Challenging Your Assumptions to Improve Your Teaching Practice

As an educator, our greatest hope is for students to understand and apply the information they learn.  Meeting our students where they are, we attempt to help them build on the knowledge they already have and overcome gaps in their understanding. Of course, each student brings a backpack full of past experiences, motivations, attitudes, and ideas that may support or hinder their attempts to learn.  However, we may ignore that our own belief systems and assumptions can also influence how we interact with and instruct our students.

Previous significant experiences with students impact our perspectives and future experiences.  Over the years, we may find ourselves weighed down by unconsciously held assumptions and biases (Brandenburg et al., 2023).  Assumptions are “the taken-for-granted beliefs about the world and our place within it that seem so obvious to us as not to need stating explicitly” (Brookfield, 1995, p. 2, as cited in Brandenburg et al., 2023).  We all have assumptions. Part of critical thinking is the practice of identifying and questioning the verity of those beliefs in the analysis of our thinking.

Assumptions can be incredibly difficult to identify because sometimes they are believed by most members of society or are part of one’s culture (Applin, 2024).  Furthermore, assumptions can be intertwined as part of our personal narratives internalized from our religious or political views. Therefore, we must ask ourselves what the origins of our assumptions are and whether they are true, partially true, or false.    

Reflection

Indeed, one of the best ways to combat assumptions is through regular self-reflection of our attitudes and beliefs.  In the research of Bradenburg et al. (2023), four instructors from different countries each identified, analyzed, and challenged their personal assumptions about their teaching practice and students.  They remembered significant teaching events that impacted them, reflected on how those experiences altered their viewpoints, and discussed their assumptions with colleagues.  Consequently, they were able to identify how their assumptions were influencing them as educators.

Figure 1

Woman looking at self reflection in mirror [Digital Image].

Note. “Woman looking at self reflection in mirror” by NielsHariot, n.d., Canva, https://www.canva.com/design/DAG4zqDxa10/DDjnPy6tcvgISRAhth_ZWQ/edit

Examining Assumptions through Brookfield’s Four Lenses

According to Brookfield (1995), there are four main perspectives we should seek to understand in our attempts to question our assumptions.

1. Personal experiences

What are the origins of our assumptions (Applin, 2024)? Do our personal experiences offer supporting evidence for our assumption?  For example, we may assume that assigning more homework will lead to more learning.  Therefore, we assign more homework with the intent to help our students learn more.  By collecting data on those students that do and do not complete the homework, we can verify that our assumption is valid.  However, we must be cautious not to stop our investigation of our assumptions with our personal experiences.  We may interpret experiences through the lens of our assumptions when other interpretations exist and should be considered as well.

2. Students’ perspectives

Conducting regular student surveys can offer insight into whether our assumed intentions are conveyed by our actions.  As in the homework example above, student surveys may reveal that students do not find homework helpful.  We may come to recognize that students’ learning is not supported by additional work outside of school.  Rather than predicting what our students perceive, we must listen to their opinions and viewpoints.

3. Colleagues viewpoints

Checking our assumptions against those of our colleagues can be beneficial as we verbalize our assumptions and compare our experiences with others.  Once again, be honest and humble to achieve the most powerful results.

4. Expert perspectives

Once you identify a problem in your classroom and the root assumption at play, study theories and research-backed practices about that topic or behavior.  Peer-reviewed research is reproducible, so you should be able to apply the same best practices in your situation with similar results.  Moreover, an expert consensus may be further evidence of truth.

Conclusion

Replacing our assumptions with inquiry is a vital way to continually grow as an educator. As we remain curious about our students and ourselves, we will not become stagnant in our teaching.  Instead, our professional practice will become more effective with time and effort.

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References

Applin, S. (2024). Priming students for foundational learning by investigating foundational assumptions: A critical thinking framework. Teaching Sociology, 52(3), 219–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X231222276

Brandenburg, R., Garbett, D., Ovens, A.P., & Thomas, L. (2023). Experienced teacher educators hunting assumptions to examine their pedagogy: An international collaborative study. Frontiers in Education, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.1036718

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. Jossey-Bass.

NielsHariot. (2025). [Woman looking at self reflection in mirror]. Canva. https://www.canva.com/design/DAG4zqDxa10/DDjnPy6tcvgISRAhth_ZWQ/edit