[progressally_vimeo_video id=’8′ vimeo_id=’281994822′ width=’1200′ height=’700′ ]
[progressally_objectives]
[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”Show Transcript” no=”1/1″]
Welcome to Module 2 of the Instructional Leadership Challenge! In this module, I’m going to take you through a game plan for getting started with classroom visits, and it’s my goal to help you steer clear of many of the pitfalls and dead ends that often cause problems for administrators when they get serious about getting into classrooms.
Let’s begin with the end in mind: I believe every administrator should be in classrooms on an informal basis about 500 times a year, and that comes out to about three visits a day, which is absolutely doable.
But it’s not doable without a good plan, and thanks to detailed feedback from administrators from around the world, I can say with confidence that the plan I’m about to share with you will work if you’re willing to take action.
What I’ve seen a lot of people try to do – and what I tried myself when I was a principal – is to come up with the perfect feedback form and jump right into using it to provide feedback. Don’t do that. In fact, as you’ll see later on, I don’t recommend forms at all, because they make it difficult to develop good professional relationships and have good professional conversations with teachers. Documentation is important, and we’ll get to that soon, but the first order of business is to get started on the right foot.
Ultimately, the quality of your feedback does matter, but I’ve found that too many administrators worry about that too soon in the process. The most important thing as you get started is to make sure it’s a good experience for everyone, because if it is, you’ll make a habit of it. If it’s a bad experience, for you or the teachers you work with, it’ll be too easy to give up.
So I recommend a three-phase plan for getting started. In the first phase, you’ll visit every teacher you supervise very quickly, in no more than five school days. In fact, you can probably get around to every teacher in less than an hour, if you don’t stay very long. We call this the Every Classroom Challenge and the goal is simply to break the ice by making a quick appearance in every classroom.
So why do we do this? If teachers aren’t used to seeing you, they’re going to be surprised when you show up, and that sense of surprise is going to make it difficult to focus on professional growth. So we’re just going to get it out the way, and use this first cycle as a chance to build relationships and make sure your presence in classrooms is a positive experience.
So for your first cycle of visits, don’t take an iPad or a clipboard or anything with you, and don’t try to give any feedback. Don’t even try to leave a nice note, because that’ll slow you down, and you aren’t staying long enough to really have much to say. Just make an appearance, very briefly, in every classroom. Make sure the teacher and students see you, so they can get their initial reaction out of the way, and move on. Your only goal is to visit every classroom to break the ice and build some momentum, so the only thing you need to document is which teachers you’ve visited, so you can make sure you don’t miss anyone.
So get a staff roster, and check off each of your teachers as you visit their classrooms. If you share evaluation duties with other administrators, visit just the teachers you supervise personally. This is going to be very important, because if you try to visit too many teachers, your visits to each teacher are going to be too far apart, and you’re not really going to get a good sense of their practice or have the chance to build relationships through conversation. So again, if you’re part of an admin team, visit just the teachers that you evaluate personally.
Then, the very next day after you’ve visited every teacher once, you’re ready to start the second phase, which we call the Beyond Visibility Challenge.
At this point, you may want to explain your intentions to staff a bit more. You might put a note in your newsletter, or send out an email, or make a quick announcement at a faculty meeting that you’re trying to make it into classrooms more in order to be a more effective leader. Now, don’t say that these are non-evaluative visits, because you may see things that do end up in teachers’ evaluations. We’ll talk more about that later, but for now, if teachers ask point-blank if you’re coming in to evaluate them, you can say that it’s not an official part of the evaluation process, but that you’re hoping to get a better sense of the great things that are taking place in your school every day.
So in this second cycle, we’re going to slow down a bit. Instead of just making an appearance, stay for five or ten minutes, so you can actually pay attention to what’s going on. Continue not to take anything with you, and just show up, with a pleasant look on your face, and pay attention to what’s going on. Chat with the teacher or students briefly, in kind of a “how are you doing today?” kind of way. Look interested, but don’t give any feedback. If you want to, you can send a quick email afterward saying something like “It was great to stop by today” or “nice to see your students working on X today” or something along those lines, but keep it light. No feedback. Again, we’re trying to build positive momentum.
I want you to aim for three visits a day in your second cycle and beyond, so if you supervise thirty teachers, it should take about two weeks or ten days to get around to everyone. In future cycles, you’ll want to visit teachers in the same order, so make sure you document the date of each visit to each teacher. Below this video, you’ll find a downloadable template you can use to create notecards for each teacher to help you track your visits.
Then, after your second cycle of visits, you’re ready for the third cycle, and this is where you will want to start taking notes. I’d recommend just sending a quick email about what you saw, again, with no feedback. Our app Repertoire, which is included with our paid programs, is a great way to write these emails quickly and easily, while also keeping your documentation organized.
In this third cycle, you’ll continue to visit three classrooms a day, but this time, you’ll want to talk a little more with each teacher, so this will take a little bit longer than in your second cycle, and you may even have to follow up with the teacher later in the day or the following day if you can’t talk on the spot. If you can’t talk right away, but you did take notes, I’d encourage you to email those notes right away, but just as raw notes, without any reflective questions or feedback. You might say something like “It was great to stop in today – sorry we didn’t have a chance to chat. Here are my notes from my visit. I’ll try to catch up with you later today.” Do whatever you can do to avoid sending the message “This is serious. We need to talk.” You want people to relax and see this as a positive experience.
We’ll talk more about how to handle these conversations in a later module. But for now, you’re ready to get started! In the next section, we’ll talk about scheduling and protecting time for these visits. I’m Justin Baeder. Thanks again for joining me for the Instructional Leadership Challenge.[/thrive_toggles][/thrive_toggles_group]
[accessally_course_navigation prev_button=’Previous’ next_button=’Next’]