The world of improv provides a model for the kind of professional development that is both engaging and relevant to teachers.

Professional development for teachers, by and large, is not working.

Survey results published in late 2022 by the EdWeek Research Center found that a mere 12% of respondents considered the professional development they received specific to social-emotional learning (SEL) “very effective” (Prothero, 2022). The 2022-2023 State of Engagement report from educational software company Go Guardian and the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education echoes this sentiment. In a survey of more than 1,400 practitioners from across the U.S., researchers found that of the “most influential factors” in determining which methods teachers adopt to engage their students, professional development is the least relevant (Patall et al., 2022).

Most public school teachers in the U.S. are required to earn some form of credit toward professional learning to maintain or renew their licenses. Even without this requirement, all teachers should pursue continuous education not only to model ongoing learning to those they teach, but also to ensure their pedagogy evolves as the profession does.

Too often, professional development (PD) fails to equip teachers to navigate the realities of classrooms in the age of COVID; disruptions to democracy; rapidly advancing technology; and growing outside interference in our libraries, lesson plans, and personal lives. And teachers who believe they have wasted their time in PD are unlikely to come back for more.

Change is inevitable — and good

If there is one thing we’ve learned over the past several years, it is that change is possible, even inevitable. Continuing to do something one way simply because that is how it has always been done was barely serving the profession prior to the upheaval of 2020. In many districts, PowerPoints, lectures, and cookie-cutter presentations on curriculum, standards, and “tips and tricks” have remained the norm for PD.

In the Washington, D.C., region, in an effort to demonstrate respect and support for overworked teachers, some school leaders are “relieving” teachers of the PD requirement, a kindness for which most teachers are grateful. But shouldn’t PD be a source of support and inspiration for teachers rather than a chore they’re happy to abandon? What would it take to accomplish this shift?

For nearly three decades, my colleagues at Center for Inspired Teaching and I have taught teachers to think and act like improvisational actors. Through our professional development institutes, preservice residency program, in-classroom mentoring and coaching, and library of digital resources, we teach teachers to embrace a “Yes! And…” mindset and approach.

What is “Yes! And…?” It is the well from which improvisational theater springs. It is the acceptance of and preparation for the spontaneous, the unexpected, and sometimes, the absurd.

Center for Inspired Teaching was founded on the belief that, through improvisation-based professional learning, teachers can be the leverage point for real change in the education system. Rather than delivering information to passive students, teachers who are taught to be, as we call them, Instigators of Thought, engage learners to take an active, collaborative role in their education.

Building versus blocking

Effective teachers and improvisational actors have much in common. If they are skilled, both know how to build, not block. Both are keen observers. Both set clear objectives and are equipped with multiple strategies to meet them. Both welcome surprise and use the unexpected to fuel their work. Both can leverage the absurd as an opportunity.

An improvisational actor knows her objective, welcomes obstacles, and constantly adjusts her strategy as she encounters new information. For instance, in a scene in which an actor’s objective is to convince her reluctant partner to accompany her into a haunted house, she might hear her partner exclaim, “Look out for the tarantula crawling on your back!” The skilled improvisational actor might reply, “Oh, that’s my pet Oscar. Would you like to hold him? He’ll protect us so we can reach the attic safely.” Now the scene has forward momentum, thanks to the actor’s ability to accept and build on her partner’s contribution — to say “Yes! And…”

A less skilled actor, surprised by the comment about the tarantula, might protest, “Where? I don’t see a tarantula! And besides, there aren’t any spiders in this part of the country.” This actor has blocked her partner’s contribution and has caused the scene to stall.

A less skilled teacher also can become derailed by the unexpected and end up blocking her students’ learning. In a lesson on geometry, for instance, a frustrated student might jump up from his desk and exclaim, “I can’t figure out this worksheet on perimeter!” and start pacing around the room. The teacher might try to stop the student’s “misbehavior” and tell him to sit down and get back to work. This approach is unlikely to ignite the student’s desire to persevere in finding the perimeters of polygons.

A skilled teacher who knows how to build, not block, might offer, “Why don’t you start in the corner and see how many steps it takes to travel around the perimeter of the room? Once you’re done, write your answer on the worksheet.” This skilled teacher knows how to shift her strategy, while maintaining forward momentum toward her objective of getting the student to understand perimeter.

Like a skilled improvisational actor, a good teacher knows that telling her students what to do might make her job easier in the short term (“If you listen quietly during the lesson, you’ll get extra recess.” or “Just multiply numerator times numerator and denominator times denominator.”). However, she wants her students to understand what they learn and to be able to use it in the long term; so she poses thoughtful questions that push her students to construct knowledge for themselves: “When you multiply two numbers, you’re supposed to get more, right? So why is it, that when you multiply two fractions, you get less?”

Preparing for the unexpected

Dictionary.com defines improvising as creating “without previous preparation,” “on the spur of the moment,” and “using whatever materials are readily available.” When artists and teachers improvise, they are making spur-of-the-moment decisions and using readily available materials — the suggestions from the audience and the actions of their scene partners or, in the case of teachers, the ideas and interests of the students and teacher observations about how students engage in the learning task.

However, the “without previous preparation” portion of the definition is not necessarily accurate. It takes years of preparation to become a master improviser. Listen to a recording of John Coltrane improvising a jazz solo. Notice his skill and facility with the saxophone and the way he can build on each lick. What kind of preparation do you think Coltrane engaged in to achieve this level of excellence? How many thousands of hours of practice did he invest? Watch the cast of Second City improvise a scene based on suggestions from the audience. Notice the seamless communication among the players and the rapt attention they give to one another and to their unfolding scene. How much practice do you think they needed to be able to work together so well?

