Theory Can Only Take You So Far

Building a Coherent Classroom System to Drive Change

Patrick Mongrain

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216391272
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

Theory Can Only Take You So Far clearly defines the instructional system teachers need. It starts by acknowledging the crisis, describes school and classroom systems, and then provides a chapter-by-chapter description of what research, evidence, and some support from AI point to as the most effective practices that make up an instructional system.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Education Is in Crisis: “The Why”
• 1 Defining an Instructional System: “Systems = Hope”
• 2 Creating Coherence: “If You Have More Than Two Initiatives You Have None”
• 3 A “Moneyball” Approach to Growth: “Repeating Is Not the Same as Creating”
• 4 Community-Building Practices: “The Strongest Bonds Are Built in the Hottest Fires”
• 5 The Four Types of Relationships: “Haste Is Anti-community”
• 6 Intentionally Planning Routines: “The Most Effective Classroom Management Is a Well-planned Lesson”
• 7 Teaching Expectations: “We Must Teach Behavior the Same Way We Teach Academics”
• 8 Informed Supervision: “Teacher Movement Should Be Inversely Related to Student Movement”
• 9 Opportunities to Respond: “Tell Me and I Forget, Teach Me and I Remember, Involve Me and I Learn”
• 10 Positive Feedback: “Look for What Is Going Right” and “Authenticity Is the New Social Currency”
• 11 Corrective Feedback: “If You Aren’t Coaching It, You Are Allowing It to Happen”
• 12 Targeted Support Strategies: “Intense Behavior Doesn’t Always Require Intense Intervention”
• 13 The Three-Tiered System: “Self-Care Is Working in a System You Feel Confident In”
• 14 “So Beyond the Why”
• References
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