We Can't Ask Educators to Create What They've Never Experienced

If we want to change the student learning experience, we may need to start by changing the adult learning experience.

I have long been a proponent of the 5E learning cycle—not just in STEM, where it is most commonly associated, but across content areas. There is something powerful about the progression of learning it creates. Students are engaged in an idea or experience, given space to explore it, and encouraged to begin making connections and explaining what they notice before the teacher provides the formal explanation.

That order matters to me. The teacher is still essential, but the teacher does not have to be the first person doing the thinking. Instead, the teacher listens to the thinking students have developed, addresses misconceptions, introduces disciplinary language, deepens understanding, and helps students connect their experience to larger concepts.

Recently, though, my appreciation for this type of learning led me to a much bigger question: Why can this kind of instruction be so difficult for educators to embrace?

Then I had a realization:

We are asking many educators to create learning experiences they may never have experienced themselves.

We Teach From What We Know

I can speak from my own experience. I grew up in a world where adults often told you what to do, and you did it. Why? Because they said so. School often operated similarly. The teacher had the knowledge, the teacher explained it, and we listened, practiced, and demonstrated whether we had learned it.

There wasn't always time to explore or an opportunity to develop our own thinking before someone gave us the answer. Learning wasn't always connected to something we had experienced, and there certainly wasn't always a "why." That doesn't mean learning didn't happen—it did. But it does mean many of today's educators experienced school through a very different model than the one we are now asking them to create for students.

Think about what student-centered instruction requires of an educator. We ask teachers to step back, resist explaining too soon, create experiences without immediately revealing the destination, allow students to wrestle with ideas, listen before correcting, and trust productive struggle. We ask them to pose questions without immediately providing answers and to give students space to construct meaning before formalizing their understanding.

For someone whose own educational experience was largely the opposite, that isn't simply learning a new instructional strategy. It can require unlearning an entire understanding of what teaching is supposed to look like.

That has caused me to think differently about what we sometimes label as resistance. Certainly, resistance to change exists. But perhaps there are also times when what appears to be resistance is actually an experience gap. We are asking educators to believe in a way of learning that they may understand conceptually but have rarely experienced personally.

Beyond Buy-In

We use the phrase buy-in frequently in education. We need teacher buy-in. We need staff buy-in. We need stakeholder buy-in. But I have become less interested in buy-in.

You can buy something and return it.

What we really need is belief.

We need educators to believe that students are capable of constructing meaning, that exploration is not wasted instructional time, and that productive struggle has value. We need belief that the teacher does not always have to be the first voice in the learning and that students can bring ideas, experiences, questions, and even misconceptions into a lesson that become valuable material for learning.

But belief is difficult to create through a presentation. We can explain student-centered instruction, provide a framework, distribute resources, show exemplars, and even require implementation. Those things may build knowledge and provide tools, but they do not necessarily create belief.

Belief grows through experience.

That distinction matters because it changes how we think about professional learning. If we want teachers to create classrooms built around curiosity, exploration, inquiry, discussion, sense-making, application, and reflection, perhaps our professional learning should allow educators to experience those things themselves.

Instead of only telling teachers about experiential learning, let them experience it. Instead of explaining inquiry, let them inquire. Give them something worth figuring out before providing the answer. Let educators encounter a problem, examine evidence, talk with one another, disagree, make connections, develop explanations, and revise their thinking. Then introduce the research, terminology, framework, or instructional implications that deepen the experience.

This is one reason the 5E learning cycle resonates so strongly with me, but the larger idea is not about requiring every teacher or school to use 5E. It is about what models like 5E remind us about how people learn. Learners need opportunities to experience, question, explore, construct meaning, receive feedback, refine their thinking, and apply what they have learned.

If we believe those experiences are powerful for students, why wouldn't we create them for adults?

From Professional Development to Organizational Culture

Perhaps this is also where we need to broaden our thinking beyond professional development. We often treat PD as the designated place where adults learn, but adults are learning from the organization all the time. They are learning during staff meetings, PLCs, leadership meetings, coaching conversations, planning sessions, and every other interaction shaped by the systems and structures we create.

That means the question isn't simply whether our professional development models good instruction. We should also be asking whether the normal flow of our organizations reflects what we say we believe about learning.

Consider a traditional staff meeting. Information is presented, people listen, announcements are made, questions may be asked, and everyone leaves. Now imagine that same meeting beginning with a problem of practice, a piece of student work, a scenario, a set of data, an experience, or a compelling question. Participants examine it, notice patterns, wonder, discuss, develop ideas, and explain their thinking. The leader then introduces additional information, addresses misconceptions, makes connections, and helps the group determine what comes next.

