Teaching Sprints
How Overloaded Educators Can Keep Getting Better
School Change & Reform
With all of the everyday demands of teaching, the job of improving classroom practice is a challenge for teachers and school leaders. Grounded by research and field-tested around the world, Teaching Sprints offers a professional improvement process that works in theory and practice.
Including insights from the field, and practical protocols, this book outlines a simple model for engaging in short bursts of evidence-informed improvement work. Using Teaching Sprints, teams of teachers can enhance their expertise together, in a way that is sustainable on the ground.
In Teaching Sprints, readers will find:
- three big ideas about practice improvement
- a detailed description of a simple improvement process
- advice on how to establish a routine for continual improvement
Whether you’re a classroom teacher thinking about your own practice, an instructional leader supporting colleagues to teach better tomorrow, or a school leader interested in enhancing your program for professional learning, Teaching Sprints is a must-read for you.
"Among the greatest unresolved issues within schools is developing great models of implementation: Sprints is certainly one of the breakthroughs. This book can make major improvements in schools and classrooms, ironically by focusing on tiny shifts."
John Hattie, Laureate Professor
Melbourne Graduate School of Education
Melbourne, Australia
"Once in a while you come across a book that really cuts through the complexity of issues and provides a refreshing and practical approach to improving what happens in schools. This is such a book. Evidence-based, easy to read and full of down-to-earth ideas that busy teachers can implement. I love it."
Steve Munby, Visiting Professor
University College London
Former CEO, National College for School Leadership
London, UK
Supplements
This book starts with a compelling proposition for anyone involved in teacher learning: “If it doesn’t work for teachers, it doesn’t work.” What Simon and Bronwyn outline is an evidence-based, field-tested, no-nonsense process to support teachers in continually improving their teaching practice. This is a timely and welcome addition to the teacher learning discourse.
Through Teaching Sprints, thousands of our teachers and leaders now have another, and arguably better, way of moving through a disciplined inquiry process - the intentional experimentation, the fast fails, the iterative improvement. It is these small shifts that have added up over hundreds of our schools to make improvement across a system. We now have more expert teachers who not only know the most impactful teaching strategies, but where and how to use them, for which students and at precisely the right time.
Teaching Sprints are so successful because the core values privilege teacher need and student improvement above anything else. Sprints have transformed our approach to professional learning and teacher growth. We now have a truly authentic and impact driven model for our teachers to engage with.
It is evident that if we wish to make education systems significantly better, we need to focus simultaneously on transformation of education system and improvement of teaching. The art of sustainable educational change is to find small steps that would make big impact in teachers’ practice. Teaching Sprints is a book about that. It is a great resource for leaders and teachers who are looking for practical ideas that can improve what teachers do in schools every day.