School Leadership and Experiential Learning: How to Scale Great Teaching From the Inside Out

By Wes Davis, Director of Program Impact and Visibility - May 11, 2026

In Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement (2009), John Hattie asserts that teachers account for roughly 30% of the variance in student achievement, while schools themselves account for only about 5–10% (source). In practical terms, that means two students can walk into the same building every morning and have dramatically different learning experiences depending on whose classroom they enter.

School leaders already know this intuitively. Every school has teachers that families request by name. The classrooms students talk about at lunch. The teacher whose students are deeply engaged, creating meaningful work, going on authentic field experiences, and talking about learning differently.

Many school systems position that teacher as a rare exception that cannot be replicated. A better response is to ask: how do we make great teaching more visible, collaborative, and scalable from the inside out?

This question becomes even more important in experiential learning environments where the strongest classrooms are often driven by relationships, authentic work, student agency, and flexible instructional moves that can feel difficult to replicate through traditional professional development alone. Too often, schools try to scale innovation through purchased programs or isolated workshops when the most powerful lever may already exist inside the building.

Hattie argues that “the answer lies elsewhere – it lies in the person who gently closes the classroom door and performs the teaching act”. If that is true, then one of the highest-leverage moves available to school leadership is designing systems that help great teaching spread internally through collaboration, observation, reflection, and continuous improvement.

One of the most powerful ways to do this is through lesson study. In the lesson study model, teachers collaboratively plan instruction, observe one another teaching, study student responses, and refine practice together over time. This shifts professional learning away from isolated classrooms and toward collective inquiry. Instead of asking, “Who is the best teacher?” the team begins asking, “What conditions are helping students thrive, and how can we create more of them together?”

This is where school leadership matters enormously. Open classrooms. Create opportunities for non-evaluative peer observation. Invite teachers to co-facilitate experiences together. Build schedules that allow teachers to visit one another during meaningful instructional moments rather than only during formal evaluations.

Experiential learning creates particularly rich opportunities for this because powerful teaching often becomes easier to see outside the traditional classroom setting. A collaborative field experience, interdisciplinary project, exhibition night, or student-led community presentation allows teachers to observe how another educator structures engagement, builds relationships, facilitates reflection, or creates ownership among students. A single shared field experience between teachers can sometimes shift practice more deeply than months of traditional PD.

Importantly, the focus should not be on copying activities. It should be on studying student engagement and the structures that support it. Improvement Science and continuous improvement cycles can help teams avoid turning innovation into personality-driven mythology. Instead of saying, “She’s just naturally good with kids,” teams begin asking sharper questions:

• What routines increased student ownership?

• How were students grouped?

• Where did choice appear?

• How was reflection embedded?

• What role did movement, authenticity, or public audience play?

• What evidence suggests students were more engaged?

This creates a healthier and more scalable culture because the conversation shifts from talent to practice.

Iterative continuous improvement cycles, such as PDSA cycles, are especially useful here. Rather than asking an entire staff to immediately adopt large-scale project-based learning, schools can encourage teachers to test one manageable shift at a time: a collaborative field experience, a student exhibition, a team-taught lesson, or a reflection protocol. Teams then study the impact together, refine the approach, and decide on next steps. This makes innovation feel safer, more practical, and more locally owned.

The Theory of Diffusion of Innovation reminds us that change usually spreads through visible success, trusted relationships, and social proof. When teachers see students more engaged, attendance improving, behavior issues decreasing, or students talking differently about learning, curiosity naturally grows.

Hattie also found that expert teachers are particularly skilled at creating classroom climates “where engagement is the norm” . That distinction matters because schools often focus heavily on curriculum and pacing guides while overlooking the relational and cultural conditions that allow students to deeply engage with learning in the first place.

But school leaders also need to protect their strongest teachers from becoming isolated saviors. This is one of the hidden dangers of experiential learning initiatives. The most innovative teacher often becomes the person who carries every pilot, hosts every visit, mentors everyone informally, and slowly burns out under the weight of being “the example.”

A healthy and sustainable approach is to position that teacher as a collaborator rather than a hero. Invite them to co-design with others. Pair them with willing teammates for interdisciplinary work. Build structures where the expertise is shared gradually and sustainably. Celebrate collective growth, not individual martyrdom.

Over time, collaboration among adults can fundamentally shift school culture. The conversation changes from “my students” to “our students.” Team teaching becomes more natural. Teachers begin planning together. Shared field experiences create common language and trust. Professional learning becomes embedded into daily practice rather than disconnected from it.

This is where Hattie’s concept of collective efficacy becomes so important. Collective efficacy is the shared belief among educators that together they can positively impact student learning, and Hattie identifies it as one of the highest-impact influences on achievement. 

For school leaders, the implication is significant. If the greatest variation exists within schools, then one of the highest leverage moves available is not finding a new program, but creating systems that allow great teaching to spread internally through observation, collaboration, reflection, and continuous improvement.

Visit www.openwaylearning.org to learn more about Open Way Learning and how we use continuous improvement and radical collaboration to change schools from the inside out.