PRACTICE

WITH PURPOSE
The Emerging Science of
Teacher Expertise

www.deansforimpact.org
About
PRACTICE WITH PURPOSE

T he goal of this document is to connect the principles of deliberate practice to their practical
implications for teacher preparation and professional development. These principles are the result
of research in the science of expertise: the systematic study of individuals who excel in a given field.
Deliberate practice is practice that is purposeful and designed to maximize improvement. This type of
practice has proven useful in improving performance across a range of fields, and several of its principles
can help inform how teacher-preparation programs should prepare future educators. The phrase
“deliberate practice” is used to refer to activities meant to improve teaching that are based in principles
derived from research and outlined in this document.
Beginning (or preservice) teacher preparation cannot produce experts immediately. In fact, developing true
expertise likely takes more hours than any teacher-preparation program can possibly provide. But novice
teachers who have had the opportunity to practice deliberately are on the path to being ready to teach as they
begin their careers, and to develop deeper expertise over time. Our hope is that this document will serve as
a useful starting point for leaders in teacher education – including deans, teacher-educators, and others – to
analyze the design of their programs in relationship to deliberate-practice principles.
Practice with Purpose explores an area of research that is still developing, and has only recently been applied
to teaching. Moreover, deliberate practice is only one of many critical features of effective teacher preparation.
And we recognize that other groups and organizations, such as TeachingWorks and the Core Practice
Consortium, are leading efforts to identify specific competencies as well as pedagogies of teacher education
that draw upon deliberate-practice principles. Deans for Impact believes deliberate practice should play a
central role in preparing future educators for the challenging work ahead of them.
Practice with Purpose was developed by member deans of Deans for Impact in close collaboration with Anders
Ericsson, professor of psychology and researcher of expertise at Florida State University; Sarah Scott Frank,
teacher-educator and founder of Open Literacy; Dylan Kane, high school math teacher in Leadville, Colorado;
and Kristine Schutz, literacy researcher and teacher-educator at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The present version of this document may be cited as:
Deans for Impact (2016). Practice with Purpose: The Emerging Science of Teacher Expertise.
Austin, TX: Deans for Impact.

NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

A lthough deliberate practice can be used by any educator to improve their skills, the focus
of this document is on novice teachers. We use “novice” and “novice teacher” to refer
to both preservice teachers and early-career teachers. We use “teacher-candidate” to refer
specifically to individuals in teacher-preparation programs who are not yet licensed to teach.
We use “teacher-educator” to refer to full-time faculty of teacher-preparation programs,
and “cooperating teacher” to refer to practicing classroom teachers who serve as mentors
to teacher-candidates. We use “student” to refer to K-12 students taught in classrooms of
teachers or teacher-candidates.

2 Pra c t i c e with Purp os e I D E A N S F O R I M P A C T

 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Quality > Quantity

A lthough calls for a focus on practice in teacher preparation in recent years have led to new
clinical opportunities, we need to strengthen the quality of these experiences rather than
solely focus on the quantity of time novice teachers spend in classrooms. 1 Experience is easily
conflated with expertise, yet evidence across a range of fields suggests that experience alone does
not improve performance, 2 and the typical approaches to teacher preparation and professional
development have produced inconsistent teacher effectiveness. 3
The science of expertise reveals seven key principles that are features of deliberate practice, and are used
in fields that have highly developed training techniques, such as learning to play the violin or training
to become a grandmaster in chess. This document examines five of these principles that are particularly
relevant to developing teacher skill:4

T HE FI V E P RI N C I PL ES O F D EL I B ER ATE PR ACTI C E

PUSH Work toward FOCUS Receive and Develop a

BEYOND well-defined, intently on respond to MENTAL
one’s comfort SPECIFIC practice HIGH-QUALITY MODEL
zone GOALS activities FEEDBACK of expertise

These principles can shape the design of clinical experiences, student teaching, and ongoing professional
development to maximize the growth of teachers. There are a number of factors that influence the
effectiveness of a novice teacher, and deliberate practice is not the only method for preparing teachers.
But deliberate practice is one aspect of teacher preparation that programs have control over, and it can
be the starting point for programmatic redesign.
The following pages examine how the principles of deliberate practice can be applied to develop
teaching skill. Each principle is (1) mapped to a set of practical implications for teacher-preparation
programs; (2) illustrated in the context of a teacher-preparation program; and (3) tied to a set of questions
for programs to use to evaluate whether teacher-candidates are practicing deliberately.

