1. Instructional Rounds and Walkthroughs
District-wide Practices for Advancing our Vision

2. Learning Targets for this Presentation
I can describe key features of the instructional rounds process.
I can compare and contrast the features of rounds and walkthroughs.
Based on the instructional rounds framework, I can collaboratively develop new protocols for district-wide walkthroughs.

3. City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel
The Book
Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning
City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel
(Harvard Press, 2009)

4. Based, in part, on their work with…
Connecticut Superintendents Network
Cambridge, MA public schools
Ohio Leadership Collaborative
Iowa (state and regional levels)
Coming to Kentucky via GRREC

5. Inspired by the medical profession
Based on the model of medical rounds
Good practice is highly contextualized
Education is a “profession in search of a practice”
Doctors and nurses have a huge body of technical knowledge and skill; the real challenge of doing their work effectively is in applying that knowledge and skill to a particular patient’s needs so that healing can take place.

6. Practice: A Definition
A set of protocols and processes for observing, analyzing, discussing and understanding instruction that can be used to improve student learning “at scale.”
The instructional rounds process is an example of a specific practice.

7. What Rounds are NOT Walkthroughs PLC’s Improvement Strategies
This begins material from the Introduction to the Book. While rounds are not these things, they exhibit very similar characteristics to walkthroughs, PLC’s, and improvement strategies.

8. A Key Idea
“The idea behind instructional rounds is that everyone involved is working on their practice, everyone is obliged to be knowledgeable about the common task of instructional improvement, and everyone’s practice should be subject to scrutiny, critique, and improvement.”

9. Not walkthroughs…
Walkthroughs presume that as the instructional leaders, we know what we are looking for and will monitor to see that it is there.
Little of the walkthrough process confronts us to reflect on our own practice as instructional leaders and to grow in our practice.
Instructional rounds are as much about the leaders growing through the process as the teachers they will observe.
So, rounds are a lot like walkthroughs, but key differences lie in who is the focus of the work (in the case of rounds, the leaders are the focus, especially on identifying the next level of work for us as leaders). Also, rounds are unique in terms of the theoretical focus, the emphasis on understanding our underlying assumptions and how those assumptions shape our strategies, and experimentally testing our assumptions and strategies to see if we are accomplish what we say we intend to.

10. Not PLC’s…
PLC’s suffer from too many definitions and purposes, though the common factor seems to be a group of professionals who collaboratively assist one another in the process of improving their individual and collective practice.
Rounds, then, can be a vehicle for PLC work, when the focus is on gathering evidence about a commonly-identified problem of practice, with the goal of enhancing our overall effectiveness.
Or, conversely, PLC’s can be seen as a COMPONENT of rounds.

11. Not improvement strategies…
Rounds inform and are informed by improvement strategies.
Rounds start with a problem of practice, one that often emerges from some improvement strategy, and end with ideas for making our improvement strategies more effective.
Rounds are, then, a vehicle for improving our strategies and making us much more reflective about our work.

12. “Rounds are a special kind of walkthrough, a special kind of network [PLC], and a special kind of improvement strategy integrated into one practice.”

13. A Picture of Rounds A four-step process:
Identifying a problem of practice from the theory of action that is guiding our work.
Observing classrooms, as individuals or in small teams, gathering descriptive, non-evaluative evidence.
Debriefing using the ladder of inference.
Focusing on the next level of work.
Ladders of inference will be discussed later. The last point is vital. The last point of instructional rounds is to ask ourselves, “What do we do next as leaders?”

14. Rounds can be understood as a(n)…
Organizational process
Learning process
Culture-building process
Political process

15. Rounds as an organizational process
School leaders rarely have a clear, common definition of what high-quality instruction really looks like. Rounds force us to develop common language and common definitions.
Rounds confront the “privacy of teaching.” But teachers are “justifiably skeptical about opening up their classrooms to outsiders when the result is conflicting or vague advice with little practical value to them or their students.”

16. Rounds as a learning process
Most educators are working, for better or for worse, at, or very near, the limit of their existing knowledge and skill.
PD alone is not an answer.
Even with good PD, we often lack the internal structures, processes, and norms necessary to pick up new knowledge and deploy it in classrooms.
We are often working hard applying the last known treatment for a disease we have already cured, when the patient has developed a new condition.
“The problem is not that schools don’t have access to knowledge. The problem is that they don’t have a process for translating that knowledge systematically into practice.”

