Will This Teaching Idea Work for Me? Why Context Matters

When I learn about an amazing new teaching practice, I often get excited about the wonderful possibilities it offers to improve my students’ learning. However, as I dig into the details, doubts start to creep in. Is this practice possible for me to pull off? How would I do it with my N students? How would I do it if I only see the students M hours per week? At some point, I might give up because I can’t think of a way to make it work, which leads to my last step of self-doubt: “maybe there is a way, but I’m not creative enough or a good enough teacher to think of it.” I have lost count of how many times I have felt this frustration and self-doubt.

[Also posted on Medium.]

When we share teaching ideas, we often omit basic context. That makes them harder to interpret and apply than they should be. Moreover, it places a heavier burden on the recipient of the idea to determine whether they can apply it in their context, because the teaching idea is often shared via one-way media such as a blog post, article, or podcast episode. I’m sure many would agree with me that context matters, and this is especially true in teaching.

Therefore, when we share teaching practices, we must provide more context. The goal is not to provide every detail, but enough information for others to judge whether an idea might transfer to their own context.

What context to share?

Obviously, we can’t share everything. But when in doubt, please share, especially if it may affect the teaching idea’s efficacy. Here are some contextual details that I often wish were shared:

  • How many are in the class? — Please provide actual numbers because “small” and “large” are context-specific. One person’s large may be over 30 students, while another’s is over 800 students. Actual numbers help us understand the context.
  • What is the class’s modality? — Is the class in-person? Hybrid? Online? And if it’s hybrid or online, is it asynchronous?
  • How long is the school term? — This could be a 15-week semester or a 10-week quarter. Alternatively, what about a summer session, which is a whole different situation!
  • How often are the class meetings and how are they structured? — Are they a single large lecture with 200 students twice a week, followed by smaller, once-a-week sections of 25? Or perhaps it’s 90 students, but they are taught in 30-student lectures by 3 different faculty who share materials?
  • How is this course situated in the curriculum? — Is it a prerequisite to other courses? Does it have prerequisites? Is it required for a major? Elective? General education? Gateway course?

Concrete Examples

In my podcast’s Teaching Practice Byte episodes, I always ask the guest specific questions about the context. I also ask them to provide more details and help my listeners understand whether the teaching practice could work for them by directly asking my guest where else they think the practice could work and where it might not. Often in these conversations, context details that they didn’t originally mention come to light. Another great example I’ve seen is this Grading for Growth blog post about how Robert Talbert is updating his alternative grading approach. It has an entire section devoted to background that helps the reader understand the context of what he is changing and why.

Conclusion

So here’s my ask again: please provide context when you share a teaching practice you want others to adopt. I am a pedagogy nerd. I love hearing about and discussing pedagogy, but I’m likely the minority. So, let’s all make it easier for everyone to evaluate and adopt our teaching ideas by helping them quickly assess whether that idea could work for them.

Thank you.

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