Now We're Talking. Justin Baeder

because it’s only through relationships that we can inspire the necessary level of commitment to produce change (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). There’s no better way to strengthen professional relationships than to have substantive instructional conversations on a regular basis, as Charlotte Danielson (2015), author of the most widely used teacher evaluation framework, notes in her book Talk About Teaching! Leading Professional Conversations. Danielson (2015) writes that “informal conversations are critical to the culture in a school; they help convey respect and build trust across the hierarchy” (p. 20), and argues that when “conducted in an environment of trust and respect, they offer important opportunities for professional learning” (p. 25).

      Yet if these conversations are to be more than mere philosophizing, they must stem from firsthand experience with teaching and learning—experience that teachers and leaders gain together in the classroom, where the core work of teaching and learning takes place. If spending time in classrooms is essential for effective management, it’s even more essential for high-performance instructional leadership and for building strong professional relationships.

Enhance Professional Development

      When you visit classrooms, you can see for yourself what teachers and students are doing on a daily basis. This information is valuable in its own right, but it becomes dramatically more valuable when put into context through a conversation with the teacher. These conversations can provide some of the best professional development available anywhere, for both the instructional leader and the teacher (Danielson, 2015). Discussing evidence from the lesson, relating it to shared expectations, and talking about next steps is an incredibly powerful process. It gives the teacher information about his or her own practice, and it gives you information about both what teachers are doing and how they’re thinking about their work.

      For instructional leaders who are also organizational leaders, the value of this information is even greater. Consider the huge range of decisions school administrators must make or advise on: strategic planning, scheduling, professional development, teacher evaluation, and so on. The list is nearly endless. Every one of these decisions—and your overall leadership—will be better if you are equipped with current, thorough knowledge of what teachers are doing and how they think about teaching and learning.

      Discussing evidence from the lesson, relating it to shared expectations, and talking about next steps is an incredibly powerful process.

Day 1 Action Challenge: Determine Your Baseline for Classroom Visits

      If high-performance instructional leadership is to fulfill its potential, you can’t limit it to special occasions, specific projects, or year-end teacher evaluations. Every school leader visits classrooms from time to time, but occasional visits aren’t enough. You need both a clear model to follow and a disciplined habit to put classroom visits into practice consistently.

      The first step is to take an honest look at your current practice. Review your records, such as walkthrough logs or your calendar, and determine how much time you typically spend in classrooms. The following questions may help you in your assessment.

      

How many times per year do you visit each teacher on an informal basis?

      

On average, how much time elapses between two visits to a given teacher’s classroom?

      

How many total classroom visits do you make in a year?

      

On how many days per month do you visit no classrooms at all (such as days you’re at district meetings)?

      

How many teachers have gone a month or more without seeing you in their classroom?

      If you don’t have access to clear records, it’s perfectly fine to estimate, but be honest with yourself and answer as many of these questions as possible. Because we tend to overestimate our time in classrooms and underestimate our tendency to avoid certain teachers, I’ve worded the questions in several different ways to help you determine your baseline accurately. We tend to recall our best days and extrapolate them to the rest of the year, so if you visited five classrooms one day in October, good for you—but is this typical behavior comparable to other days of the year? Ensure that you are honest in your responses.

      Acknowledging your current practice is the first step. Don’t exaggerate, but don’t berate yourself, either. If your baseline is zero, you’ve no doubt been doing other important work to lead your school. And you’ve come to the right place to help you improve your instructional leadership.

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      Following the High-Performance Instructional Leadership Model

      What can you do to maximize your impact on teacher practice when you visit classrooms? Most instructional leaders conduct mandatory formal observations and make an effort to visit classrooms more often, but these visits often seem limited in value—especially prearranged formal observations, which Marshall (2013) describes, in his experience as a principal, as “dog-and-pony shows—contrived, unrepresentative, nervous-making lessons solely for my benefit” (p. 60). Given all the other pressures we face, if classroom visits don’t provide considerable benefits for both instructional leaders and teachers, there is simply no incentive to make time for visits on a consistent basis.

      To ensure that our time in classrooms has a positive impact on student learning and is professionally rewarding for everyone involved, the high-performance instructional leadership model consists of classroom visits that are:

      

Frequent—Approximately eighteen biweekly visits per teacher per year

      

Brief—Around five to fifteen minutes

      

Substantive—More than just making an appearance

      

Open ended—Focused on the teacher’s instructional decision making, not just narrow data collection

      

Evidence based—Centered on what actually happens in the classroom

      

Criterion referenced—Linked to a shared set of standards or expectations

      

Conversation oriented—Designed to lead to rich, engaging conversations between teachers and instructional leaders

      I drew these characteristics from existing models and practices in our profession (see chapter 3 for detailed comparisons), but here they form a unique approach designed to give teachers and instructional leaders the greatest possible benefits from classroom visits. In this chapter, we explore each of these criteria in a bit more depth. I will also discuss the concept of a shared instructional framework—expectations shared between teachers and instructional leaders that collectively define professional practice and performance for teachers at a school—and encourage leaders to