17. Rounds as a learning process, cont.
Rounds address the gap between PD and our ability to implement the knowledge and skills offered in PD by forcing us to look at our underlying assumptions about instructional improvement and identifying and addressing the structural gaps that prevent meaningful implementation of various initiatives.

18. Rounds as a culture-building process
Language shapes culture and rounds force participants to develop a common language about practice.
Rounds force us to engage in language that focuses on the outcomes of our behaviors.

19. Rounds as a political process
Teaching is too often seen as a low-skill profession (a perception that suits the agendas of certain political factions and is unfortunately reinforced sometimes by teachers themselves).
Approaching our work as practice raises the status and esteem of our work as professionals.

20. Questions for Reflection
What are your reactions to the notion that education is a profession in search of a practice?
How would our work differ if we understood our work as practice?
To what extent does our work in this district already embody the notion of professional practice? In what ways is our work lacking in this dimension?
What specific examples from our district’s experience or from your own professional practice illustrate or conflict with any of the issues noted so far?

21. Some Core Assumptions (from Ch 1)
The Instructional Core
“Task predicts performance”
The Ladder of Inference
Theories of Action (from Chapter 2)
There are actually Seven Principles of Instructional Rounds, which we may explore in greater depth if we decide to fully implement the rounds process. These are the highlights. We’ll explore theories of action in some depth during this presentation.

22. The Instructional Core
The “Instructional Core” is the interaction of:
Level of content
Teachers’ knowledge and skill
Student engagement

23. The Instructional Core, continued
Only improvements in the instructional core will actually make a large difference in learning.
Improving one element of the core must lead to improvement in the other two.

24. Task predicts performance
The best way to get a glimpse of the instructional core is to look at what the students are doing, not necessarily what the teacher is doing.
Feedback and guidance for the teacher should focus on the tasks students complete, with attention to how the three dimensions of the instructional core must be addressed.
Consider implications of the first point for posting of learning targets.

25. The Ladder of Inference
In school leadership, we are conditioned to jump from observation immediately to evaluation.
The rounds process asks us to break this perpetual habit by using the ladder of inference:
Description before analysis
Analysis before prediction
Prediction before evaluation
From Argyris and Schon
First point: even though our categories and definitions of evaluation are widely variant from one school leader to the next

26. Why use the Ladder of Inference?
Because most of our preconceptions about high-level practice can’t actually be grounded in strong descriptive language.
The escalating demands of teaching practice are such that the knowledge and skill required to do the work is beyond both the experience and practical knowledge of the people charged with supervision.
This is challenging stuff. Emphasize the point at the beginning of this slide.

27. Why use the Ladder of Inference?
Creating a powerful culture of instructional practice in this situation requires supervisors to act is if they don’t know; in this way, they learn what they need to know.
After observing teaching, “the first words out of your mouth should be a question to which you do not know the answer.”

28. More on the Ladder of Inference
Description – without commentary or judgment, what do you see?
Analysis – getting people to work at grouping what they see into mutually agreed-upon categories and make connections based on how the categories are related to each other.

29. More on the Ladder of Inference
Prediction – learning to use the evidence of observation and analysis to make causal arguments about what kind of student learning we would expect to see as a consequence of the instruction we have observed.
Only then do we get to evaluation, which is not framed by the question, “was this good teaching or not?” Rather, the question is…

30. The ultimate question is…
What is the next level of work in this classroom, school, or system?
Thus, we reinforce the idea that improvement is a clinical practice. Our job is to make the practice better over time, not to mete out rewards and punishments.

31. Questions for Reflection
What are your reactions to the ladder of inference?
What do you make of the assertion that the knowledge and skill to actually do the work is beyond the experience and skill of most school leaders?
Is it true that we are conditioned to jump immediately from observation to evaluation? What is the evidence?
How would we act or think differently if we used the ladder of inference?

32. Theories of Action and the Problem of Practice
We all have theories of action:
“If…then” formulas that guide our thinking and decision-making in all aspects of life.
Made up of a set of assumptions and action strategies to accomplish a particular purpose.
They are the “story line that makes a vision and a strategy concrete.”
Understanding and effectively using theories of action to enhance our self-reflective capacities can greatly improve our professional practice. A unique feature of the rounds process is its use of theories of action as a conceptual framework.

