whether or not what you're describing is measurable by the way we do it here in the US and I recognize this is an unfair question

48:29

Speaker A

because you're in the Netherland Netherlands and Canada but but give it a shot. Let me let me let me let me give it a shot this time first Nidi and you can take it over from there. I think one of

48:41

Speaker A

the major problems is that we think we measure learning, but we measure achievement. Learning is a stable change in your long-term memory.

48:54

Speaker A

I can say that and I can cite it because I wrote it in 2006 and it's a it's it's a standard definition at the moment of learning as opposed to achievement.

49:05

Speaker A

Learning is something that if you learned it today, next week, next month, next year, you still know it. And what most of the tests that I see are measuring achievement, what someone can regurgitate at that moment, how someone can solve a

49:25

Speaker A

problem that's almost the exact same as that they've had in the classroom. So if we're talking about an expert teacher um helps their students truly learn, we have to measure true learning and we can see which teachers not

49:50

Speaker A

to to to to to I'm only thinking now in Dutch um uh not to put them down. Mhm. Not to um what's the word? Punish.

50:04

Speaker A

Penalize them. What? Penalize. Penalize. Yeah. Yeah. But what what what what what we need to do is be able to do that so that we can then see who's on the road to that expertise and what needs to be done. And that's

50:21

Speaker A

I think one of the major problems is that learning is often not measured. Yeah. And what is measured I mean in the Netherlands it's the case that you don't learn to read in a way that you understand what you're reading.

50:43

Speaker A

Mhm. You're tested there to see if you can understand when there's a contradiction in a short text. And they've taught students that there are key words that they should look for like but and they're taught to find those key words

50:59

Speaker A

and I can read a paragraph um about cricket and answer those questions although I haven't the vaguest idea how you play cricket or how a team can do 427 for three overs and still get a tie. I have no idea what I just said,

51:21

Speaker A

but it happens. Who's doing this? Well, um it's it's an issue here in the US where I think we we are often unpersuaded by international comparisons. But if you're looking at teacher training, because at the end of the day, we really are talking about

51:38

Speaker A

changing and acculturating teachers into the profession to have this mindset. Where should we be looking?

51:44

Speaker A

England in France. Yeah. But there's a problem. I used to work as a um visiting professor in Finland and you have no idea how many groups of people I had coming to Finland to try to find the magic bullet,

52:07

Speaker A

right? Thinking that if we do it like the Fins do it, Yeah. then it'll work. But number one, at the time that they came, they had already changed their system and were doing it wrong. But that's not what

52:20

Speaker A

I'm talking about. What what policy makers, now I'm speaking to the policy makers here, okay?

52:28

Speaker A

Um, in England, you had um two people uh uh Nick Gibb and who was the minister?

52:39

Speaker A

Michael Gove. Michael Gove. Yeah. and they got a plan together. Mhm. And that plan was etched in stone and that couldn't be changed by the next person coming in taking over the job of secretary or whatever. It was etched in

52:57

Speaker A

stone. It was given the time Mhm. to develop and deliver fruits. And that were a number of C specific things like the the setting up an evidencebased curriculum for initial teacher education.

53:16

Speaker A

Mhm. Setting up that induction plan that I was talking that I was telling about.

53:22

Speaker A

They implemented all of that and they kept to it. Now that was in 2010 2011.

53:31

Speaker A

Someone told me the anecdote of seeing Michael Gove walking around in the Houses of Parliament. Yeah. With my paper from 2006 saying this is the way we should do it, you know, and staying true to that.

53:48

Speaker A

And you've seen a steady growth in England. Yep. Not in a year or two years, but in 10, 15 years, you've seen a steady growth.

53:57

Speaker A

Nobody wanted or thought it would be a quick fix. That's right. That's right. And it while at the same time, Scotland has gone in the exact opposite direction.

54:07

Speaker A

And Wales. That's right. And Wales. Yep. And it's plummeted. Yep. So if you want to look, it's not only looking at what they did, that's important. But also how they did it, how the policy makers kept on script.

54:24

Speaker A

That's right. to make sure even and and and when Oxford said we're not going to do it, they said then we're not going to accredit your teachers.

54:32

Speaker A

Okay. Okay. By the way, this is a if I can put a a selfplug in uh tomorrow, I've got an article in National Review with Nick Gibb.

