Instructional Rounds and Walkthroughs

District-wide Practices for Advancing our Vision

Learning Targets for this Presentation I can describe key features of the

instructional rounds process. I can compare and contrast the features of

rounds and walkthroughs. Based on the instructional rounds

framework, I can collaboratively develop new protocols for district-wide walkthroughs.

The Book

Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and

Learning

City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel

(Harvard Press, 2009)

Based, in part, on their work with…

Connecticut Superintendents Network Cambridge, MA public schools Ohio Leadership Collaborative Iowa (state and regional levels) Coming to Kentucky via GRREC

Inspired by the medical profession Based on the model of medical rounds Good practice is highly contextualized Education is a “profession in search of a

practice”

Practice: A Definition A set of protocols and processes for

observing, analyzing, discussing and understanding instruction that can be used to improve student learning “at scale.”

The instructional rounds process is an example of a specific practice.

What Rounds are NOT Walkthroughs PLC’s Improvement Strategies

A Key Idea

“The idea behind instructional rounds is that everyone involved is working on their practice, everyone is obliged to be knowledgeable about the common task of instructional improvement, and everyone’s practice should be subject to scrutiny, critique, and improvement.”

Not walkthroughs… Walkthroughs presume that as the instructional

leaders, we know what we are looking for and will monitor to see that it is there.

Little of the walkthrough process confronts us to reflect on our own practice as instructional leaders and to grow in our practice.

Instructional rounds are as much about the leaders growing through the process as the teachers they will observe.

Not PLC’s… PLC’s suffer from too many definitions and

purposes, though the common factor seems to be a group of professionals who collaboratively assist one another in the process of improving their individual and collective practice.

Rounds, then, can be a vehicle for PLC work, when the focus is on gathering evidence about a commonly-identified problem of practice, with the goal of enhancing our overall effectiveness.

Not improvement strategies… Rounds inform and are informed by improvement

strategies. Rounds start with a problem of practice, one that

often emerges from some improvement strategy, and end with ideas for making our improvement strategies more effective.

Rounds are, then, a vehicle for improving our strategies and making us much more reflective about our work.

“Rounds are a special kind of walkthrough, a special kind of network [PLC], and a special

kind of improvement strategy integrated into one practice.”

A Picture of RoundsA four-step process: Identifying a problem of practice from the

theory of action that is guiding our work. Observing classrooms, as individuals or in

small teams, gathering descriptive, non-evaluative evidence.

Debriefing using the ladder of inference. Focusing on the next level of work.

Rounds can be understood as a(n)…

Organizational process Learning process Culture-building process Political process

Rounds as an organizational process School leaders rarely have a clear, common

definition of what high-quality instruction really looks like. Rounds force us to develop common language and common definitions.

Rounds confront the “privacy of teaching.” But teachers are “justifiably skeptical about opening up their classrooms to outsiders when the result is conflicting or vague advice with little practical value to them or their students.”

Rounds as a learning process Most educators are working, for better or

for worse, at, or very near, the limit of their existing knowledge and skill.

PD alone is not an answer. Even with good PD, we often lack the

internal structures, processes, and norms necessary to pick up new knowledge and deploy it in classrooms.

Rounds as a learning process, cont.

Rounds address the gap between PD and our ability to implement the knowledge and skills offered in PD by forcing us to look at our underlying assumptions about instructional improvement and identifying and addressing the structural gaps that prevent meaningful implementation of various initiatives.

Rounds as a culture-building process

Language shapes culture and rounds force participants to develop a common language about practice.

Rounds force us to engage in language that focuses on the outcomes of our behaviors.

Rounds as a political process Teaching is too often seen as a low-skill

profession (a perception that suits the agendas of certain political factions and is unfortunately reinforced sometimes by teachers themselves).

Approaching our work as practice raises the status and esteem of our work as professionals.