33. An example from everyday life
“If I brush my teeth twice a day, then I won’t get cavities and will keep my teeth for a long time.”
Based on certain assumptions.
Based on past experience.
Formulated using an action strategy.
Assumptions: a myriad of assumptions about what constitutes good dental hygiene and how to accomplish it.
Experience: I’ve had cavities, but not in a long time, because my diet has improved and so have my brushing and flossing habits.
Action strategy – brush, then no cavities.
Testable – but also tentative – I’ve gotten cavities as an adult, gums have changed, body chemistry changes, etc.
Ask participants for other examples from everyday life.

34. Theories of Practice
Most theories of action (sometimes called theories of practice) in the workplace are based on a whole network of assumptions and action strategies much more complex than teeth-brushing.

35. Hidden theories of action
Most of our theories of action are in our subconscious until we start to intentionally name and work with them.
Espoused theories are the theories we claim to use to solve various problems.
Theories in use are the actual theories of action that guide our behavior.
There is often a gap between our espoused theories and theories in use.
Exposing this gap and uncovering our tacit theories of action is a fundamental step to reflective practice.

36. Single-Loop Learning
Single-loop learning involves adapting our action strategies based on feedback; if a solution doesn’t work, we try a new solution without ever questioning our core assumptions (without making our theory of action explicit).

37. Single-Loop Learning
Image © Houchens, G. W. (2008). Principal theories of practice: Mapping the cognitive structure and effects of instructional leadership (Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisville, 2008). Dissertation Abstracts International: A, 69(10), Apr 2009.

38. Double-loop Learning
Double-loop learning is single-loop learning with the additional stage of reflection on the process by which we gather feedback and adapt to the consequences of our actions.
Double-loop learning involves questioning our assumptions and trying to improve not only our actions but how we learn from our actions.

39. Double-Loop Learning
Image © Houchens, G. W. (2008). Principal theories of practice: Mapping the cognitive structure and effects of instructional leadership (Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisville, 2008). Dissertation Abstracts International: A, 69(10), Apr 2009.

40. Reflective Practice
The rounds process, and any other process using theories of action, challenges us to engage in double-loop learning because it is a much more highly-refined method of reflecting on our work (reflective practice).
In rounds, we will try to make our theories of action about instructional leadership explicit, concretely relating our assumptions and strategies about our work as leaders to the work of teachers and students in the classroom.

41. Criteria for using theories of action in the instructional rounds framework
Must begin with a statement of a causal relationship between what I do and what constitutes a good result in the classroom.
Must be empirically falsifiable; I must be able to gather evidence that would either prove or disprove that the causal relationship I assume in the theory of action actually exists.
It must be open ended; that is, it must prompt me to further revise and specify the causal relationships I initially identified as I learn more about the consequences of my actions.

42. A draft theory of action
Ideally, theories of action for instructional rounds should be collaboratively developed. This is just an example.
Exploring the differences among our theories of action would be very revealing.
There are multiple theories of action that could be starting points. This is one example, focused on learning targets.

43. A first attempt
“If teachers use learning targets to guide instruction, then higher student achievement will be the result.”
Problematic on a couple of levels…

44. Problems… Vague Makes no reference to the student
Leaves out many things that must occur between the “if” and the “then.”
A common problem with theories of action, which, if explicitly stated, suggest something like, “If we do x, then…a miracle will happen…and then higher student achievement will result.”

45. A second attempt
“If lessons are guided by clear learning targets aligned to established content standards, and if students and teachers use effective formative and summative assessments of learning aligned to those targets, then students and teachers will have richer information to guide the teaching and learning process and to differentiate learning for individual student needs, and higher student achievement will be the result.”

46. Reflection Activity
Using the criteria (below), analyze the usefulness of this theory of action for instructional rounds:
States a causal relationship
Can be proven or disproved with evidence
Is open-ended, leading us to further refinements of the theory of action based on the evidence

47. Using the theory of action
The theory of action may be broken down into all the assumptions that are embedded within, and analyzed to see what questions arise about our work as school leaders and what is happening or not happening in our schools that challenge the assumption or reveal weaknesses or blind spots in our thinking.