54:41

Speaker A

Oh, great. Have written about uh England's um uh growth in literacy over the last couple of years.

54:47

Speaker A

Yeah, he wrote a nice book with Yeah. Go ahead. You did indeed. Okay. Okay. But but let me let me let's um let's talk about individual teachers here because on the one hand and again this is very persuasive to me. But we're talking

54:58

Speaker A

about really a systemic change among teacher training among institutions among the profession. A lot of folks who are listening to this conversation are classroom teachers or administrators. So if you're a fifth grade teacher and and and you've made this decision, okay, I I

55:14

Speaker A

I need to raise my level of expertise. is I've decided that my, you know, my questioning isn't as as effective as it should be. I'm not waiting for the profession to change. I need to improve my practice tomorrow morning. Um, what

55:26

Speaker A

what would changing deliberate practice actually look like for me over the next two weeks?

55:31

Speaker A

U maybe I can take that. Um, so the requirements that Paul shared about what deliberate practice requires, right? It's you want to start with a clear specific target, right? instead of having these vague ideas that I want to

55:48

Speaker A

become better at asking more questions um or be very very specific. I'm doing checking for understanding. I want to be doing cognitively demanding questions and I want to wait longer before calling on a student giving them time. Then what

56:03

Speaker A

you want to do is then you want to go that extra mile and record a baseline lesson for yourself. How am I doing it right now? Right? perhaps get a colleague or a coach to watch specifically for that behavior. What

56:16

Speaker A

happens is a lot of the observation that happens in the classroom remains at a very superficial level. How was the vibe? How are the students feeling? How is the energy? And but the the discussion around how you did exactly

56:30

Speaker A

what you did and how well you did it, but then also how well they learned as a result of that. So watching specifically for that behavior and then receiving concrete feedback and using that feedback. That's why Paul said a

56:42

Speaker A

requirement is truthful feedback like it needs to be truthful. If it was bad or if it missed this, this and this point that it needs to be truly spelled out.

56:54

Speaker A

Uh and it's very hard to do it for yourself. That's why you need someone an expert or a coach, someone truly honest to your improvement to do that. then you want to rehearse and revise that question stem sort of you know outside

57:07

Speaker A

of the classroom. Um one of the things I wanted to mention that in our profession the ratio between practice and performance is completely inverted. In every profession you practice practice practice practice and then your performance is much shorter. All

57:22

Speaker A

musicians, athletes you think about it but in our profession you don't really practice and you go straight into performance. So we want to bring back the performance idea and then try that in one lesson, get feedback again and

57:35

Speaker A

repeat the cycle a few times over the next little bit. So again, small monitored feedbackdriven repetitions rather than a general resolution.

57:45

Speaker A

But but before you answer, Paul, I just wanted to kind of add on to my question because I made an assumption that I should not have made which was about, you know, questioning. For example, one of the things I'm curious about is is

57:56

Speaker A

how do we know if we're a teacher? What is what is where's my expertise lacking?

58:01

Speaker A

What how that's the answer I was just going to give you? Yeah. Um normally when I give a um a presentation here I end it with and Nidi also does the same one. Um we we we end it with a with a with a question. Um

58:22

Speaker A

I presented five building blocks of teacher expertise. domain, cogsai, instruction tools pedagogy. Yeah. Preliminary to what Nidi said and kind of in in answer to your second part of the question, you have to ask yourself in first just ask which of these five

58:43

Speaker A

building blocks, okay, limits my teaching most. Is it that I don't have the necessary domain knowledge?

58:52

Speaker A

I was trained as this and now I'm doing that. Maybe you just is the first step is just through deliberate practice gaining the necessary domain knowledge.

59:03

Speaker A

Maybe you have that but you really don't understand how students learn. If you don't understand that then questioning techniques are worthless because you don't know what questions to ask, when to ask them, how to ask them that you

59:20

Speaker A

need to space them instead of blocking them and things like that. that comes from your knowledge of cognitive science. So you should ask yourself looking at those five building blocks.

59:31

Speaker A

Yeah. Which one is first? You you need to do all of them, but if you're already a teacher, which one of them is crying out, please do me better.

59:44

Speaker A

Yeah. And that's where you begin in the way that media said it. But that's the first thing you have to decide because it's it's not at the level of a certain questioning technique.

