Instructional Rounds

Developing a culture that is open to feedback and reflection is essential to a turnaround school. One of the key strategies that I implemented when I began as a Turnaround Principal was Instructional Rounds. There are different names - Teacher Rounds, Rounds, teachers observing teachers, or classroom walk-throughs. Whatever you call them, the idea is similar to how doctors observe practice and use those observations to reflect and grow on their own practice.

In the book, Instructional Rounds in Education by City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel, the author's outline the importance of peers observing other instructional practices, sharing feedback, and reflecting on their own instruction. This practice is powerful - and provides both observers and practitioners the opportunity to reflect on instructional practices and next steps.

I knew that I wanted to embed the concepts of rounds into the vision at Dr. Weeks, but I needed to accommodate the time that we had available, the size of our staff, and the desire to involve everyone instead of just a few teachers. I ended up creating a model within our collaborative team planning time (50 minutes daily) where teachers would meet for a pre-brief on an identified topic, observe in a classroom for 10-15 minutes, and then de-brief with the practitioner using a "warm feedback/cool feedback" protocol. We tweaked the routine as we moved forward, but the commitment to the rounds remained consistent. The teachers express regularly how powerful this tool has become for them - they have been able to increase their collaboration across grade level teams, they have become more comfortable asking for support with practice, and they have become more reflective about what they see in their own rooms and in the rooms of their peers. It never fails that I have an experience where I get goosebumps when I am facilitating rounds because there is some moment where that "a-ha" happens and you can watch the impact of this process in action.

This week, we did instructional rounds around writing - which is our instructional focus area. We spent two days observing writing practice across all content areas and in every grade level. One of the most powerful experiences was in a 5th grade mathematics classroom. In this classroom, students were working (and they were working hard!) on complex tasks by using the read, write, and draw strategies. The teacher was using over the shoulder conferencing with students as they worked independently. When a student expressed that they were stuck, the teacher asked questions to try and help the student become "unstuck" without giving the answers, and even shared exemplar student work with comments to encourage student thinking. The teacher took a picture of one student's work (not the student with the most complete response or the best writing) and put it immediately on the smart board. The student explained her thinking and then the other students coached her and asked her questions to move the exemplar student forward in her thinking. I was so excited that other teachers were able to experience this high level instruction. It is usually just administrators that get to observe this kind of excellence of both teacher practice and student achievement, but by using the rounds process, we had many teachers now able to participate in the process of observing and reflecting on how we define effective teaching.

The commitment to rounds is part of the vision that I have for our turnaround school - one with a truly collaborative teacher culture and where students are are academically challenged and supported. The time that we give to instructional rounds is scheduled in the calendar and maintained as a priority. If you can implement instructional rounds in any capacity, I strongly believe that it could be a gamechanger for you in terms of turning around your school culture and raising the level of instruction in classrooms.

Here are some great inspirations from our instructional rounds that might inspire you to take that first step.

Managing the vision

When took over as leader in a turnaround school, I worked with the staff to develop our vision. We set check points for what we expected to see by October, by January, and by the end of year one as evidence of impact based on successful shifts in practice to align with our new vision ("Every child. Every day. College and career ready."). Our first year of turnaround has seen growth - in culture and climate, data driven instructional practices, and strategies to support more rigorous, common core aligned instruction. But our targets require more than just incremental change. We are charged with making dramatic gains in student achievement - so we need to make decisions moving forward about how much change can we effectively implement in order to get our students where they need to be.

One of the criticisms of education is that we change to new programs before we have been able to master the current program. For turnaround teachers, the amount of change can be overwhelming and difficult to manage. Supporting the changes means supporting the teachers and engaging the school community in understanding the purpose of the changes that are being implemented. Without a sense of mastery, we become easily frustrated and can lose sight of the vision that we are working so hard to achieve. Developing a community where teachers support one another and are able to share feedback to their peers about instruction is an important part of managing the change and the vision of a turnaround school.

We initiated a practice called "Instructional Rounds" where we visit classrooms in teams to provide warm and cool feedback to a practitioner on a focus area (Problem of Practice) that we establish ahead of time. This practice has been pivotal in building our team collaboration, reflection, and support of our vision. Moving in to year two of our turnaround plan, we will need to leverage every ounce of of that collaborative power in order to move us toward substantial growth in student achievement.

The amount of change facing education now can be overwhelming. Being a turnaround teacher, or a turnaround leader, can feel like you have weight of the world on your shoulders. The power of instructional rounds is where observing practice, networking, and planning for improvement meet. As we are managing our vision moving forward, our team makes all of the difference. Without a team of people who are deeply dedicated to the children we serve and the work that we do, we cannot achieve our vision. Being a turnaround teacher means being open to change. As we move closer to our vision, we must stay rooted in our purpose and embrace the changes. We cannot achieve our goals by staying where we are. Change is the only option.