Because the word evidence may have negative connotations for teachers, you may wish to simply refer to your written records as notes.
Make Criterion-Referenced Visits
Descriptive evidence doesn’t stand on its own; it only gains meaning within a set of shared expectations. These shared expectations are drawn from teacher evaluation rubrics, professional standards, curriculum, professional development, strategic plans, and other resources that collectively define professional practice and performance for teachers at your school. We’ll refer to these expectations collectively as the instructional framework that teachers and instructional leaders share.
Even an evidence-based conversation can devolve into little more than philosophizing if it’s not anchored in a shared instructional framework. When the instructional framework takes on the role of defining effective practice, the instructional leader can step out of the role of judge and into a more collegial role. When the framework becomes like a third participant in the conversation between teacher and instructional leader, the discussion can become less focused on evaluation and more focused on evidence-based insights.
It’s important to distinguish between a shared instructional framework and an observation checklist or rating tool. Some instructional frameworks’ criteria describe practice writ large, not individual lessons or activities within a lesson. Not everything that characterizes effective practice will be visible in a single lesson, so we must resist the tendency to turn overall evaluation criteria into observation criteria. Additionally, many sources of shared expectations, such as curriculum guides, are not designed to evaluate teachers, but rather to aid teacher decisionmaking. Rather than using the language of your instructional framework to rate teachers during your visits, you’ll find it most helpful to use this language as the vocabulary of professional conversation.
Make Conversation-Oriented Visits
The immediate goal of spending time in classrooms is to inform the follow-up conversation that must then take place, either face to face or via email. In this conversation, you can provide firsthand observations that can eliminate the teacher’s blind spots and provide rich fodder for discussion. It’s critical, though, that this discussion occur as a conversation and not as a cross-examination. The goal is not to point out flaws and make suggestions for improvement; it’s to enhance both participants’ understanding of the teacher’s current practice as well as the ideal of the instructional framework. This understanding can, in turn, lead to better decisions by both the instructional leader and the teacher.
It’s not unusual for even the most experienced instructional leaders to walk away from these conversations having learned a great deal and having made few or no suggestions. The teacher learns and improves his or her practice not by accepting suggestions, but by developing a deeper understanding of professional practice through evidence-rich, criterion-referenced conversation.
The high-performance instructional leadership model—centered on classroom visits that are frequent, brief, substantive, open ended, evidence based, criterion referenced, and conversation oriented—leads to stronger collegial relationships, better decision making by both parties, and a culture of continual learning.
Day 2 Action Challenge: Find Your Framework
Make a list of documents that comprise your overall instructional framework. The following questions may help you as you compile your list.
Compile a list of these sources, and as soon as possible, gather the actual documents. This will aid you in having framework-linked conversations about classroom practice in the coming weeks. I will elaborate on developing a shared instructional framework with teachers in chapter 13 (page 115).
3
Acknowledging Related Instructional Leadership, Supervision, and Walkthrough Models
In your school, you likely exercise instructional leadership in the context of a multitude of district, state, and professional expectations and policies, which may make it difficult to develop a well-aligned, coherent approach. In this chapter, we explore how the high-performance instructional leadership model compares to other models for instructional supervision and leadership that you may have previously experienced—and may currently be using. Specifically, I compare the high-performance instructional leadership model to formal teacher observations, annual formal evaluations, learning walks and instructional rounds, instructional coaching, and hybrid models of instructional supervision. The reality is that in most schools, several of these models operate at once, perhaps without anyone ever explicitly comparing them. By the end of this chapter, you’ll be clear on how you can achieve your instructional leadership goals in classrooms, without pursuing conflicting aims.
Formal Teacher Observations
The most familiar instructional supervision model is the formal teacher observation process, which most public schools and many private schools require.
While the details vary, typically:
These features may be obvious, but they will serve as important points of contrast as we explore other models in this chapter.
In many schools, individual teachers and administrators do not have the discretion to modify or opt out of the formal observation and evaluation process, which may be governed by board policies, collective bargaining agreements, and even state law. For this reason, if you are responsible for evaluating teachers, you’ll want to conduct your high-performance instructional leadership visits in addition to, rather than instead of, formal observations.