July 26, 2025 • 17 mins
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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn challenges the common assumption that teacher confidence equals competence, drawing on the Dunning-Kruger effect to show how the least skilled teachers often overestimate their abilities while knowledgeable educators frequently doubt themselves. Using her Responsive Leadership Model, she demonstrates how different developmental phases create mismatches between confidence and actual capacity, advocating for educational leaders to focus on observable teaching actions, instructional decision-making quality, and student learning outcomes rather than subjective confidence measures.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jocelyn (00:00):
Hello and welcome to episode six of season six of the
Structured Literacy Podcast.
I can hardly believe that wehave five completed episodes and
now we're in our sixth.
If you've been listening to ussince the start, thank you so
much.
The work that we do in thispodcast is designed to support,
(00:21):
affirm and guide you.
If you're a new listener, youhave a whole back catalogue of
episodes just waiting for you,but for now I'm Jocelyn and I'm
so pleased you've joined me here, recorded in Tasmania, the home
of the Palawa people.
In the last episode we talkedabout professional judgment and
(00:42):
I introduced a couple of phaseswithin my responsive leadership
model.
So today we're going to dig alittle deeper into one of the
most problematic assumptionsthat we make about teacher
development that confidenceequals competence.
And if you've been with me fora while now, you'll know that
(01:02):
I'm passionate about movingbeyond surface level indicators
and getting to the heart of whatactually drives effective
practice.
And you might be forgiven forthinking that maybe I've moved
away from talking about literacy, but in fact I haven't.
This discussion about how wesupport the professional
capacity building of ourteachers is at the heart of
(01:26):
getting every student readingand writing with confidence.
So it's one thing to know thewhat and what the lesson needs
to look like.
It's another thing entirely tobe able to think about how we
help the adults around us tobuild their capacity to bring it
all to life and make it work.
(01:47):
So that's what these episodesare all about.
Let's get into the problem withconfidence as a measure of
capacity.
How many times have you asked ateacher how are you feeling
about your fluency lessons?
Or how confident do you feelwith that phonics instruction?
(02:08):
And we do it all the time,don't we?
And we then use the person'sresponse to determine what kind
of support to provide.
If they say they're feelinggood, well, we assume they need
less help.
If they express doubt, weassume they need more guidance.
But here's the thing confidencecan actually be a terrible
measure of capacity, and let'stalk about why.
(02:32):
I've spoken on the podcast quitea bit about cognitive biases,
and one of them is theDunning-Kruger effect.
Now, david Dunning and JustinKruger found that people with
the least skill and knowledge ina particular area note, we're
not talking about intelligence,we're talking about skill and
knowledge the people with theleast skill and knowledge in a
(02:52):
particular area are the mostlikely to overestimate their
abilities.
Even more interesting is theinverse relationship those with
the most skill and knowledge areoften the least confident to
claim expertise.
Think about that for a moment.
The teacher who confidentlydeclares I've got phonics sorted
(03:12):
might actually be one of theones who needs the most support,
guidance and direction, whilethe teacher wringing their hands
about whether they're doingenough for their struggling
readers might actually bedemonstrating sophisticated
understanding of the complexityof instruction.
In the responsive leadershipmodel, we see this
(03:35):
confidence-competence mismatchplay out clearly across
developmental phases.
So let me walk you through this.
The first phase of the model iswhere we are grounding and
applying.
We're learning the things thatwe need to learn.
We're learning the steps, ifyou like.
We're getting some foundationalknowledge.
Then we move into the achievingphase, where we actually have
(03:57):
to use this thing, the technique, the strategy, whatever it
happens to be, in our owneveryday life.
And this is called theachieving phase because teachers
do begin to get results ineveryday, stable conditions.
So they are actually achievingsome success, but they don't
have enough experience to managethe unusual or the unexpected.
(04:22):
The unusual or the unexpected.
And here's what's crucial tounderstand about this phase.
There's an important clarityshift that occurs when the
person gradually moves frommaking decisions based on
principles of correctinstruction or working with
fidelity, if you like to makingdecisions that are strategic and
(04:45):
designed to achieve a specificgoal.
This means that someone canlook perfectly competent in
their understanding ofinstruction.
You do the observation, you seethat they're doing the lesson
steps, but this competence couldbe short-lived and not always
effective when things move intothe space of the unexpected or
(05:05):
things shift outside the box.
They could also be deliveringreally solid lessons, but you
aren't seeing the impact in thedata.
This achieving phase is wherewe see overconfidence most
dramatically come to the fore ineducational settings.