1
Grossman, Compton, Igra, Ronfeldt, 3
Birman et al., 2007;
Shahan, & Williamson, 2009; Zeichner, 2012 Rivkin, Hanushek & Kain, 2005
2
Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993 4
Ericsson & Pool, 2016

D E A N S F O R I M P A C T I Practi ce w i th Pur po se 3
 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Push Beyond Comfort

PRINCIPLE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE FOR TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Deliberate practice requires  Teaching is challenging work; novice

presenting challenges that teachers face significant challenges
push novices just beyond their early in their teaching and are
unlikely to learn the skills necessary
current abilities.5
to overcome these challenges if their
learning is left to chance.6

 Programs can design practice

experiences so that novice
teachers are challenged through a
purposeful trajectory throughout
their preparation, with specific goals
for what a beginning teacher should
know and be able to do, and provide
the support necessary to work
through those challenges.7

5
Ericsson & Pool, 2016
6
Ball & Forzani, 2009
7
Ericsson & Pool, 2016

4 Pra c t i c e with Purp os e I D E A N S F O R I M P A C T

 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Push Beyond Comfort

ILLUSTRATION
OF THIS PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE
Desmond, a novice teacher, meets with Lea, a teacher-educator, after Lea has
observed Desmond’s teaching. Desmond is working to improve his questioning
of students in order to elicit their thinking. He plans his questions carefully, yet
often elicits student thinking that appears superficial and underdeveloped.
Desmond struggles to extend the discussion after students respond.
Lea and Desmond begin by discussing the questions he had planned for his
lesson and how students responded. Lea notes that Desmond’s questions were
effective in generating student thinking, but that he often failed to connect
that thinking to the larger discussion.
Lea wants Desmond to improve at orienting students to one another’s
thinking. She suggests that he try revoicing a student’s response and ask other
students if they agree, disagree, or can add on an idea to support students
in expanding their thinking. With Lea’s help, Desmond plans several key
moments in his next lesson where orienting student thinking will be important,
and they plan for specific responses that Desmond will address using the
revoicing strategy. While Desmond is initially nervous about this strategy, Lea
notices that he improves in the following week. Soon, he begins orienting
students to one another’s thinking more naturally, and the quality of student
responses increases.

ARE YOU PRACTICING WITH PURPOSE?

 Are teacher-educators prepared to support novice teachers with

challenges they will struggle with early in their teaching?
 Are novice teachers challenged to work on a variety of discrete skills
that are difficult to master?
 Are cooperating teachers supported by teacher-educators in jointly
creating challenges that will push novice teachers outside their
comfort zones?
 Do teacher-educators have an understanding of how candidates learn
to teach in a developmental trajectory?

D E A N S F O R I M P A C T I Practi ce w i th Pur po se 5
 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Define Specific Goals

PRINCIPLE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE FOR TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Deliberate practice requires  Practice activities should focus on

setting goals that are well- improving a particular aspect of
defined, specific, and teaching rather than working toward
broad, general improvement.9
measurable.8

 Goals should be sequenced, starting

with basic skills and progressing to
more sophisticated ones.10

 Goals should be measurable where

possible, and these measures should
inform the choice of future goals. 11

8
Ericsson, 2006 10
Ericsson & Pool, 2016
9
Ericsson, 2006 11
Ericsson & Pool, 2016

6 Pra c t i c e with Purp os e I D E A N S F O R I M P A C T

 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Define Specific Goals

ILLUSTRATION
OF THIS PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE
Two teacher-candidates have two very different experiences in their teaching
placements. Bruna spends half a year teaching math under the supervision of a
cooperating teacher. Bruna gradually takes on more responsibility in the class-
room until she is planning and teaching entirely on her own. She is observed by
both her cooperating teacher and supervising teacher-educator, and receives
feedback based on those observations. When she encounters challenges in her
teaching, she decides whether to approach her cooperating teacher or her super-
vising teacher-educator to discuss possible solutions.
Hazel spends the same amount of time student teaching that Bruna does.
However, Hazel’s program focuses on ten essential skills, such as setting a clear
purpose for a lesson, eliciting student thinking, and explaining and representing
mathematical ideas. These goals are sequenced from foundational skills – such as
setting up effective transitions between activities – to more ambitious ones, such
as adjusting a lesson in response to student thinking.
As Hazel continues her student teaching, her cooperating teacher and supervis-
ing teacher-educator communicate to select appropriate goals. For instance, her
cooperating teacher notices early on that Hazel struggles to identify student mis-
conceptions when responding to student thinking. They videotape Hazel in the
classroom, and Hazel and other teacher-candidates examine several examples of
student misconceptions, discuss possible reasons for them, and practice different
responses. Hazel then receives feedback from her cooperating teacher around
her responses to misconceptions in class the next week.
Unlike Bruna, Hazel is learning to teach through deliberate practice.

