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This episode walks through the steps of a practice in which instructional leadership teams can identify trends in pedagogy across classrooms. We’ll focus on how to collect data that centers student experience over teacher actions and what to do once the trends are identified.
Why? We know from Hattie’s (2018) research that collective teacher efficacy has a bigger impact on student learning than anything other factor studied. Teachers, like students, are also more invested in what they co-create or choose for their own learning. In a learning walk, a team visits several classrooms to identify team-wide or school-wide trends. Takeaways are shared out, highlighting strengths and successes and identifying a next step(s) to support an area of growth. The focus on broad trends instead of specific teachers’ skills lowers the stakes and fosters a culture of collective growth. What are the steps?
Final Tips
To help you implement Learning Walks in your school or district, I’m sharing my Learning Walk Protocol slide deck with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 143 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. TRANSCRIPT I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons. And here on the time for teacher podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling, and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings if you're a principal, assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nering out about co-creator curriculum of students. I made this show for you. Here we go. Welcome to an episode that is going to talk about a protocol for censoring student experience in professional learning blocks. I am so excited for this one. This is a practice deep dive. The freebie for this episode is going to be a slide deck for learning block protocol that you can use lots of stuff. Here. Let's get right to it. In this episode, we are talking about learning walks and specifically learning walks that center student experience and are less about. 00:01:06 And I think this is ultimately the intention of learning walks as designed but less about evaluating teacher performance. And more about what is the experience of students in these classrooms and what are the trends that as an instructional leader or an instructional leadership team, I can quickly identify and make an action plan to support because these are things that I'm seeing across the school, across the community. If you're doing this at a district wide level or even a department or grade team, if you're doing it at that level. So we're quickly identifying trends that span multiple classrooms and then figuring out what can I do as a leader to support teachers in this particular area of growth that's been identified. So it's really about us as learners and leaders and supporters of instruction and less about the teachers. I want to make that really clear right up front. It is not a typical observation and even the notes that you take are not going to be shared out in any way to those individual teachers, they're not going to be giving specific feedback to teachers. It's more like we're going to share out to the community at the end in a very growth centered. 00:02:11 This is me learning how to be a better supportive leader instruction kind of way from Hattie's research. Collective teacher efficacy has the biggest impact on student learning more than any other factor that was studied. So if we can have multiple stakeholders on this team, and we can truly have collective future efficacy in the sense of teachers, leaders, uh department heads, coaches, even students and families, if they're available and wanting to be part of this learning walk, I think it should be a really small team but you can have multiple. This is even more reason if this is a common practice at your school to do this at the grade team or department levels. So you can have these regularly kind of ongoing as part of our professional development practice, but also as a way to bring in students, families, teachers to make sure that we're doing what we can to serve the students and the people that we're here for. We want to elevate student and family voice as much as possible and we don't want this just to be leaders walking around as much as possible. We also want to invite teachers in to be able to be part of the conversation of what those trends are and identify those needs and identify the support that those teachers wish they had, right for that specific need. 00:03:17 So in a learning walk, the team is going to visit several classrooms. Typically I suggest 3 to 4 and they're going to identify those school wide or team wide trends. They're gonna share the takeaways out as I said to the whole community, but they're not going to be specific to each teacher, they're going to be. Here's what we observed as a team, we're going to highlight both the strengths and successes as well as next steps to support an area of growth moving forward. So you can kind of tell the community that support will be coming in this way. But also here's all the great stuff we saw and then focusing, as they said on the broad trends instead of specific teachers, skills, what that ultimately is doing there, it's lowering the stakes of, oh I'm coming into a room to observe this particular teacher and give feedback or critique to this particular teacher. And it's fostering a culture of collective growth when we are in it together, when we as teachers and students are co creating those goals and co creating the supports that will come next. We are going to have more investment as teachers to receive that support, to seek out and take advantage of that support and pursue that area of growth. 00:04:24 So how does this work? Step? Number one, you want to form a team and again to support those shared leadership practices, invite as many different stakeholders as you can, students, families, teachers, ideally, the team will have a high ratio of youth to adults. So typically, these are very adult led in the student voice research. We see that if these teams can have a high amount of youth, in fact, more youth than adults. This is really powerful and transformative when it comes to youth in the role of learning walkers. And they are actually stepping into that role of leader and being taken seriously because what they see and what they identify and what they recommend for next steps are actually being done by teachers. So you have that student leadership role and not just the students who are in the role itself in the learning box. Although I think you can have multiple and many students can be part of this, but even the students who just see the students coming in, it's like, OK, I'm represented, I see that my peers are doing this. So I also feel like, you know, I can maybe even after the learning walk or before the learning walk, give those students who are doing this, some student experience data, some information, some ideas, even if I'm not the one at the table making the plan, I have kind of a conduit for sharing that information about my experience in classes. 