We began this study of designing instruction by noting that most students have, at best, a partial view of the work that teachers do because so much of this work occurs when they are not present to witness it.

Novice teachers entering the profession tend to have a similarly incomplete view. As teachers gain experience, they learn to see behind the scenes and come to understand that the classroom performance of effective teaching is reliant on extensive preparation, which itself is based on extensive thinking. But until this shift is made, a teacher's focus will still be on outward behavior, meaning that the success of a lesson is likely to be measured in terms of students' levels of engagement with classroom activities and their cooperation with classroom rules. The assumption that "if students are busy, they must be thinking and learning" keeps the students' intellectual work as hidden from the teacher as the teacher's intellectual work is from the students.