At Morton Ranch Jr. High we are working purposefully to
create accomplished masters in the art of teaching.
It is nearly impossible to become masterful at anything worthwhile without feedback. This is especially
true for complex tasks that have a variety of dynamic variables. Accomplished teaching is exactly this type of
task. To teach so that all students
learn is daunting. How do we provide feedback to promote
reflective practice that maximizes the potential for teachers to become masters
of their craft? I would argue that the feedback would have these
characteristics:
1)
focused on a target skill or concept (specific
in nature)
2)
occurs frequently
3)
is timely
4)
supports reflection and dialogue about
instruction
In my experience as a teacher and an administrator, I have
found that the instruments used for appraisal are woefully inadequate for this
task. They typically involve longer,
less frequent visits that are inspectional in nature. It is a struggle to get people to be
receptive to feedback if they feel they are being judged. Judgment of effectiveness is at the heart of
these tools. I am not trying to minimize
the importance of these tools or the appraisal process, but they do not meet
our needs for growing master teachers.
In the spring of 2014, my administrative team, instructional
coaches and I began working on an instrument to conduct instructional rounds. The instrument was designed to reflect the
feedback characteristics described above.
The process we were working on has been called a number of different
things: instructional rounds, snapshot
visits, mega monitoring, and power walks, just to name a few. We landed on the term “learning walks” and
began the process of collaborating about what should be included.
I believe the journey of creating, communicating,
calibrating and executing this reflective tool has brought about an instructional
focus that is a challenge for most campuses.
As I mentioned in my previous posts, we have an instructional model that
we refer to as our Accomplished Teaching Model.
In an effort to provide feedback that would support our instructional
expectations, we used the descriptors from the quality first time instruction
area of the model as our primary focus.
Our instrument is in its third version.
Each evolutionary step has been a collaborative effort designed to give
deeper alignment to the model.
Once the instrument was created, it was time to communicate
the purpose and process to staff. As a
principal, one of the key decisions that dictates success for any initiative is
the manner that it is rolled out.
Because I wanted to have a more intimate, and interactive setting, I
made the decision to devote an entire day to meeting with teams each period
during their conference time. I created
a Learning Walk Orientation to discuss why we were moving to the use of learning
walks. I also made a point to clearly describe
what they were, and were not. I wanted
to assure the staff that this was not an additional appraisal process.
After I met with the staff, it was time to work on
inter-observer reliability. We shared
with staff that we would be visiting in small groups in an effort to get on the
same page with the use of the instrument. During this period, we did not
provide feedback to the teachers. We
conducted the learning walk and then debriefed on what we saw afterward. This process of walking together and having
focused conversations about what we saw was powerful. The instructional conversations were engaging
and helped us to develop a common vision about what we were looking for based
upon our instrument. I created the instrument as a Google form. The Google platform is ideal because the
information captured moves into a spreadsheet that is easy to sort. The auto emailer feature was also perfect for
providing immediate feedback to staff.
With the lessons learned from the prior school year, we
broadened the involvement in learning walks in 2014-2015 to include our
Instructional Coaches and teachers. Our core content Instructional Coaches led
groups of their teachers into classrooms.
After completing the learning walks, the coach would facilitate a collaborative
conversation with the teachers involved in the walk. The learning walk instrument was used to give
focus to the conversation. Ultimately,
the coach would enter the feedback for the team so that the visited teacher could
reflect upon it. This is job-embedded
professional learning at its finest.
Beyond providing staff with specific feedback, the collected
data helps to paint a picture of the instructional landscape. With hundreds of points of data, gathered by
a variety of observers, you can feel confident about what is happening in
classrooms. In February of 2015, I met
with staff in small groups to share the group data. Rather than show a series of graphs or
tables, I shared the data as a narrative about a typical class at MRJH. The staff picked out celebrations and areas
to grow.
In addition to sharing what was happening in our school, I
wanted to gather teacher voice about how we could make it better. I facilitated a Chalk Talk Protocol to gather
feedback at the end of each meeting.
Focus questions included:
Focus questions included:
How would you prefer to receive feedback after learning
walks?
The learning walk process could be improved for me by…
This feedback was used to improve our third version of the MRJH
Learning Walk instrument we are using for the 2015-2016 school year.
I am extremely proud of the work my staff has put into this
process. We ended last school year with
well over 1,000 learning walks conducted by administrators, instructional
coaches and teachers. I am proud of my
staff for leaning into the discomfort of having many people in their rooms,
holding up a mirror to their instructional practices. I think it is a tragic irony that educators,
who have great pride in giving quality feedback, would struggle so greatly to receive
it. It is imperative that we drop our
defenses, and open ourselves to the collegial feedback that is necessary for us
to become accomplished masters of our craft.
Our kids are depending on us. As the lead learner at my campus, I am savoring the journey that this purposeful walk is taking us on.
