You walk into a classroom and see what every leader hopes for.
Students are animated and smiling.
Hands are in the air.
The teacher is moving around the room, clearly in her element.
At the end, students tell the teacher, “That was so fun. Can we do this again?”
Later, in the post-conference, you ask:
“How do you see this activity connecting to the expectations of the standard?”
The teacher confidently explains the alignment. Yet as you compare the task to the standard, you realize something uncomfortable.
The activity is well below grade level.
The teacher is not being evasive. They genuinely see the lesson as aligned. Students felt successful, the teacher felt successful, and the lesson ended on a high note.
To understand why this happens, and how coaching can interrupt it, we need two ideas from psychology: the Peak–End Rule and Attribution Theory.
Why Our Brains Fall for “They Loved It”
The Peak–End Rule in plain language
Research on remembered experience shows that when people judge a past event, they do not average every moment of it. Instead, their global evaluation is disproportionately shaped by the peak of the experience and how it ends (Fredrickson and Kahneman; Kahneman et al.).
In classic experiments, participants preferred to repeat a longer, more painful procedure if it ended with a shorter, less painful period, even though that choice resulted in greater total discomfort (Kahneman et al.).
This pattern has been replicated across pleasant and unpleasant experiences and is widely known as the Peak–End Rule.
In a classroom like the one described above:
- The peak is the laughter, quick responses, and visible energy.
- The end is students saying, “That was great. Can we do it again?”
So the remembered verdict for both teacher and students is:
- This is what good learning feels like.
- That is the first part of the loop.
How Attribution Theory Locks the Loop in Place
If the Peak–End Rule shapes how an experience feels in memory, then the Attribution Theory explains how people answer the question, “Why did this happen?”
After a lesson like this, a teacher might reason:
- Students were engaged and successful.
- I chose this activity.
- Therefore, this activity is an effective way to teach this standard.
The teacher has made an internal, stable attribution: the activity itself is a reliable, effective way to teach this content.
The problem is that the task can be below grade level and not aligned to expectations, while still generating that strong positive memory. The teacher unintentionally equates emotional engagement with rigorous alignment to the standard.
The loop often looks like this:
- Students enjoy an engaging, accessible task.
- The peak and the end are strongly positive.
- The teacher attributes that success to the activity being effective and aligned.
- The activity becomes the default approach to that standard.
Without intervention, the pattern repeats and cements.
Coaching is where that loop can be interrupted.
What Coaching Research Suggests We Do Differently
Research on instructional coaching gives important guidance for breaking this pattern.
1. Ground coaching in evidence, not impressions
A large meta-analysis of 37 causal studies of teacher coaching found that coaching programs can produce meaningful improvements in instruction and student achievement, especially when the coaching is tightly focused on specific practices and connected to evidence of student learning (Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan).
That pushes us from: “Students were really engaged, so this went well.”
To: “What exactly did students say, write, and solve, and how does that compare to the level of thinking in the standard?”
2. Move from “coaching light” to “coaching heavy”
Joellen Killion describes a distinction between coaching light and coaching heavy. Coaching light emphasizes being liked, offering tips, and staying in safe territory. Coaching that is heavy is still relational and supportive, but it remains anchored in changes to teaching practice and student learning outcomes (Killion, “Are You Coaching Heavy or Light?”).
Coaching light is where the loop survives:
“They loved it.”
“That is fantastic. You should keep using that activity.”
Coaching heavy sounds more like:
“Students were clearly engaged. Let us examine the standard against what students actually did. Where do you see evidence of that level of thinking?”
3. Use reflective questioning to surface and shift attributions
Costa and Garmston’s work on Cognitive Coaching shows that carefully sequenced, nonjudgmental questions can help teachers develop more accurate “cognitive maps” of their practice and connect decisions to data rather than habit or emotion (Costa and Garmston).
In this case, reflective questions might include:
- “What were students actually doing with the content during that activity?”
- “What did you notice them saying, writing, or solving?”
- “Here is the exact language of the standard. Where do you see students demonstrating that level of thinking?”