00:05:40 The next thing is to share as the leader here is what we're gonna focus on because this is a school goal this year. And we really want to amplify student voice, for example. So we're going to try to amplify student voice in the school. That's the goal here it is. And now we're gonna co plan from there or you can collaboratively define the purpose or focus theory that's gonna frame the learning walk. So if you're doing that, you can do it ahead of time if this group has met before or asynchronously kind of gather some ideas and then hit the ground running with those ideas. And when you come in in that morning, you just jump right in with those ideas that people have already kind of surfaced or you can just kind of come in and ask, what are we wanting to do? What are we wanting to look for? What is our goal core it there and then move forward with that? But just know that we need to create enough space for that. If we're taking that approach. Number three, we have gathered the group, we've defined the purpose. Now, with that focus and purpose in mind, we're going to create kind of an observation. Typically, I've called this a look for list. I'm trying to decrease my abs language. 00:06:42 So we are going to kind of collect that experiential data or observe what we can gather what we can in terms of evidence, concrete things. When we go into those rooms, this is how your participants in the learning walk are going to structure their observations and notes to do this. I would invite participants to brainstorm. What is success in the defined focus area look like? Sound like, feel like whatever it is that you wanna use as, as words here. These are the ones I typically use. But experience is the word that I keep coming back to. And then however, you wanna break that apart. For the folks in your particular group. Please do that. I would focus on student actions more than teacher actions. A lot of times we come in and we're like, oh, the teacher did this and the teacher did not do this and the teacher should have done this. Focus on what are the students responses? And they don't have to be actions, they could be even non verbal, right? But what are the students experiences in this classroom? Not what is the teacher doing? Now? The student experience is very much may be a result of what the teacher has done or not done in our notes, what we're gonna focus on is that student experience is what we want to really focus on and center. 00:07:54 So let's collect data about that as much as we can, we may converse with the students, we may just silently observe, we may collect more data after if we want to follow up. But for now, let's just think about what we can get from maybe 15 minutes in a classroom with the students. So let's get to that part step four. I was selected about three classrooms to visit. So let host teachers know the focus area being studied, tell them what they were coming in to see if you know it in advance. And if you don't just say, hey, we're looking for broad trends that are gonna support the student experience in our schools, let them know that you are not there to see them. I used to have a principal that would say that and she was like, I'm not here to see you. So don't talk, right? Like as much as possible. Put the student grappling the student voice, the student, you know, experience on display because that's what we're there for. Number five on the day of the learning walk, we're gonna meet as a team. We're gonna review the look for a list. If you have created something in advance, if not, you're gonna core that observation list together, you're gonna remind participants to focus more on student actions than teacher actions. 00:09:05 And optionally, you might choose to use like a video of teacher instruction online el education. They have a whole vimeo channel of a ton of different classrooms in action. So you can pull up one of those and you could say, hey, we're gonna practice as a team right now. Let's just play this video for five or whatever. And then we're going to share our observation data as a practice. So I really like this as a kind of norm activity. You know, what is it like to go through that process? How many times did I find myself actually looking at the teacher? I'm not, it's a student, right? I think that's really um helpful. Next, you are going to visit the classes you have met in the morning, you set the groundwork, set the foundation for what is the experiential stuff? We're gonna go kind of take it and absorb. We are attuned to those things. We've practiced perhaps with a video from online and now we're going to visit the classrooms, I would say for about 15 minutes each though, you can do uh visits for longer, you can do visits for shorter. But I think you collect a lot more data when you're in there for about 1520 minutes. 00:10:10 Also, the different parts of the lesson are going to be more or less student centered just by nature of what they are and what kind of lesson you're observing. So if you know, you know what the first five minutes, everybody's doing like a quick do now or the 1st 10 minutes, we're doing a lot of teacher talk. I would just schedule the time so that you're coming in 10 minutes into the class, you don't need to see it from the beginning. Now, if your focus area is to see something from the beginning go in right at the beginning of every class, right. It it all depends what you're trying to see with equity in mind. We're focusing on student actions and we're observing who is participating and also how and to what degree they're participating. So we want to observe equity in the discussion. I'm just using student discussion as an example because I'm always looking for this. But if only a few students are participating or students are only participating in the questions that have a quote unquote, right answer, we are going to want to focus on that, right? We're gonna want to name that and say, hey, when it's really open ended or the teacher is inviting students to ask questions of for inquiry, right? 00:11:12 I'm not seeing a lot of engagement in, in those moments and we also want to pay attention to small group interactions. So is aggression or affirmation present in those when we do look at teacher actions, because of course, we will as well, we do want to pay attention to what students might be invited to speak, which students get feedback and and what kind of feedback goes to certain students? Right? So the teacher actions are important but in connection to the student experience, right? So for example, a student uh looks really excited and that followed the teacher inviting them to, to share their answer and they had the answer or a student put their head down and that follows the teacher directing them to try an easier question. OK? So then let's say we're done with that first classroom observation. We meet in the hallway, we're gonna do a short hallway huddle. So this is step seven, each person shares a piece of evidence that they collected and maybe something that they are wondering a notice and a wonder. 