Skillful Leader II PA Rounds Walk Jan 2010. MAKING THE SHIFT TO LEARNING-FOCUSED AND COMMUNITY-FOCUSED SUPERVISION Skillful Leader II

Skillful Leader II

PA Rounds Walk PA Rounds Walk

Jan 2010Jan 2010

MAKING THE SHIFT TOMAKING THE SHIFT TO

LEARNING-FOCUSED LEARNING-FOCUSED

AND COMMUNITY-FOCUSED AND COMMUNITY-FOCUSED

SUPERVISIONSUPERVISION

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are needed to see this picture.



Skillful Leader II

Traditional Balance of Attention

CONTENT RIGOR

TEACHER ACTIONS

Student Performance

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Discriminating between

Wide-spread PatternsWide-spread Patterns

and

Individual Development Individual Development NeedsNeeds

Discriminating between

Wide-spread PatternsWide-spread Patterns

and

Individual Development Individual Development NeedsNeeds

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See a concern

Check Other Classrooms

Pattern across the district/ school

Professional Development

Characteristic of 2-3 individuals only

Feedback to school

Supervision and Evaluation

Focused Improvement

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SciA

SciB

MathC

MathD

Soc StudE Health

F

Calling only on students with hands raised

Same 4-5 students speak

Teacher talks 1-2 minutes for every 30 sec of student response

Call-response recitation exclusively on 3 walks

Primarily low-level, recall questions; no follow up to responses

Seeing a Pattern

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Classrooms Communities

Widespread Needs/Limitations

• Whole school feedback

• Professional Development Initiatives

• Coaching

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Skillful Leader II

SupervisionSupervision is the act of stimulating, supporting, facilitating, and problem solving with staff to promote student achievement through effective instruction.

EvaluationEvaluation is the act of judging whether performance meets district standards.

•Purpose of Rounds To utilize walks (“rounds”) as a school/district change strategy that spreads implementation of desired practices into more classrooms.

To collect data on the instructional core focused on academic tasks, re what students will know how to to relative to questioning and provide guidance on the next level of work that would be required for the students to perform at higher levels (p.38)

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•Purpose of Rounds

Build high performing accountable (problem solving) communities by designing walks focused on school/district defined problems of Practice involving all district administrators in collecting data and formulating a Theory of Action to guide implementation.

Build district capacity to sustain Skillful Leader development.

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The challenge of …..

•moving research based vision into practice in all classrooms.

•building a district collaborative network to meet this challenge.

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Beyond: Rays of Hope and Beyond: Rays of Hope and Pockets of ExcellencePockets of Excellence

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Implication for School Improvement

Getting change to scale in every classroom…..may mean….

Less dependence on pilots/volunteer participants

because….

pilots can lead to pockets of excellence where the learning is not transferred.

•Visions confront the “messiness” of schools– the composites and collections of previous “solutions” once thought compelling

• “Systems and schools are not blank slates waiting to be written on by leaders”

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Confronting the Undermining Conditions

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Activator: Medical Rounds

What are they ? How do they apply?

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Activator: Classroom Rounds

What are they ? How do they apply?


are needed to see this picture. Collaborative Accountableto

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ROUNDS

Require participants to focus on a common problem of practice that cuts across all levels of the system.

Breaks down isolated cultures and builds Accountable Communities

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The purpose of rounds is to

• deepen the understanding of crucial instructional problems (“Problems of Practice”),

•develop common language

• decide how to scale up implementation into all classrooms.

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“Our goal is to support systems of instructional improvement at scale not just isolated pockets of good teaching in the midst of mediocrity.” (p.5)

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Problem of Practice=

the specific problem of instructional improvement that the school and the school system is working on and want feedback about .

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The formulation of the problem is more important than the solution (Einstein)

The Instructional Core

• INSTRUCTIONAL CORE

TEACHER STUDENT

CONTENT

(Cohen & Ball, 1999)

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The interaction of students and teachers in the presence of content.

•Teacher: what a teacher does in the classroom. Depends on teacher’s skill and knowledge (repertoire and ability to match)

•Student: what students do in the classroom. Level of ACTIVE student learning

•Content: how concepts are presented and the tasks students are asked to complete. Difficulty of content; level of challenge; activity vs. mastery focus

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•What is the level of skill and knowledge that the teacher brings to teaching the content?