59:55

Speaker A

Yeah. No, because I'm making an assumption. While I'm very persuaded by this vision, if it's lacking in a school, then I'm not ne then I may be on my own, so to speak. It'd be I'd be it'd be very a great challenge to figure out

60:07

Speaker A

what is it what what what is the the the the expertise I need to develop that's really going to push student achievement.

60:13

Speaker A

Yeah. And and that's what's happening. If you notice this entire movement that we're all experiencing that has actually brought us all together. This is how we're following each other's work and reading about each other's work. We figured out that teachers don't know how

60:27

Speaker A

learning happens. So how do they know how to teach? Right? And and so this is happening and teachers are feeling lonely, isolated or uh unsure of what to do and then they're looking for these.

60:38

Speaker A

So they are they are really moving their hands and feet to find people like me.

60:43

Speaker A

That's how I found Paul, right? It wasn't that I knew about cognitive science. Somebody, my wonderful colleague Jim Huitt at University of Toronto handed me the book uh how learning happens in 2020 and said let's read this together and uh here here we

60:57

Speaker A

are. And so people are realizing that and and they are feeling lonely. And this conversation is not just so much about that I don't know this, you don't know this, this this. It's more about now that we're realizing it, what are we

61:10

Speaker A

going to do at a system level to actually make those changes happen? So that this doesn't say a hollow void in our profession or for teachers in that you have to win or as a parent you think the teacher lottery every year that I

61:26

Speaker A

will have my child in a teacher's class who's naturally dedicated to do that how can we have that's you know the four million teachers you talk about right so because we're realizing it it's a really really interesting moment in time uh for

61:39

Speaker A

us to actually do something about it well well said and and I found you both through research ed which is I think how we've discovered each other over the years. Um we've got a few minutes left.

61:48

Speaker A

Let's let's take a few audience questions. Um here's one. This is fascinating. Uh are teacher credentials and certification like GSEs helping or hindering the development of teacher expertise off the cuff.

62:04

Speaker A

Yes, please. Yeah. Um um because we we have to change the incentive structure here as well if we're changing the profession, right?

62:15

Speaker A

It's it depends. Okay. Yeah. I mean it's it's I hate that I there's a colleague of mine who so nuanced and it always depends and I say to him take a stand. But it it depends because it depends upon how it's set up

62:33

Speaker A

and how you use it. Um, if it's set up in a way, I'll take the Netherlands as an example, okay?

62:41

Speaker A

If you get a diploma from anyone of the 3 43 roots to becoming a teacher, 343 roots to becoming a teacher. If you get a diploma from from from one of those routes, you are accredited to be a

63:03

Speaker A

teacher. you say, "Okay, great. That person is accredited." But you have no idea what the quality of that accreditation is actually worth.

63:17

Speaker A

Um, did it contain cogs, instructional techniques? Yes. Or was it about creating a good relationship with your students and you know those types of of of of possibly important but primarily soft side that's more the add-ons for me

63:39

Speaker A

if on the other hand the credentiing is done as is done in England now based upon a set curriculum based upon on evidence in cognitive psychology.

63:56

Speaker A

Yeah. Student behavior, teacher student behavior, those are also part of the eight pillars of it. Yeah. If you've gotten from one of them, we can be fairly sure that that t that person in their initial teacher education has the

64:12

Speaker A

foundation that they need to be a good teacher and to begin the journey towards expertise. Mhm.

64:20

Speaker A

So, as I said, those credentials can be important, but if they're contentless, Mhm. empty credentials, then they harm more than they help.

64:38

Speaker A

You're what you're hinting at, Paul, and it's funny that the next question kind of gets at this directly, is really about the the the the cultural norms in in the profession. So let me read this question from the audience as well.

64:50

Speaker A

Veteran teachers often chafe when administrators suggest they are using techniques that are outmoded or not scientifically valid. After all, these veteran teachers will reason, hey, I'm the one with the length of experience who is to question to my methods,

65:05

Speaker A

especially if you haven't had success. So how do you get these teachers uh who may not be buying what you're selling, so to speak, uh to drop their opposition to the to the vision that you're describing?

65:19

Speaker A

if I could do that. Um, what I often do is I I I I make analogies.

