BONUS: Why Expert Teachers Are 'Nosy' (& You Should Be Too)

Professor John Hattie's research reveals in this S5E1 BONUS Schoolutions Teaching Strategies conversation that teachers only see 20% of what actually happens in their classrooms. This episode breaks down the three daily impact questions that transform good teachers into expert teachers, plus the feedback strategy that's 80% more effective while requiring 80% less effort.

After 5 years of teaching, there's virtually NO correlation between experience and expertise. But here's what separates expert teachers from everyone else: they're professionally "nosy" about their students' learning.

What You'll Discover:
✅ The 3 daily questions expert teachers ask themselves
✅ Why "being nosy" is actually an act of love in teaching
✅ How to make your feedback dramatically more effective
✅ The truth about student engagement and why curiosity beats compliance
✅ Research-backed teaching tips that work immediately

Perfect for teachers, education coaches, school administrators, teacher mentors, instructional leaders, and anyone committed to student success and teacher impact.

🎯 Key Topics Covered:
Effective teaching, instructional strategies, teacher coaching, professional development, student engagement, student motivation, classroom management, teaching tips, instructional coaching, teacher support, mentor teachers, education strategies, student success, thriving students, empowered educators, inspired teaching, education transformation, school improvement, instructional leadership, whole child approach, pro-kid mindset

🔗 Resources Mentioned:
➡️Original S5E1 interview with Professor John Hattie
➡️Three impact questions framework 
➡️Feedback effectiveness research

Chapter Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction: The Uncomfortable Truth About Teaching Experience 
1:00 - Why We Only See 20% of Our Teaching Impact 
2:00 - What Does It Mean to Be "Professionally Nosy"? 
3:00 - The Three Daily Impact Questions Expert Teachers Ask 
4:00 - Reflection: Moving Beyond Surface-Level Teaching 
5:00 - The Power of Evaluative Thinking in Education 
6:00 - Real Expertise vs. Years of Experience 
7:00 - The 80% of Classroom Impact We're Missing 
8:00 - From Curiosity to Compliance: A Heartbreaking Story 
9:00 - Why Students Need 5-7 Opportunities to Learn 
10:00 - The Art of Effective Feedback: Less is More 
11:00 - Checking Our Assumptions: Self-Confirmation Bias 
12:00 - Why Learning Isn't Always Joyful (And That's OK) 
13:00 - Teachers Deny Their Expertise (Here's Why That Matters) 
14:00 - Challenge: Embrace Being Professionally Nosy 
15:00 - Call to Action & Next Steps

Join our community of educators committed to cultivating student success, inspired teaching, and creating inclusive classrooms with a pro-kid mindset focused on the whole child. 

📧 Connect: schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com 
🎵 Music: Benjamin Wahl

Don't forget to  👍LIKE this video if it helped you, 🔔SUBSCRIBE for more teaching tips, and 💬SHARE with fellow educators! https://www.youtube.com/@schoolutionspodcast/

#JohnHattie #ExpertTeachers #TeachingTips #EducationStrategies #StudentEngagement #TeacherImpact #EffectiveTeaching #InstructionalStrategies #ProfessionalDevelopment #TeacherCoaching #StudentSuccess #ClassroomManagement #StudentMotivation #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherSupport #MentorTeachers #EducationTransformation #ThrivingStudents #EmpoweredEducators #InspiredTeaching #SchoolImprovement #InstructionalLeadership 

When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

Transcript

[00:00:00] I'm so happy to have you joining me for the Friday bonus episode. If you have not listened to my conversation with Professor John Hattie, pause this. Go back. Listen to that episode. It is called Inside the Secret Moves of Expert Teachers, and then come back to this bonus episode. 

You know that feeling when you think you're doing everything right in your classroom, but something still feels off? Like you're missing something important, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is. Well, here's a reality check that might make you a little uncomfortable at first. After five years of teaching, there's virtually no correlation between experience and expertise. Let that sink in for a moment. It's not about how long you've been in the classroom, it's about how you think about what happens in your classroom.

Here is something that really struck me during my [00:01:00] conversation with Professor John Hattie. He reminded me that we are only seeing about 20% of what actually happens with our students. And that means when we think we're being reflective teachers, we might only be reflecting on a fraction of our real impact.

