|
Leadership by Walking
Around:
Walkthroughs and Instructional
Improvement
Over twenty years ago, school and business leaders
were admonished to get out of their offices and into
the places where the work of their organization was
really being done — in the factories and stores
of business and the hallways and classrooms of schools.
"Management by Wandering Around" was developed
by executives at Hewlett-Packard in the 1970s, but became
highly popularized in a book written by Tom Peters and
Robert Waterman in the early 1980s, In Search of
Excellence. Their research revealed that the managers
of the most successful companies in America stayed close
to the customers and the people doing the work; they
were involved in rather than isolated from the daily
routines of the business.
Now, more than ever, principals are being called upon
to exercise strong instructional leadership in their
schools. They are expected to coach, mentor and support
teachers as they approach the difficult task of promoting
high levels of student achievement in a standards-based,
accountability-oriented environment. One of the most
promising strategies for providing this leadership is
the "Learning Walk" or "Walk Through,"
frequent, brief and focused visits to classrooms for
the purpose of observing, first hand, the instruction
that is provided and the needs of staff and students
in the school.
Why Schedule the Obvious?
At first glance, it may seem odd that a principal
has to schedule a "field trip" into his or
her own school in order to observe what it going on
in classrooms. However, the increasing demands on principals’
time to manage all aspects of the school, from the physical
plant to community relations, combined with the time
they spend responding to district and state mandates,
has forced them to spend more hours in their offices
or away from their buildings altogether. Observing instruction
is like exercise: it’s more likely to happen if
it is a scheduled part of the daily routine.
One Florida principal and his staff of assistants try
to observe every class every day! They divide up the
floors in this 1300 student, block-scheduled high school,
and, within 30-50 minutes, the staff or four has visited
every classroom. While this may seem like overkill,
the principal and staff are enthusiastic about the plan.
One teacher said, "I never refer students out of
the classroom anymore. I know I can handle things for
15 minutes, then an administrator will be in the room."
The principal agrees: "our discipline referral
rate has dropped to almost zero, and we are able to
transact a lot of business during these short visits."
An assistant principal added, "All those ‘Can
I see you just a minute?’ meetings that take half
and hour — now they take just a minute."
From Management to Leadership
A walk through is an important leadership tool for
instructional improvement. By focusing on a specific
aspect of instruction, school leaders or teams of teachers
can identify topics for professional development or
faculty support and mentoring.
Traditional walkthroughs usually employ a principal
or supervisor "dropping in" on classrooms,
perhaps with a specific checklist or observation guide.
John Skretta and Vernon Fisher outline a plan for walkthroughs
in their November, 2002 article, "The Walk-Through
Crew," from NASSP’s Principal Leadership,
(http://www.nassp.org/news/pl_walkthrgh_1102.html):
Step 1: Develop and use a common language for
quality instruction.
Work with faculty to identify key descriptors for
the quality components of instruction and assessment.
Use the district evaluation form as a template,
and modify it as necessary to capture essential
elements of best practices.
Step 2: Establish clear and consistent expectations
for the administrators' presence in classrooms and
communicate these to your staff members and school
community.
The principal is the instructional steward of the
school and must model the expectations for the rest
of the staff. Within the first week, visit every
teacher's classroom and conduct multiple walk-through
observations of the teachers you are evaluating.
Other members of the leadership team are challenged
to do the same. One practical tip: create a concise,
user-friendly "walk through" form to expedite
the process.
Step 3: Schedule informal walkthrough observations
as you would any other important item on your calendar.
Establish a daily 30-minute commitment to being
a visible presence in classrooms. Make the walk-through
a part of the daily and weekly calendar, and incorporate
it into your leadership team's routine.
Step 4: Use walkthroughs to promote dialogue
with teachers.
Walkthroughs are not just about affirming good or
condemning poor instructional practices. Pose challenging
questions to teachers based on what you see in classrooms.
Promote reflection on best research-based practices
and how they are used in the classroom.
Step 5: Share anecdotal feedback from walkthroughs
with your faculty.
Anecdotal feedback, collected by the entire administrative
team, forms an agenda for faculty meetings, staff
development, or instructional council meetings.
For example, you may observe that instruction is
highly auditory in nature, with little variation
for other learning styles. Reading may consist of
short, assigned passages with comprehension questions
at the end of the assignment, with little attention
given to graphic organizers or other reading strategies.
Most important, Skretta and Fisher show by their deeds
that instruction is the core function of the school
and that they are devoting their attention and energy
to this vital activity.
A Collaborative Approach
Joan Richardson describes a very collaborative process
for designing the walkthrough and debriefing the process
in her 2001 article from the National Council for Staff
Development, "Seeing Through New Eyes," (http://www.nsdc.org/library/tools/tools10-01rich.html).
She recommends "a team of observers be dispatched
to numerous classrooms where they spend about 10 minutes
looking for very specific things. At the conclusion,
the observers assemble their information and share what
they have learned with the teachers whose rooms have
been observed."
In Richardson’s plan, it is important that the
observers agree, at the outset, on what they are looking
for. "Preparing for a walk through to gauge the
school’s progress on [the goal of increasing student
writing], the visitors would assemble in the principal’s
office for about 30 minutes and discuss what they would
expect to find in a middle school classroom:
- Visitors would see students
writing.
- Visitors would see evidence
of past student writing such as piles of written work
in the classroom and examples of student writing posted
on classroom walls.
- Students would maintain writing
journals.
- Students would be able to
explain the writing process.
- Exemplary student writing
would be highlighted so students know the standard
for good writing.
- Prompts for journal writing
would be on the chalkboard."
After observing the classrooms, the team spends about
45 minutes debriefing with one another on what they
saw and preparing a presentation to the faculty who
were observed. That presentation then forms the basis
for instructional improvement activities in the school.
In another case, an entire faculty asked an outside
observer from another school to lead a walkthrough on
assessment. Prior to the walkthrough, the faculty identified
the elements they thought would be evident in a standards-focused,
classroom assessment system. The result was this observation
form.
Conclusion
As the principal’s role becomes re-focused on
instruction, it is clear that school leaders will require
tools for engaging teachers in productive and detailed
discussions on the improvement of teaching. Vague notions
of "instructional leadership" are being replaced
with a demand for concrete action on the part of school
leaders. The walkthrough, or learning walk, is a both
a visible symbol of the principal’s commitment
to teaching and useful tool for supporting his or her
important role as instructional leader in the building.
Resources on Walkthroughs
and Learning Walks
Resources for Looking at Student
Work
Looking at Student Work
http://www.lasw.org/index.html
From the organization devoted to looking at student
work as a vehicle for school improvement, this site
offers many, high quality resources for managing a LASW
project in your own school.
Looking Collaboratively at Student Work: An Essential
Tool Kit
http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/resources/view/ces_res/57
From the Coalition of Essential Schools, this tool
kit helps school leaders plan for and conduct close
scrutiny of student work as a means of improving teaching
and learning.
Prepared by Howard Johnston
|
