August 20, 2025

Four Distractions That Can Block Student Learning

Teaching in today’s environment is challenging work. The press and stress we feel can lead us to pull back and rely on traditional, longstanding, seemingly safe instructional practices and strategies. We might think that traditional approaches will serve well enough and produce enough evidence of learning to satisfy the expectations we face.

It is true that there are many longstanding practices that have “passed the test of time.” However, the challenging and changing future our students face and what we have discovered about learning over the past few decades ask us to shift our thinking, adjust our practices, and embrace new levels of teaching and learning success.

In fact, some of the traditional practices and approaches we have been taught and have relied on can become distractions from reaching the levels of teaching and learning excellence we want to achieve. Consider these five traditional practices and how they might be adjusted to lift the learning of our students to new levels.

Distraction #1: Demanding compliance over nurturing commitment.

Demanding compliance has traditionally been the dominate and most frequently taught approach to instruction and classroom management. This approach is based on the assumption that in order for students to learn, their behavior must be controlled, and that students likely won’t choose to learn what we are asking of them unless they are forced. Obviously, we need a level of order and respect for learning to occur. However, depending on compliance alone offers little benefit beyond control of the physical actions of students. If we hope to have students invest in learning beyond what is mandated, we must do more. We need to invite interest, provoke curiosity, share awe, design challenge, encourage voice, and offer meaningful choices.

In a compliance environment, learning work is finished when demands are satisfied, and expectations are met. In a commitment-driven environment, learning continues until curiosity is satisfied, important questions are answered, and learning challenges have been defeated.

Distraction #2: Focusing on superficial understanding over deep learning.

Students can gain a surface level understanding of content presented to them by repeating what is said, retelling what they have read, and recounting other information they have been fed. However, deep understanding and pervasive learning comes when students dissect what is presented, debate what they are seeking to understand, digest what they have come to grasp, and learn to utilize the insights they have gained. If we want students to gain deep understanding, we need to value rich exploration and introduce new content with at least as many questions as clear and obvious answers. Information and skills need context to be compelling. Students need opportunities and reasons to investigate and assess what they are learning, not just be assessed to determine if they have learned.

The best evidence of deep learning can be found in students’ confidence and competence to apply their learning in varied contexts, use it to create new insights, and employ it to explore broader and deeper implications.

Distraction #3: Settling for information consumption over knowledge creation.

Our education system is largely designed to have students consume information and learn skills taught to them. While this approach may have been adequate in the past, the world we need to prepare today’s students for will reward the ability to turn what is known into something more. Simply applying formulas, following processes, and replicating what can be digitized and programmed for performance by technology is no longer enough. Curiosity, imagination, creativity, questioning, and being challenged leads to learning for which students feel ownership.

When students discover new insights, uncover new implications, and formulate new ideas, they move from consumers of information to generators of knowledge.

Distraction #4: Focusing on end-of-cycle learning assessments over learning retention.

When our attention and students’ focus are aimed solely on assessment performance at the conclusion of units and other learning segments, we risk students falling into the trap of “test and forget.” Unless learning has a greater, long-term purpose for students, they are likely to lose new learning soon after it is assessed.

If we want students to retain what they have learned, we need to help them connect new learning with past learning, frequently return to the learned skills and content for review and application, and design activities that depend on past learning to refresh recall and give students reasons to retain what they have learned.

Obviously, there are many instructional practices that have served well in the past and deserve to be continued. However, we must be vigilant in our assessment of what our practices can produce and feel urgency in our quest to shift and modify our approaches to maximize their impact and enrich student learning.