ARE YOU PRACTICING WITH PURPOSE?

 Are clear and specific goals established and agreed upon by all parties
– including all cooperating teachers and teacher-educators – who are
involved in designing a novice teacher’s opportunities for practice?
 Can clear measures be established to track progress against these goals?
 Do cooperating teachers and teacher-educators provide specific,
actionable feedback related to these goals?

D E A N S F O R I M P A C T I Practi ce w i th Pur po se 7
 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Intensify the Focus

PRINCIPLE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE FOR TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Deliberate practice requires a  Opportunities to focus intently

significant level of focus; the on practice may effectively occur
practice involves conscious outside of typical student teaching
opportunities; two mechanisms
effort on the part of the novice
for this type of practice are
in order to improve.12 decompositions and approximations
of teaching.13

 A decomposition of teaching isolates

a specific element of classroom
practice for a novice teacher to
practice, such as focusing on
transitions between activities within a
lesson.14

 An approximation of teaching
imitates a classroom situation
and provides opportunities for
practice similar to actual teaching
experiences – but with lower stakes.15

12
Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993 14
Grossman et al., 2009
13
Grossman et al., 2009 15
Grossman et al., 2009

8 Pra c t i c e with Purp os e I D E A N S F O R I M P A C T

 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Intensify the Focus

ILLUSTRATION
OF THIS PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE
Vivienne is a teacher-candidate taking an elementary methods class where the
teacher-candidates are learning to enact a high-quality, interactive storybook
read aloud with the book Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles. All teacher-
candidates will have a common experience teaching the same text to second-
grade students. Roi, their teacher-educator, wants the teacher-candidates to
make an age-appropriate connection to a historically important turning point
in the Civil Rights movement as part of their text introduction.
Before their lessons, Vivienne and her classmates rehearse their read aloud
together in small groups, and practice how they will introduce the text to their
students. Then, Vivienne publicly rehearses her read-aloud text introduction.
But when first explaining what led to Freedom Summer, Vivienne states that it
happened in the summer of 1964. Roi pauses Vivienne’s rehearsal and explains
that her second-grade students will have difficulty connecting with that piece
of background knowledge. Roi and the class of teacher-candidates discuss
ways to connect the book to the historical context in an age-appropriate man-
ner. This rehearsal leads Vivienne to modify her approach to her planned read
aloud of Freedom Summer.16

ARE YOU PRACTICING WITH PURPOSE?

 Are teacher-educators prepared to provide practice outside of K-12

classrooms for additional opportunities to focus on specific elements
of teaching?

 Are there opportunities to focus on key aspects of practice that novice

teachers often struggle with?

 Are teaching opportunities designed to focus on specific elements

of instruction that have been broken down into their constituent
parts?

16
Kazemi, Ghousseini, Cunard, & Turrou, 2015; Lampert et al., 2013

D E A N S F O R I M P A C T I Practi ce w i th Pur po se 9
 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Respond to Feedback

PRINCIPLE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE FOR TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Deliberate practice requires  Feedback should occur immediately

providing high-quality feedback or as soon as possible after practicing
to the novice and adjustment a specific skill.18
by the novice in response to
that feedback.17  Feedback should focus on specific
features of a teacher’s work relative to
a task or goal.19

 After feedback is given, there should

be opportunities to attempt a similar
task involving the same skill again —
and with adjustment by the novice
based on that feedback.20

17
Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993 19
Shute, 2008
18
Shute, 2008 20
Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993