00:12:19 I like to use post it notes and color code them just so I can keep track of that. But it also might be a T chart on a blank piece of paper. You might have a graphic organizer that you want to give to everyone, whatever it is that you do to structure this, you're just gonna do a quick share out, kind of do a little huddle kind of circle up each person shares their, uh, I would say notice first and then their wonder, second or you can have each person share, notice, wonder and then go to the next person. You're gonna repeat that for your 3 to 4 classes hallway huddle after each of them and then maybe grab lunch or something. And then in the afternoon when you meet again as a team, you're gonna debrief in this debrief. You may want to use a discussion or data analysis protocol that you typically use in your school and in your community that everyone's familiar with. I think that would be great. You could use a five w like a root cause analysis. We're seeing this thing like what's going on five Ws that helps us get to our next action. Sub lots of things that you can use. Once we get to those identified trends to get to those identified trends, we might want a consensus protocol. That's the five or something to make sure we all agree. 00:13:22 Well, of course, I want to remind everyone of our discussion agreements as well as we discuss those because things could potentially get very emotional if we're talking about really offending some of the ways that we've typically done things that can be uncomfortable for folks. But as a group, once we have synthesized all of that evidence analyzed that we want to identify at least one area for growth and then 1 to 3 next steps to build capacity in that area. So let's say that we have an area for growth that is related to student discussion. To continue that example. In that analysis of all of the evidence, we have noticed that it's it's pretty basic that we just have a lot of teacher talk, right? So our focus area is going to be could even be framed as a goal. I really like framing them as a goal. So it could be 75% of class time is going to be students talk time. And so maybe you have like kind of a goal or area of growth. ABC three next steps that are going to support the subsections of that goal, more talk time is going to include support for the teachers to design lessons where they talk less and the students have enough support and ability and, and excitement and motivation, right? 00:14:41 Based on the lesson to do the work on their own. And the second piece might be that teachers are supported, not just to design the lesson with, you know, maybe a particular protocol that's, that's student centered, but maybe also what kinds of feedback they can give when students are grappling independently or in small groups. What does that feedback look like? And then maybe part three is like, ok, students are maybe working in small groups uh in discussions at their tables. How do they signal that they need help? Right. And so what's the next step to kind of help teachers find a protocol or something that works for them? I like the idea of figuring out the next steps to support your goal or your area of growth under kind of the little subheadings because I think there's big goals that we have to break down in order to get there. Now, the next thing you wanna do is make sure that you share out your findings with staff, share out that area of growth. And also, and this is key, share out all of the strengths and successes that were observed as well. You're going to share out both strengths, I would say load those up, say a bunch and then also share the next step in support of that area of growth, right? 00:15:53 So don't just say, hey, we need to do better at this. Here's how we as a leadership team are going to support you in doing this thing better because this is what we observed. If you are doing a team specific, like a grade specific or department specific learning walk, I would probably just share with those teachers. I don't think you need to share schoolwide unless you're looking at schoolwide trends and you're crossing departments in grade teams, couple final tips. Before we wrap up here, I would say if students are unable to be present when you have the list developed in like the focus area determined and, and they're not able to maybe go on the learning walk team or they are. But you want to do that in advance, you want to have those things set up in advance. What I would suggest ask them maybe in a survey, maybe, you know, have a space set up for a focus group beforehand about what they should observe what they should pay attention to. And then specifically how equity or inequity is present in their classes. If they have any concerns or things that we should be really attuned to as we're, we're looking um as we're excuse me doing our learning walk and observing and taking in that data, you may also want to, if you want to develop a look for a list or an observation list in advance, you may want to use a particular framework. 00:17:10 So like Massachusetts has their own kind of teacher rubric for instruction. Um that is based in culturally responsive practices. You may use something like Danielson or whatever it is, you may want to use kind of that frame and even have it up if you're co creating to be able to tell back to this and say, hey, this is really grounded in, however, we are doing evaluations, but this is not an evaluation. Finally, I I wanted to just name when you are co creating agreements for the group for the discussion. Just make sure we're considering equity of voice and stakeholder power dynamics. So for example, if you have a bunch of students on this team, every time an adult speaks, maybe a student has to speak next or something, just to make sure that students aren't silenced by, you know, just feeling intimidated of being in a space with a bunch of adults in this world that students often aren't I invited into. And so that's just something to, to be aware of. OK. That's it for our episode. If you are interested in grabbing my learning walk protocol slide deck, you can go to Lindsey Beth lions.com/blog/one 43. 00:18:13 That's this episode's blog post. It'll give you the show notes, all the things and that freebie if you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazz as I am about my coaching program for increasing student led discussions in your school, Shane Sapir and Jamila Dugan talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book street data. They say students should be talking for 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period? I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. If you're smiling to yourself as you listen to right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar to brainstorm, how I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan from full day trainings and discussion protocols like circle and Socratic seminar to follow up classroom visits where I can plan witness and debrief discussion based lessons with your teachers. Sign up for a nerdy no strings attached to brainstorm. Call at Lindsay, Beth lions.com/contact. Until next time, leaders think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better.com/podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
August 2024
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