Here’s something I notice happening in schools across the United States. See if this sounds familiar:
Your district adopts a new program, and you are told it’s based on research. When you receive instruction from the program’s trainer, you learn that the only way to achieve the expected outcomes is to use the program with fidelity. Yet your building or district administrator, who is helping to lead implementation efforts, lets you know that you might need to make adjustments based on the needs of your students.
This is confusing. You have to “use” the program. It has to be used “with fidelity.” But you’re also supposed to make adjustments as needed, since “you’re the one who knows your students.” What are you supposed to do with these seemingly conflicting directions? You might know you can do better than what the program companies cook up, but you may worry that you’ll get in trouble if you stray too far. Or you may feel unsure of how to adapt lessons or units based on the needs of your students. “I’m not a curriculum developer,” you may say to yourself. “How can I design something better than what professional companies create?”
The frequent outcome of these situations is that teachers stick very closely to the programs they’re given—deciding to err on the side of caution. This is no small matter because it can adversely affect teachers’ motivation and connection to their work.
No Self-Motivation Without Autonomy
Edward Deci and Richard Ryan are two of the most important researchers in the field of human motivation. Their theory for understanding human motivation, called Self-Determination Theory, has helped us understand the fundamental connection between motivation and autonomy. They contend (and tons of research supports their claim) that one can’t be truly self-motivated without autonomy. A person might be compliant—even happily so. They might be extrinsically motivated (by the promise of a reward or worry about a negative consequence). But to be truly self-motivated—to have one’s motivation really come from the self—a person has to have at least some power and control over what they’re doing or how they’re doing it.
To be truly self-motivated, a person has to have at least some power and control over what they’re doing or how they’re doing it.
This is true for students, but it’s also true for teachers. Which is why one of the most devastating impacts of the standards movement—and its accompanying move toward standardization and sameness—has been a dramatic loss of teachers’ autonomy. How are we supposed to be motivated to teach when we don’t have power or control over what we teach or how we teach it? How can we be emotionally connected with units and lessons we don’t create or even have a say in?
It is possible, however, to maintain (or recapture) our much-needed teacher autonomy even when using a prescriptive program. Here are a few ideas for how to do so.
1. Ask for Guidance
If the idea of making changes and tweaks to the program you’ve been handed makes you nervous, ask for help. Who’s leading the implementation efforts in your school or district? Can they clarify the kinds of changes that are and aren’t acceptable? Perhaps they could even create a short guide for teachers in the district—with examples of how (and when and why) to make adjustments. If you’re receiving different messages from different school or district leaders, let them know this. Ask for some more consistent guidance.
2. Examine the Learning Objectives and Make Something New
If you have some leeway with the program, you might create something entirely new while using learning objectives and select lessons and activities from the program.
For example, let’s say there’s a 5th grade math unit coming up on geometry. First, make sure you’re clear about the heart of the content. What are the concepts and skills students should master? Next, consider different ways students might demonstrate this learning. What if each student created a three-dimensional sculpture or a two-dimensional art project that incorporates all these concepts and skills?
You could begin the unit by sharing the final project options with students, then teach a series of lessons about the concepts and skills. Many of the lessons from the program might work as-is. Students could draft and revise design ideas along the way as they consider how to embed key elements into their final projects. They could then create their art pieces and display them in a gallery-style math showcase event where they explain to visitors all the math design elements they learned. In this way, you’ve still taught the required content of the program—and clearly enhanced student engagement in the process.
3. Shorten Whole-Class Teaching
A common flaw in scripted or prescriptive programs is that the whole-class teaching portion of class periods is too long. I’ve seen 1st and 2nd grade math lessons go 30 minutes or longer. My friend and colleague Kathy Collins likes to say that “whole-class teaching is our most efficient but least effective form of instruction.” It’s efficient—we’re teaching everyone at once. It’s not very effective though. Students’ needs and understandings are diverse, and attention spans are short. They need time for independent practice and support. Here are a few strategies for shortening whole-class teaching:
- Avoid Q&A style instruction. Instead of asking students questions to “teach” them (Who remembers what makes a shape a parallelogram?), just tell them. It’s clearer, more direct, and way faster.
