I am not equating teaching to being the President of the United States, but as I started writing this post, this West Wing quote from the debate episode, "Game On" did come to mind. Why? Because while there are some things in teaching that are THE RIGHT WAY, more often than not, there are multiple ways that each have their own pros and cons. The teacher's job isn't to find the one and only right way. It is to choose between multiple right ways and adapt the method they have chosen to the students in front of them. And they do that hundreds of times every week - on the fly with too little information - in response to what is happening in front of them.
How do they do that? If you are a teacher, how do you do that?
By building your professional judgment.
Like any judgment, you build your professional judgment from a combination of experience and listening to the wisdom of others.
How would you decide, for example, what the best presentation style is for teaching a specific piece of your content? You might start by thinking about how it was taught to you. If you found it beneficial to learn in that way, it might be a good method. If you didn't, you might want to think about other options. You can, of course, search those options out online or brainstorm, but you can also seek out the advice of others who teach the same thing you do. If you are in a medium to large sized school, you probably have a person nearby that can help. If you are in a small school or you teach one of those subjects that there is usually only one teacher for (theater, art, band, yearbook), you may have to seek mentors from other schools. But it is helpful to have someone who can tell you, not only what presentation style they use but also the potential pitfalls you might encounter. You may have to adapt their advice, but it gives you a place to start so you aren't learning from trial and error alone.
Speaking of trial and error, you are going to be doing that as well. Even with the best advice from the wisest people, you will run into times when something doesn't work. From addressing behavior to giving feedback on student work to a lab experiment that was more trouble than it was worth, you will experiences times when the decision you thought was right didn't work out so well. It's just part of the beautiful mess that is a classroom. Learning from those mistakes will help you make wiser choices the next year.
When I first attended the Learning and the Brain conference and found out about the science of learning, I was thrilled to have a new way to build my professional judgment - evidence! I'm a science teacher, so digging through a good research study makes me happy and knowing it can give me a way to make decisions is even better. Notice that I didn't say it could tell me what to do. Research doesn't prescribe; it informs. Science, by its nature, is narrowly focused, isolating one variable at a time. School, by its nature, is broad, with dozens of variables playing out together. That means you cannot pick up a research study and say, "I'll do EXACTLY what they did." You will have to use your professional judgment to adapt a method, even an evidence based one, to your context.
When you are making decisions amongst options that each have pros and cons, there is always going to be someone who believes you made the wrong choice. A parent may believe his child shouldn't have to memorize the list of polyatomic ions you gave kids. An administrator may not understand your choice to use explicit instruction rather than discovery. A student may think you should throw out a question they got wrong. But if you have used your professional judgment to make a decision, hold firm (Maybe not with your administrator; you'll want to compromise with them - but to people who don't have education experience).
Explain your reasoning; they may still not like it but they will at least know you have thought it through.
