This guide accompanies the following article: Hobbiss, M., Sims, S. & Allen, R. Habit formation limits growth in teacher effectiveness: A review of converging evidence from neuroscience and social science, Review of Education, [https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3226.] Habitual behaviour may make it difficult for teachers to adapt practice in the light of new evidence on effective practice, new curricula or different types of students—thus locking in certain suboptimal ways of working. Breaking such habits may require different approaches to those currently used by most CPD provision. For example, professional development programmes that target increased teacher knowledge of certain pedagogical techniques are unlikely to be sufficient for improved practice. Unless environmental changes which serve to weaken the contextual cues for pre-existing habitual behaviour are also enacted in parallel, increasing teachers’ knowledge is unlikely to disrupt established habits. Instead, approaches which aim to replace one behaviour with another, and which provide opportunities for the deliberate practice of such new behaviours, such as teacher coaching, are likely to be more effective. This is of relevance both to providers of initial teacher training, to external providers of CPD, and to the design of schools’ in-house CPD opportunities. Kraft, M. A. & Papay, J. P. (2014) Can professional environments in schools promote teacher development? Explaining heterogeneity in returns to teaching experience, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(4), 476–500. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373713519496 Teacher expertise growth beyond 3 years requires being in a supportive school. The top 25% of schools see teacher expertise still growing after 10 years. However, on average teaching returns on experience begin to asymptote at between 3–5 years. Kraft, M. A., Blazar, D., & Hogan, D. (2018). The effect of teacher coaching on instruction and achievement: A meta-analysis of the causal evidence. Review of Educational Research, 88(4), 547–588. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654318759268 Meta-analysis demonstrating positive effects of teacher coaching CPD approaches on teacher effectiveness. Feldon, D. F. (2007) Cognitive load and classroom teaching: The double-edged sword of automaticity, Educational Psychologist, 42(3), 123–137. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00461520701416173 Excellent review of both the potential harms and the benefits of automaticity for teachers, and the conditions under which this might occur. Robbins, T. W. & Costa, R. M. (2017) Habits, Current Biology, 27(22), R1200–R1206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.09.060 Clear, readable and concise introduction to the neuroscience of habits. Tricomi, E. M., Balleine, B. W. & O’Doherty, J. P. (2009) A specific role for posterior dorsolateral striatum in human habit learning, European Journal of Neuroscience, 29(11), 2225–2232. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06796.x.A One of the few studies to have demonstrated, in humans, a shift from goal-directed to habit-based control of behaviour, along with parallel changes in the neural circuits controlling the behaviour. De Wit, S., Kindt, M., Knot, S., Verhoeven, A., Robbins, T., Gasull-Camos, J., … Gillan, C. (2018) Shifting the balance between goals and habits: Five failures in experimental habit induction. Journal of Experimental Psychology-General, 147(7), 1043–1065. Interesting account of failures to produce habitual behaviours in humans, including an attempted replication of the Tricomi et al. study above, which demonstrate the complexity of habitual behaviour in humans. Fiorella, L. (2020) The science of habit and its implications for student learning and well-being. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09525-1 Continuous improvement in teaching—overcoming the three-year plateau. Assigning the paper and designing methods to encourage prolonged teacher growth. Productive habits in the classroom—students could work to identify positive/productive habitual behaviours in both teachers and students (using Fiorella, 2020, as above), and then work backwards to design the conditions under which these behaviours would be more likely to occur.
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