As teachers, we know that just because we’ve said something once in a lesson does not mean that our students have learned it. Instead, great teachers employ a range of strategies to embed knowledge: retrieval practice, elaboration, and concrete examples, just to name a few. Teachers’ own professional learning is (or, at least should be) no different; we need to actively employ our own hard thinking to get better.

In these instances, concrete examples are a particularly powerful strategy for teachers’ professional learning. The research tells us that it can be very helpful for any learner to develop their understanding of ideas—particularly complex, abstract ideas (e.g., Kaminski et al., 2008; Renkle et al., 2004).

When we’re trying to build our expertise of a strategy and technique connected to big ideas like “promoting learner motivation” or “managing time and resources effectively”, it is tempting to fall back to a checklist of actions or recipe. But evidence-informed teachers should be quick to reject such shortcuts, in favour of building their adaptive expertise through their professional learning. Concrete examples are an excellent technique for doing so for professional learning!

Concrete examples for teachers

When examining examples (whether examples of great teaching, or any other complex topic), we want to make sure to pay attention to the underlying principles, or “active ingredients”; this is how we can build our understanding of what is actually important for a technique (Gick & Holyoak, 1983).

So what are sources of examples that we can use for our professional learning?

An easy example is often just next door—our colleagues can be excellent examples to observe a technique in action. Keen to try cold calling in your own practice? Ask a colleague if you can watch them in action. This comes with the advantage of someone to “debrief” with after the lesson. It’s a great chance to ask how or why your colleague did what they did to build your understanding. And, of course, professional learning does not need to happen in a bubble; a community makes it enjoyable and collegial!

At the same time, the research tells us that an essential component of concrete examples (whether for professional learning or for any learning) is that they are multiple, varied, and meaningful.

Visiting a colleague’s classroom provides one perspective. There is great value in expanding observations even wider—examining videos of great teaching in other contexts is an excellent way to do that.

Using video as a professional learning tool

Videos of classroom practice offer a few practical advantages as a professional learning tool. Namely, it’s easy to pause, rewind, and revisit as many times as you’d like!

Say you’re watching videos of classroom practice to see some more examples of cold calling. Maybe you thought noticed the teacher make a particular gesture or signal as they ask a question. Rewind a take a closer look! Then go back again, paying particular attention to how the students react. Through video, it becomes so much easier to consider much more than we would with a live, in-person observation.

Videos also serve as a professional learning conversation starter. Watch the video (perhaps a few times through) with a colleague and discuss what you noticed. How does it compare to what you’ve seen in person? What are the underlying principles and “active ingredients” that pervade, regardless of context? What are modifications that can be made? Having a conversation about a neutral, external video can be disarming; it allows colleagues to consider these questions and the technique without having to feel defensive.

Recognising the power of concrete example videos for professional learning, we’ve built it right into features of the Great Teaching Toolkit. In the first feature, teachers who use the platform can view clips of volunteer teachers’ classrooms. These videos are aligned to elements of the Model for Great Teaching (Coe et al., 2020) and offer snapshots of what components of that element can look like in action—all in a variety of contexts, age groups, and subjects.

Teachers using the Great Teaching Toolkit can also see videos as they work through a Development Cycle and selected techniques. Want to get better at cold calling? Read about the technique, then watch the video clip of an example of it. These existing technique videos are courtesy of Adam Kohlbeck, Director of Teacher Quality at Chiltern Learning Trust and a great friend of us here at Evidence Based Education, who has videoed his own practice. To help teachers use it as a professional learning tool, he also introduces each video, signalling things to notice. At the conclusion of each video, he offers a “debrief” to elucidate some of his decision-making.

Here’s a video example of Adam talking about the approach to Hinge Questions, and the rationale behind the technique.

Tips for concrete examples for professional learning

Whether you’ve been invited to observe a colleague, or you’re watching video clips of others’ teaching, there are a few things you can do to help activate your own hard thinking. After all, our time for professional learning is precious—we want to make the most of it!

1. Have a clear focus for your attention. What are you looking for examples of in action? What technique are you trying to develop and learn more about?
2. Build an understanding of this technique in advance. Why does it work? What are the underlying principles or “active ingredients”?
3. In the moment, try not to get too absorbed into the teaching! It can be tricky when our colleagues are giving an engaging lesson… but remember you are there to learn about cold calling, not Jane Austen…
4. Use specific prompts to help focus your attention. For example, notice how the students respond when the teacher does something. What about the teacher’s actions led to that response?
5. If you are using videos for concrete examples, go back and re-watch a few times. Consider different perspectives in the process.
6. Afterwards, identify the underlying principles and “active ingredients” you saw employed. Notice also what was different from other examples you’ve seen.
7. Debrief with your colleague about what you saw. Have a conversation and ask questions.

Visiting our colleagues’ classrooms is a wonderful component of professional learning. Using videos allows that to become a stepping stone to further learning, not an endpoint. They open the door to multiple, varied examples that allow us to deepen our understanding of evidence-informed techniques. And, for teachers lucky enough to use the Great Teaching Toolkit, they are already there ready for you!

The videos are available exclusively to GTT members. Not a member? Book a demo to see the platform and what it can do for you.

References

Coe, R., Rauch, C. J., Kime, S., & Singleton, D. (2020). Great teaching toolkit: Evidence Review. https://evidencebased.education/the-great-teaching-toolkit-evidence-review/

Gick, M. L., & Holyoak, K. J. (1983). Schema induction and analogical transfer. Cognitive Psychology, 15(1), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(83)90002-6

Kaminski, J. A., Sloutsky, V. M., & Heckler, A. F. (2008). The advantage of abstract examples in learning math. Science, 320(5875), 454-455. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1154659

Renkl, A., Atkinson, R.K. & Große, C.S. How Fading Worked Solution Steps Works – A Cognitive Load Perspective. Instructional Science 32, 59–82 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:TRUC.0000021815.74806.f6