Questions for Reflection What are your reactions to the notion that education

is a profession in search of a practice? How would our work differ if we understood our work

as practice? To what extent does our work in this district already

embody the notion of professional practice? In what ways is our work lacking in this dimension?

What specific examples from our district’s experience or from your own professional practice illustrate or conflict with any of the issues noted so far?

Some Core Assumptions (from Ch 1)

The Instructional Core “Task predicts performance” The Ladder of Inference Theories of Action (from Chapter 2)

The Instructional Core The “Instructional Core” is the interaction

of: Level of content Teachers’ knowledge and skill Student engagement

The Instructional Core, continued Only improvements in the instructional core

will actually make a large difference in learning.

Improving one element of the core must lead to improvement in the other two.

Task predicts performance The best way to get a glimpse of the

instructional core is to look at what the students are doing, not necessarily what the teacher is doing.

Feedback and guidance for the teacher should focus on the tasks students complete, with attention to how the three dimensions of the instructional core must be addressed.

The Ladder of Inference In school leadership, we are conditioned to jump

from observation immediately to evaluation. The rounds process asks us to break this

perpetual habit by using the ladder of inference: Description before analysis Analysis before prediction Prediction before evaluation

Why use the Ladder of Inference? Because most of our preconceptions about

high-level practice can’t actually be grounded in strong descriptive language.

The escalating demands of teaching practice are such that the knowledge and skill required to do the work is beyond both the experience and practical knowledge of the people charged with supervision.

Why use the Ladder of Inference? Creating a powerful culture of instructional

practice in this situation requires supervisors to act is if they don’t know; in this way, they learn what they need to know.

After observing teaching, “the first words out of your mouth should be a question to which you do not know the answer.”

More on the Ladder of Inference Description – without commentary or

judgment, what do you see? Analysis – getting people to work at

grouping what they see into mutually agreed-upon categories and make connections based on how the categories are related to each other.

More on the Ladder of Inference Prediction – learning to use the evidence of

observation and analysis to make causal arguments about what kind of student learning we would expect to see as a consequence of the instruction we have observed.

Only then do we get to evaluation, which is not framed by the question, “was this good teaching or not?” Rather, the question is…

The ultimate question is… What is the next level of work in this

classroom, school, or system? Thus, we reinforce the idea that

improvement is a clinical practice. Our job is to make the practice better over time, not to mete out rewards and punishments.

Questions for Reflection What are your reactions to the ladder of

inference? What do you make of the assertion that the

knowledge and skill to actually do the work is beyond the experience and skill of most school leaders?

Is it true that we are conditioned to jump immediately from observation to evaluation? What is the evidence?

How would we act or think differently if we used the ladder of inference?

Theories of Action and the Problem of Practice

We all have theories of action: “If…then” formulas that guide our thinking and

decision-making in all aspects of life. Made up of a set of assumptions and action

strategies to accomplish a particular purpose. They are the “story line that makes a vision and

a strategy concrete.”

An example from everyday life “If I brush my teeth twice a day, then I won’t

get cavities and will keep my teeth for a long time.”

Based on certain assumptions. Based on past experience. Formulated using an action strategy.

Theories of Practice

Most theories of action (sometimes called theories of practice) in the workplace are based on a whole network of assumptions and action strategies much more complex than teeth-brushing.

Hidden theories of action Most of our theories of action are in our

subconscious until we start to intentionally name and work with them.

Espoused theories are the theories we claim to use to solve various problems.

Theories in use are the actual theories of action that guide our behavior.

There is often a gap between our espoused theories and theories in use.

Single-Loop Learning

Single-loop learning involves adapting our action strategies based on feedback; if a solution doesn’t work, we try a new solution without ever questioning our core assumptions (without making our theory of action explicit).

Single-Loop Learning

Image © Houchens, G. W. (2008). Principal theories of practice: Mapping the cognitive structure and effects of instructional leadership (Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisville, 2008). Dissertation Abstracts International: A, 69(10), Apr 2009.

