Lisa Pruitt Program 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’t Strengthen 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

STUDENTCONTENTTEACHER 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 strategies used 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 PracticeSupervision and Evaluation Instructional Problem-SolvingImplementation Check A ProcessAn Event Descriptive, Predictive, Diagnostic Normative, Judgmental ProfessionalizingBureaucratic

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 5 th 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 work TOTAL = 3.5 – 4 Hours 8:00a.m.-12:00p.m.  Need room for overview and debrief  Work with Lisa for morning treats for group