It's Way Harder Than You Realize (Part 1)
And why the arrival and increased prevalence of AI in the classroom probably makes it even harder in spots...and hopefully a little easier at times too
Teaching effectively is so much more difficult than what most people realize. I frequently use “coaching” interchangeably with teaching, so I may shift in between these words in this post. There are differences to be sure, but I think ultimately they’re more alike than they are different. For much of my career I’ve had students and athletes say something to the effect that I teach like a coach and coach like a teacher. I’m not sure if this is meant as a complement, but I certainly internalize it as such. I am not great at accepting praise, so just allow me this one, this time. I start here because a thing I think about far too often is when a parent of a former player once asked me after a game, “Have you told them about that?” The question was in relation to a mistake that the team consistently made and continued to make, multiple games in a row.1 It wasn’t necessarily an accusation, but the tone was such that it was clear they seemed to think I hadn’t noticed it. They were trying to be helpful in the moment. Not only were they not being helpful in the moment, here I am writing about it almost ten years later—they’re still not being helpful.2 If effective teaching (or coaching) was merely about telling someone something, then we’d be in a far different place as a society.
Unsurprisingly I think a great deal about effective teaching in my professional life.3 The image at the outset, a visual summarization of Lee Shulman’s 1987 piece, Knowledge & Teaching: Foundations of the New Reform informs lots of the ways I think (and talk/write) about teaching. Spanning seven domains, it demonstrates the complexity and various elements teachers must consider in order to move towards expertise. When I share this with non-educators it always resonates, precisely because it succinctly captures the various aspects of the way humans learn. For most folks Content Knowledge, and even Pedagogical Knowledge, are familiar enough. Knowing lots about a subject and a bit about how to teach are foundational aspects that we’d hope most classroom teachers possess. But when you add the other layers, things become far more nuanced. You might be able to argue against the importance of Curriculum Knowledge—you can be given really strong curricula for example, thus freeing up your attention for other areas. But it’s hard to argue against things like Pedagogical Content Knowledge (often shortened to PCK in Shulman terminology) and Knowledge of Learners and their Characteristics as being central to being considered an expert teacher.4 Teaching, and by proxy learning are incredibly complex activities that we continue to learn more about each year. Shulman’s ‘Seven Knowledge Bases’ put in conversation with Carl Wieman’s Expertise in University Teaching & the Implications for Teaching Effectiveness, Evaluation & Training allows us to further appreciate this complexity.
The figure below blends aspects of Shulman’s work with a kind of visual that asks us to consider both real-time and out-of-class activities—we might think of these as the verbs of teaching. The bottom blocks (Tasks/Questions with Deliverables & Social Learning) feed into the middle block (Learning, through practice with feedback) in ways that evoke action and motion. So too does it ask us to consider the sociality of human learning, something too frequently ignored by critics of education.5 The top blocks, meanwhile, ask us to consider what we might think of as the nouns of teaching. Notice too, that only one of these blocks is in control of the teacher—Disciplinary Expertise. Brain Constraints considers things that we know to be true about the brain; things like short-term and working memory. The middle boxes, encapsulated by the dotted line, represent variations amongst each student in our classroom.
Pause for a moment.
Now, consider needing to weigh each of these things over the course of a year. Of a semester. Of a week. Of one class. In the final ten minutes after a fire drill. Or after something traumatic has happened at the school or in the life of a young person.
It is way harder than you realize.
So How Does Generative AI Factor Into this All?
In Part 2 of this post coming later this week, I’ll explore how I think LLMs (mainly, but not exclusively) impact this complexity. Much of my work over the last month has been on preparing teachers to enter the 2023-2024 school year with the newfound ubiquitousness of AI in education. I am generally someone who approaches this reality with curious enthusiasm and pragmatic optimism. With that said, I am increasingly concerned about the pace and scale of change in less than one year. Like in my previous post it will be a way to make my thinking visible, as a means of strengthening my own perspective, but also hopefully, your own. I’ll work through each of Shulman’s domains and Wieman’s figure on Principles and Practices of Effective Teaching with the hope of demonstrating some ways I see things like ChatGPT impacting the work of educators.
As we stand on the brink of a new educational era, the fusion of traditional teaching with AI is no longer a distant dream but a present reality. How will this technological ally reshape our classrooms, our teaching, and our learning? Join me later this week in Part 2, where we'll explore the profound implications of this unprecedented partnership. The future of education is unfolding, and it's a story you won't want to miss.6
Folks this happened almost a decade ago and I think about it three times per week on average. I can smell the rink lobby where it happened. What can I say? Therapy is expensive.
If you’re a parent and you’re reading this, don’t do that. Especially after the team has dropped like 3 of 4 and needs to get on a bus. I can assure you the coach has thought about. They’ve also “told them” about that. Multiple times. In multiple ways. There was probably a chart or graphs. And a video clip. And a one-on-one. Or multiple one-on-ones. Trust me. I told them and I am telling you now.
Considering I work as the executive director of a center for teaching & learning, this should be comforting to my new colleagues. I also think a lot about what great learning looks like. This is a post for a different time though. One of the trends I’ve seen after nearly 20 years in education is that we overemphasize the role of the teacher. Obviously great teaching matters and helps. But we often ignore the role and responsibility of the learner. This might be more pronounced coming out of the Covid landscape.
Note: PCK is something often unrecognized by many classroom teachers. And by pointing out the importance of ‘Knowledge of Learners and their Characteristics’ is not an argument for things like learning styles. Instead it asks one to consider things like prior knowledge and motivation.
If you want a really rich text that’s dripping with great research and also super accessible check out Josh Eyler’s How Humans Learn: The Science and Stories Behind Effective College Teaching
“Where’s the Last Word?!?!?” dedicated readers muttered to themselves, probably. Don’t worry, it’s coming in Part 2.