I’ve been a big advocate of applying deliberate practice in the classroom – both in how I can improve my skills and how students can become more familiar with the concept (see The Best Resources For Learning About The 10,000 Hour Rule & Deliberate Practice).

Anders Ericsson, the key researcher behind the concept, talked a bit in an interview I did with him (see ‘Peak’: An Interview With Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool) about how deliberate practice could be used to help train teacher credential candidates.

Now, the organization Deans For Impact has worked with Professor Ericsson and others to create a short and accessible report offering specific ways deliberate practice can be used by teacher prep programs.

You can read the document, Practice With Purpose: The Emerging Science of Teacher Expertise, at the Deans For Impact site, and I’ve embedded a simple explainer video below.

I think it has a lot of good ideas, though I think at times it doesn’t portray a realistic picture of the time a cooperating teacher has to spend with his/her student teacher (I’m certainly never going to be able to videotape my student teacher several times and then sit down to review each one with her). I also wish it included more explicit discussion of the role of reflection in the deliberate practice.

However, nothing is perfect, and it’s great to see a clear illustration of how to apply deliberate practice in an academic context.