Principal Chris Saheed and deans at the Cambridge (MA) Rindge and Latin High School review school data as part of the instructional rounds process.
Volume 25, Number 3
May/June 2009
Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds
By LEE TEITEL
Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds, continued
Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds
Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds
Principal Randall Lewis stood at the front of the school library, where members of his district’s instructional rounds network had gathered for coffee, muffins, and conversation before the official start of the day’s visit. “Welcome to Jefferson Middle School,” he said. “We’re excited to have you here today to help us with our problem of practice. We’re also a little nervous, but that’s okay. I’ve told the teachers that this is about my learning and the network’s learning, and that we’re going to get lots of good information from having so many eyes and ears in our classrooms.”
Randall described the “problem of practice” on which he and the teachers had asked the visitors to focus: “Last spring, we rolled out a new literacy initiative that required a radical shift in teaching strategies for many of our teachers. A year later, we’re trying to understand what we’ve learned and what we haven’t, and whether it’s translating into different kinds of learning for students.” As participants greeted the other members of their observation team and gathered maps and papers for notes, there was a buzz of anticipation, much like a group of scientists about to embark on fieldwork for data collection.
Randall Lewis and his colleagues are about to spend the day doing something that most educators have never done: look at classroom instruction in a focused, systematic, purposeful, and collective way. Along with other principals, teachers, union leaders, and central office personnel, Randall is learning about improving instructional practice by participating in instructional rounds, an idea adapted from the medical rounds model that doctors use (see Rx for a Profession). A small but growing number of educators are using instructional rounds to look closely at what is happening in their schools’ classrooms and to work together systematically to try to provide high-quality teaching and learning for all their children.
This is an excerpt from the Harvard Education Letter.
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Principal Randall Lewis stood at the front of the school library, where members of his district’s instructional rounds network had gathered for coffee, muffins, and conversation before the official start of the day’s visit. “Welcome to Jefferson Middle School,” he said. “We’re excited to have you here today to help us with our problem of practice. We’re also a little nervous, but that’s okay. I’ve told the teachers that this is about my learning and the network’s learning, and that we’re going to get lots of good information from having so many eyes and ears in our classrooms.”
Randall described the “problem of practice” on which he and the teachers had asked the visitors to focus: “Last spring, we rolled out a new literacy initiative that required a radical shift in teaching strategies for many of our teachers. A year later, we’re trying to understand what we’ve learned and what we haven’t, and whether it’s translating into different kinds of learning for students.” As participants greeted the other members of their observation team and gathered maps and papers for notes, there was a buzz of anticipation, much like a group of scientists about to embark on fieldwork for data collection.
Randall Lewis and his colleagues are about to spend the day doing something that most educators have never done: look at classroom instruction in a focused, systematic, purposeful, and collective way. Along with other principals, teachers, union leaders, and central office personnel, Randall is learning about improving instructional practice by participating in instructional rounds, an idea adapted from the medical rounds model that doctors use (see Rx for a Profession). A small but growing number of educators are using instructional rounds to look closely at what is happening in their schools’ classrooms and to work together systematically to try to provide high-quality teaching and learning for all their children.
