Re-evaluating the role of deliberate practice in teacher development

Perspective Article

Written by: Nick Pointer and Steve Farndon

Published on: January 31, 2023

Professional development

8 min read

Nick Pointer and Steve Farndon, Ambition Institute, UK Teacher educators face a common problem. During professional development sessions, teachers engage with new ideas or strategies, finding them stimulating and relevant. Yet these same teachers subsequently fail to change the way they act or make decisions in their classrooms; a phenomenon dubbed the ‘knowing–doing gap’ (Knight et al., 2013). This is not for want of trying – teacher educators report that teachers ‘knew what they wanted their classes to be like, [yet were] unable to reliably do what it took to get there’ (Lemov et al., 2012 p.6). One approach to tackling this challenge is through deliberate practice, which has grown in popularity in teacher development over the past decade. This article returns to the literature around deliberate practice to assess its suitability for use in schools and how it might be best employed in teacher professional development (PD). The promise of deliberate practice Tea

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