•What are the instructional decisions the teacher is making (repertoire and matching)?

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TEACHER

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Life in Classrooms (1968)

Teacher as decision maker

Do you recall how many decisions teachers make in a typical school day?

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CURRICULUMCURRICULUMPLANNINGPLANNING

MOTIVATIONMOTIVATION

INSTRUCTIONALINSTRUCTIONALSTRATEGIESSTRATEGIES

MANAGEMENTMANAGEMENT

FOUNDATION OF ESSENTIAL BELIEFS

KEY CONCEPTS• Areas of Performance• Repertoire• Matching Overarching

Objectives

CurriculumDesign

Objectives

AssessmentLearning

Experiences

PersonalRelationship

BuildingClass Climate

Expectations

Clarity Principles ofLearning

Models of Teaching

Space Time Routines

Attention Momentum Discipline

Planning

BELIEF #1- ABILITY-BASED BELIEF

CONFIDENCECONFIDENCECONFIDENCECONFIDENCEAbilityAbility

++

EFFECTIVEEFFORT

EFFECTIVEEFFORT

HardWorkHardWork

StrategiesStrategies

ACHIEVEMENTACHIEVEMENTACHIEVEMENTACHIEVEMENT

Belief #2 (Learning Goal Orientation)

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STUDENT

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•Are students actively engaged?

•Do students know what they are doing and why they are doing it?

•Do they perceive value in the tasks they are being asked to do?

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STUDENT

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•Are the tasks related to asking or answering questions students are being asked to do, challenging but attainable?

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CONTENT

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•The TASK

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CONTENT





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first principle: Increases in student learning occur only as a consequence of improvements in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill, and student engagement

second principle: If you change any single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two

third principle: If you can’t see it in the core, it’s not there

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There are only three ways to improve student learning at scale:

1. You can raise the level of the content that students are taught.

2. You can increase the skill and knowledge that teachers bring to the teaching of that content.

3. You can increase the level of students’ active learning of the content.

That’s it.

Everything else is instrumental.

Schools don’t improve through political and managerial incantation; they improve through the complex and demanding work of teaching and learning.

(Instructional Rounds, Richard Elmore, et al)

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• If we change any single element of the instructional core we have to change the other two to effect student learning

TEACHER STUDENT

CONTENT

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If you change any single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two to affect student learning

•For example, what happens if we only change the level of content (a new math or ELA curriculum), but not the expertise and skill level of teachers to effectively teach that new content?

•Or, what if you raise the level of content and the knowledge and skill of teachers without changing the role of the student?

“Teachers are doing all, or most, of the work, exercising considerable flair and control in the classroom, and the students are sitting passively, watching the teacher perform.”

Instructional Rounds in Education, Elmore et al, pp. 25-26

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Therefore….

Any innovation or intervention must take into account all three elements of the instructional core

TEACHER STUDENT

CONTENT

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first principle: Increases in student learning occur only as a consequence of improvements in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill, and student engagement

second principle: If you change any single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two

third principle: If you can’t see it in the core, it’s not there

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–The core defines points of entry for instructional improvement

–Should be observable (“if you can’t see it, it’s not there”)

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fourth principle: Task predicts performance

“What predicts performance is what students are actually doing”

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fourth principle: Task predicts performance

What predicts performance is what students are actually doing

…the instructional task is the actual work that students are asked to during the process of instruction-not what teachers think they are asking students to do or what the official curriculum says that that student are asked to do...” (23)

fifth principle: The real accountability system is in the tasks that students are asked to do

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STOP and PROCESS re:L Instructional Core

Insights or Sharper Thoughts?

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sixth principle: We learn to do the work by doing the work

seventh principle: Description before analysis, analysis before prediction, prediction before evaluation. You build a common culture of instruction by focusing on the language that people use to describe what they see

Description Analysis Prediction Evaluation

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seventh principle: Description before analysis, analysis before prediction, prediction before evaluation. You build a common culture of instruction by focusing on the language that people use to describe what they see


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Data Collection--& Grouping and Looking for Patterns

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Making causal inferences about the kind of learning we would expect as a consequence of the instruction. (Task predicts performance)

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What is next level or work?

