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Navigating Change: 5 Strategies to Counter Common Pitfalls

Deciding to make a significant change in professional practice, confront an unproductive approach, or commit to a new initiative can be a thrilling but daunting challenge. Excitement and optimism are likely to be high at the beginning, but making changes to longstanding behaviors and practices can be hard, time-consuming work. On the other hand, if successful, the changes can transform our work experience, lift the trajectory of our career, and significantly enhance our impact.

Fortunately, many of the travails and traps associated with making significant changes are predictable. Change processes typically share common elements that present themselves in stages. Knowing and anticipating what likely lies ahead can prepare us for what we will encounter. Here are five of the most significant and common change-related challenges and counterstrategies we can employ to defeat them.

Failing to be fully convinced of what is possible. Self-doubt can be a strong counterforce to achieving meaningful and sustained change. For example, we might say that we believe all students can learn, even at high levels, yet when pressed, we may doubt whether the statement really is true or that we can ensure that all students learn. Our fear can convince us that what we envision is out of reach. Self-doubt can leave us uncertain when we confront difficult challenges or resistance and lead us to abandon our efforts prematurely.

Counterstrategy: Henry Ford is quoted as saying, “Whether you believe you can or you can’t, either way you are right.” The first step in countering the challenge of self-doubt is to recognize its presence. Naming the doubt and countering the feeling with evidence of wins—even small ones—can be a good start. Self-talk such as “I am capable, I am committed, and I will find a way” can prime the brain for success, especially if repeated frequently. Also, consider partnering with someone who can provide accurate, balanced feedback, identify and reinforce progress, and help you stay centered.

Failing to build adequate support structures. Early shifts and modifications in practice often lead to early wins and may convince us that some tips and techniques are all that are required. We might even conclude that we can make the changes we envision alone and without the guidance of others who have made the journey before us and without ongoing brainstorming and problem-solving supports. Unfortunately, this mindset can leave us vulnerable to disappointment, frustration, and thoughts of abandonment when we encounter barriers, pushback, and slowed progress.

Counterstrategy: Schedule frequent check-ins to monitor progress and gauge perceptions of how the change is working. Provide opportunities for participants to share frustrations and successes. Arrange for people who are further ahead in the work to share their journey and strategies they used to overcome challenges and barriers. Celebrate learning from missteps and mistakes as well as from wins.

Failing to set realistic goals. Goals give us a focal point and can suggest tools to measure and judge our progress. Goals can also encourage us to think through what will be required and how much time we will need to see progress and experience success. A feeling that we want to make things better or be more effective is laudable, but knowing where we want to go and what it will look like can help us find the best strategies and approaches. Goals can also help us decide to ignore or abandon distractions and ineffective options, and they can assist us in explaining why we are engaged in the effort.

Counterstrategy: Long-term and intermediate goals help us to stay focused on where the work is headed and recognize evidence of progress in early stages. Be careful to place primary effort on achieving established goals instead of on interesting but distracting efforts and opportunities. If goal achievement slows, resist adjusting the goals or compromising the vision in favor of examining other strategies and tools.

Failing to anticipate the challenges of the second stage of change processes. The reality of significant behavior change is that, often, early wins are deceptively easy while later progress is slower and more challenging. Once initial enthusiasm wears off and early progress is achieved, we can become discouraged and uncertain about how to sustain the initiative. Also, our perception of the impact of change varies over time. Known as the Weber-Fechner Law, our perception of progress shifts as we move forward. Larger increments of change are required for us to notice the difference. We can become convinced that progress has halted when, in reality, we are simply no longer noticing the progress or the progress is continuing at a slower pace.

Counterstrategy: If progress begins to slow, consider whether it is time to shift strategies, develop a new skill, or adopt some new tools. Remember, significant change often requires new skills or new ways of thinking and behaving. Slumps in progress can be evidence that it is taking time to build new approaches and that significant payoffs still lie ahead. Patience and persistence can be powerful resources at this stage in the change process.

Failing to continue learning and adapting. It is a fact that we rarely know all that will be needed to achieve success when we initiate a change. We also cannot anticipate the twists and turns our journey will take. Strategies that seemed foolproof may need adjusting, and assumptions we made will need to be revisited and may even need to be abandoned. Unless we reflect, learn, and adjust in response to what we experience, we are likely to find ourselves stuck and unable to continue moving forward.

Counterstrategy: We will not know what we need to know at the beginning, so we must revisit and reevaluate as we move forward. New skills, different strategies, and additional tools may be required. Think of the change process as a journey. At each stage, new challenges and opportunities are likely to surface. Our choice to keep learning and adjusting to new experiences and changing circumstances will ensure ultimate success.

