What Teachers Need to Take Instructional Risks

A few years ago, when I was a middle leader in a school, I lead the school to reboot our language program. We were trying to develop an instructional approach that would work for our students and our context. We built our own knowledge from a range of research and sources, drawing together the ideas that best suited what we were trying to achieve.

Then we tried it ourselves. We taught the lessons, invited others in to observe and give us feedback, and piloted what became our ‘bootcamp’ lesson. Some things worked. Some needed adjusting. Some probably felt a little clunky while we were getting used to them.

But we also made a conscious decision not to keep changing the approach every time something was difficult.

We gave it a red hot go. We needed time to build the routines, become more confident in what we were doing and see how students responded. Only then were we really in a position to make informed decisions about what needed to change.

Looking back now, I can see that much of what we were doing reflected a tight and loose approach.

We were clear about the purpose of the work and the evidence informing it. There were things we were collectively trying to achieve, but there was also room to work out what the approach looked like in our context, test it in practice and learn from what happened. Then we came back together, looked at what was happening, gave feedback and made adjustments.

I think about that experience when I think about teacher professionalism and instructional risk.

Professional judgement develops through opportunities to engage with evidence, apply it in context, get feedback and make decisions about what to do next.

Teachers need to be able to open their classrooms to colleagues without feeling that every observation is an evaluation. They need to be able to acknowledge that something did not work as expected and talk honestly about why. They also need enough time to get past the initial discomfort of doing something differently before deciding whether the approach itself needs to change.

For me, this is where the balance between tight and loose becomes important.

There will be things that need to be shared and consistent across a school. But teachers also need room to exercise professional judgement, test ideas, learn from each other and contribute to how practice develops.

Looking back, I think that balance helped us take instructional risks without losing sight of what we were trying to achieve. We knew what mattered, but we also had room to work out how to get there.

If you are interested in reading another's perspective on how this looks, I encourage you to read Tom Sherrington's post about it here: Tight-Loose and the Folly of Prescriptive Lesson Structures - https://lnkd.in/g7f7_s9s

Reflection questions:

Where is a tight and loose balance already showing up in our leadership practice?

Where might greater clarity about what is fixed, and where professional judgement can operate, help us lead more effectively?