- “If a student only ever did activities like this, would they be fully prepared for the type of task this standard requires?”
These questions help the teacher re-attribute success from:
“They loved it, so it must be aligned”
to:
“They loved it because it was accessible and familiar. That matters for confidence. Now I want to connect that experience to tasks that match the rigor of the standard.”
Four Practical Coaching Moves to Break the Loop
Here are four moves you can embed in your coaching and walkthrough routines.
Move 1: Set a student-learning goal, not an activity goal
Instead of: “Let us refine this activity since students love it.”
Try: “Let us set a goal that students will regularly engage in tasks that show the level of thinking the standard describes. How might this activity be a starting point toward that?”
This reframes success in terms of student thinking rather than the popularity of the task.
Move 2: Always bring in the standard and student work
In the post-conference, make it routine to put three things side by side:
- The standard
- A brief description of the task
- Samples of student work or specific observation notes
Then ask:
- “What is the highest level of thinking students had to use here?”
- “Where do you see that level of thinking in the standard?”
- “What is missing?”
This anchors the conversation in evidence of rigor, rather than the memory of how the lesson felt.
Move 3: Run small experiments instead of issuing big judgments
Rather than declaring, “This activity is not rigorous enough,” invite a small test of change, consistent with improvement-cycle thinking in coaching (Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan).
For example:
“What if we keep this same activity as your hook, then add a short, clearly grade-level task right after it, and close with a quick success opportunity on that harder task?”
You might then collect:
- Student work from the new rigorous segment
- A short observation or video clip
- Student comments about how it felt to succeed at the harder task
In the next conversation, you can ask:
- “What do you notice students can now do that they could not do before?”
- “How does that align with the standard?”
- “How did students respond when they realized they could handle the more demanding task?”
This intentionally re-sets the peak and the end of the lesson so they are attached to successful, grade-level thinking, not just the warm-up.
Move 4: Name the pattern as a human bias, not a teacher flaw
With many teachers, you can safely name the psychology at work:
“Our brains are wired to remember the high points and the ending of an experience. When kids are smiling and we end on a high, it feels like strong instruction. Coaching is our way to protect both of us from that very human bias by checking the feeling against evidence of grade-level thinking” (Fredrickson and Kahneman; Kahneman et al.).
This framing keeps the conversation non-defensive. The issue is not that the teacher is careless. The issue is that all of us are vulnerable to the same cognitive shortcut.
A Closing Thought for Leaders and Coaches
You absolutely want students to love learning. Engagement matters. Positive peaks and endings matter. They shape how students feel about school, about content areas, and about themselves as learners.
The danger is when “they loved it” becomes our main proof that a lesson was effective.
Coaching that works interrupts that pattern.
- It honors the emotional truth: that felt good.
- It adds the academic truth: now let us check the level of thinking against the standard.
- It helps teachers design lessons where the strongest memories, the peak and the end, are tied to successful, grade-level work, not just an enjoyable activity.
That is where engagement and rigor stop competing with each other and start working together.
Works Cited
Costa, Arthur L., and Robert J. Garmston. Cognitive Coaching: Developing Self-Directed Leaders and Learners. 3rd ed., Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Daniel Kahneman. “Duration Neglect in Retrospective Evaluations of Affective Episodes.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 65, no. 1, 1993, pp. 45–55.
Kahneman, Daniel, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Charles A. Schreiber, and Donald A. Redelmeier. “When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End.” Psychological Science, vol. 4, no. 6, 1993, pp. 401–05.
Killion, Joellen. “Are You Coaching Heavy or Light?” Teachers Teaching Teachers, vol. 3, no. 8, National Staff Development Council, 2008.
Knight, Jim. The Impact Cycle: What Instructional Coaches Should Do to Foster Powerful Improvements in Teaching. Corwin, 2017.
Kraft, Matthew A., David Blazar, and Dylan Hogan. “The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence.” Review of Educational Research, vol. 88, no. 4, 2018, pp. 547–88.