(05:27):
So with appropriate coaching,with appropriate experience,
with being able to make theconnections between what was the
same, between this context andthat context, and what was
different and how what we dorelates and reflects the
research, we move to thediscerning phase.
(05:51):
Now, this third phase is wherethings get really interesting
from a confidence perspective.
In this phase, teachers havemore experience.
They know considerably more,they're effective in
understanding a wide range ofcontext pretty automatically,
but they still make decisions ina deliberate way and this need
(06:13):
for hard thinking pushes theminto the space of vulnerability.
They actually do know what theyneed to, but they doubt
themselves.
This creates this fascinatingmismatch between understanding
context and feeling confident inour decisions.
So the teacher in thediscerning phase might look at a
struggling reader andimmediately recognize multiple
(06:36):
potential intervention points.
They see the complexity ofphonemic awareness issues, the
need for systematic instruction,they see the vocabulary gaps,
they see the fluency concernsand they do actually have the
knowledge to address all of this, but they're also
(06:57):
second-guessing their owncapacity and that makes them
less confident about theirdecisions, which throws them
completely off kilter.
If the achieving phase has usfeeling overly confident, the
discerning phase can be thecomplete opposite.
We have teachers who areactually quite skilled not
(07:17):
taking the action they need toto really bring those results
home because they're doubtingthemselves.
So what's the answer to all ofthis mismatching between
confidence and skill?
Well, one of the things we cando stop basing our decisions on
how confident teachers feel andwe need to move into the space
(07:41):
of what they actually do whenwe're working with someone who
might be inclined tooverestimate their capacity
perhaps someone in that.
Achieving phase.
Data helps us see the realityof the situation.
Phase data helps us see thereality of the situation.
We need to be looking to thestudent learning outcomes as the
evidence of capacity, examiningthe quality of instructional
(08:02):
decisions and focusing on thatshort-term data that allows us
to see reasonably quick wins andareas for growth.
When we're working with someonewho's doubting themselves,
despite actually being quiteknowledgeable and skilled, like
people in the discerning phase,data becomes the evidence they
need to remind them that all iswell.
(08:25):
Remember, data is the proof ofthe job well done.
It's not just about how we feelabout our work.
So, rather than asking howconfident do you feel, we can be
examining practice throughobservable actions and through
quality of discussion and thecomplexity and nuance of the
(08:46):
reasoning that happens.
And here's some questions wecan be asking to figure all of
this out.
When we're thinking aboutobservable instructional actions
, we can ask how does thisteacher respond when a student
struggles with this area?
What decisions do they makeabout pacing and review?
How do they use assessment datato inform instruction?
(09:07):
What adjustments do they makewhen things aren't working?
And in that professionalreasoning space, here's some
questions that can be reallyhelpful.
Can this person articulate whythey've chosen particular
instructional approaches?
How do they discuss studentneeds and progress?
What questions do they ask whenplanning and how do they
(09:31):
reflect on lesson effectiveness?
Effective beginning readinginstruction, and, in fact, all
effective reading instruction,requires teachers to make
countless micro decisions basedon student response and
curriculum demands.
The teacher who can do thiseffectively might feel uncertain
(09:52):
about their choices, while theteacher who feels very confident
might be missing crucialinformation about student need.
There are very real practicalimplications for leaders here.
If you're supporting teachers,this research has profound
implications for how youapproach professional
development and coachingconversations.
(10:13):
So, instead of how are youfeeling about fluency, you could
try tell me about the decisionsyou've made during today's
lesson and what studentresponses influenced those
decisions.
Instead of are you confidentwith your phonics instruction,
you can try walk me through howyou determine the pacing for
(10:35):
phonics content introduction.
Instead of relying on confidencesurveys, spend time in
classrooms looking at thequality of instruction and the
student engagement.
Look at how teachers respond tounexpected moments, how they
adjust their teaching based onstudent needs and how they use
their data to inform theirpractice.
(10:56):
And, of course, it always comesback to the data, doesn't it?
Data is of critical importancein decision making and we need
to use this rather than onlyrelying on feelings or
assumptions.
Now granted, when we aremastering.
That's the fourth phase of ourmodel.
(11:17):
When we've been at this forquite a while, we've put a whole
lot of our personal energy andtime into building our capacity.
Our teacher's spidey sensesabsolutely come into play,
because now we're automatic andwe have the expertise to work in
a more intuitive way.
But until we reach that point,data is our evidence.
(11:40):
When we focus on observableteaching actions that are linked
to student learning outcomes,we get a much clearer picture of
what's actually happening inour classrooms.
