You spend most of your lesson teaching your class how to multiply fractions. You model multiple examples on the board. Students are set some questions to complete to practice their learning. But, you notice students are confusing adding fractions with multiplying fractions. There is errors all across the room.
Your midway through your lesson. Laptop connected to the projector showing your examples to the class. Your about to go though your them and... Laptop dies. All of your planning is gone. 30 students looking at you. Getting agitated. You start sweating. Panicking. 30 minutes to go.
You have an idea of what to do to improve teaching and learning at your school. You introduce your team to a new way of teaching. Your bubbling with excitement to see its impact. However, a few weeks pass and you notice the rest of your team have reverted back to their old ways. Your idea is a thing of the past. It is spoken about as another fad that has come and gone in education.
"Many goals get derailed by events that are unexpected but not unimaginable." Scott Young
Tim Ferris spoke on his Ted talk about defining fears instead of goals and made some excellent points. By focusing on what could go wrong you can plan to counter this and ensure success.
In James Kerr's book Legacy, he speaks about how the All Blacks prepare for the unexpected in training and are ready for every eventuality in a game of rugby, to improve their chances of winning. Eddie Jones and his England team train in 'chaos' environments to ensure that they are ready to adapt to what is needed so that they continue to be successful.
We can improve students success by planning for where they will fail, thinking about their misconceptions. If you know where students will struggle you can ensure your teaching avoids these misconceptions and addresses them straightaway when needed, tackling them head on. In the example earlier it might mean showing how multiplying fractions is very different visually than adding or subtracting fractions, using representations to help you.
A teacher can prepare for that inevitable day when technology fails mid lesson. They could role play that scenario, perhaps after school or maybe even in a lesson where you are confident you can teach with just a pen and a board. You can plan how you would respond in a safe environment. That way, when it does happen you can take a deep breath and fall back to your 'training'.
As a leader it might be thinking about where your new initiative may fail and what you can put in place to support your team in achieving success. For example, you want to introduce a representation into your Maths departments lessons. You know this is new for a number of members of your team so they may be reluctant to include it in their teaching. What do you do?
Perhaps you pre prepare some lessons and examples that include the representations and share it with your team. Maybe you introduce the representation slowly within one topic of teaching for one year group before rolling out at a larger scale. Does your team need specific CPD on how the representation can be used and is beneficial? Much can be done to increase the chance of success.
When planning your new initiative, your motivation is at its peak. Take advantage of that energy and imagine the obstacles that may arise and decide your response to avoid abandoning the initiative when the going gets tough.
"Every battle is won before it's ever fought.” — Sun Tzu