Teacher Decision Making

Teachers make an extraordinary number of decisions each day. There is research that states teachers makes more minute-by-minute decisions than brain surgeons.

The conservative estimate from the data collected has teachers making approximately 130 decisions per hour during a six-hour school day. This data includes only those decisions made within the classroom. This is oftentimes disheartening and intimidating for new teachers. (from the post Keeping New Teachers from Dropping Out)

So... what can we do to help make all of this in-the-moment decision making easier?

Research on teacher decision making (Griffith & Lacina, 2017) tells us that all of these minute-by-minute decisions can be made easier through intentional planning decisions. The more thought teachers put in the planning of reading instruction, the more effortlessly they can predict what the reader will do, the challenges he will face, and where he will apply the strategies he's been taught.

In basic terms, planning decisions act as a dress rehearsal for what might happen during a guided reading lesson.

During the planning process, teachers make decisions related to the following categories:

(1) grouping
(2) text selection
(3) lesson focus and goals
(4) strategies to teach
(5) supports to provide
(5) comprehension needs
(6) next steps

Some decisions are easier to make than others. For example: Which students are similar in their reading development? Which students are reading the same level of text or have the same reading needs? or How many guided reading groups should I form?

Others require more thought and planning. For example: How can I teach for independence? What strategies would best help this group decode words, understand the text, and/or read with more expression and fluency?

There are three big questions you need to answer when making planning decisions for guided reading. Within those overarching questions are a multitude of smaller ones.  

(1) What do the readers in this group do well? Which reading strategies are they using effectively and efficiently and which ones do they need to learn next or practice more?

(2) What makes the text I chose easy for them to read and what will make it challenging for them? 

(3) What strategy focus and goals do I have for these readers? 

A few helpful resources that I've used are:

The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading offers step by step lesson plan templates that help you plan for all of the decisions you need to make before, during, and after the lesson. The book also gives you access to videos, so that you can see each step in action. The best part of this book is that it is not scripted. It is a template and plan that allow for responsive teaching. 

Teacher as Decision Maker: A Framework to Guide Teaching Decisions in Reading (2017). Robbin Griffith and Jan Lacina. The Reading Teacher, 71(4).  

This article provides an easy-to-follow table with specific decisions that you need to think about, plan for, and make when preparing for guided reading instruction.  

The more time you spend planning for and thinking about the decisions you will have to make during a guided reading lesson, the better you will be at all of the in-the-moment decisions that arise while at the table.