Instructional Rounds
How has your school used classroom observation as a tool to build teacher capacity to improve student learning?
Main important points as to WHY Instructional Rounds should be implemented in schools.
• We are all looking for ways to build our teachers’ capacity in order to improve student outcomes.
• This normally happens well in small pockets throughout the school
• We are always looking for whole school approaches for consistency and improvements
• Promotes a shared responsibility and best practice
• Focus on excellence in teaching and learning
• Develop a common language and understanding
• Everyone is involved learning from each other
System level processes: what already exists to continually drive school improvement
We as a system are all about “creating the culture and practice of continuous improvement in self reviewing, self-improving -always with students at the centre…….in response to the identified needs of our students.” Common theme – to improve teaching and learning – we can do more together than we can individually. In fact, we have an obligation now to work collaboratively. We are challenged as a system to ensure excellence in all our schools and in all our classrooms. Gone are the days when we as teachers work behind closed doors. This image is giving way to an image of an open door. And we work together to find out what to look for when we open the door and what to do with what we see.
Instructional Rounds is a vehicle that helps to align school and system processes:
★Strategic Improvement Plan (SIP)
★Annual Improvement Plan (AIP)
★School Review & improvement (SRI)
★Practitioner Inquiry & PPPR
★Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)
★Induction, performance and program reflection
★Melbourne Declaration
★New Australian Curriculum
Reflection
I think that in order to provide high quality dialogue between teachers, they need to be regularly engaged with these documents. As part of my staff meeting I showed them a Prezi presentation where I made links to our AIP (Annual Improvement Plan), our school wide pedagogy F.A.C.E.S (Futuristic, Adaptable, Connected, Empowering and Spiritual. I also focused on the 'How effective is our Catholic School?' document, in particular Key Area 3 Pedagogy; Teaching Practices and Professional Learning.
BENEFITS:
Why?
•procedures are in place
•dialogue around good pedagogy and best practice
•Student improvement
•Whole School understanding and ownership of school and system processes
•Links are made between these processes, key elements highlighted and ‘fat is cut’
•Processes are streamlined to enhance time management
This begins material from the Introduction to the Book. While rounds are NOT these things, they exhibit very similar characteristics to walkthroughs, PLC’s, and improvement strategies
Common Elements between SRI and IR
•ownership by all members of the community
•developing skills for analysing data and making evidence-based judgements about our improvements for students
•sharing of good practice within and across schools
•continued reflection on what we are learning
•Insightful leadership, intellectual rigour and a shared professional language are required
•processes are inclusive and collegial
(Make point that IR can enhance these processes and become part of the school learning culture with the ultimate aim of improving student learning)
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Instructional Rounds cycle
Data, Dialogue & Current Work |
★Needs of the students
★Evidence based
★‘Problems of Practice’: whole school areas for development
★Shared ownership
★Professional dialogue: metalanguage is owned and shared by all
★Environmental print: findings, progress and ongoing contributions
Reflection
Before beginning the Cycle of Instructional Rounds it is important to set up group norms. These norms are established in order for all stakeholders to feel valued and be part of a non-threatening culture to improve teaching instruction.
Step 1: Introduction (3 minutes)
What are norms? Why do we need them?
Groups generate norms as a way of deciding how to work and/or learn best together. Norms are a kind of contract that is generated, owned, and enforced by the group. Norms can range from rules that support productivity and respect for everyone’s time, such as “be on time,” to norms that establish expectations for personal and professional growth, such as ”encourage and welcome different perspectives.”
Step 2: Individual Brainstorm (5 minutes)
What do we need from one another in order to learn and be able to take the risks needed to do so?
Participants will generate a list of whatever they feel they need. Then, each participant will review his/her list, and pick the top three non-negotiable needs.
Step 3: Small Group Negotiation (7 minutes)
In pairs of trios, participants will share their top three needs, and pick two or three needs that they all agree are non-negotiable.
Step 4: Collection and Charting of Needs (15 minutes)
Each group will share its non-negotiable needs with the whole group as directed by the facilitator. The facilitator will chart the needs generated by the group.
Step 5: Review Charts to Clarify Meaning (20-30 minutes)
Clarify the words on the charts. Be specific by asking: What would it look like if this were happening?
Group Norms (Sample)
★Members point out/challenge when a judgement has been made (ask “What’s the evidence?”)
★Be honest with each other (Say what you mean and mean what you say)
★Be affirming and positive with each other
★Tell the class/students “Some teachers will be coming into our class to watch our lesson. Please ignore them)
★Members will have minimal interaction with students
★Members record notes on paper
★Members may rove around the room in an unobtrusive way
★All members have the opportunity to observe and be observed
★Be punctual & prepared
★Remain focussed and avoid distraction
★Use confidentiality. No discussing outside of the group
★Use humour!
