As we approach the end of another school year, teachers look forward to a few precious weeks of summer to reflect, recuperate, and prepare for the upcoming fall. This period is an excellent time to consider how our students learn and, even more importantly, how our teachers grow in their practice. For those of us who advocate for deeper learning, it’s clear that there are structural issues with how teachers develop professionally and how adolescents are taught in schools.
The problem partly stems from a long history of schools being designed around a “Tell, Show, Do” approach. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this method, it often creates a gap between telling, showing, and doing. As a former Boy Scout assistant scoutmaster, I’ve seen firsthand how skills like using a knife, administering first aid, or leading a group are taught using this approach. However, the challenge lies in the delay between the different stages of learning.
Consider learning to ride a bicycle. We wouldn’t spend years teaching about all the parts, testing for understanding, and separating components like wheels and pedals from balance. We certainly wouldn’t wait long between showing and letting the learner practice. Yet, in both teaching and student learning, we often focus extensively on individual parts without letting them play the whole game. The line “when do we use this information?” has been part of the student voice for a long time. Historically, learning happened through mentorship and apprenticeship, where learners worked alongside experts, observed, listened, and practiced actual skills incrementally.
In his book “Learning to Leave,” Elliott Washor argues that effective learning involves dovetailing, doing, showing, and telling in incremental steps without delaying practice. This concept is crucial as we help teachers integrate deeper learning into their work. Providing opportunities for them to practice is essential.
In an article about microcosms of practice, Jal Mehta advocates for teachers starting with a unit (a microcosm) to experiment with pedagogical and assessment practices in deeper learning, whether it’s project-based learning, inquiry, place-based learning, design thinking, or other student-centered approaches.
This leads to the central idea of this article: if we truly learn best by doing, how do we ensure that this happens in our professional learning? One approach is providing teachers with opportunities to practice their new skills in the classroom. This summer, we will work with a group of teachers from Nānāikapono Elementary, introducing them to deeper learning design concepts and then observing, sharing, and building on what works during their four-week summer program. This summer lab approach offers a rich opportunity to just do it, with support and opportunities to learn from and refine practices that enhance engagement, evidence collection, and learning in their classrooms. As Dewey said “we don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.”
Research shows that experience increases teachers’ effectiveness and efficacy. One of our biggest challenges is giving teachers the chance to not just be told or shown new teaching methods but to put them into practice. It’s time to just do it!