We can see where support isneeded, regardless of how
confident someone says they feel.
This doesn't mean we ignore theemotional experience of
(12:01):
teaching, all those rapid shiftsfrom confidence to frustration,
and the self-doubt andvulnerability that comes once
we're moving into the discerningphase.
All of these are very real.
They need to be acknowledgedand supported, but they can't be
the primary driver ofprofessional learning decisions.
(12:22):
The takeaway message fromtoday's episode is this
Confidence can be a misleadingmeasure of capacity.
We're better served when wemove towards examining practice
through observable actions andthe quality of discussions,
including unpacking thereasoning behind decisions, than
(12:43):
we are when we just focus onconfidence.
If people are saying I did thatbecause the program said so,
well.
That's sometimes a valid answer, but if it's our only one in
every situation, we are introuble.
This means being strategic andobjective about teacher
(13:03):
development.
It means using multiple sourcesof evidence to understand where
teachers are in theirdevelopment journey, and it
means recognising that the mostconfident person in the room
might not be the most competent,while the person expressing
doubt might actually be able todemonstrate sophisticated
professional awareness.
(13:24):
As we continue to refine ourapproach to supporting teacher
development, let's commit tomoving beyond surface level
indicators.
Let's get curious about whatteachers are actually doing, how
they're actually thinking abouttheir practice and what
outcomes their students areactually achieving.
Remember, teaching is complexwork that requires ongoing
(13:49):
development through our careers,and the goal isn't to reach a
point where we feel completelyconfident.
If we're mastering ineverything, well, we need a new
challenge.
The goal is to continue growingin our ability to make
effective instructionaldecisions that support every
student's success.
Is this work hard?
Well, yes, yes, it is.
(14:10):
There is no doubt thatsupporting our teachers where
they are and moving them to theplace where we need them to go
next, when we always have alarge range of teacher
experience and skill in ourteams, is difficult, and this is
precisely why I created LeadingLearning Success, my 12-month
whole school professionaldevelopment program that
(14:32):
includes knowledge and tools forleaders that help you meet your
team exactly where they're upto and respond to your school's
context.
I've been a school leadertrying to do all the things.
I know how hard it is to havethe headspace to put it all
together and make it happen, andI also know how important it is
(14:56):
to know that you aren't in thison your own.
That's all from me for thisepisode of the Structured
Literacy Podcast.
Remember, confidence comes fromthe things we do well, but
reflecting on our own feelingsas the primary measure of
capacity can really bemisleading.
Until next time, happy teachingeveryone.
(15:17):
Bye.
Hello and welcome to episode six of season six of the
Structured Literacy Podcast.
I can hardly believe that wehave five completed episodes and
now we're in our sixth.
If you've been listening to ussince the start, thank you so
much.
The work that we do in thispodcast is designed to support,
(00:21):
affirm and guide you.
If you're a new listener, youhave a whole back catalogue of
episodes just waiting for you,but for now I'm Jocelyn and I'm
so pleased you've joined me here, recorded in Tasmania, the home
of the Palawa people.
In the last episode we talkedabout professional judgment and
(00:42):
I introduced a couple of phaseswithin my responsive leadership
model.
So today we're going to dig alittle deeper into one of the
most problematic assumptionsthat we make about teacher
development that confidenceequals competence.
And if you've been with me fora while now, you'll know that
(01:02):
I'm passionate about movingbeyond surface level indicators
and getting to the heart of whatactually drives effective
practice.
And you might be forgiven forthinking that maybe I've moved
away from talking about literacy, but in fact I haven't.
This discussion about how wesupport the professional
capacity building of ourteachers is at the heart of
(01:26):
getting every student readingand writing with confidence.
So it's one thing to know thewhat and what the lesson needs
to look like.
It's another thing entirely tobe able to think about how we
help the adults around us tobuild their capacity to bring it
all to life and make it work.
(01:47):
So that's what these episodesare all about.
Let's get into the problem withconfidence as a measure of
capacity.
How many times have you asked ateacher how are you feeling
about your fluency lessons?
Or how confident do you feelwith that phonics instruction?
(02:08):
And we do it all the time,don't we?
And we then use the person'sresponse to determine what kind
of support to provide.
If they say they're feelinggood, well, we assume they need
less help.
If they express doubt, weassume they need more guidance.
But here's the thing confidencecan actually be a terrible
measure of capacity, and let'stalk about why.
(02:32):
I've spoken on the podcast quitea bit about cognitive biases,
and one of them is theDunning-Kruger effect.