65:27

Speaker A

Okay? And I would make an analogy there from let me guarantee you that Rafael Nadal's trainers are not in the top 200 or the top 400 tennisers in the world.

65:47

Speaker A

But apparently they're good enough at noticing what's going right, what's going wrong, how can it be better, even though they're never as good and never will be as good as Rafael Nadal. Is it not possible that you've been doing

66:06

Speaker A

something for years and years and years, but have been doing it wrong or not effectively or not as effectively as it can be done, not as efficiently as it can be done, not as satisfactoryy as it could be done, and that someone

66:23

Speaker A

else can look at it and say, "You might want to improve this." Yeah. If you don't think that that's possible, then there's no help. But you take my point right which there there are certain cultural norms and habits in

66:36

Speaker A

this profession that are very to break but in all in all in in in all but um I mean also by doctors and things like that but there's one major difference if a doctor gets it wrong they can be brought up in front of a

66:53

Speaker A

board. I'm not even going to talking about suing for malpractice in the United States. Let's not even get near that. But in any event in the Netherlands can be brought before a medical board, a lawyer can do that.

67:05

Speaker A

Even somebody working in a garage can be brought in front of a board and lose their license to work on certain types of cars.

67:13

Speaker A

Non-teers. Preaching profession is the only profession and I'm tempted to use air quotes when I say profession. So I think all the teachers listening will now hate me also as much as they hate you, Robert. So, I'm in I'm in good company.

67:29

Speaker A

Um um it's one of the only professions or maybe the only profession I know where that's not the case.

67:41

Speaker A

Yeah. Where there's Yeah. Go ahead. I was going to say, you know, in in some ways this notion of, you know, being defensive is quite often a signal also that um you know, there's something under threat and nobody really

67:55

Speaker A

it's not a enjoyable experience to problematize your set routine. I've been doing it. I've been doing it. So, what's the problem with it? Right? So, I think that this is the time like I I get that that this is a culture, but this is

68:10

Speaker A

exactly the kind of shift that we also need. It's a attitude also that we need to have that shift that the improvement it it doesn't happen on its own because I've been doing something doesn't mean that it's always working and do I know

68:25

Speaker A

that and that question has to be asked and then the other piece I want to say is that because I say something to someone that if you did it it would work um doesn't do that doesn't change the

68:36

Speaker A

practice what a better approach is that you know what come with me on this shift the practice a see the evidence for yourself and that evidence that change that that slight shift might create would be a much better evidence. It would be a much more

68:53

Speaker A

successful approach for us all to take versus just to talk about it is what you know I'm thinking. So it's tricky. It's hard but it's also not ex you know okay for I mean we're not going to we're not

69:06

Speaker A

going to give up keep on talking about it. Yeah. No, I mean I one of the major takeaways in this conversation for my mind is is is not just uh cultural change but institutional change. In other words, you have to really change

69:18

Speaker A

the mindset of uh of folks in the profession, of folks who prepare teachers, etc. We we've got time, I think, for one more question uh before we we call it an afternoon. So So let me throw this one at you. Um what advice

69:31

Speaker A

because we we we spoke earlier about you know giving advice to policy makers. Let's talk about school administrators as a as a final question. What advice do you have for school leaders who want to get better at coaching teachers and

69:42

Speaker A

helping them discern what skills they need to improve? Paul is laughing for some reason.

69:50

Speaker A

Are you laughing? Yeah. Um, Nidi already gave the answer to this and that's uh leading by example and that means that they too need to make use of deliberate practice to get better at what they're doing because um the role that they're

70:15

Speaker A

in is also not number one not something that they are gifted with. Mhm. Um what we often see in certain countries also the Netherlands um that often um it's taken for granted that if you've been an administrator in one area

70:39

Speaker A

you can be an administrator everywhere you know and um uh just like I gave that there are five building blocks there are also building blocks to being a school administrator in what you And you that means that they also need to go this route

71:00

Speaker A

of having the knowledge, knowing the techniques, knowing the tools, creating the environment. I can make a parallel from each of those from domain cogsai instruction tools and pedagogy to being a school leader or an administrator and say what does that person most need

71:25

Speaker A

in order to be an expert administrator. Yeah. And I would say that an administrator, a school leader, you have administrative roles, but you also have an educative role. And so having a shared understanding of learning is absolutely necessary. And I think Paul

