Pseudoteaching, pseudoengagement, and the dangers of equating teaching with performing

One of the best books I've read in the last 10 years was written by Dan Coyle, whose blog is also one of mymost recent post, Coyle discusses the concept of pseudoteaching, which I would define as high-energy and quite often entertaining teaching that looks impressive, but that leads to very little learning for students.  Coyle links to a great post from +Frank Noschese that explores the concept in more depth and provides two contrasting cases that further illustrate the difference between pseudoteaching and "real teaching."  If you have six minutes, watch them both below.
favorites to follow.  In his


#1 -- Pseudoteaching Example
Pay attention to

• How animated the teacher is
• How entertaining he is
• How much students seem to be enjoying the demonstrations
• Who is doing the talking

#2 -- "Real Teaching" Example
Pay attention to

• Who is doing the talking
• Differences in the looks on students faces (as compared to the pseudoteaching example)
• What the teacher is doing

See the differences?

The typical narrative of "good teaching," (especially in popular media) is nearly always aligned with what you see from Walter Lewin, the physics teacher in the first clip.  It's characterized by energy, excitement, smiling and laughing students, and a teacher with a big personality.  This is the cover story of good teaching that Hollywood, booksellers, and the general public likes to believe.  But, there is a more subtle narrative beneath this type of teaching.  Look again at the physics teacher and the way he views his role.  He proudly boasts of "rehearsing" each of his lectures to empty classrooms, two to three times before teaching them.  Consider what this means.  His role is to "perform" and this performance is the same regardless of whether he's "teaching" an empty lecture hall or one full of laughing students.  

Now, in contrast, consider the example from Cary Academy.  First, the teacher is noticeably absent from the clip, except for when he's being interviewed.  Instead of being focused on what the teacher is doing, this classroom is all about what the students are doing, which is engaging with challenging, real-world problems.  The news clip suggests that students are engaging in demonstrations and experiments, but the key difference here is that the students themselves are engaging in those activities (rather than watching a "performer" conduct them at the front of the classroom).  Even more telling is Dr. Matt Greenwolfe's description of his role which is to "create experiences for the students."  Rather than rehearsing what he'll be saying and doing (like Lewin from the prior clip), Greenwolfe spends his time planning experiences that his students can have themselves.  It's much less flashy (and so is Greenwolfe), but engages students as active participants in their learning, rather than passive observers.

This gets at another misunderstood term from the educational landscape--engagement.  Just as pseudoteaching is often confused with "real teaching," its companion pitfall is pseudoengagement.  The average citizen (meaning, someone with no formal training or background in education) sees the MIT physics clip and mistakenly assumes that students in those large lecture halls are engaged.  After all, they are smiling, laughing, and paying attention to the teacher.  In short, they're being entertained.  But engagement is not entertainment.  

Surprisingly, "real" engagement looks very different than the students we see in the MIT case.  If you really want to see it, watch the Cary Academy clip again and pay attention to the looks on the students faces.  No smiles, no laughter, no real indication that they're even enjoying themselves.  Instead, there is a look of concentration, focus, and even struggle or frustration.  And, that's what the best kind of engagement looks like.  Instead of looking like they're watching a movie (which Lewin's lectures might as well be taped performances), they look like they're at work, which is the whole point.  

Learning is work.  And, by extension, teaching involves providing environments and experiences that invite learners to engage in work.  In contrast, "performers" entertain and expect very little from their "audiences" other than laughs and applause.  Likewise, engagement is not entertainment (though it can be entertaining, but not in the same way watching a performance is).  

When we move from pseudoteaching to real teaching, and pseudoengagement to real engagement, not only do students have a more meaningful experience, but quantitative outcomes improve as well.  Case in point, Lewin's "entertaining" physics classes resulted in a drop in lecture attendance, as well as increased failure rates.  Greenwolfe's authentically engaging classes led to significant improvements in AP test performance.