But before you panic, I've got some good news. There's a solution, and it comes from the most unexpected place. What if I told you that the secret to becoming an expert teacher is learning to be nosy? I know. I know. We've been taught that being nosy is rude, intrusive, inappropriate. But what if in the context of teaching, being nosy could actually be an act of love?

Think about the teachers who changed your life. I bet they were nosy about you. They wanted to know about how you were thinking, not just whether you got the right answer, they were curious about your process, your struggles, your [00:02:00] breakthrough moments. Today I'm talking about professional nosiness, that loving curiosity that expert teachers use to constantly investigate how students are really learning.

It's like having a flashlight that suddenly illuminates the 80% of your classroom impact that you've been missing. Uncomfortable at first maybe, but ultimately, liberating. Here's what you'll discover by listening to this bonus episode. 

First, the three daily impact questions that separate expert teachers from everyone else. Questions that will completely change how you think about your teaching effectiveness. Second, how to make your feedback 80% more effective by focusing only on what students can actually hear and act on. Yes, you heard that, right! Less feedback that works better. And third, how to create space for natural curiosity to flourish by being [00:03:00] genuinely interested in student thinking processes, not just the right answers.

Because here's the thing we all struggle with - watching confident, curious students transform into compliance-focused kids who say, I can't after just one day of comparison with others. I hope that doesn't sound familiar, but it may. So, when we model this kind of professional nosiness, when we show our genuine curiosity about learning, our students start to get curious too.

They start asking better questions and the quality of students' questions - that's actually a better indicator of our teaching impact than the quality of their answers. I hope you're ready to get a little nosy about your teaching with me. Let's dive in.

This is Schoolutions Teaching Strategies, the podcast that extends [00:04:00] education beyond the classroom. A show that isn't just theory, but practical try-it-tomorrow approaches for educators and caregivers to ensure every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. 

Welcome back to Schoolutions Teaching Strategies. I'm Olivia Wahl, and this is my Friday bonus episode where I get to sit with the insights from this week's conversation and share what's been stirring in my heart and mind. For this episode I had the incredible privilege of speaking with Professor John Hattie, and honestly, I'm still processing everything we discussed.

But there's one word that keeps echoing in my mind, and many, many of you have reached out to comment, to talk more about this episode. It's a word that might make some of us uncomfortable at first, but I think it's exactly what we needed to [00:05:00] hear. Nosy. Remember when John said his wife, professor Janet Clinton, she is a professor of evaluation, when she told him that evaluative thinking - the kind that expert teachers possess. It happens when teachers are nosy. 

I cannot stop thinking about this because when was the last time you thought of nosy as a professional strength? I've always been taught that being nosy is intrusive or inappropriate, maybe even rude. But what if in the context of teaching, we reframe nosy as being an act of love?

So think about it. The teachers who changed your life, I bet they were nosy about you. They wanted to know how you were thinking, not just whether you got the right answer. They were curious about your process, your struggles, your breakthrough moments. They couldn't help but [00:06:00] wonder what's going on in that brilliant mind of yours.

John also shared something that stopped me in my tracks. After five years of teaching, there's virtually no correlation between experience and expertise. So let's let that sink in. It's not about how long you've been in the classroom, it's about how you think about what happens in that classroom, about what you choose to do every single day and your impact.

Because here's what expert teachers do differently: I'm going to call it being professionally nosy. They ask themselves these three questions every day:What did I actually teach well today? Who did I really have an impact on? And how do I know the effect was significant? 

And here's where the conversation got a little uncomfortable when I mentioned teachers needing to be [00:07:00] reflective. John didn't shy away from this. He said that 80% of what happens in our classroom, we don't see or hear. 80%! That means when we think we're being reflective, we could only be reflecting on just 20% of our impact. 

Now, I'm going to stop here because this isn't about us beating ourselves up. This is about getting curious or nosy about that other 80%. I think it's about developing what John calls evaluative thinking, that constant, gentle investigation into how our students are really learning. One story John shared has stayed with me since our conversation. He talked about watching his granddaughter on her very first day of school, because before school she was proud, confident, she knew her alphabet, she could spell her name. She knew her numbers up to 100. 

