ABCs of How We Learn: D is for Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice is what kicked off this whole series. I did a deliberate practice exercise last Friday as part of my AP Review in which we focused on graph linearization on the AP FRQs. I was so excited about it I decided to write about it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve intentionally paired an activity in my classroom with deliberate practice. I’ve also paired it with the Building Thinking Classrooms strategy using Mild, Medium and Spicy problems.

Deliberate practice is defined as applying focused and effortful practice to develop specific skills and concepts beyond one’s current ability.

The analogies to interests and hobbies abound. Running drills in sports to get body mechanics just right, Hanon finger exercises to help with piano dexterity, or point coordination exercises to improve hand-eye coordination and drawing with your shoulder.

These drills are rarely exciting, often frustrating but so necessary to move to the next level. In other words, they are focused and effortful!

The challenge with students (or anyone really) is that students tend to practice the things they are already good at. The challenge for teachers is that if we want students to engage in deliberate practice to improve their skills, we have to get them focused in on what they are really struggling with, and we know that’s not going to feel great.

AP classroom has recently made deliberate practice really east for educators. You can log into your AP classroom, go to Reports, then Content & Skills Performance. Then you can “generate practice quiz” in which you can make selections for content and/or skill based on the student level of performance. I’ve found this to be a really valuable tool this year to help my students focus in on that deliberate practice.

Another great example of a resource for deliberate practice are the Physics Classroom concept checkers. I’ve shared some of my written companions for these assignments which provide students some of the scaffolding they need to build that particular skill set.

I recently heard an eduinfluencer make the claim that teachers can only name and describe 3 evidence based strategies they use in their classroom. Challenge accepted. Each day I’m working through the book The ABCs of How We Learn and pairing a strategy with physics content/activities in my classroom.