For educators, our role is to help others understand these distinctions, which includes students, parents, other teachers, policy-makers, and legislators.  If we can't reframe the narrative on good teaching and real engagement, we're setting ourselves all up for failure.  Pseudoteaching and pseudoengagement are a little like educational pornography (which I've written about before here)--they serve as counterfeits to the real teaching and learning we hope happens in schools.  And, until we recognize and replace these counterfeits in conversations about education, we won't make much progress.

Mr Holland's Opus, The Freedom Writers, and Stand and Deliver: Educational pornography that is bad for the teacher's soul

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week I participated in a retreat as part of Brigham Young University's Wasatch County School District (WCSD), based in Heber City, Utah.  This partnership is coordinated by BYU's Center for the Improvement of Teacher Education & Schooling (CITES) and includes an "Associates Program" that brings together both public school and university educators to discuss provocative educational issues.  I've been incredibly impressed with the passion and thoughtfulness of both the teachers and administrators from the WCSD.
partnership with

In a conversation on Wednesday, Jim Judd, the Director of Human Resources for the district made an incredibly insightful observation about the genre of films celebrating the efforts of inspirational teachers (i.e. like those I listed in the title of this post).  He pointed out that while these kinds of stories are incredibly inspirational for non-educators, they can (much like pornography) create unrealistic expectations for how educators can and should do their work.  In short, just like the adult film industry leaves ordinary people wondering how they could ever perform like the "actors" they see on screen, the stories told of Jaime Escalante, Erin Gruwell, and Glenn Holland leave most educators feeling both inadequate and discouraged.

Jim's observation is an astute one.  The reality is that very few teachers have the time, energy, or disposition to approach teaching in the super-human way that is subtly advocated for in these kinds of films.  And, when teachers are made to feel that they should all be like Ron Clark (one of the new breed of "inspiring," "innovative," and superstar educators), frustration, hopelessness, and feelings of failure won't be far behind.

Another problem with these films, one I've noticed before and that Jim commented as well, is that they tell a story of successful teaching that implies that the professional identity of the teacher is more important than any other aspect of their lives including health and family.  Consider the fate of the three teachers I've referred to above:  Jaime Escalante has a heart attack, Erin Gruwell gets divorced, and Glenn Holland has a deteriorating relationship with both his wife and his hearing-impaired son.  Yes, they're all great teachers, but is getting all your kids to pass the AP exam, to write well, or to play a score of music as important as your health and your family?  Hollywood would have us believe yes.

Finally, this group of feel-good films, does little to help a teacher understand how to facilitate meaningful learning.  They follow a typical narrative form:  new or unprepared teacher enters a challenging classroom environment, things are so bad they consider quitting, they come up with some kind of creative or "engaging" activity that breaks through the icy-cold disengagement of the students, and "poof" magic happens and lives start to be transformed.  Inspiring, but empty when it comes to helping real teachers understand how to facilitate real learning.

So, as entertaining and sometimes jear-jerking as these films can be, think twice before you show it to a teacher.  It's as good as showing them porn.

The trouble with inspiration

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Carl Bloch

I'm a bit of a curmudgeon.  People that only know me casually might be surprised to hear that, but those who know me well know that I am easily frustrated with "inspirational" stories, raw-raw presentations intended to "motivate," and short "inspirational" quotes (I've tried for years to be a "quote" person, but in all but one case the quotes I write down on a sticky note and stick on my wall seem disappointingly mundane a day or two after I am "inspired" by them--the single quote I have kept and still refer to comes from artist Carl Bloch in describing his struggles to create:  "God helps me--that's what I think, and then I am calm.").

I was reminded of this when I read an email this morning (which is actually a blog post that is sent out to a listserv) in which the author described being asked by a student to "define in one sentence what it means to be a 'true teacher.'"  The rest of the post went on to describe how he came to his "one sentence" that he eventually shared with her (you can read the post to find out what he told her).  Because I've read posts by this author before, I wasn't surprised at being underwhelmed by what he told this student.  It was a statement that sounds nice, but for me, has no real meaning because it is so abstruse and esoteric to provide no real guidance for someone who wants to be a good teacher.  So, while it may be initially inspirational to this student, it isn't likely to change anything about her teaching practice.