Samples ofProblem of Practice (POP)
•Are students being asked to do something more than remembering or literal recall?
•What kinds of student engagement, participation and equity are observed?
•How are students demonstrating understanding of content?
•In what ways and how often are students actively engaged?
•What’s the nature of the tasks students are asked to engage with?
•How are students engaging with content?
•How do students engage with each other-kinds of talk between students?
•What questions are being asked and who is asking them?
What is your POP?
It may take several conversations to define your school’s POP. The POP must be clear, rich in potential learning, meaningful and relevant, focused. It’s important to get the POP right.
(ABC Activity)
Where are the data evidenced gaps in the teaching and learning in your school?
How do you know this?
Will closing these gaps improve pedagogical practices and enhance student learning?
Guiding Prompts:
What did it look like before..?
Why would someone else think that x or y way might be better..?
How does x compare to y..?
What would the reply be to someone who says..?
What does it feel like..? (EMPATHY)
What does it look like..?
Describe a moment where..?
Observing★Is done ….in small groups, in multiple classrooms, max 20 mins, POP focus, strict protocols.
★Classroom observation is non-judgmental. There are NO opinions. We must re-train ourselves to learn to see, and unlearn to judge
★There are three types of data –
what you count,
what you see and
what you hear
1. What is the teacher doing/saying?
2. What are the students doing/saying?
3. What is the task?
Debriefing
DESCRIPTION . . .
ANALYSIS . . .
PREDICTION. . .
There are three stages in the debrief process: description, analysis, and prediction.
Description – sharing of factual description of what visitors actually saw SPECIFIC TO THE POP —not their reactions, judgments, or inferences
Analysis – Individual analysis, Group analysis looking for patterns within and across the classrooms they observed. What was common or NOT common
Prediction - Groups then build on these patterns to move to the predictive stage of the debrief where the goal is to connect teaching and learning. Participants ask themselves, “If you were a student at this school and you did everything you were expected to do, what would you know and be able to do?
Next Level of Work
Members think together about what kinds of resources and supports teachers and administrators would need in order to move instruction to the next level.
Suggestions are about developing clarity, about good instructional practice, and about the leadership and organizational practices needed to support this kind of instruction.
Next week
Next month
Next year
Students
What do students need next?
Individual staff members
In what ways do you intend to refine your own practice as a result of this experience?
Whole school
What do we need to do as a whole school?
Implementation & Sustainability
•Use SIP, AIP and SRI Key Components.
•Create PLCs around Instructional Rounds
•The Leadership Team need to be involved
•Use Staff Development Time
•Be CREATIVE and allow TIME for teachers to observe each other
oSupport staff
oFlexible Learning Spaces
•PLCs feedback to staff findings and devise whole school strategies for implementation.
•INTRODUCE INSTRUCTIONAL ROUNDS AS A WHOLE STAFF.
•Using your School Improvement Plan (SIP) and Annual Improvement Plan (AIP) to filter possible areas of investigation to form ‘Problems of Practice’
•Create PLCs around these focus areas so that multiple Instructional Rounds can occur simultaneously and hold regular PLC meetings
•The Leadership Team need to be involved (esp the Principal)
•Use Staff Development time to initially train the staff to enable a shared understanding
•Be CREATIVE and allow TIME for teachers to observe each other in the classroom
oUse support staff to assist if money and release is a problem
oTake advantage of Flexible Learning Spaces if your school allows
•Devote staff meeting time to allow PLCs to feed back to the remainder of the staff and time to devise whole school strategies for implementation.
•Most importantly…. Celebrate successes!
Reflection
Suggestions for the next level of work are school wide and are not for individual teachers.
The initial awkwardness and discomfort these practices might generate is due to the challenge the rounds process places on the established culture of instructional practice, using language and interaction as the medium of exchange.
If the process dod not result in awkwardness and disequilibrium, it would not affect any significant cultural transformation.
Bill Gates is spot on when it comes to teachers having the opportunity to discuss teacher craft. Time needs to be given for teachers to critique not only their own instruction but also of other teachers in a non-judgemental and non-threatening environment. We can learn so much from each other in our own schools through Instructional Rounds and learning from a network of schools. This has also been happening in the Early Years project and Design Thinking from NoTosh. According to Bill Gates 2012 research, Australia is 9th in the world for proficiency in Reading. Our neighbours New Zealand is 7th, not bad for such a small population.
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