What Makes Educational Change Possible?
This piece offers a crucial reminder that pedagogy doesn't happen in a vacuum—a point that's revealed by tracking the widely divergent outcomes of three instructors attempting identical reforms. By mapping out the biographical, practical, social, and systemic factors shaping how pedagogical design manifests as classroom practice, the TCSR model illuminates how many elements must align for AI-based teaching reform to succeed.
Reform efforts are generally associated with large expenditures of time, effort, and money devoted to addressing three contexts of reform: the background of the teacher, the cultural and structural contexts of instruction, and teacher thinking. But, despite substantial work and investment, rarely do reform efforts at either the K–12 or the college level result in sustained,
fundamental changes in classroom practice. Why? Woodbury and Gess-Newsome (2002) propose three potential explanations for the paradox of “change without difference”:
1. Structural and cultural contexts. A variety of interconnected structural and cultural components of school systems must change to support and sustain instructional changes.
2. Purposes of reform. Many reforms are not intended to alter common pedagogies, leaving teachers’ and students’ roles untouched.
3. Teacher thinking. Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs mediate reform proposals. Because reforms seldom alter important aspects of teacher thinking, reform enactment remains remarkably traditional.