What Teachers Can Learn from Blue Ocean Strategy
Assuming you have to teach a topic exactly the way it's always been taught, rather than asking what a genuinely different approach would look like, is the specific trap Blue Ocean Strategy names, and it's an easy one to fall into when the standard curriculum feels like a fixed set of rules.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Stop competing head-to-head in a crowded market
Teaching a topic exactly the way it's always been taught puts your class in the same position as every other class using the same approach, competing for the same limited attention and engagement.
A teacher delivers the same lecture format every other section uses, and student engagement stays at the same level it always has, since nothing about the approach is genuinely different.
Identify one lesson you teach exactly the way it's always been taught, and ask what a genuinely different approach to the same material would look like.
Pursue differentiation and low cost at the same time
Finding a way to make a lesson both more engaging and less time-consuming to prepare, rather than assuming better engagement requires more prep time, opens possibilities most teachers don't consider.
A teacher assumes a more engaging lesson always requires significantly more preparation time, without questioning whether some standard prep steps could be cut to make room for the genuinely engaging part.
Identify one standard preparation step you could eliminate, and use the freed time to build something genuinely engaging.
Question what your industry has always competed on
Treating the standard lesson structure and assessment format as fixed, rather than something you could eliminate, reduce, raise, or add to, limits how differently you could teach.
A teacher accepts the standard homework and assessment format as the baseline, without ever asking whether it actually helps the specific students in this class learn.
List the standard elements of your typical lesson, and identify one that could be eliminated entirely without students actually missing it.
Look beyond your current customers to people you aren't serving at all
The students who currently disengage from any standard approach are often where the most valuable teaching improvements are found, more than refining what already works for engaged students.
Covering today's material on schedule and building toward a genuinely more engaging approach aren't opposites — an approach that engages more students often covers material more effectively too.
Name one thing, honestly
Which students in your class disengage from your current approach entirely, and what would reach them?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
List the standard elements of your typical lesson, and identify one that could be eliminated entirely without students actually missing it.