Now, david Dunning and JustinKruger found that people with
the least skill and knowledge ina particular area note, we're
not talking about intelligence,we're talking about skill and
knowledge the people with theleast skill and knowledge in a
(02:52):
particular area are the mostlikely to overestimate their
abilities.
Even more interesting is theinverse relationship those with
the most skill and knowledge areoften the least confident to
claim expertise.
Think about that for a moment.
The teacher who confidentlydeclares I've got phonics sorted
(03:12):
might actually be one of theones who needs the most support,
guidance and direction, whilethe teacher wringing their hands
about whether they're doingenough for their struggling
readers might actually bedemonstrating sophisticated
understanding of the complexityof instruction.
In the responsive leadershipmodel, we see this
(03:35):
confidence-competence mismatchplay out clearly across
developmental phases.
So let me walk you through this.
The first phase of the model iswhere we are grounding and
applying.
We're learning the things thatwe need to learn.
We're learning the steps, ifyou like.
We're getting some foundationalknowledge.
Then we move into the achievingphase, where we actually have
(03:57):
to use this thing, the technique, the strategy, whatever it
happens to be, in our owneveryday life.
And this is called theachieving phase because teachers
do begin to get results ineveryday, stable conditions.
So they are actually achievingsome success, but they don't
have enough experience to managethe unusual or the unexpected.
(04:22):
The unusual or the unexpected.
And here's what's crucial tounderstand about this phase.
There's an important clarityshift that occurs when the
person gradually moves frommaking decisions based on
principles of correctinstruction or working with
fidelity, if you like to makingdecisions that are strategic and
(04:45):
designed to achieve a specificgoal.
This means that someone canlook perfectly competent in
their understanding ofinstruction.
You do the observation, you seethat they're doing the lesson
steps, but this competence couldbe short-lived and not always
effective when things move intothe space of the unexpected or
(05:05):
things shift outside the box.
They could also be deliveringreally solid lessons, but you
aren't seeing the impact in thedata.
This achieving phase is wherewe see overconfidence most
dramatically come to the fore ineducational settings.
(05:27):
So with appropriate coaching,with appropriate experience,
with being able to make theconnections between what was the
same, between this context andthat context, and what was
different and how what we dorelates and reflects the
research, we move to thediscerning phase.
(05:51):
Now, this third phase is wherethings get really interesting
from a confidence perspective.
In this phase, teachers havemore experience.
They know considerably more,they're effective in
understanding a wide range ofcontext pretty automatically,
but they still make decisions ina deliberate way and this need
(06:13):
for hard thinking pushes theminto the space of vulnerability.
They actually do know what theyneed to, but they doubt
themselves.
This creates this fascinatingmismatch between understanding
context and feeling confident inour decisions.
So the teacher in thediscerning phase might look at a
struggling reader andimmediately recognize multiple
(06:36):
potential intervention points.
They see the complexity ofphonemic awareness issues, the
need for systematic instruction,they see the vocabulary gaps,
they see the fluency concernsand they do actually have the
knowledge to address all of this, but they're also
(06:57):
second-guessing their owncapacity and that makes them
less confident about theirdecisions, which throws them
completely off kilter.
If the achieving phase has usfeeling overly confident, the
discerning phase can be thecomplete opposite.
We have teachers who areactually quite skilled not
(07:17):
taking the action they need toto really bring those results
home because they're doubtingthemselves.
So what's the answer to all ofthis mismatching between
confidence and skill?
Well, one of the things we cando stop basing our decisions on
how confident teachers feel andwe need to move into the space
(07:41):
of what they actually do whenwe're working with someone who
might be inclined tooverestimate their capacity
perhaps someone in that.
Achieving phase.
Data helps us see the realityof the situation.
Phase data helps us see thereality of the situation.
We need to be looking to thestudent learning outcomes as the
evidence of capacity, examiningthe quality of instructional
(08:02):
decisions and focusing on thatshort-term data that allows us
to see reasonably quick wins andareas for growth.
When we're working with someonewho's doubting themselves,
despite actually being quiteknowledgeable and skilled, like
people in the discerning phase,data becomes the evidence they
need to remind them that all iswell.
(08:25):
Remember, data is the proof ofthe job well done.
It's not just about how we feelabout our work.
So, rather than asking howconfident do you feel, we can be
examining practice throughobservable actions and through
quality of discussion and thecomplexity and nuance of the
(08:46):
reasoning that happens.
And here's some questions wecan be asking to figure all of
this out.
When we're thinking aboutobservable instructional actions
, we can ask how does thisteacher respond when a student
struggles with this area?
What decisions do they makeabout pacing and review?
