Improving teacher practice requires more than building their instructional knowledge and skills. The context in which they work matters, too.

There’s an apocryphal story about a farmer who continuously refuses free courses, free seeds, and a variety of other offerings from the agricultural extension office in his community. When a representative from the ag office asks the farmer why he continues to turn down these opportunities for improvement, the farmer says, “I’m already not the best farmer I know how to be.”

In a recent research project on classroom practice, I found teachers expressing similar sentiments. These teachers were frustrated that they were not able to practice the best teaching they already knew how to do. They did not identify a lack of knowledge or skill or experience as impediments. Instead, they described contextual factors as the problem.

Their experiences have important implications for the ways we think about professional development and teacher learning. The accounts of these teachers suggest that, to improve teachers’ practice, we need to expand our focus beyond the knowledge, skills, and experience of teachers themselves and look at the contexts in which they do their jobs.

A knowledge-based improvement model

Most efforts to improve classroom teaching practices are informed by a particular model of teacher change: The underlying belief is that, as teachers learn about new ideas, strategies, and technologies, they change their practice and get better and better. And professional development serves as a key method for providing “powerful teacher learning experiences” (Desimone, 2009, p. 182) and helping teachers “enhance their knowledge and develop new instructional practices” (Borko, 2004, p. 3).

This model of teacher change is based on a few assumptions. One is the belief that teacher knowledge is the most important driver of teachers’ practice. Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle (1999) identify this belief as fundamental to most strategies for teacher improvement, calling teacher learning “the sine qua non of every school change effort” (p. 249). Another assumption is that the improvement that comes from increasing teacher knowledge is linear, meaning that positive change continues as teachers learn and gain experience with new practices. This is often referred to as continuous improvement (Young & Kim, 2010).

Tony, in his 19th year in the classroom, said that his district “forces us every year to be more traditional,” so each year “we as a school have less and less autonomy.”

In earlier research with teachers on their career trajectories (Glazer, 2018), I heard a very different narrative about how teacher learning drives improvement. The teachers I spoke to saw changes in their own teaching, but the changes they described did not follow a path of linear growth or continuous improvement. In fact, many teachers recounted ways they felt they had gotten worse as teachers over time, not better, despite increases in their experience and knowledge.

To examine this contradiction, I interviewed 12 experienced middle and high school teachers from urban and suburban schools about their own pedagogical development. I asked them to bring to our discussion two student assignments that they found successful: one that they gave students earlier in their career and one that they currently used. The teachers then guided me through the assignments using a “think aloud” protocol (Smagorinsky, 1998). This became a jumping-off point to explore their pedagogical choices and the ways they felt their teaching has changed through their careers.

Why teachers change

Teachers’ accounts of the reasons for discarding previously effective assignments provided rich data for understanding their decision making. Most often, the teachers did not tell me that they made these changes because they had increased their pedagogical skills or content knowledge. Instead, they spoke about workload issues, constraints of curricular policies, and the influence of supervisors as the drivers of change. Each of these themes offers a challenge to our thinking about professional development and other techniques for helping teachers improve.

Workload

Many teachers cited workload constraints, both in their own lives and within their schools, as a reason for their pedagogical changes. For some teachers, their workload increased as their student loads increased, and they were no longer able to assign work that would require a lot of time and attention to manage and assess. For others, it was not an increased workload, but other responsibilities in their lives (often, family obligations toward parents or children) that cut into the time they had to dedicate to their teaching.

Lisa, in her eighth year of teaching, said, “I think some of the things I did back then . . . were super-innovative  . . . [I] wish I was still doing [them] . . . I have so much less time [now].” Another, Mindy, in her 10th year, agreed. She said a big consideration in her teaching “is sustainability. . . . Realistically, you know, I have a three-year-old at home. I can’t go home and do work like I used to. So, I feel like life changes probably impacted a lot.”

These teachers described giving up previously effective assignments because they no longer found themselves able to handle the time and effort these assignments required.

Constraints from curricular policies

Several teachers cited curricular constraints as another explanation for abandoning previously successful assignments. Tony, in his 19th year in the classroom, said that his district “forces us every year to be more traditional,” so each year “we as a school have less and less autonomy.” This has had a profound effect on his teaching. Tony reported that he often had to abandon assignments he previously found effective in favor of “test preparation.”

Tammy, in her seventh year of teaching, had a similar account. She said her school imposed too many required assignments (often motivated by test preparation), and she no longer had time for more creative and engaging assignments. Describing an assignment from earlier in her career that she was particularly proud of, she said, “we would never do that now. . . . There’s no room for it. It’s not until fourth marking period this year that I’m allowed to have a teacher’s choice assessment.”

Raquel, in her seventh year, also reflected on curricular constraints and the pressure to cover certain skills with an eye on standardized testing:

I have to get this done, this done, this done . . . let’s hit this idea, this skill. . . . Do I want them to be thinkers? Yeah, it’s what I want, but I need them to do this test, this test, and this test. So that’s kind of my aggravation with teaching right now. . . . I feel like a robot often because . . . there is so much structure to what I have to do, and then I have to get it OK’d . . . and it’s just a little defeating.