The reason I have appreciated and benefited so much from the Bloch quote above, I think, is that it has a concreteness that is helpful to me when I am feeling overwhelmed with a writing project, a troublesome situation with a student, or some other challenge that I don't know how to face.  At the same time, it isn't so explicit that it seems mechanical or restrictive.  Additionally, it has a narrative quality to it in that it calls up an image in my mind of a real person (Carl Bloch) struggling with a task and then thinking about the divine help that he is entitled to as an artist.  So, in that way it is both inspiring and instructive because it seems tied to someone's actual experience.

It occurs to me that we might often look in the wrong places for inspiration.  My experience suggests that it isn't found in philosophical statements or high-energy Joel Osteen-esque speeches.  Rather, inspiration comes when we have a window into the experiences of another.  What I might be arguing here (and which I've argued multiple times on this blog) is that rather than searching for one-sentence inspiration that is easily posted on the corner of our computer monitor, we should be searching for, telling, and listening to stories that have meaning because of their embeddedness in our actual experiences.  This takes time.  And, it also means entering into relationships with others in order to gain access to one another's stories.  It also means being vulnerable because anytime we tell a story about ourselves, we expose some part of our being that can then be evaluated, judged, or critiqued.  Telling a story is much more risky than giving an impersonal one-liner divorced from any of our actual experiences.

So, while the blog author whose post I referenced above (along with everyone else who has ever tried to say something inspirational) surely means well, his student would have been better served by a rich and personal story, as opposed to the sticky-note-ready quote that was likely forgotten as soon as the sticky on the note dried up.

Something no educator should ever say

A few weeks ago I ran into one of my favorite professors from my undergraduate years.  He was (and still is) engaging, fun, concerned about students, and a great teacher.  The two classes I took from him were two of my favorites.  But, I have a bone to pick with him.

It has to do with something he said to me at the point in our conversation when we were discussing the newly re-designed Physical Education Teacher Education program at BYU (the program from which I graduated). Commenting on the utility of the teacher education coursework included in the program he remarked "you've either got it or you don't and we're not going to make much of a difference."  That was a surprising (and rather ironic) thing for a former faculty member and department chair to say and it unsettled me.  And, it isn't the first time I've heard this kind of thing from an educator (for the most recent example, see this interview with a faculty member from the media arts department at BYU where, in reference to the skill of film editing, he states "students either have it or not").

How many of us secretly harbor these kinds of thoughts, whether it is about students' ability to learn to write, learn to conduct research, learn to communicate skillfully in formal presentations, or anything else we might claim to be "teaching?"  And, in what ways might these often hidden assumptions influence the way we go about teaching or mentoring students?

Clearly, learners come to us with a variety of abilities and aptitudes and will achieve "success" in varying degrees due, in large part, to the skills and knowledge they bring with them.  However, to believe that someone "either has it or they don't" is an implicit acknowledgement that either (a) we are poor educators and not competent enough to facilitate learning for learners across the spectrum of ability or (b) that, regardless of our skill as educators, it ultimately makes no meaningful difference in the lives of our students.  I'm not comfortable with either of those conditions.

At a bare minimum, those who hold the view I've critiqued here should do a better job of identifying those students who "don't have it" and advising them out of programs like film and teacher education early on so they can find that field where they "do have it."  Additionally, Carol Dweck's book Mindset, should be required reading for all educators so that we can extinguish the false notions of talent and ability that get in the way of good teaching and learning.  If what we do doesn't make a difference, then what are we wasting our time for?

A Ph. D. is not enough

One of the most interesting (and often painful) things I have repeatedly observed in my work over the last five years are transitions in administrative leadership at my institution and the way in which these changes are managed.  Yesterday, I was in a meeting where one of these changes was announced and, to put it mildly, it was like watching a train wreck.  In defense of the administrator delivering the news, I think he meant well and was truly doing his best to be tactful.  But, nonetheless, his social and administrative ineptitude were on display for all to see.  Consequently, an already emotionally charged situation was made worse.  This administrator is, from what I can tell, a brilliant researcher and scholar in his field (Pharmacology); however, like most faculty members, his formal training has done little to prepare him for those responsibilities which take him out of his lab.

