departments, schools, and
districts where clear answers,
expert knowledge, or technical
support are needed. Although
their learning needs can change
over time, these schools might
need clear procedures for
making students better writers,
specific strategies for teaching in
longer blocks of time, or steps
for implementing an inquiry-based science program.
© ALBERTO RUGGIERI/GETTY IMAGES
Principals who support
instrumental learning know
about best practices or about
how to help teachers find the
necessary information. Prin-
cipals Sue Snyder and Sue
Charochak from Beverly, Mas-
sachusetts, for example, figured
out that their schools needed
to learn more about building
classroom communities. So they
turned every faculty meeting
for a year into a class, complete
with essential questions, goals, presentations, group activities,
and homework. They had considerable expertise in this
area and were skilled teachers, so they did what they knew
best: They taught. Sue Snyder put it clearly: “We just figured
out that our faculty meetings needed to be classes and we
need[ed] to be teachers” (Breidenstein et al., 2012, p. 15).
When educators attempt to put new learning into practice,
the limits of instrumental learning become apparent. Instrumental learning helps teachers learn about a new practice or
strategy but not necessarily how to integrate that new practice
into their teaching. Learning a new practice requires discussion, feedback from colleagues, classroom learning experiments, and collaborative work (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006).
Instrumental learning can be a good place to begin, but it tells
teachers little about how a specific practice should look in
their own classrooms.
adults go through instrumental and socializing stages as they
learn (Kegan, 1998). Understanding the distinction between
these stages can help principals create effective, sustainable cultures of adult learning.
Instrumental knowers seek exact answers and specific processes. They “orient toward following rules and feel supported
when others provide specific advice and explicit procedures
so that they can accomplish their goals” (Drago-Severson,
2008, p. 61). A teacher who is having difficulty structuring
guided reading lessons probably wants a clear procedure, not
an inquiry question or a chance for reflection. Such a teacher
wants concrete steps and specific advice about how to get kids
into groups and reading.