The content of the meeting may not have changed at all.

The learning experience has.

Now imagine that happening repeatedly—not just during formal professional development, but throughout the normal rhythm of an organization. Staff meetings begin to feel different. Leadership meetings feel different. PLCs feel different. Coaching feels different. Educators are no longer simply hearing about a vision for learning; they are living inside of it.

That is how an instructional idea begins to become part of an organizational culture:

Experience → Belief → Transfer

Perhaps one way to think about the bridge between instructional vision and classroom practice is through a simple progression:

Experience → Belief → Transfer

First comes experience. We intentionally create opportunities for educators to experience the kind of learning we want students to experience. This should not happen once during a professional development session and then disappear. It should be reinforced through PD, staff meetings, PLCs, coaching, leadership development, collaborative planning, and other spaces where adults learn together.

Repeated experiences can begin to shape belief. Educators experience what it feels like to be curious before receiving an answer. They recognize what happens when someone gives them time to think. They feel productive struggle, experience how conversation changes their thinking, and notice the difference between being told something and discovering something. The instructional approach is no longer simply theoretical because they have lived it as learners.

Then we create conditions for transfer. Educators can begin to ask different questions about their own classrooms: Where am I explaining too soon? Could students explore this before I teach it directly? What experience could give all of my students an entry point into this learning? What would I learn if I listened to their explanations before giving them mine?

That is a very different kind of implementation. It is not simply compliance with an instructional expectation. It is an educator recreating an experience they understand and have come to believe in.

Experience as an Equity Issue

There is another reason I believe this conversation matters: students do not enter our classrooms with equal experiences. They have not visited the same places, participated in the same activities, had the same conversations, traveled to the same communities, read the same books, used the same technology, or had access to the same programs and opportunities. Their background knowledge differs because their lives differ.

Thoughtfully designed experiences can therefore become an equity strategy. When we intentionally create experiences within instruction, we give students something shared from which learning can grow. Before asking students what they know about something they may never have encountered, we can give them something to observe, manipulate, read, hear, question, discuss, or experience. From there, we can begin building understanding together.

We cannot control every experience students have before they enter our classrooms, but we can be intentional about the experiences we create once they arrive.

That is also why the role of the educator remains so important in student-centered learning. Facilitating learning does not mean stepping away from instruction. It requires tremendous intentionality. The educator designs the conditions, anticipates misconceptions, selects experiences, listens carefully to student thinking, determines when to intervene, and connects exploration to disciplinary understanding. The role is not diminished; it is transformed.

Maybe the First Change Isn't in the Classroom

When instructional transformation stalls, we often ask how we can get teachers to implement a practice, how we can increase buy-in, or how we can make an initiative stick. Perhaps there are some questions that need to come first.

Where are our educators experiencing the kind of learning we are asking them to create?

Look at the last professional development session. Look at the last staff meeting, leadership meeting, or PLC. Who did most of the talking? Who did most of the thinking? When did participants get to explore? When did they get to explain their thinking? When were they given the answer? When were they invited to make meaning for themselves?

Those questions may reveal something about why instructional transformation can be difficult. We cannot continually immerse adults in one model of learning while asking them to create an entirely different model for students.

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that many of us were not taught this way. That is part of our story as educators. But it does not have to define the learning experiences we create next.

Education has evolved. Our students have changed. Their access to information has changed. The world they are preparing to enter has changed. Our understanding of teaching and learning continues to evolve as well. With that evolution comes a responsibility to reconsider not only what we ask educators to do, but also how we prepare them to do it.

We cannot ask educators to create what they have never experienced and then be surprised when the transition is difficult. We have to create the experience. We have to give adults opportunities to become learners again—not simply recipients of information about learning.

Perhaps, over time, the progression becomes

Experience → Belief → Transfer

Because if we want to change the student learning experience, perhaps the first learning experience we need to reconsider is our own.

Dr. Katelyn Leitner is the founder of Do What’s Best for Kids (DWB4K), grounded in the mission of “Align the work. Elevate the impact.” Committed to transforming teaching, learning, and leadership systems so every decision reflects what is best for students, she bridges research and practice through her very own DWB4K Framework: The Aligned Learning Ecosystem, ensuring high-quality learning for every student. You can reach Katelyn via email here.

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