While faculty members' responsibilities obviously vary both within and between campuses, it isn't uncommon for them to spend some percentage of their time engaged work falling outside their disciplinary area of expertise.  So, on a tour of a typical campus we would be likely to see sociologists and biologists administering departments and colleges, physicists and engineers advising students, and a lot of non-teachers teaching students.  To be fair, I know great administrators and excellent teachers with Ph. D.'s in things other than management and education; however, they are the exception.  Instead, most have wonderful intentions and want desperately to be good teachers or chairs, but struggle along because of the lack of any real preparation or training.  What's worse, there is a dangerous sub-population who suffer from a common psychological condition that condemns them to repeated faux pas and debacles like the one I saw yesterday.

The thought of an academic advisor teaching a law class or an "administrative" employee teaching teaching introductory biology are, obviously laughable, so its a bit ironic that we don't see problems in transfers in the other direction.  There has long been an assumption that an earned doctorate (in any field) qualifies an individual to do just about any other kind of work on a campus, whether it is directing an Honors college, overseeing first-year programming, or advising students about general course registration.  There may have been a time, before college campuses became the complex animal they are now, when this may have been true.  And, at a small college where resources and personnel are limited, utility infielders who teach, advise, administer, and research will always be a necessity.  However, as college campuses become increasingly complex, there will become a greater need for the professionalization of roles which, historically, have been viewed as just another part of the professorial duty.  At the very least, we cannot afford to continue to assume that a Ph. D. in Pharmacology, in and of itself, prepares anyone to navigate administrative landmines and advise students (about anything but pharmacology), and  teach (virtually anything at all).

The world needs more Andy Rooneys

Two Sundays ago, Andy Rooney's final 60 Minutes "sign off" aired.  It was typical Rooney--wise, dryly funny, and thought-provoking.  I haven't ever been a regular viewer of 60 Minutes, but when I did watch, it always seemed to be at the tail-end of the hour, and I always enjoyed what Rooney had to say.

In his final piece, Rooney shared some insights that seem to have wide application, but particularly for those who teach.



Here are some things I took away:

Stop worrying so much about having (or writing) original thoughts (because there probably aren't any).  Sometimes the pressure to do something new, exciting, or original becomes a barrier to doing anything at all and we sit motionless and paralyzed.  Although I wouldn't call myself a "writer," I do a fair amount of writing and when the stars align and I do have something close to a coherent and tight argument or what I might foolishly believe to be an "original" idea, it hasn't come as I've been staring at an empty page or blank screen.  Rather, I've started writing about something that seems relatively uninteresting and that exercise has eventually led to productive thoughts or ideas.  And, in reflecting on my teaching, most of the "disasters" I've had in the classroom or in a training workshop of some kind have come when I was more concerned about being original or creative than I was with facilitating good learning (even if it wasn't the "sexy" kind of teaching and learning that gets talked about on teaching blogs).  There seems to be power in teaching simple, but fundamental ideas, and doing it in simple ways.


Tell the truth.  Truth is, in some ways, tough to define and what is "true" to one may or may not be to another.  But, Rooney seems to be saying that if we were more concerned about being truthful (I wonder if another way to say that might be "sincere" or "genuine") and less preoccupied with being either provocative or "acceptable," depending on the circumstance, our ultimate impact on readers, students, etc. will be more worthwhile.  And, if nothing else, by being authentic and truthful, we will feel better about our efforts and be able to eventually look back on a career with contentment (like Rooney seems to have been able to do).  Rooney also wisely acknowledges the inevitability of our making mistakes and realizing, after the fact, that what we believed was true really wasn't.  However, seeking to be truthful would seem to help eliminate many mistakes that might be made otherwise.

