Making Space for One-on-One Teaching

 The other day I asked my fourth-grade daughter, Piper, what her favorite part of school was that day. Usually, the answer is recess or lunch (the universal answer to that question). But this time she said, “reading.”

She told me how her teacher called her over to read one-on-one. I asked, “Why did you like it so much?” and she said, “Well when I got to a hard word, I stopped and took my time to spell it out, and my teacher told me he really liked that. And when I was reading a page I didn’t understand, I went back to the top and started over, and he said he was really proud of me for doing that.”

As a long time English teacher, hearing my daughter share a positive experience from language arts class was music to my ears.

Her teacher had noticed something real about her effort and made time to tell her so. What struck me wasn’t just that Piper felt affirmed, but that this simple, five-minute conference captured what great teaching looks like: slowing down, seeing the individual, and naming the process of learning, not just the product.

In that brief conversation, Piper’s teacher helped her internalize what good readers do. He didn’t just tell Piper she was a strong student; he showed her how to be one. And for this to really set in, he had to work with her one-on-one. That kind of intentional one-on-one instruction can do more to build confidence and competence than a week’s worth of worksheets. It’s how students learn to see themselves as learners.

Why Individual Instruction Matters

This isn’t a new revelation or innovation. Teachers have known for generations that there’s power in slowing down to work individually with students. When a teacher sits beside a student and gives targeted feedback, it communicates: I see you, I’m with you, and your learning matters. That moment of connection makes students more receptive to guidance, and it transforms feedback from criticism into collaboration.

Research backs this up. John Hattie’s meta-analyses on effective teaching show that individualized feedback has one of the highest impacts on student achievement. It's the human connection at play here but also the personalized teaching. The feedback my daughter’s teacher gave was just for her. It was specifically about her skills and growth.

This connects with Vygotsky’s theory of the “zone of proximal development,” showing that learners make the greatest gains when they get just enough guidance to bridge the gap between what they can do alone and what they can do with support. Piper's teacher created classroom space for her to get this guidance, which clearly had an effect on her gains in language arts class. 

The Hard Part: Time and Reality

Of course, every teacher reading this knows the hard truth: if you’re working one-on-one with a student, there are still twenty-nine other students in the room who you are not paying attention to. Individual instruction sounds beautiful in theory but can feel impossible in practice. How do you give every student those powerful moments of attention when your classroom is full, your time is limited, and you’re juggling curriculum demands?

It’s the central challenge of teaching: we all want to personalize learning, but we’re also managing complexity at scale. The question isn’t whether individual instruction is valuable, it’s how to make it possible.

Rotating Conferences

One approach is rotating conferences. Just as reading and writing workshop models allow for short, targeted check-ins, teachers can set up a predictable schedule where students know when their conference time is coming. This helps students take ownership of their independent work and keeps the class moving even while the teacher is engaged with one learner.

In a rotating conference system, students might meet individually with the teacher once every week or two, depending on class size and schedule. During these conferences, the teacher can focus on specific goals: discussing a piece of writing, checking comprehension, reviewing progress on a project, reflecting on learning habits, or something else related to your class’s content. These meetings can be just long enough to give meaningful feedback and set a new target for growth.

What makes this work is the consistency. When students know their turn is coming, they prepare for it. They gather questions, bring work samples, and reflect on what they need help with. Over time, this builds a culture where students view these one-on-one moments not as evaluations but as opportunities for dialogue and coaching.

Create Self-Sustaining Work for the Rest of the Class

Another strategy is to design learning experiences that don’t rely on constant teacher direction. Project-based learning (PBL) is one of the most effective ways to do this. When students are working on authentic, collaborative projects, they’re often deeply engaged in problem-solving, discussion, and creation. This gives teachers space to move around the room, pulling students aside for focused conferences without disrupting the rest of the class.

For example, during a science project where students design solutions to reduce plastic waste in their school, the teacher might meet one-on-one with a student who’s struggling to organize research. Meanwhile, the rest of the class is working on one of the many tasks the project requires. By having a student-directed activity rather than a teacher-led one, the teacher can leave students to it.

Of course this helps when there’s a classroom culture that supports this independent and student-led work. Here are some of my favorite resources to help support that.  

How AI Can Help Make Space for One-On-One Teaching

One of the biggest barriers to one-on-one instruction is simply time. We all want to sit with individual students, but days are packed with grading, planning, data entry, and classroom management. This is one of the positive ways AI can impact teaching. It can take on many of the repetitive or time-consuming tasks that fill a teacher’s day, like generating leveled reading passages, drafting small-group plans, organizing data, creating rubrics, or providing quick formative feedback on student work. When these tasks are handled efficiently, you gain back valuable minutes and energy that can be spent connecting with students individually.

Some adaptive learning tools can also give students targeted practice that meets them where they are, helping keep the rest of the class engaged while the teacher meets one-on-one with someone else. In this way, AI doesn’t replace the teacher’s role; it supports it. The goal isn’t to automate instruction, but to clear space for the best kinds of it. When technology can handle the time-consuming work, you can do more of the human work of teaching: listening, questioning, encouraging, and guiding students toward deeper understanding.

Why One-On-One Instruction is Worth It

When Piper told me about her reading conference, it wasn’t the praise that mattered most, it was that her teacher noticed. That he took the time to sit down and talk about how she learns, not just what she got right or wrong.

That single moment made my daughter feel seen and capable. It built her confidence as a reader and as a thinker. And multiplied across a classroom, those small, intentional moments can transform the way students feel about school.

And creating more one-on-one instruction is not just up to teachers to make happen. Administrators and school systems need to design schedules, class sizes, and professional development that make one-on-one instruction more possible. Because when teachers have the time and structure to connect with individual students, the results ripple far beyond academics. That’s how a simple reading conference becomes something much bigger, a small window into what education can be when students are known, guided, and believed in. That’s also what made reading my daughter’s favorite part of the day instead of recess.