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In this edition of ⚗️DistillED, we're looking at the in-the-moment decisions teachers make when responding to students in a lesson.
(Quick side note: the DistillED Community is now live — a space to keep discussing each edition, ask questions, and swap classroom practice with other readers. More on that below.)
In this edition
📊 Do Now: Quick Poll!
What most often drives your in-the-moment decisions?
What is a Micro-Decision?
A micro-decision is the in-the-moment judgement at the heart of responsive teaching. It is the decision to ask one more question instead of moving on, to slow the pace rather than push through the lesson plan, or to revisit an explanation instead of assuming understanding. Every micro-decision begins with what the teacher notices, how they interpret it, and how they choose to respond. For example:
In Science, a KS3 teacher hears three students describe heat as a substance that flows during a particle model lesson and decides to pause the practical to confront the misconception, rather than let it embed through the experiment.
In PE, a KS3 teacher notices the overhead clear demonstration hasn't transferred to most of the badminton group and decides to re-model the shot with a slower breakdown of the grip and preparation, rather than send students off to rally errors into habit.
In English, a KS4 teacher reads a student's opening paragraph on Priestley's presentation of responsibility and decides to probe the thesis before commenting on the expression, because the argument, not the writing, is the problem.
In Art, a KS3 teacher sees a student about to abandon a tonal drawing that is going through its awkward middle stage and decides to intervene with a next step for building darker values, rather than a reassurance.
In Maths, a KS4 teacher scans the whiteboards, sees the same sign error when expanding double brackets on a third of them, and decides to reteach the step to everyone now, rather than circulate and fix it desk by desk.
Every lesson contains hundreds of these moments. The quality of responsive teaching is determined not by whether teachers make micro-decisions but by how accurately they interpret what is happening in the room before deciding how to proceed. Borko, Livingston and Shavelson (1990) describe this process as interactive decisions, distinct from the more deliberate decisions teachers make during the planning process. Crucially, their research suggests that teachers make approximately one consequential decision every ninety seconds to two minutes during any given lesson.
"Teachers must make constant decisions based on students' thinking rather than assumptions about progress."
Every teacher carries an internal picture of the classroom. This mental model—shaped by experience and refined through study, coaching and deliberate practice—helps us interpret what is happening and anticipate what might happen next. The quality of any in-the-moment decision depends heavily on the quality of the mental model behind it.
That mental model is continually updated through a repeating four-part cycle: notice what is happening, interpret what it means, respond, then check the impact of that response. Each pass through the cycle refines the teacher's understanding of the classroom, strengthening the mental model and informing the next micro-decision.
Here’s a bulletproof list of what micro-decisions ARE and ARE NOT:
👎 Micro-Decisions ARE NOT:
A matter of natural talent — “some teachers just have it” mistakes a developable professional skill for a fixed trait
Simply about reacting faster — speed matters less than accurately interpreting the evidence
Only a new-teacher problem — experienced teachers can also become overly committed to a plan or act on an inaccurate reading of the room
Limited to behaviour management — micro-decisions shape questioning, explanation, feedback, pacing, participation and relationships
👍 Micro-Decisions ARE:
Constant — they occur throughout a lesson whenever a teacher notices, interprets and responds
Shaped by the teacher’s mental model — what a teacher believes is happening influences what they do next
Developable — noticing, interpretation and response can all improve through deliberate practice
Central to responsive teaching — they are the point at which evidence from the classroom becomes instructional action
Important for equity — whose signals are noticed, interpreted and acted upon quietly shapes who receives attention and support
Why Do Micro-Decisions Matter?
Teaching involves more than delivering a lesson plan, enacting strategies or ploughing through a set of PowerPoint slides. It involves continually comparing what you expected to happen with the evidence emerging from students, then deciding whether to continue as planned, adapt your approach or change direction altogether.
This all matters because much professional development focuses on the planning stage: selecting strategies from the playbook, refining quality resources, designing engaging tasks and structuring explanations. Yes, all of these are valuable, but they do not, by themselves, prepare a teacher for the moment when the planned lesson goes off-piste.
Westerman's (1991) qualitative comparison of novice and expert teachers provides a useful illustration. Expert teachers were more likely to interpret classroom events in relation to student learning and adjust their plans accordingly. Novice teachers, by contrast, tended to focus more narrowly on delivering what they had prepared—sticking to the script.
The key insight is that teachers do not respond directly to classroom events; they respond to the meaning they assign to those events through their mental models. Expert teachers appeared to develop richer, more flexible mental models, enabling them to connect student responses to the wider learning goal, recognise when the evidence no longer matched the plan, and adapt their teaching accordingly.
"Misunderstandings frequently emerge after learning is judged to have taken place."