Committing to make a significant change can be an exhilarating prospect. The opportunity to make a new or larger difference in the lives of those who depend on us can be a powerful motivator. However, we need to be ready to counter the challenges and barriers that we will experience. Fortunately, much of what lies ahead is predictable and, with thought and planning, can be overcome and removed from our path to success.

Recognize and Avoid These 7 Common Teaching Fallacies

Student Learning

July 15, 2026

Recognize and Avoid These 7 Common Teaching Fallacies

Teaching is complex work, and we—like all professionals—use shortcuts to manage the complexity. We make assumptions and form judgments in real time, even when we may not have complete information. We use observations and clues to assess and adjust our instruction and anticipate and manage behavior. However, sometimes what we think we are seeing is not what is actually happening.

The cues and strategies on which we depend can be flawed, and priority choices we make may be limiting the learning we intend. We might think of these common assumptions, perceptions, and conclusions as teaching fallacies. They may be practiced with good intentions, but they can still get in the way of learning. Let’s explore seven common teaching misconceptions, the consequences they can produce, and how we might overcome them.

The compliance fallacy.
Students may be quiet and doing as they are told. They may be looking at us and following instructions. Yet, what we are saying may be going in one ear and out the other. It is said that we can demand our students’ presence in seats, but learning is voluntary. Compliance might be a starting point, but learning that is captured and retained is more likely to result when students find relevance, utility, and meaning in what they are learning. The resulting commitment is a far better path to learning than demanded compliance.

Insight: Learning requires a level of structure and order, but compliance is often not adequate for learning to occur. Learning requires interaction, reflection, and sensemaking—actions not assured when compliance is the only driver.

The activity fallacy.
Learning often comes through activities. However, not all activities result in learning. Students may participate in enjoyable experiences without learning and may be active without gaining insight and understanding. The experiences we design for students must begin with a focus on and lead to learning. If they don’t, they serve little purpose.

Insight: Activities need to serve learning, not just entertain. Worthy activities are tightly tied to, support, and lead to learning outcomes.

The engagement fallacy.
We might think that if students are smiling, looking at us, and participating, then they must be learning. Yet, multiple studies have shown that adults tend to significantly overestimate student engagement. In fact, students are often skilled at looking engaged when their minds are a million miles away. On the other hand, students who may not appear to be engaged may be thinking deeply, considering implications, and making connections in their learning.

Insight: We must do more than assume engagement based on nonverbal signals. Checking for understanding, structuring active participation, and asking for feedback can offer more reliable evidence.

The learning retention fallacy.
If students understand today’s lesson, we might think we can move forward with confidence that they will be able to remember and use what they have learned. However, this can be a flawed assumption. Initial learning may have yet to be transferred into long-term memory and, consequently, can quickly be lost.

Insight: We need to follow new learning up with opportunities for students to practice and develop long-term recall if we want them to retain what they learn.

The first idea fallacy.
We can become overly enamored with the first idea we have, what feels like an obvious solution, or an action that will release the pressure we feel. Yet, ignoring alternatives, overlooking assumptions, failing to iterate, and discounting implications can be expensive in time, effort, and outcomes. This approach stymies our creativity, limits our flexibility, and can deprive us of promising alternatives that would better serve the needs of our students.

Insight: Taking time to consider alternatives, explore options, and press our thinking can make the difference between just pushing through and finding new ideas, fresh approaches, and solutions that best serve our goals.

The gut feeling fallacy.
Intuition can be accurate, but it can also ignore factors that are not apparent or known to us. We can risk losing time and wasting energy when we rely on our gut feelings alone. We can even make the situation worse when we depend on perceptions and assumptions over data and evidence. Of course, solid evidence is not always available to us, and sometimes we have no alternative than to fall back on our gut feelings. However, we need to be cautious and avoid overdependence on what we assume when we really do not know.

Insight: Intuition can be useful in many circumstances. However, gut feelings informed by evidence hold the greatest promise for finding answers and designing interventions.

The coverage fallacy.
We may feel pressure to cover everything in the curriculum, especially as the end of the grading period, semester, or school year looms. However, hurrying through concepts, skimming over content, and lightly touching skills accomplishes little when learning is our goal. We may need to prioritize and even skip some elements. However, if the time we recoup results in the learning of important concepts, content, and skills, the tradeoff will be well worth it.

Insight: Remember that what counts most is what students learn, not what we teach. Pacing matters, but pacing needs to respond to learning progress, not just the week of the year.

Many of these fallacies may seem obvious and familiar. A simple reminder to avoid them may be all you need. Of course, the list is not exhaustive; you may also want to add to it. When you do, please share your insights with your colleagues.

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