10 Pra c t i c e with Purp os e I D E A N S F O R I M P A C T

 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Respond to Feedback
ILLUSTRATION
OF THIS PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE
Susan, a cooperating teacher working with a university-based teacher-prep-
aration program, has been mentoring teacher-candidates for 20 years. She
typically gave feedback to teacher-candidates based on goals the candidates
individually identified, or those that came up during their student-teaching
experiences.
The program Susan works with is revamping their approach to feedback. Susan
meets with teacher-educators in the program to learn the goals they have for
teacher-candidates, such as leading a whole-group discussion and managing
group work. Susan agrees to share feedback she gives relative to these goals
with teacher-educators at the university so that all parties know the areas that
teacher-candidates are working to improve.
Susan then meets with Pascal, a teacher-candidate she is mentoring, to set
a schedule of regular feedback meetings and make a concrete plan for how
Pascal will implement Susan’s feedback on specific skills. To better focus her
feedback, Susan begins videotaping sections of Pascal’s lessons relevant to his
goals so that they can watch the video in meetings after class and talk about
how he can improve. Teacher-educators at the university use what they learn
from Susan’s feedback to Pascal to inform areas they focus on in their courses,
and provide additional opportunities to practice through simulations with
other novice teachers.

ARE YOU PRACTICING WITH PURPOSE?

 Do all parties involved in a teacher-preparation program — including

the cooperating teachers and teacher-educators — agree on
common language and structures for feedback?

 Is there a concrete plan for providing feedback that includes set

dates for meeting?

 Is feedback focused on specific goals that teachers can work on

improving over time, and with repeated opportunities to improve?

D E A N S F O R I M P A C T I Practi ce w i th Pur po se 11
 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Develop a Mental Model

PRINCIPLE PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

OF DELIBERATE PRACTICE FOR TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Deliberate practice both  Novice teachers and teacher-

produces and relies on educators should have a clear
mental models and mental understanding of how students learn
that is based in part on principles of
representations to guide
cognitive science.23
decisions.21 These models allow
practitioners to self-monitor
 This knowledge should include how
performance to improve their
students understand new ideas, retain
performance.22 information, solve problems, transfer
their knowledge to new situations,
and find motivation to learn.24

 Novice teachers and teacher-

educators should have a clear idea
of how they will know students are
learning, and compare evidence
of student performance with their
mental model of student learning.25

21
Ericsson & Pool, 2016 24
Deans for Impact, 2015
22
Ericsson & Pool, 2016 25
Black & Wiliam, 1998
23
Deans for Impact, 2015

12 Pra c t i c e with Purp os e I D E A N S F O R I M P A C T

 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Develop a Mental Model

ILLUSTRATION
OF THIS PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE
Reggie is a teacher-educator who wants to ensure teacher-candidates in his pro-
gram have a clear understanding of how students learn science. He asks teacher-
candidates to reflect in detail on misconceptions that students have about the
motion of the sun, earth, and moon. They identify, with Reggie’s guidance, the
most important misconceptions to address in their lessons. They then plan an
activity to elicit student thinking at the beginning of their lessons so that teacher-
candidates can compare their students’ knowledge with the image they had of
how students learned celestial motion.
Next, Reggie asks teacher-candidates to plan how they will ensure students will
retain this knowledge and be able to apply it in new contexts in the future. They
make a plan for how they will push students to think about the structure of celes-
tial motion beyond its surface features, and design an assessment that requires
students to apply what they know to a hypothetical solar system different than
our own. They evaluate the results of this assessment to determine the extent to
which students understand the deep structure of celestial motion and plan for
how students will retrieve this knowledge in the future.

ARE YOU PRACTICING WITH PURPOSE?

 Can the parties involved in a teacher-preparation program identify

agreed-upon cognitive principles about how students learn?

 Is there a process in place for novice teachers to self-monitor

whether their teaching has resulted in student learning?

 Can novice teachers articulate how they will compare their ideas of
student learning with evidence of student learning?

D E A N S F O R I M P A C T I Practi ce w i th Pur po se 13
 PRACTICE
WITH PURPOSE

Making a deliberate
commitment to improving teacher preparation
The five principles of deliberate practice outlined in this document can help individual programs improve the
coherence and effectiveness of the experiences they provide to teacher-candidates. An area for collective
action in the field of teacher preparation is to develop the prerequisites for two additional principles of
deliberate practice. These principles are essential to fields with well-developed methods of improvement.