Carl Hendrick (2025) puts the underlying problem plainly: "learning is recursive, not linear". Understanding develops gradually and often incompletely, and misunderstandings frequently surface after learning has been judged to have taken place. This is why micro-decisions matter beyond the lesson in which they occur. A student who answers correctly today may still hold misconceptions that only become visible days or weeks later. The teacher's in-the-moment reading of the classroom provides the first opportunity to detect when apparent fluency is masking fragile understanding.
None of this reduces to a formula though. Responsive teaching is skilled interpretation, not rule-following. Classroom experience can help develop this judgement, but time served alone does not produce accurate noticing, interpretation and decision-making. Without deliberate reflection and refinement, teaching can slip onto autopilot, with habits replacing responsiveness. The lesson becomes a linear sequence to get through rather than a dynamic process continually informed by evidence of student learning.
👉 Read the edition on Adaptive Teaching — the fuller treatment of the responsive stance this edition draws on
👉 Read the edition on Formative Action Loops — the decision that follows a check for understanding
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Continue the conversation beyond the newsletter. Discuss each week's edition, ask questions, share classroom practice, and connect with other evidence-informed educators.
How Do I Make Better Micro-Decisions?
Most teachers already make all of the decisions below in some form. The question is whether those decisions are grounded in an accurate reading of the classroom or driven by habit, assumption or pressure to keep moving through the curriculum.
Most micro-decisions fall into five recurring decision domains:
Domain | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
1. Probe or Move On?
| A correct answer doesn't always indicate secure understanding. Students may guess, imitate a procedure or arrive at the correct answer for the wrong reason. | A student gives the correct answer to a maths problem. Instead of moving on, the teacher asks, "Talk me through how you got there." The explanation reveals a method that only works by coincidence on this particular question. |
2. Where Is the Gap?
| Effective feedback depends on knowing where the difficulty actually sits — in the task, the process, or the student's self-regulation — not just on spotting the error. | A student's essay conclusion doesn't follow from their evidence. Rather than writing "This doesn't work," the teacher redirects to the process: "Check whether paragraph three actually supports this claim." |
3. Stay the Course or Pivot?
| Responsive teaching means comparing what you expected against what students are actually showing you, and adjusting when the two no longer align. | Midway through an explanation, several students appear disengaged. Rather than finishing it because it was planned, the teacher pauses to insert a quick mini-whiteboard check before deciding what to do next. |
4. Whose Thinking Is Missing?
| Attention isn't distributed evenly — habits and assumptions can mean the same students' thinking gets noticed while others' stays invisible. | During paired discussion, the teacher realises she has only heard from confident volunteers. Before moving on, she deliberately samples responses from students she has not yet heard from to build a more accurate picture of the class. |
5. Did It Land?
| A micro-decision isn't finished the moment you act on it — assuming a response worked without checking lets the same misconception resurface unnoticed. | After reteaching the sign-error step to the whole class, the teacher doesn't move straight to independent practice. She runs one more quick example on whiteboards to confirm the reteach actually landed before releasing students to work alone. |
These are not five steps that occur in a fixed sequence. They are five recurring decision domains that help teachers notice evidence, interpret what it means and decide how to respond. Whether the decision is to probe further, identify the gap, change direction, seek more evidence or check whether a response has worked, the underlying process remains the same: Notice → Interpret → Respond → Check.
It begins with a more accurate picture, built through better checks, deliberate reflection, observation and repeated practice, until noticing and responding become part of how you see a classroom.
— Jamie
If you want more:
👉 Read Adaptive Teaching — the responsive stance underneath every domain in this edition
👉 Read Formative Action Loops — what happens in the decision immediately after a check for understanding
👉 Read Check for Student Understanding — the techniques that help teachers build a more accurate picture of the room
👉 Get the Feedback and Responsive Teaching CPD Collection — resources for developing the responsive stance explored in this edition
👉 Get the Participation and Thinking CPD Collection — strategies for making sure your picture of the room includes every student, not only the most visible
👉 Get the Checking for Understanding CPD Collection — a full collection on formative assessment, responsive teaching, and checking understanding
📥 Free Resource
The Micro-Decision Journal
To help you put these ideas into practice, download the Micro-Decision Journal: a simple daily template for reflecting on one in-the-moment decision after each lesson.
⚗️DistillED+ Members: Exclusive Content
This week, ⚗️DistillED+ members get access to a Micro-Decisions CPD PowerPoint and a printable Micro-Decisions Checklist. Together, these resources help teachers develop the habit of noticing, interpreting and responding to classroom evidence more deliberately, so in-the-moment decisions become more accurate, responsive and evidence-informed.
