MASSP News Center

By Pat Wilson O’Leary
Vicksburg Community Schools

The classroom is where the rubber meets the road in schools. Our best assessments, curriculum, and instruction make it or don’t within the separate four walls of the classroom.

This article is second in a series of three concerning walk-through observations. As clarified in the first art, what you observe in the classrooms won’t be of most importance if you haven’t done your legwork first:
• You have defined your purposes for walk-throughs (WT).
• You have brainstormed with staff what your School Improvement Plan looks and sounds like at each grade level and content area.
• You have invited teachers to accompany you.
• You have decided what note taking method you will use.
• You are ready to make your quick visit.

The plan looks like this:

1. Move away from the door, to the back or side of the classroom.
2. Scan the student population and notice where their attention is focused.
3. Walk to all four walls. Notice what is on the walls, white board, or screen.
4. Talk to two or three students, without interrupting instruction.
5. Thank the teacher and students and leave the classroom quietly.

In our first article, we defined a WT as a 5-10 minute focused, unscheduled observation in a classroom. When you enter the room, move away from the door. Show your signal to the teacher that you are in for a WT, not delivering a message or coming for a child. Some principals show the back of their clip board which is labeled “WALK-THROUGH” in bold letters. Some pull an index card from their pocket.

Resist taking your laptop. The laptop increases teacher concern, takes some of your valuable observation time for set-up, and confines you to one part of the room. If more than one administrator or teacher is in the room, separate and do not talk to each other. Otherwise, you risk distracting or worrying the teacher you are observing

Depending on the agreements you have with your staff, you will look for one or all of the factors listed below. Or you and your staff may be focusing on a specific program component; i.e. guided reading, math manipulatives, algebraic thinking, etc. Observe and note only those factors to which you and your staff have agreed.

Student engagement: Scan the student audience. Where is their attention? Note the number attending to the teacher, the activity, screen, text. If taking notes, do not write judgment statements like “A few students in class were bored.”). Instead, write data statements like: “At 10:25 there are 15 of 22 students looking at teacher. Five students writing, 2 have head on desk and eyes closed.”

Classroom management: What evidence do you see of classroom management? Look for and note bulletin boards which state a discipline plan, i.e. classroom rules, rewards, and consequences. What routines are evident?

Examples of Classroom Rules and Routines
• The teacher asks for and only call on students who raise their hands.
• A bathroom pass is hanging by the door, and a student quietly gets up, takes the pass, exits the room, and returns quietly.

Curriculum: How do you know what is being taught? Note if the objective, big idea, or goal is on the board, or monitor all student responses to see if they know the lesson objectives. Are they frequently stated by the teacher.

Instruction: What methods of instruction are being used? Is it lecture, whole group, individual, or small group? At what level of Bloom’s Taxonomy are the questions and activities geared? Are a variety of methods and thinking skills encouraged?

Walk the Walls: Don’t catch yourself in one corner of the room. What is visible in the classroom? Brain research encourages educators at at all levels to have an attractive, colorful room with cues for content and processes being taught. Do you see Word Walls, number lines, timelines, writing process posters, a Periodic Table, maps? Are items fresh or brown and curled at the edges? Is the wall being used as a current teaching tool? List what you see.

Talk to students: During work time, quietly ask several students, “What are you doing?” “Why?” If a student replies, “Seat work,” ask a more probing question like, “What is the content and/or purpose of this work?” The students’ responses will indicate if students are just being compliant or if they are really thinking.

Resist going to your office and rewriting the notes. It will take too much time and be an excuse to not do WTs. If you have told teachers you are keeping notes, make a copy for your file and return the original to the teacher when you talk. Do not keep copies if that is not your agreement. Hidden records will break the trust you built in setting up the WT process. This data is meant to provide specific conversation starters and dialogue enhancers.

With practice, you will perfect the 5 – 10 minute scan. You will gather data to share with your teachers.

The final article to appear in MASSP newsletter in May of 2008 will clarify the sharing of data and coaching process.

Pat Wilson O’Leary, Instructional Specialist
Vicksburg Community Schools
301 S. Kalamazoo St.
Vicksburg, Michigan 49097
269-321-1038

Pat is available to contract Walk-Through Training in your district.

Article of Interest
Ziegler, Corrie. “Walk-Throughs Provide Stepped-Up Support.” Journal of Staff Development, Fall 2006 (Vol. 27, No. 4).