A LYS Central Office
Administrator asks the following:
SC,
Why do you
coach that teachers should not to receive feedback (normally) after a single observation? Why must we wait until patterns/trends
are established before providing feedback to individual teachers? This seems
counter-intuitive. Help.
SC Response
I get these
questions a lot due to the fact that this practice does not align with the
existing schema of most campus and district administrators.
Many campus and
district administrators believe that every time they enter a classroom, they need to be
evaluating that classroom. But this should not be the case. The only time that an administrator should
be evaluating the classroom (teacher) is when:
1. The
observer has notified the teacher that a high stakes evaluative visit should be
expected within a specific and narrow window of time.
2. The
observer observes the classroom for at least 20 minutes, giving the teacher the
opportunity to deliver instruction and manage the classroom using a number of
effective practices.
So take
PowerWalks, the system and process your district is now implementing. PowerWalks is a formative observation
tool. It has been designed for the SOLE purpose of creating game film for
coaching teachers. In this endeavor, multiple observers engage in frequent
observation of classrooms. These
observations are short, 3 to 5 minutes.
Now one, short classroom observation means almost nothing. Good, bad or indifferent, it is a
random wisp of time. The purpose
of the visit is to cue effective practices, provide some positive reinforcement
(if warranted), and collect some objective data.
The key word
is data. One short observation
represents an INVALID data sample. This is because the size of the sample size
is statistically insignificant.
This is not opinion; it’s math. Take 15 to 20 individual observations as a data sample and what the
statisticians will tell you is that the sample size can be considered
significant. Which means the
trends that are identified in the sample are likely to be real, instead of
random occurrence. With a real identified
trend, coaching, reflection, problem solving and improvement can occur. With
random occurrence, any action that is taken has only a random chance of being
effective.
Now, if you
are Charles Barkley, you don’t trust all this trend/statistics mumbo-jumbo.
That’s OK (not really, I’m just being polite). In the real world of coaching,
every coach worth his/her salt observes the player over multiple reps before
making a coaching suggestion.
Whether they realize it or not, thru the observation of multiple reps
they are filtering out the random from the engrained. Then they work to replace, remediate, or leverage the
engrained.
PowerWalks is
for coaching. Until that
understanding is embraced and internalized, it will always feel strange.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
- Call Jo at (832)
477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies
available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
- Now
at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks
CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool)
- Upcoming Presentations: Texas ASCD Summer Conference; NAESP National Conference;
Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations)
- Follow
Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation and
like Lead Your School on Facebook
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