48. Assumption 1: Questions for practice
If lessons are guided by clear learning targets aligned to established content standards…
How do teachers know how to establish clear learning targets aligned to established content standards?
What established content standards should be used (CCD, college readiness standards, national standards, school/district-level curricula, etc.)?
On the first question—we’ve tried to establish a protocol for doing this and trained the teachers on it. But what about those who are still struggling?
Second question: we’ve started with the CCD, but we’ve got to be mindful of all the other curricular sources, and when we’ll integrate those into the process.

49. Assumption 1: More questions for practice
If lessons are guided by clear learning targets aligned to established content standards…
If teachers know how to establish clear learning targets, how will we support them in doing so and how will we monitor and document their work?
If teachers know how to establish clear learning targets, do they know how to effectively use those targets to guide lessons?  What does it mean to effectively use a learning target to guide the lesson?
We’re doing this, but we’ve got to get principals and CIA’s more educated about the process so they can better support the teachers.
And the last question is a big one.

50. Assumption 2: Questions for practice
…and if students and teachers use effective formative and summative assessments of learning aligned to those targets…
How will teachers learn effective formative and summative assessment techniques?  How will leaders know if teachers know how to do this and how will they support the process? What role with students play?
How will we know if our assessments are aligned to our learning targets?

51. First things first
We could go on analyzing all the assumptions from the theory of action and their implications, but it makes sense to focus on the first assumption, working our way through the theory of action and revising it as we go, because the questions raised by our first assumption shapes everything that follows.

52. The Problem of Practice
The problem of practice begins to shape what, specifically, we’ll be looking for during the rounds.
The problem of practice emerges from the questions raised by the assumptions embedded in our theory of action. So, our first assumption…

53. If lessons are guided by clear learning targets aligned to established content standards…

54. Might imply the following problems of practice…
While teachers have been developing learning targets, we haven’t really given them any training on how to use the targets to guide lessons.  Is this training needed, or is this obvious?  How would we find out?  If we need to train them, we need to develop a strategy for doing so.
How do we as leaders support and monitor teachers in effectively using the learning targets to guide lessons?

55. A draft problem of practice
Teachers have been trained on unpacking standards to develop student-friendly learning targets, which should now guide their lessons.  Many teachers have posted learning targets on their boards.  However, informal classroom walkthroughs suggest that student work isn’t consistently guided by these learning targets.
What does student work tell us about the focus of their lessons?
There is an assumption implicit the first statement. Do other people agree that this is true?

56. Criteria for useful problems of practice
Focuses on the instructional core (the interaction of students, teacher, and content)
Is directly observable
Is actionable (is within the school or district’s control and can be improved in real time)

57. Criteria for useful problems of practice, continued
Connects to a broader strategy of improvement
Is high-leverage (if acted on, it would make a significant difference for student learning)
Is not too vague but also not so specific as to constrain open-ended evidence gathering (perhaps the most difficult criteria of all)

58. Reflection Activity
Review the draft problem of practice and analyze based on the criteria established above.
Is this a problem of practice we could use for instructional rounds in our district?

59. The Rounds Protocol
Draft a theory of action that emerges with and from a current problem of practice.
Carefully articulate the problem of practice based on assumptions embedded in the theory of action.
Develop observation protocols for addressing the theory of practice (perhaps just a guiding question).
Gather evidence.
Meet to debrief.

60. The Debrief Meeting: Using the Ladder of Inference
Describe what was observed in nonjudgmental, non-evaluative terms.
Analyze to group evidence into categories to make sense of what was observed.
Predict what will be the result in student learning based on this evidence.
Evaluate our theory of action and our current leadership activities in light of the result.
The book says Elmore’s team spent the first six months of one network just working on the first step: learning how to give non-evaluative feedback.

61. Rounds versus Walkthroughs
Activity
Based on what you understand so far about instructional rounds, create a t-chart, “top hat” or other organizer to compare and contrast instructional rounds with our experience of walkthroughs in this district.

62. Unfulfilled Expectations
We’ve had conflicted assumptions about the purpose of our walkthroughs. Are they…
Tools to monitor what teachers are doing?
Non-judgmental and non-evaluative tools that inform our instructional practice?
Regardless of our intent, they have been perceived as the former. Why?

63. Our implicit theory of action of walkthroughs?
“If district leaders provide teachers with school-wide data on what activities are observed in the classroom, and if principals facilitate collaborative discussions with teachers about that data, then teachers will adjust their practices to engage in more effective instructional behaviors, and then ultimately obtain higher levels of student achievement.” 
Problems we have encountered with walkthroughs may partially reflect potential weaknesses in our theory of action.