Double-loop Learning Double-loop learning is single-loop learning

with the additional stage of reflection on the process by which we gather feedback and adapt to the consequences of our actions.

Double-loop learning involves questioning our assumptions and trying to improve not only our actions but how we learn from our actions.

Double-Loop Learning

Image © Houchens, G. W. (2008). Principal theories of practice: Mapping the cognitive structure and effects of instructional leadership (Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisville, 2008). Dissertation Abstracts International: A, 69(10), Apr 2009.

Reflective Practice The rounds process, and any other process using

theories of action, challenges us to engage in double-loop learning because it is a much more highly-refined method of reflecting on our work (reflective practice).

In rounds, we will try to make our theories of action about instructional leadership explicit, concretely relating our assumptions and strategies about our work as leaders to the work of teachers and students in the classroom.

Criteria for using theories of action in the instructional rounds framework Must begin with a statement of a causal

relationship between what I do and what constitutes a good result in the classroom.

Must be empirically falsifiable; I must be able to gather evidence that would either prove or disprove that the causal relationship I assume in the theory of action actually exists.

It must be open ended; that is, it must prompt me to further revise and specify the causal relationships I initially identified as I learn more about the consequences of my actions.

A draft theory of action Ideally, theories of action for instructional

rounds should be collaboratively developed. This is just an example.

Exploring the differences among our theories of action would be very revealing.

There are multiple theories of action that could be starting points. This is one example, focused on learning targets.

A first attempt

“If teachers use learning targets to guide instruction, then higher student achievement will be the result.”

Problematic on a couple of levels…

Problems… Vague Makes no reference to the student Leaves out many things that must occur

between the “if” and the “then.” A common problem with theories of action,

which, if explicitly stated, suggest something like, “If we do x, then…a miracle will happen…and then higher student achievement will result.”

A second attempt“If lessons are guided by clear learning targets

aligned to established content standards, and if students and teachers use effective formative and summative assessments of learning aligned to those targets, then students and teachers will have richer information to guide the teaching and learning process and to differentiate learning for individual student needs, and higher student achievement will be the result.”

Reflection Activity Using the criteria (below), analyze the

usefulness of this theory of action for instructional rounds: States a causal relationship Can be proven or disproved with evidence Is open-ended, leading us to further refinements

of the theory of action based on the evidence

Using the theory of action

The theory of action may be broken down into all the assumptions that are embedded within, and analyzed to see what questions arise about our work as school leaders and what is happening or not happening in our schools that challenge the assumption or reveal weaknesses or blind spots in our thinking.

Assumption 1: Questions for practice

If lessons are guided by clear learning targets aligned to established content standards…

How do teachers know how to establish clear learning targets aligned to established content standards?

What established content standards should be used (CCD, college readiness standards, national standards, school/district-level curricula, etc.)?

Assumption 1: More questions for practiceIf lessons are guided by clear learning targets

aligned to established content standards… If teachers know how to establish clear learning

targets, how will we support them in doing so and how will we monitor and document their work?

If teachers know how to establish clear learning targets, do they know how to effectively use those targets to guide lessons?  What does it mean to effectively use a learning target to guide the lesson?

Assumption 2: Questions for practice…and if students and teachers use effective

formative and summative assessments of learning aligned to those targets…

How will teachers learn effective formative and summative assessment techniques?  How will leaders know if teachers know how to do this and how will they support the process? What role with students play?

How will we know if our assessments are aligned to our learning targets?

First things first

We could go on analyzing all the assumptions from the theory of action and their implications, but it makes sense to focus on the first assumption, working our way through the theory of action and revising it as we go, because the questions raised by our first assumption shapes everything that follows.

The Problem of Practice The problem of practice begins to shape

what, specifically, we’ll be looking for during the rounds.

The problem of practice emerges from the questions raised by the assumptions embedded in our theory of action. So, our first assumption…

If lessons are guided by clear learning targets aligned to established content standards…

Might imply the following problems of practice… While teachers have been developing learning

targets, we haven’t really given them any training on how to use the targets to guide lessons.  Is this training needed, or is this obvious?  How would we find out?  If we need to train them, we need to develop a strategy for doing so.

