Friday, July 1, 2016

Why Some Teachers Don’t Change

In many classrooms, teachers are embracing active, collaborative teaching methods that are cognitively engaging for students, encouraging them to construct meaning about important concepts.

However, there are still some classrooms where teachers are desperately hanging on to practices that are less-effective for student learning. Some teachers still focus on content rather than concepts and delivery of information rather than building of understanding. In these classrooms, students are passive participants who learn content for short-term regurgitation. Teachers hang on to teaching strategies where they are the sage-on-the-stage for a number of reasons.

Most teachers have their students’ best interests at heart. The passive learning strategies they use are not the result of laziness or indifference; they, too, feel they are doing what’s best for kids. They genuinely believe that these passive learning strategies are the best way to teach because the content they are sharing is important. When teachers see learning as content-focused, a receptive stance for students makes sense.

Another reason teachers use these teaching strategies is because they are teaching in the way they were taught. So it may be all they really know. After spending years in classrooms where they were passive participants, some teachers offer this same experience to their students, feeling this is how we do school. Their apprenticeship into teaching was their own learning experience as students.

Another reason teachers use these teacher-oriented strategies is because such approaches make it easier to stay in control of the classroom. It is easier to monitor students when they take notes than when they collaborate, easier to manage the classroom when students sit in straight rows facing forward than in groups huddled around the room. A more active role for students may present classroom management challenges.

When teachers are reluctant to change, it is helpful to get to the root of the problem. If a teacher’s approach is guided by content, he might be more receptive to change if he experiences concept-oriented learning for himself and if he’s presented with lesson ideas that grow students’ content knowledge through concept-oriented approaches such as Understanding by Design. Teachers love getting new stuff, so another hook for content-oriented teachers might be to buy them some hands-on learning tools for the content they are attached to.

If teachers are reluctant to change because their teaching style is an extension of the methods they’ve seen, modeling lessons in the teacher’s room might provide a vision for a different kind of teaching. Visiting other classrooms (especially when part of a classroom lab visit) can also help teachers broaden their instructional repertoire. For teachers who struggle with classroom management, classroom visits can also be helpful, especially when coupled with supports for collaborative learning such as the Kagan strategies.

If you will be working with teachers who are reluctant to change, getting at the root of the problem can help new teaching approaches blossom!


This week, you might want to take a look at:

Read more about coaching resistant teachers here:



Top 12 Ways Teachers Can Rock Summer Break:



Six ideas for using stuffed animals for literacy tools (beyond the primary grades):



How the workshop model includes the learning that matters most:



This 7-minute video is about an elementary math lesson, but includes great ideas for supporting discussion useful across the curriculum:


That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!

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