Dive Brief:
- “How to create higher performing, happier classrooms in 7 moves: A playbook for teachers” takes lessons from the nation’s most successful managers in business, who help their employees become high-performing and happy, and applies them to classrooms in three principles: empower the team, be a good coach and emphasize accountability.
- The report, produced by the Clayton Christensen Institute in collaboration with Growth Public Schools and Oxford Day Academy, recommends teachers develop growth mindset, agency, creativity and a passion for learning among students, release control of direct instruction, and foster peer-to-peer learning.
- From there, teachers should create a culture of feedback, build relationships of trust with students, help students hold themselves accountable with goals and progress trackers, and hold themselves accountable with peer and student surveys as well as self-assessments.
Dive Insight:
At times, teachers are similar to managers in the business world and there are good lessons that educators can take from them. The same can be said for schools more broadly. The focus on corporate culture in places like Google and Zappos pays off. The Every Student Succeeds Act asks states to consider nonacademic factors like school culture in assessing school performance. This could be a perfect time for administrators to focus harder on the issue.
For teachers, the idea of releasing control is an important element of many instructional trends today, including project-based and personalized learning. The shift to School 2.0 is rife with opportunities for teachers to step back from their role at the front of the classroom as provider of all knowledge and embrace a new role as a facilitator of learning, where students take more control over their path. This will almost certainly take longer, but many education experts believe students and schools will be better for it.