How do we as leaders support and monitor teachers in effectively using the learning targets to guide lessons?

A draft problem of practiceTeachers have been trained on unpacking

standards to develop student-friendly learning targets, which should now guide their lessons.  Many teachers have posted learning targets on their boards.  However, informal classroom walkthroughs suggest that student work isn’t consistently guided by these learning targets.

What does student work tell us about the focus of their lessons?

Criteria for useful problems of practice

Focuses on the instructional core (the interaction of students, teacher, and content)

Is directly observable Is actionable (is within the school or

district’s control and can be improved in real time)

Criteria for useful problems of practice, continued Connects to a broader strategy of

improvement Is high-leverage (if acted on, it would make

a significant difference for student learning) Is not too vague but also not so specific as

to constrain open-ended evidence gathering (perhaps the most difficult criteria of all)

Reflection Activity

Review the draft problem of practice and analyze based on the criteria established above.

The Rounds Protocol Draft a theory of action that emerges with and

from a current problem of practice. Carefully articulate the problem of practice

based on assumptions embedded in the theory of action.

Develop observation protocols for addressing the theory of practice (perhaps just a guiding question).

Gather evidence. Meet to debrief.

The Debrief Meeting: Using the Ladder of Inference Describe what was observed in nonjudgmental,

non-evaluative terms. Analyze to group evidence into categories to

make sense of what was observed. Predict what will be the result in student learning

based on this evidence. Evaluate our theory of action and our current

leadership activities in light of the result.

Rounds versus Walkthroughs

Activity

Based on what you understand so far about instructional rounds, create a t-chart, “top hat” or other organizer to compare and contrast instructional rounds with our experience of walkthroughs in this district.

Unfulfilled ExpectationsWe’ve had conflicted assumptions about the

purpose of our walkthroughs. Are they… Tools to monitor what teachers are doing? Non-judgmental and non-evaluative tools

that inform our instructional practice?

Regardless of our intent, they have been perceived as the former. Why?

Our implicit theory of action of walkthroughs?“If district leaders provide teachers with school-wide

data on what activities are observed in the classroom, and if principals facilitate collaborative discussions with teachers about that data, then teachers will adjust their practices to engage in more effective instructional behaviors, and then ultimately obtain higher levels of student achievement.”  Problems we have encountered with walkthroughs may

partially reflect potential weaknesses in our theory of action.

Problems with the walkthroughs A multitude of indicators. Administrators struggled with defining what the

indicators look like in practice. Teachers got hung up on the vagueness of our

definitions. Teachers (and, perhaps, administrators) focused

more on getting the check mark than internalizing what the check mark represents.

More problems with walkthroughs Principals were not entirely consistent in

their efforts to intentionally and thoughtfully share walkthrough data with teachers Overwhelmed by multiple priorities? Perhaps harbor their own doubts about the

validity of the process? Lack the skills or confidence to effectively

analyze the walkthrough data with teachers?

Ideas we’ve discussed to improve walkthroughs… Reduce the number of indicators Make improvements to the instrument that

would provide more specificity in our “look-for’s” associated with each indicator Antonetti’s checklist for student engagement?

These steps might address weaknesses in our theory of practice, but…

The challenge with walkthroughs Walkthroughs serve a purpose – monitoring

instruction is one of Marzano’s research-based strategies of effective school leadership, regardless of context.

But should this monitoring work be a primary function of the school or the district leadership teams?

Where does leadership for learning and reflective practice fit in – isn’t this best facilitated at the district level?

A Proposal Develop district-wide walkthrough forms, with a

narrower focus and clearer indicators, to be used by the principal and leadership team of each school.

Establish a simple protocol for teacher-to-teacher walkthroughs.

As a district leadership team, establish instructional rounds as our primary method of continuously refining our own practice.