Deliberate practice requires the use  Teaching has not reached the consensus on
of established, effective training effective training techniques that are required
techniques, overseen by someone for deliberate practice.27
who is knowledgeable in that field.26  The development of a common language
for practice-based teacher preparation is an
important area of focus for teacher-educators.28

Deliberate practice builds skills in a care-  Teaching has not reached consensus on
fully chosen order, ensuring that funda- specific foundational skills for novice teachers
mental skills are learned correctly early on, to learn early in their development, but this
work is underway and early efforts can be
and that elements of practice that teachers
used to improve practice.30
choose to improve build on each other.29

CALL TO ACTION

A practice-based approach to teacher preparation requires teacher-educators to work differently,

linking theory and practice and creating coherent candidate experiences anchored in a vision of
ambitious instruction. Some readers will argue that a practice-based approach is possible only in a small
number of programs and only under certain circumstances. We disagree. There are a growing number
of teacher-education programs – within both traditional colleges of education and in less traditional
organizations, in large programs and in small, within the membership of Deans for Impact and beyond
our membership – that are pioneering a practice-based approach. But they are few in number and
diverse in their application of deliberate-practice principles.
The principles of deliberate practice have the promise to improve the quality of teacher education. There
will inevitably be challenges with this work: for teacher-educators learning new techniques; for institutions
that need to change incentive structures in order to encourage faculty to own collectively the success of
every teacher-candidate; and for teacher-candidates and novice teachers who will be pushed beyond their
comfort zones. This work will not be easy, but we believe that it is both possible and necessary if we are to
advance the field of teacher preparation and prepare effective teachers to serve every student.

26
Ericsson & Pool, 2016 28
McDonald, Kazemi & Kavanagh, 2013; 29
Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993
27
Ball & Forzani, 2009 Grossman & McDonald, 2008 30
Ball & Forzani, 2011

14 Pra c t i c e with Purp os e I D E A N S F O R I M P A C T

 Works Cited

Ball, D. L., & Forzani, F. (2009). The work of teaching Kazemi, E., Ghousseini, H., Cunard, A., & Turrou,
and the challenge for teacher education. Journal of A. C. (2015). Getting inside rehearsals: Insights
Teacher Education, 60(5), 497-511. from teacher educators to support work on
complex practice. Journal of Teacher Education:
Ball, D. L., & Forzani, F. (2011). Building a common core 0022487115615191.
for learning to teach, and connecting professional
learning to practice. American Educator, 35(2), 17-21, Lampert, M., Franke, M., Kazemi, E., Ghousseini, H.,
38-39. Turrou, A. C., Beasley, H., Cunard, A., & Crowe,
K. (2013). Keeping it complex: Using rehearsals
Birman, B. F., Le Floch, K. C., Klekotka, A., Ludwig, to support novice teacher learning of ambitious
M., Taylor, J., Walters, K. et al. (2007). State and teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3), 226-
Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind 243.
Act. Volume II - Teacher Quality under NCLM:
Interim Report, US Department of Education, (ERIC McDonald, M., Kazemi, E., & Kavanagh, S. S. (2013).
Document Reproduction Service No. ED497970). Core practices and pedagogies of teacher
education: A call for common language and
Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: collective activity. Journal of Teacher Education,
Raising standards through classroom assessment. 64(5), 378-386.
London: School of Education, King’s College.
Rivkin, S. G., Hanushek, E. A., & Kain, J. F. (2005).
Deans for Impact (2015). The Science of Learning. Teachers, schools, and academic achievement.
Austin, TX: Deans for Impact. Econometric, 73(2), 417-458.

Ericsson, K. A. (2006). The influence of experience and Shute, V. J. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Review
deliberate practice on the development of superior of educational research, 78(1), 153-189.
expert performance. The Cambridge Handbook of
Expertise and Expert Performance, 683-703. Zeichner, K. (2012). The turn once again toward
practice-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher
Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). Education, 63(5), 376-382.
The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of
expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3),
363-406.

Ericsson, K. A. & Pool, R. (2016). Peak. Boston, MA:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Grossman, P., Compton, C., Igra, D., Ronfeldt, M.,

Shahan, E., & Williamson, P. (2009). Teaching
practice: A cross-professional perspective. Teachers
College Record, 111(9), 2055-2100.

Grossman, P., & McDonald, M. (2008). Back to the

future: Directions for research in teaching and
teacher education. American Educational Research
Journal, 45(1), 184–205.

D E A N S F O R I M P A C T I Practi ce w i th Pur po se 15
About
DEANS FOR IMPACT

F ounded in 2015, Deans for Impact is a national nonprofit organization representing leaders in
educator preparation who are committed to transforming educator preparation and elevating
the teaching profession. The organization is guided by four key principles:

 Data-informed improvement;
 Common outcomes measures;
 Empirical validation of effectiveness; and
 Transparency and accountability for results.
More information on the organization and its members can be found on the Deans for Impact website.

www.deansforimpact.org