Mastering the Science of Teaching

Not many of us start out as great teaching assistants. It is hard work: learning a new skill and taking on the responsibility of guiding student learning, all while juggling the other aspects of your life including your own coursework, research, and personal commitments. While it can be overwhelming, there is lots of research available on how people learn that you can apply to your professional development as a TA to sharpen your teaching skills and support students in their own learning. “Deliberate practice” is one of these important and practical concepts to explore.

Practice+

You’ve probably heard the saying that “practice makes perfect”, and you have likely even seen this to be true in your own learning. However, when it comes to mastering a skill, there is a certain type of effort that can have a big impact: deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is a method that goes beyond mere repetition of the things you already know how to do—it involves both improving your current skills and extending them to developing new and more advanced skills (Ericsson et al., 2007). Research shows that learning and performance improve most when we: practice by focusing on a specific goal or standard; tackle skills that are challenging to us but attainable; and practice often enough and with enough effort to meet our set standards (Ericsson et al., 1993; Lovette et al., 2023). In other words, our practice should be purposeful and target the things we can’t do well yet, and we must maintain that effort using a feedback-driven approach to monitor our progress (Figure 1). Deliberate practice requires effort but has been highlighted as a significant factor in developing expert performance (Ericsson et al., 1993; Ericsson & Pool, 2016; Keep, 2022).

Figure 1: Principles of Deliberate Practice

Image Attribution: Dylan Cane, https://fivetwelvethirteen.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/deliberate-practice-mental-models/. Licensed under CC-BY 4.0.

What does deliberate practice look like for my teaching?

Now that you know what deliberate practice is, how can you apply it to developing skills as a TA? One place to start might be to consider the goals you are setting for yourself. Create a list of specific and achievable goals that can improve your teaching skills. Instead of having a general goal like, “I want to be the best TA at Dalhousie”, try setting clear, specific, and achievable goals based on the skills that are important for your role and in which you are least confident. For example, you might decide that you want to set a goal like, “I want to improve how I integrate examples when explaining complex topics to students”. Take some time to concentrate on practicing that skill. Seek out feedback from the course instructor, other TAs, and students so you can monitor your progress, and then use that feedback to adjust and try again later. While it is important to focus your attention on a particular aspect of your teaching, this doesn’t mean it is the only thing you spend time doing. Though an important skill, you wouldn’t be a very effective TA if you did nothing else than walk around giving students dozens of examples for a complex topic! Think of deliberate practice as though you are improving one aspect of your teaching, rather than trying to perfect it. Developing as a teacher is an on-going, iterative process. You will probably return to the skill of integrating examples within your explanations of complex topics many times over your career as a teacher.

So, be patient. Becoming an expert in anything does not happen overnight! With consistency and making it part of your routine, deliberate practice can help make you a more effective TA. It is also a skill you could build into your teaching, guiding students into developing it for themselves. If you are interested in reading more about deliberate practice and how people learn, check out the references in this article and be sure to connect with the Centre for Learning and Teaching and the Library collection.

Happy deliberate teaching!

References

Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363–406. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.100.3.363

Ericsson, A., & Pool, R. (2016). Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Houghton Mifflin Court.

Ericsson, K. A., Prietula, M. J., & Cokely, E. T. (2007). The making of an expert. PubMed, 85(7–8), 114–121, 193. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17642130

Keep, B. (2022, March 23). Is deliberate practice all wrong? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SZDj5TEhU0

Lovett, M. C., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Ambrose, S. A., & Norman, M. K. (2023). How learning works: Eight research-based principles for smart teaching. John Wiley & Sons.