71:44

Speaker A

Paul answered it really well. The the one piece I would like to add within that is that if you were to build a very specific skill than a skill of being able to observe a successful learning classroom, right? Because we've written

71:59

Speaker A

about that in the book as well. And there is a really great uh essay by Adam Boxer called I I think it's called the radiologist. um how do you know you're looking at expert teaching right if I were to see and this

72:11

Speaker A

is the basic the basic point very integral point of this essay that Adam Boxer has written is that if I were to look at a CT scan right now as Nidi it won't make sense to me so I don't know

72:22

Speaker A

what I'm looking at but if I was a radiologist then I know what I'm looking at so what is my area what is my expertise and what am I looking at because then as a school leader in the

72:34

Speaker A

educative role I also know how to support the teachers that work in my school the right way. Then you can bring in peer observation, normalize the culture of continuous growth and self-improvement and um it's normalized to watch each other's lesson and give

72:49

Speaker A

each other you know respectable um constructive and posit not positive but just like useful feedback um but I would say build the skill of real observation of a successful what does successful teaching look like? Okay. So, I I I

73:05

Speaker A

don't want to put words in your mouth as as as final words, but but if we're changing the entire infrastructure of education to to bring this this this uh vision to life, it sounds like you're saying that school administrators are

73:18

Speaker A

are the the principal audience that you want to persuade. No. No. You have to do it at all levels. Mhm.

73:28

Speaker A

Um the teacher wants to become wants to need needs to want to become as expert as they can become. You need the administrator to create the best conditions possible and understand what that means so that the teacher can become the best teacher

73:49

Speaker A

that they can become. And you need policy makers to make educational policy that allows the administrator the room and the time to make the transition to better learning and give the teachers the room to become expert teachers. So all three

74:10

Speaker A

of those audiences are really really important. Yeah. Having an administrator say this is important and the teachers don't buy into the fact that it's their it's a moral imperative for them to be the best teachers they can be because their

74:31

Speaker A

students need them to be the best teacher they can be. If they don't buy into that themselves and want to do this self-inflicted pain, then the administrator can stand on their head.

74:45

Speaker A

and it won't happen. And for the record, you're not letting ed schools off the hook.

74:50

Speaker A

No, no, no. If there's one group that doesn't walk the walk and only talks the talk, that doesn't practice what it preaches, it it's it's the ed schools.

75:03

Speaker A

Okay. It's the low and it's the lowhanging fruit we should really be catching on to. there's so much I mean first things first you know everybody should be reading uh how learning happens for example and then perhaps becoming an

75:17

Speaker A

expert teacher um and we're doing that in our for example in the courses that I'm teaching but it's just one fraction of you know millions of teachers that you talk about right so yeah nobody Paul is right personal uh desire is necessary

75:31

Speaker A

but it's kind of like this idea that if my parents gave me all the resources I wanted but I don't take the benefit of it then I may not get into Harvard, Yale, whatever, uft for that matter. Um,

75:44

Speaker A

but I need to be wanting to do that also. So, but the resources and support system just generally helps. So, it's building the entirety around it, not just one or the other. But yeah, definitely it's it's school administrators do have a role to play,

75:58

Speaker A

but they're not the only component that can make this happen. Um, we are I'm I'm afraid out of time, but I can already um I'm going to ask you right now since the book comes out in in a couple of weeks.

76:09

Speaker A

Can we uh plan in advance that we will do a second version of this once folks have had a chance to to read the book and and bring questions because I've I've only asked about maybe a fourth of

76:19

Speaker A

the questions that I wanted to bring up. Um so for Paul Kersner and Nidi Sajjiva, thank you very much. Good luck with the book. I hope it I hope it works really really well for you and and let's indeed

76:30

Speaker A

um plan a second a second. My answer to you is it's always a pleasure prior to the um uh uh the talk and during the talk to interact with you.

76:43

Speaker A

So the answer is definitely. Thanks guys and to our audience for at AEI uh thank you for for for watching this afternoon and we will see you again next month.

77:17

Speaker A

Thanks guys. Okay. Okay. That was

Topics: teaching expertise deliberate practice teacher development education research professional development classroom decision making teaching quality evidence-informed teaching teacher preparation American Enterprise Institute


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