Care about what others think, but not too much.  It was refreshing to hear Rooney's remarks about wanting to be liked.  It seems like an innately human desire.  And, when we feel some desire to have others like us it has a tempering effect on how we interact with and engage with others (read:  it keeps us from becoming complete jerks).  However, if being liked becomes the driving motivation behind our actions, we're likely to end up somewhere we don't like (and, ironically, become someone who others don't really like).  This is especially important for teachers because a lot of the learning--and nearly all of the most important learning--we want for those we teach requires hard work, some degree of pain or discomfort, and  some healthy failure. We don't always "like" those who ask these kinds of things of us.  teachers, parents, and bosses who care more about being liked than facilitating growth, supporting learning, or being truthful, are dangerous.

Of course, none of what I've said here is original and I probably haven't said anything you didn't already know or hadn't already thought about--but, I take comfort in Rooney's words that "that's what writers do."

How much has technology really helped us in education?

I just finished reading Atul Gawande's latest book, Checklist Manifesto.  In a nutshell, Gawande argues that the right kind of checklist (it turns out that good checklists aren't easy or quick to produce) can lead to vast improvements in the way we do things, and for very little cost.  It's a great read and one of the most practically useful books I've read in a while.

Gawande is a physician and uses stories from medicine to illustrate the effectiveness of simple checklists (there are also some fascinating examples from building construction and finance).  One of the areas where checklists have made the most difference are in operation rooms.  It turns out that for even the most developed countries--those with great hospitals, state-of-the-art medical technologies, and highly-trained physicians--surgical complications are a fairly significant problem.  Gawande and his team have managed to develop simple checklists that, when used properly, have drastically reduced complication rates.  It is important to note that these have not been modest findings, the results have been startling and and hard to argue with.  

The interesting thing in all of this is that the vast majority of physicians and hospitals have refused to use the checklist.  Instead most have opted to invest in $1.7 million remote controlled surgical robots that have driven up costs massively, without producing any significant improvements.  Meanwhile, the low-tech, low-budget checklists are saving lives.

There seems to be a parallel here to education.  More and more, institutions are adopting technology with the hope that it will revolutionize learning.  In my graduate work I spend a fair amount of time with instructional technologists, some who tout technology as the saviour of schools.  I should also confess that I am sometimes a sucker for cool ed tech gadgets because they seem to make learning fun and engaging.  That's not to mention my reliance upon technology for some of the most basic functions of my job (just last night I made a presentation to a group of parents of incoming students and used the bells and whistles of a fully-mediated auditorium to "enhance" my remarks).

The nagging question I keep having, though, is whether the very expensive technology we use has really improved the learning experience for students.  It likely cost thousands of dollars to outfit the auditorium I spoke in last evening.  And, I would estimate that there are at least 100 other rooms of various sizes just like it across the rest of my campus.  In many ways this is nice.  It means that instructors can use PowerPoint slides, show media clips, play music, etc.  These things are entertaining for students and can deepen engagement.  But, how much more did the parents in my session learn because I used technology?  What if the computer had crashed mid-presentation?  Would I have been prepared enough to make the remaining 15 minutes useful?  Would a low-tech "technology" like a "minute paper" have been just as beneficial as a data slide?

I'm not arguing for the elimination of technology in higher education (or any setting for that matter).  But, I wonder how often we falsely assume that twitter, tech classrooms, and iClickers will simplify the educational process and prevent educational failures.  Could it be that simple pedagogical tools, processes, or philosophies could be just as impactful and at a much lower cost?  And, what sorts of new failures does technology introduce?  Gawande frames this question well:

"We have most readily turned to the computer as our aid.  Computers hold out the prospectof automation as our bulward against failure.  Indeed, they can take huge numbers of tasks off our hands, and thankfully already have--tasks of calculation, processing, storage, transmission.  Without question, technology can increase our capabilities.  But there is much that technology cannot do:  deal with the unpredictable, manage uncertainty, construct a soaring building, perform a lifesaving operation.  In many ways, technology has compicated these matters. It has added yet another element of complexity to the systems we depend on and given us entirely new kinds of failure to content with."

