Lisa PruittProgram Director, District and School Support Services

Understand the importance of the instructional core

Understand the steps of instructional rounds and the learning goals behind each step

Develop skills in observing teaching and learning—describing what we see

Develop skills in debriefing an observation Build relationships within the group

Study your picture, but do not show it to anyone else.

The TASK: The group must line up in sequential order according to picture progression.

Introduce yourself and then describe your picture to others and determine your place in the order.

Describe the relationship(s) of this activity to group observation of a classroom.

Can… Can’tStrengthen and deepen an existing improvement strategy

Compensate for the lack of an improvement strategy

Build and reinforce a culture of improvement

Repair a pathologic culture

Provide clarity and focus for existing professional development

Compensate for a lack of focused professional development

Build pathways into multiple leadership roles

Compensate for a weak human resource strategy

Walkthroughs Networks Improvement Strategies

Instructional rounds sits at the intersection of

three current popular approaches to the improvement of teaching and learning.

The Instructional Core

Theory of Action

Hawkins, 1974; Cohen & Ball, 2003

1. Increase in student learning only occurs as a consequence of improvements in the level of content, teacher’s knowledge and skill, and student engagement.

2. If you change any single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two.

3. If you can’t see it in the core, it’s not there.

4. Tasks predict performance.5. The real accountability system is in the

tasks that students are asked to do.6. We learn to do the work by doing the

work, not by telling other people to do the work, not by having done the work at some time in the past, and not by hiring experts who can act as proxies for our knowledge about how to do the work.

7. Description before analysis, analysis before prediction, prediction before evaluation.

A set of casual connections, usually in the if-then

form that serves as a story line that connects broad visions with the more specific strategiesused to improve the instructional core.

If we implement _____, then _____ ,and _____.

If I/we create environments of shared collaboration focused on improving standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment, then shared responsibility and shared accountability will create urgency for change and support continuous improvement of learning for all students.

If we develop the efficacy of students so that they

become active participants in their learning, then

students will fully engage in school and develop

the habits of mind that lead to successful lifelong

earning.

What it is... What it is not…

Culture Building Practice Supervision and Evaluation

Instructional Problem-Solving

Implementation Check

A Process An Event

Descriptive, Predictive, Diagnostic

Normative, Judgmental

Professionalizing Bureaucratic

Everyone involved is working on their practice.

Everyone is obliged to be knowledgeable about

the common task of instructional improvement

Everyone’s practice should be subject to scrutiny, critique, and improvement.

Using one green post-it per idea, write what you are hoping to gain from participation in the consortium.

Using one pink post-it per idea, write what you are leery or “fearful” about in regard to your participation in the consortium.

What norms should we have as a group to

maximize the chances of our hopes being

realized and to minimize the possibility of our

“fears” coming true?

Identifying the problem of practice

Observing

Debriefing

Focusing on the next level of work

Based on data

Based on dialogue

Based on current work

Seventy percent of our students in special education did not pass the state test last year. In particular, they did not do well on the open-response questions in both math and English language arts. In many cases, they left those problems blank. We may not be providing these students with enough practice on open-response questions. We may be providing too much assistance so that when they have to tackle these prompts on their own, they do not know where to start.

POP: What kinds of tasks are students being asked to do in class?

Evidence of what you see—not what you think about what you see.

Searching for cause-and-effect relationships between what we observe teachers and students doing and what students actually know and are able to do as a consequence.

Sort the cards in your envelope into two piles: Description includes observer’s judgment Description without judgment

Talk with a table partner about the defining attributes of each pile.

Turn two of the judgmental statements into nonjudgmental statements.

To build a body of evidence about what is going

on in classrooms and how it seemed to bear on

the problem of practice.

1. What are teachers doing and saying?

2. What are students doing and saying?

3. What is the task?

As you watch the following video clip of a 5th grade ELD classroom, write down: What the teacher is doing and saying?

What the students are doing and saying?

What is the task?

Share the evidence you saw in the lesson with a table partner.

Grade, Content, Student Demographics

What are students being asked to do? What are they doing?

Patterns of interaction

Question types and patterns of response

Time

What are you learning?

What are you working on?

How will you know if you are finished?

How will you know if what you’ve done is good quality?

Read through the two options for debriefing.

Under what conditions would it be appropriate to use either option?

Need to be framed in the context of the district or school

Fine-grained—as specific as possible Decide how information from rounds

will be shared with staff Site leader expected to report back at

next meeting

Choose a “doodle” picture. Record on the picture

your reflections about: the discussions we have had the connection of rounds to your current

improvement efforts ideas you have about the instructional core ideas that you want to know more about how you learned today any other thoughts about the morning, process,

or content

November 30 January 19 March 8 April 5

4-5 classrooms that will offer evidence of a problem of practice

30 minute overview of context by admin 90 minutes of observation time 90 minutes for debrief and next levels of

workTOTAL = 3.5 – 4 Hours 8:00a.m.-12:00p.m.

Need room for overview and debrief Work with Lisa for morning treats for

group