Click here to read a book review by Alisha Luxford
Published in the Queensland Principal, March 2024
How Overloaded Educators Can Keep Getting Better
by Dr Simon Breakspear & Bronwyn Ryrie Jones
Enhance teachers’ expertise – in every term, every school year.
With all of the everyday demands of teaching, the job of improving classroom practice is a challenge for teachers and school leaders. Grounded by research and field-tested around the world, Teaching Sprints offers a professional improvement process that works in theory and practice.
Including insights from the field, and practical protocols, this book outlines a simple model for engaging in short bursts of evidence informed improvement work. Using Teaching Sprints, teams of teachers can enhance their expertise together, in a way that is sustainable on the ground.
In Teaching Sprints, readers will find:
Three big ideas about practice improvement
A detailed description of a simple improvement process
Advice on how to establish a routine for continual improvement
Whether you’re a classroom teacher thinking about your own practice, an instructional leader supporting colleagues to teach better tomorrow, or a school leader interested in enhancing your program for professional learning, Teaching Sprints is a must-read for you.
“Among the greatest unresolved issues within schools is developing great models of implementation: Sprints is certainly one of the breakthroughs. This book can make major improvements in schools and classrooms, ironically by focusing on tiny shifts. ”
John Hattie, Laureate Professor
“As someone who works closely with teachers to support their development in a wide range of contexts, I found Teaching Sprints absolutely inspiring and illuminating. Simon and Bronwyn have managed to capture the complex process of teacher improvement in an elegantly simple framework with crystal clear underlying principles founded on both practice and research evidence, alongside very practical implementation tools. It’s a brilliant concept and I’m sure a lot of teachers and leaders will find this incredibly valuable. ”
Tom Sherrington, Education Consultant and Author
“Once in a while you come across a book that really cuts through the complexity of issues and provides a refreshing and practical approach to improving what happens in schools. This is such a book. Evidence-based, easy to read and full of down-to-earth ideas that busy teachers can implement. I love it. ”
Steve Munby, Visiting Professor
“Simon and Bron have such a practical way of combining insights from research and practice to help teachers have the best possible impact in their classrooms. This book is a goldmine of practical, tried-and-tested and evidence-informed strategies for teachers and school leaders who want to improve what they do.”
Danielle Toon, Associate Director Social Ventures Australia
“In our work we find that 80% of our best ideas come from leading practitioners. This book is a godsend to this domain of learning from doing. With three big components, and three guidelines to quick action for each idea, Teaching Sprints helps people to get to action and learn from it quickly. Identify best bets, and establish improvement routines. Breakspear and Ryrie Jones have given us a strong framework for action in frantic times.”
Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus
“Authors Breakspear & Ryrie Jones, informed and supported by fellow practitioners & researchers, deliver a powerful Guide for a profession committed to getting better at good work. The Teaching Sprints model is an ‘innovation lab in the school’; it is a rigorous, adaptive, and impactful approach to embedding professional learning. Teaching Sprints advocates iterative and sustainable improvement in collaborative professional practice - but it does much more - it demonstrates how to do it!”
Anthony Mackay, President & CEO National Center on Education & the Economy