Supervisory changes

Other teachers cited a change in supervisor and concerns about those monitoring their classrooms as explanations for why they no longer used formerly successful assignments. For example, Mindy, in her 10th year, said she had tailored her newer assignments to what the new administration in her district seemed to be looking for. This meant focusing on easily observable and often traditional markers of “good teaching,” like kids sitting quietly in their seats, even if this conflicted with her own beliefs about effective pedagogy. She told me:

[Now,] you’re always worried about an administrator walking in, asking, “What are the kids doing?” So it kind of stemmed from that. . . . I mean, even in year 10, I feel like I have to justify everything that I’m doing. . . . I think that impacts how I teach a lot sometimes which, I hate to say that, but at the end of the day, you know, an observer’s going to come in your room. Are you doing what they expect to see on that observation form? Is that going to reflect well on me as a teacher? I think, sometimes, let me find a good way to phrase this, there’s a fear of . . . does it check enough boxes?

Getting worse, not better

As these teachers described their newer and older assignments, a sobering trend emerged: Rather than feeling like improvements, for many, their newer assignments felt like a step backward. These teachers expressed frustration with their increased workloads, with policies that emphasized test preparation at the expense of teacher autonomy, and with pressure for what they describe as “box checking” by their administrators.

Maria, like the majority of those interviewed, expressed dissatisfaction when comparing a current assignment to her past practices. She recognized and appreciated the skill-building aspect of the new assignment, motivated by district testing pressures, but she openly wondered about the experience for her students.

Ultimately at the end I question: What’s more valuable here? And so this [current assignment] will provide good skills in the future. But, what ultimately has more value to my kids? And I think if you ask these kids, this [former assignment] is an unforgettable experience whereas this [current one] is more “oh yeah, I know how to do that now. . . . I’m accomplishing this skill.”

Maria, like the other experienced teachers I spoke to, lamented the loss of an assignment she and her students found meaningful.

Implications for teacher development

These teachers’ comments should make us question whether professional development as it is currently understood would help them improve their practice. It does not seem that knowledge about content or pedagogy or new techniques is what these teachers need. In fact, like the farmer refusing help from the ag extension office, these teachers feel they already have knowledge and skills. They’re just unable to use them.

This is both good and bad news as we think about teacher improvement. The good news is that, according to teachers, they possess a lot of knowledge about effective teaching practice. It does not need to be “developed” from scratch. The bad news is that much of their knowledge does not translate into classroom practice in today’s schools.

Two important lessons emerge from these accounts that can inform our thinking about professional development and improving teacher practice. In short, any teacher development effort must take sustainability and teacher autonomy into account.

Sustainability. Many (if not most) teachers experience workload constraints that make them unable to teach in ways they know could be effective. The teachers I spoke to found that they had to jettison innovative, engaging assignments they had previously found successful because they no longer had time. This raises an important issue for any teacher development effort. We can help teachers develop new, effective techniques, but if these new practices feel unsustainable and require too much effort from teachers, they will not use them for long. Those in charge of teacher development should advocate for smaller class sizes, fewer preps, and other supports to help keep teachers’ workloads manageable.

Teacher autonomy. A teacher development strategy cannot simply focus on increasing teachers’ knowledge and skills. Teachers must also have the autonomy to use their expanded capacities productively. The teachers I spoke to felt that curricular policies and administrators limited their ability to exercise professional judgment. Any teacher development strategy, then, should also include advocacy at the policy level for school and classroom environments that give teachers the ability to employ the effective teaching practices they already have learned. Such advocacy must target policy makers and administrators to help them understand management practices that allow teachers to do what works in their classrooms, with their students.

These teachers feel they already have knowledge and skills. They’re just unable to use them.

We often focus on teachers as the locus of change, trying to increase their knowledge through professional development in order to improve their practice. But, based on the experiences of the teachers I interviewed, we need to look beyond the teachers themselves and consider the contextual constraints they face. Any strategy to improve teacher practice needs to grapple with this challenge: How do we make the school environment a place where teachers can use knowledge they already have to practice the effective kinds of teaching they already know how to do?

Note: All teacher names in this article are pseudonyms, and teacher quotes have been edited to eliminate repetition.

References

Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33 (8), 3-15.

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S.L. (1999). Chapter 8: Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24 (1), 249-305.

Desimone, L.M. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38 (3), 181-199.

Glazer, J. (2018). Leaving lessons: Learning from the exit decisions of experienced teachers. Teachers and Teaching, 24 (1), 50-62.

Smagorinsky, P. (1998). Thinking and speech and protocol analysis. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 5 (3), 157-177.

Young, V.M. & Kim, D.H. (2010). Using assessments for instructional improvement: A literature review. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 18 (19), 1-40.

This article appears in the September 2023 issue of Kappan, Vol. 105, No. 1, pp. 46-50.