64. Problems with the walkthroughs
A multitude of indicators.
Administrators struggled with defining what the indicators look like in practice.
Teachers got hung up on the vagueness of our definitions.
Teachers (and, perhaps, administrators) focused more on getting the check mark than internalizing what the check mark represents.
Our walkthrough instrument had a multitude of indicators.  Teachers and administrators experienced some data overload when they reviewed the walkthrough results.
Administrators struggled to articulate what the various indicators actually look like in practice.  Even with training and collaborative development of definitions of the various indicators, I could tell by the data there was still wide variance in how members of the walkthrough team marked indicators like the level of student engagement or the presence of learning targets.  We just simply didn’t have a clear agreement on what these variables look like in reality.
When teachers reviewed the data, they got hung up on these definitions, and questioned the validity of the walkthrough process because of the vagueness of our definitions.  They also tended to focus more on trying to get a check mark on their walkthrough form than really internalizing what that checkmark means for the actual practice in their classrooms.  Administrators might have been susceptible to this too, focusing more on looking for the indicator than in reflecting on why the indicator is important. 

65. More problems with walkthroughs
Principals were not entirely consistent in their efforts to intentionally and thoughtfully share walkthrough data with teachers
Overwhelmed by multiple priorities?
Perhaps harbor their own doubts about the validity of the process?
Lack the skills or confidence to effectively analyze the walkthrough data with teachers?

66. Ideas we’ve discussed to improve walkthroughs…
Reduce the number of indicators
Make improvements to the instrument that would provide more specificity in our “look-for’s” associated with each indicator
Antonetti’s checklist for student engagement?
These steps might address weaknesses in our theory of practice, but…

67. The challenge with walkthroughs
Walkthroughs serve a purpose – monitoring instruction is one of Marzano’s research-based strategies of effective school leadership, regardless of context.
But should this monitoring work be a primary function of the school or the district leadership teams?
Where does leadership for learning and reflective practice fit in – isn’t this best facilitated at the district level?

68. A Proposal
Develop district-wide walkthrough forms, with a narrower focus and clearer indicators, to be used by the principal and leadership team of each school.
Establish a simple protocol for teacher-to-teacher walkthroughs.
As a district leadership team, establish instructional rounds as our primary method of continuously refining our own practice.
We should develop new district-wide walkthrough forms, with a narrower focus and clear indicators, and those walkthrough forms should be used by the principal and building-level administrative team at each school to regularly monitor implementation of these indicators.  District leaders should, in various forums (site visits, ILTM’s, principal evaluation process, etc.), monitor principal use of the walkthrough instruments and assist and support the schools in collecting and analyzing the data (perhaps through tabulation of walkthrough data, or in training or assisting the principal in collaboratively reflecting on the data with teachers and developing action plans in response to the data).
We should establish a simple protocol for teacher-to-teacher walkthroughs, to be conducted at all schools on some routine basis (once per quarter?  More often?).  I would work with principals to set this up.  The basic idea would involve pairing two teachers.  Each teacher would establish their own “problem of practice” for which they want feedback or assistance (How do I engage my boys more in literature lessons?  How can I improve my questioning techniques?  How can I improve my classroom routines and procedures to minimize disruptions during transitions?  Etc.?).  The guest teacher would then conduct a brief (perhaps 20 minutes) walkthrough, gathering evidence to provide suggestions for the host teacher on the established problem of practice, and then meet to review evidence and give feedback.  The Cognitive Coaching framework could be of some use here.  Then the host and guest teachers would switch roles.  Principals and even district administrators could provide classroom coverage for teachers while they engage in these walkthroughs. 
Finally, as a district instructional leadership team (involving superintendent, central office leaders, principals, CIA’s, and perhaps even assistant principals) we should explore instructional rounds as our primary method of collaboratively reflecting on our theory of action and the implementation of our vision.  This would involve first some training and orientation to theories of action and the rounds process, and then conducting rounds in a host school based on the problem of practice that emerges.  Based on how the first run goes, we could then move on to another school, refining the process as we go.  Monthly ILTM days, already established for the purpose of collaborative learning the leadership development, might be used for this purpose.