- Stop teaching before everyone fully understands what to do. If most students understand what to do and are ready to move on to application or practice, finish the lesson. You can then help clarify directions or concepts for those who need it without holding up everyone else.
- Don’t finish lessons by asking, Does anyone have any questions? This drags out lessons and delays getting to application work. Sometimes kids make up questions because they think teachers are expecting questions. Instead, you might have students show with a thumbs-up, thumbs-to-the-side, or thumbs-down how ready they are to move on. If there are lots of thumbs-downs, teach a bit more. If not, release the class and move in to help kids who had their thumbs down.
- Avoid correcting work as a whole class. Instead of “going over” every problem students have been working on (or completed for homework or during a previous class period), you might give everyone the answers and let them self-check. Then ask students which problem or item they’d like to review and touch on just a few.
- Have one teaching point per lesson. If you need to hit multiple strategies or main ideas in one class period, consider breaking them up into smaller chunks. Teach a 5-minute lesson and then give kids time to work. Then come back together for another quick lesson and another chance for kids to apply or practice what they learned.
4. Add Student Choice
Just as teachers need autonomy to be self-motivated, so do our students. Consider simple ways you might offer students choice even within the framework of the program. For example, if there are five application problems for students to try, have everyone choose three. An exit ticket built into a lesson might have multiple problems; could students choose one or two? Or could you create another exit ticket and let them choose between the one you created and the one provided by the program? Perhaps students can choose whether to work alone or with a partner, or create their own application or practice problems to solve. Even these kinds of small choices can pay huge dividends by allowing students to self-differentiate their own work and experience more self-motivation.
5. Make Small Tweaks
You might make other small adjustments to units or lessons. For example, some math teachers I work with are incorporating the work of Peter Liljedahl into their practice, using his book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics (Corwin, 2020) as a guide. Students are engaging in more small-group discussions about mathematics, and vertical dry-erase boards are popping up around the school. Teachers are still following the basic scope and sequence of their programs, but they’re finding moments to get kids up and working together instead of sitting at their seats and working alone.
There are many other ways teachers might tweak units or lessons. Here are a few to consider:
- Repeat a lesson for a group that needs more time and support to grasp a concept.
- Skip a lesson when it’s overly repetitive or unnecessary.
- Skip a part of a lesson that seems unnecessary for your group.
- Reorder a lesson to improve the flow.
- Reorder lessons in a unit to improve overall cohesion.
- Use different examples or explanations than the ones offered in the program—ones that will better resonate with your students.
Doing Right by Your Students
There’s another angle to consider. You’ve probably heard the old adage that sometimes it’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. I’m not encouraging you to go rogue and throw the program out the window, but perhaps you might consider making some quiet changes for the benefit of your students without asking about it first. Will someone really be that upset? Have you ever heard of a teacher being fired for creating a more dynamic and effective lesson than the one given in a program?
Let’s remember that programs and curriculum should be in service of teachers and students, not the other way around.
I’ll never forget one of the most powerful messages I received from an administrator. I had just been hired in the district and was sitting with the other new teachers in an orientation meeting. The assistant superintendent was talking with us about how teachers sometimes make tricky calls about compliance with school or district demands. “There might come a time,” he acknowledged, “where you will have to choose between following the directions of an administrator and doing right by kids. We’ve hired you because we trust that you will always do what’s right for kids.”
Let’s remember that programs and curriculum should be in service of teachers and students, not the other way around. Let’s make sure we’re doing what’s right for our students.
Reflect & Discuss
➛ Do you agree that teachers should have leeway to make adjustments to prescribed curriculum? Why or why not?
➛ In what ways have you modified curriculum to better reflect your approach and the needs of your students?
➛ What kinds of support from leaders do teachers need to make the kinds of curriculum adjustments that Anderson recommends?
Tackling the Motivation Crisis
Our job as teachers is not to motivate our students, writes Mike Anderson. It's to make sure that our classrooms and schools are places that inspire their intrinsic motivation.