But on day one. [00:08:00] day one, she came home saying, I can't do any of that, because she saw someone who was better in her mind. In one day he watched curiosity get replaced by compliance. In one day, that beautiful, Why is it like this granddad transformed into I can't.

And this is why being professionally nosy matters so much. Because when we're truly curious about what our students think, when we're genuinely interested in their process rather than just their product, we create space for that natural curiosity to flourish again. 

I loved the research John shared showing that no matter what our ability level is, that we all need five to seven opportunities to learn something before we truly learn it. Five to seven opportunities. But then how many of our students get just one chance, [00:09:00] one shot to get it right? Before we move on? Being nosy means asking, Tell me more about how you're thinking about this. It means saying, I'm curious about this mistake you made. Walk me through your process. It means wondering what would happen if we tried this a different way.

And here's something I think that could be so beautiful that would emerge from this conversation in your own classroom. When we model this kind of professional nosiness, when we show our genuine curiosity about learning, our students start to get curious too. They start asking better questions. And John reminded us that the quality of students' questions is actually a better indicator of our teaching impact than the quality of their answers.

Something practical that came out of our discussion about feedback was when John told us about the coach who reduced his feedback by 80% while making [00:10:00] it 80% more effective. How? He stopped trying to correct everything and focus solely on information his students could hear, understand and act on. 

So here's a challenge for you and for me this week. Let's try the feedback test John suggested. After we give feedback to students (for me, after I give feedback to teachers), wait a day and then ask them to write down what they understood from your comments. And remember, John warned us because it's sobering - many kids remember nothing. But this is where the magic of being professionally nosy begins for us. 

There's something else John said that I keep coming back to. He said, I want teachers to look at themselves because he has a very strong bias towards self-confirmation. He's talking about when we look around the [00:11:00] room when a student asks a question and assume all students would have asked that same question and understood our answer.

That's our bias talking, not our professional nosiness. Because real expertise means being nosy enough to check our assumptions. It means being curious enough to ask, did everyone really understand that or am I just telling myself they did? 

And I also appreciate that John didn't sugarcoat how hard this work is. That learning is sometimes a grind. It's not always joyful. And what struck me is when we were talking about needing five to seven opportunities to learn something, when he asked, how do you as a teacher make five to seven opportunities to learn something joyful? It is hard work. But then he reminded us, it's the right work. The right work, [00:12:00] being professionally nosy is the right work. 

Before I close, I wanna address something that came up in our conversation that I do think needs to be said. John mentioned that teachers are incredibly good at denying their expertise, and it comes from our kindness. When we deflect praise, we give credit to everyone else, the students, the caregivers, the principal, the resources.

But I love what John wants us to understand. When we have success in our classrooms, we caused it. Us! Our professional nosiness! Our curiosity about our students' thinking! Our willingness to ask those hard questions about our impact! That's what creates learning. 

Remember when John mentioned that we've gone from 14% of the world being literate and numerate in 1900 to [00:13:00] 86% in 2000? John asked why, and his answer was simple. Because of a teacher. Because of teachers like you who are willing to be professionally nosy. You care enough to wonder to question, to dig deeper into how learning really happens. 

So this week I want you to embrace being nosy. Not the invasive kind, but the loving kind. The kind that says, I care too much about your learning to settle for surface-level understanding. Thank you for joining me for this reflection. If it resonated with you, I'd love to hear about your experience being professionally nosy this week. Send me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. Remember, the expertise is already within you. You just need to get a little nosy about how to access it. 

I'll see you back here on Monday for another conversation that I hope will spark something new in your teaching journey. [00:14:00] Until then, stay curious, stay nosy, and keep making the difference that only you can make. Take care.

Schoolutions Teaching strategies is created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl. Thank you to my older son Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background. You can follow and listen to Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube. 

Choose one lesson this week afterward. Ask three students to explain back to you what they understood from your feedback. Then, ask yourself those three impact questions: What did you teach well? Who did you impact? How do you know? The answers might surprise you, and then I want to hear from you. Send me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. Let me know what those three questions revealed for you as a teacher.

This [00:15:00] season, tune in every Monday for the best research-backed teaching strategies you can apply right away to better the lives of the children in your care. And stay tuned for my bonus episodes every Friday, where I'll reflect and share connections to what I learned from the guests that week. See you then.