How do they use assessment datato inform instruction?
(09:07):
What adjustments do they makewhen things aren't working?
And in that professionalreasoning space, here's some
questions that can be reallyhelpful.
Can this person articulate whythey've chosen particular
instructional approaches?
How do they discuss studentneeds and progress?
What questions do they ask whenplanning and how do they
(09:31):
reflect on lesson effectiveness?
Effective beginning readinginstruction, and, in fact, all
effective reading instruction,requires teachers to make
countless micro decisions basedon student response and
curriculum demands.
The teacher who can do thiseffectively might feel uncertain
(09:52):
about their choices, while theteacher who feels very confident
might be missing crucialinformation about student need.
There are very real practicalimplications for leaders here.
If you're supporting teachers,this research has profound
implications for how youapproach professional
development and coachingconversations.
(10:13):
So, instead of how are youfeeling about fluency, you could
try tell me about the decisionsyou've made during today's
lesson and what studentresponses influenced those
decisions.
Instead of are you confidentwith your phonics instruction,
you can try walk me through howyou determine the pacing for
(10:35):
phonics content introduction.
Instead of relying on confidencesurveys, spend time in
classrooms looking at thequality of instruction and the
student engagement.
Look at how teachers respond tounexpected moments, how they
adjust their teaching based onstudent needs and how they use
their data to inform theirpractice.
(10:56):
And, of course, it always comesback to the data, doesn't it?
Data is of critical importancein decision making and we need
to use this rather than onlyrelying on feelings or
assumptions.
Now granted, when we aremastering.
That's the fourth phase of ourmodel.
(11:17):
When we've been at this forquite a while, we've put a whole
lot of our personal energy andtime into building our capacity.
Our teacher's spidey sensesabsolutely come into play,
because now we're automatic andwe have the expertise to work in
a more intuitive way.
But until we reach that point,data is our evidence.
(11:40):
When we focus on observableteaching actions that are linked
to student learning outcomes,we get a much clearer picture of
what's actually happening inour classrooms.
We can see where support isneeded, regardless of how
confident someone says they feel.
This doesn't mean we ignore theemotional experience of
(12:01):
teaching, all those rapid shiftsfrom confidence to frustration,
and the self-doubt andvulnerability that comes once
we're moving into the discerningphase.
All of these are very real.
They need to be acknowledgedand supported, but they can't be
the primary driver ofprofessional learning decisions.
(12:22):
The takeaway message fromtoday's episode is this
Confidence can be a misleadingmeasure of capacity.
We're better served when wemove towards examining practice
through observable actions andthe quality of discussions,
including unpacking thereasoning behind decisions, than
(12:43):
we are when we just focus onconfidence.
If people are saying I did thatbecause the program said so,
well.
That's sometimes a valid answer, but if it's our only one in
every situation, we are introuble.
This means being strategic andobjective about teacher
(13:03):
development.
It means using multiple sourcesof evidence to understand where
teachers are in theirdevelopment journey, and it
means recognising that the mostconfident person in the room
might not be the most competent,while the person expressing
doubt might actually be able todemonstrate sophisticated
professional awareness.
(13:24):
As we continue to refine ourapproach to supporting teacher
development, let's commit tomoving beyond surface level
indicators.
Let's get curious about whatteachers are actually doing, how
they're actually thinking abouttheir practice and what
outcomes their students areactually achieving.
Remember, teaching is complexwork that requires ongoing
(13:49):
development through our careers,and the goal isn't to reach a
point where we feel completelyconfident.
If we're mastering ineverything, well, we need a new
challenge.
The goal is to continue growingin our ability to make
effective instructionaldecisions that support every
student's success.
Is this work hard?
Well, yes, yes, it is.
(14:10):
There is no doubt thatsupporting our teachers where
they are and moving them to theplace where we need them to go
next, when we always have alarge range of teacher
experience and skill in ourteams, is difficult, and this is
precisely why I created LeadingLearning Success, my 12-month
whole school professionaldevelopment program that
(14:32):
includes knowledge and tools forleaders that help you meet your
team exactly where they're upto and respond to your school's
context.
I've been a school leadertrying to do all the things.
I know how hard it is to havethe headspace to put it all
together and make it happen, andI also know how important it is
(14:56):
to know that you aren't in thison your own.
That's all from me for thisepisode of the Structured
Literacy Podcast.
Remember, confidence comes fromthe things we do well, but
reflecting on our own feelingsas the primary measure of
capacity can really bemisleading.
Until next time, happy teachingeveryone.
(15:17):
Bye.
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