In both cases, these experts know the language and practices of their art form. They have mastered dozens, maybe hundreds of techniques. For Coltrane, these include operating his instrument with precision and artistry, reading music, knowing the notes in each key and which key the group is playing in, understanding rhythm and the time signature for the piece, and more. For the Second City actors, these include vocal projection, using their bodies to create a character, maintaining eye contact with scene partners, building trust in an ensemble, using imaginary objects, memorizing dozens of scene structures, and more.

Professional development must give teachers the ability to instantly incorporate feedback, insights, and the current environment into their plans for their day, rather than requiring them to blow the whole thing up.

Now consider a skilled teacher who embraces an improvisational mindset. Picture how that teacher guides students toward the instructional goal while simultaneously soliciting and incorporating their input into the lesson in progress. What kind of preparation do you think the teacher engaged in to achieve this level of excellence? Certainly not one or two hours of underwhelming, rote PD.

Problem: Meet solution

If the goal is to cultivate and support teachers who can build classroom communities, prepare learners to be critical and creative thinkers, and authentically engage their students’ curiosity, then PD also should build community, inspire critical and creative thought, and authentically engage teachers’ curiosity.

The Research Partnership for Professional Learning report, Building Better PL: How to Strengthen Teacher Learning, draws from dozens of research sources to highlight what professional learning needs to do and not do (Hill & Papay, 2022). What the report recommends is exactly what improvisational training provides.

First, PD should not teach teachers what to teach. It should instead focus on the how. Instead of figuring out where to wedge new content in, teachers need to be able to translate the strategies they learn into their existing curriculum and classroom in a way that engages students in the process of learning. Professional development must give teachers the ability to instantly incorporate feedback, insights, and the current environment into their plans for their day, rather than requiring them to blow the whole thing up. Essentially, PD should show the teacher how to take suggestions from the students and turn them into lessons that meet instructional goals.

Improvisation-based PD also lends itself to another tenet of good professional learning that the report suggests: concrete, ready-to-implement takeaways. When teachers engage in improvisation-based learning, they participate in exercises and activities they can then bring into their classrooms. Rather than receiving concepts from a prefabricated, consultant-directed presentation that they then must interpret for their own use, teachers are trained using the same techniques they can apply in the subjects they teach. For example, in their training sessions, teachers explore geometric concepts using the whole body when they are asked to show what each concept (i.e., the area of a square, parallel lines, the relationship between the diameter and circumference of a circle) looks like through dance. They can then use this same strategy in their classroom. Similarly, the value of a part of speech gains new meaning when learners hide an object and must guide their partner to find it without using prepositions.

Most important, professional development must center relationships between teachers and students. Good improvisation requires at the very least a partner, or, ideally, a troupe. And what is a classroom of students if not a troupe? Teachers need to be able to move situations forward when a troupe member inevitably has a different idea about which direction the day should take. Collaborative frameworks enable teachers to build and nurture the relationships that create engaged students, unafraid to take the academic risks required for real learning. Here are two that we use regularly with teachers:

  • Zone of Proximal Development: Lev Vygotzky’s framework depicts where students are in their ability to do something with or without guidance. We imagine the framework drawn out on the floor and encourage teachers to move to where they are on the spectrum in relation to a series of prompts. Observing themselves and others through this activity builds community and deepens trust, and offers a vocabulary for reflecting on future activities and learning together.
  • ABCDE of Learner Needs: Drawing on the work of psychologist William Glasser, we created this framework for understanding the core needs that must be met to motivate learning: autonomy, belonging, competence, developmental appropriateness, and engagement. Teachers reflect on these needs from a personal and professional perspective and use the framework to reexamine challenging behaviors that have taken place in their classrooms. This again creates a shared vocabulary for describing and diagnosing problems as well as brainstorming solutions.

Raising the bar

For lasting, meaningful learning to occur in a classroom, students need to be engaged. Engagement is a critical ingredient of “deeper learning,” which is an ability to apply knowledge to novel situations (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012). Authentic engagement in the classroom also plays an important role in social justice and issues of discipline. Learning for Justice, the education-focused initiative from the Southern Poverty Law Center, outlines more than a dozen ways a collaborative classroom culture and teacher leadership approach is critical for anti-bias education (Scharf, 2021). Classrooms where students are active participants in their education and where teachers are prepared for the unexpected are classrooms where all students can succeed.

So, what does this have to do with PD? Everything.

It is verging on cliché to make this point, but it must be repeated as often as necessary until it is heard: We can, and must, do better in supporting teachers. Surely we can create better choices than tedious PD or no PD at all. Saying “Yes! And…” to supporting teachers means offering engaging, useful, professional learning experiences that respect and build on teachers’ expertise, bolster their skills, and increase not only their effectiveness but also their enjoyment of the craft of teaching.

Imagine teaching teachers in the way we hope they will teach their students. Teaching students is complex, multifaceted, intellectually challenging work. It requires imagination, perseverance, optimism, focus, precision, and flexibility. We ask a lot of our teachers. And we should ask no less of our teacher PD programs.

References

Hill, H.C. & Papay, J.P. (2022). Building better PL: How to strengthen teacher learning. The Research Partnership for Professional Learning.

Patall, E., Vite, A., Lee, D., Zambrano, J., Arkatov, A., & Bhat, B.H. (2022). 2022-2023 state of engagement report. GoGuardian.

Pellegrino, J.W. & Hilton, M.L. (Eds.). (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. National Academies Press.

Prothero, A. (2022, December 8). Irrelevant, too conceptual, boring: Social-emotional learning PD often falls flat. Education Week.

Scharf, A. (2021, November). Critical practices for anti-bias education. Learning for Justice.


This article appears in the May 2023 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 8, pp. 42-46.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Aleta Margolis

ALETA MARGOLIS is founder and president of Center for Inspired Teaching, Washington, DC.