What are our "educational checklists?" (i.e. those simple and frugal things that can make signficant differences in learning).  And, what are the "surgical robots" in education that look cool, but deplete budgets without making any meaningful improvement to the educational landscape?  And, maybe most importantly, how do we know when we're dealing with an expensive failure or something that, while expensive, truly will revolutionize learning?

Can good teaching be measured?

In a great New York Times article on healthcare reform David Leonhardt describes the way in which Intermountain Health Care (IHC) helps increase quality and cut costs.  Among this list of best practices is the way in which IHC gathers data on the way in which physicians do their work.  Some data describes physician behaviors and other is focused on patient outcomes.  This data is reviewed and analyzed rigorously and then used to help physicians improve their practice.

A few hours after reading this article I attended a graduate-level "assessment of learning outcomes" course in BYU's Instructional Psychology & Technology department where the topic of discussion was No Child Left Behind and other federal enactments aimed at increasing the quality of education in the U.S.  There was a fairly strong sentiment among those in the room that student achievement should not be as large a factor in determining teacher effectiveness as it currently is.  

These two experiences (my reading and class discussion) left me wondering what assessment of teaching should and could look like.  It has always been interesting to me that educators want their craft to be viewed as a "viable profession," or a "respected field," but also want accountability to look much different for them than it would for say a car salesman or a doctor.  Why is it that we would fire a doctor for letting patients die, but we have a problem with applying the same logic to educators?  Please don't misconstrue this as an endorsement of NCLB.  I'm just saying that student achievement has to be part of the conversation (I also recognize that the conversation must also include discussion of what aspects of student performance should and should not be measured) and that when a particular educator's students consistently underperform (or overperform for that matter), we should make an effort to find out why.  This is what I see IHC doing in their hospitals and clinics and those of us that care about education could learn some lessons from them.

1.  Classrooms need to be structed in a way that allows for the collection of meaningful data.  By data I don't just mean test scores.  We've done that for a long time and, apparently, it isn't making a tremendous difference.  What I'm calling for are technology-supported classrooms that allow us to examine what teachers and students do while they are learning and trying to learn.  Good online learning environments like the Open High School of Utah (see also the recent SL Tribune article) are structured to gather data on student performance and what practices lead to effective learning.  It will be difficult and complex, but we need to find a way to do the same thing in traditional classrooms.  This data can then be used to help educate teachers about what they do well and where they can improve.  Observations are important, but organizations like IHC have found that objective data improves quality.  

2. "Chief quality officers" for schools/districts.  Although most school and district administrators care about the quality of teaching, the reality is that the bulk of their time and effort is taken up by other administrative duties.  What if there were a quality officer for every school as well as a similar individual for a district whose responsibility it was to ensure that data was collected on teacher performance?  These individuals could identify high performing teachers in their local area (which may or may not be those whose students score the highest on standardized tests) and then work to find out what it is that makes them successful (much like what IHC does with their physicians).  They would also be responsible for helping, not punishing, underperforming educators to revise their practices.

3.  Identification of "teaching protocols" that have been demonstrated to lead to positive outcomes.  Because they gather and analyze data so well, IHC knows what dosage of medication generally works best for a heart patient as they return home or what steps should be taken in the insertion of an IV in order to minimize the risk of infection.  Of course, there are times when physicians should and do stray from these "defaults," but more often than not the checklist they are provided with is close to exactly what a patient needs and will benefit from.  Gary Daynes' recent post on educational checklists convinced me that it wouldn't be unreasonable to develop similar checklists or standard processes for particular parts of the educational system.  This, of course, is dependent on our ability to gather data and link particular processes to positive learning outcomes for students (see #1 above).  And, like IHC, schools and districts could continue to collect data so that the checklists can be revised and refined as new information becomes available.  

As I write this I am realizing that I'm echoing a refrain that I've made on this blog before--schools need to be learning organizations that change and adapt over time.  We expect this of students. . .why don't we follow suit?