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Individual Processing

•

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•Read through notes and collected data

•With a different color highlight /annotate notes with anything that relates to the Problem of Practice or targeted focus

•Identify 5-10 salient points of data.

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The PA ROUNDS

• ROUND VISITS & DATA GATHERING

• DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

• SHARING AND PREDICTION

• NEXT STEPS

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The OBEN ROUNDS

Sources of data: •Wall reading;

• literal notes on interaction; student interviews

•Student artifacts e.g. journals, worksheets

• Insterviews with students

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MOVING and REMOVING IMPEDIMENTS=

LEADERSHIP

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MOVING and REMOVING IMPEDIMENTS=

LEADERSHIP

ROOT CAUSES

What explains these patterns?

Quote or set of quotes particularly relevant to helping students exert effective effort to meet the objective

Actions or decisions particularly relevant to helping students exert effective effort to meet the objective

Missed opportunities (MO’s) to take an action that would help student exert objectives focused effective effort.

Salient Data

Salient Data

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Skillful Leader

THINKING SKILLS

MASTERY

ACTIVITIESWhat activities couldstudents do to gain

understanding or to developthese skills?

INVOLVEMENTHow can I get students

really engaged?

COVERAGEWhat knowledge,skill, or conceptam I teaching?

• Chunked instruction• Alignment with instruction

• Variety of processing structures

Students summarizing and making connections

Checking for understanding across all students not just an eager few

•Organizations embody beliefs and practices deeply rooted in people’s identities

•A school represents an equilibrium state– however dysfunctional– that reflects the comfort zone of people who work in it

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THEORY OF ACTION

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•“Organizations resist vision not because of some perverse instinct..to resist change but because existing structures and practices provide a story line people understand” p.40

•A new vision often fails to provide people a persuasive and understandable alternative

The Undermining Conditions

•Vision for Instructional Improvement (identifies the students who will benefit from improving instructional quality in a specific content area)

•Strategy (reflects actions and initiatives related to improving instruction in the content area identified in the vision)

•Instructional Improvement Map (reflects priorities for instructional improvement in this content area)

IF we…. THEN…

IF we…. THEN…

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The theory of action emerges from the outcome and the specific problem of practice

Goal

(Intended Outcome)

+

Problem of Practice

_______________________

Theory of Action

(If …Then)

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If (the development strategy we’ll use to address our Problem of Practice) …..

Then(this will result in the Intended Outcome we have identified as desirable)

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Theory of Action- What is it?Theory of Action- What is it?

• is the story line that makes a vision and strategy concrete

•provides the map that carries the vision through the organization

•cuts through the organizational clutter to the instructional core

allows the vision for teaching and learning to be realized within the context of the individual school. The theory of action:

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Theory of Action- The Ethos Theory of Action- The Ethos

•

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•Trial and error--ongoing revision

•Double Loop Learning reflecting about how we learn

•High risk= must share failures and face plants with everyone

•Collective learning beyond boundaries of closest colleagues

Theory of Action- RequirementsTheory of Action- Requirementshas three main requirements:

• it is a statement of causal relationship that describes what I do – in my role as a superintendent, principal, teacher, coach, etc.-- and what constitutes a good result in the classroom

• it is empirically falsifiable – it must be able to be disproved based on evidence of what is happening in the classroom

• it is open-ended and needs to be further revised as more is learned about the consequences of actions.

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Theory of Action- an hypothesisTheory of Action- an hypothesis

Stated as if- then propositions:

•to stress the causal nature of the statements

•to reinforce that these are testable propositions that are subject to revision if the goal is improved student learning

•Picture of scientist???

Skillful Leader II

Theory of Action- In addition it …Theory of Action- In addition it …

• needs to be concrete and relate to the specific context in which the participants work

• provides a through line to the instructional core and provides information about the vital activities that need to happen to improve teaching and learning

• tends to tighten up accountability requirements because it shows the interdependence of roles

• Remember: even if it is a simple and incomplete theory, it is better than no theory at all– this is a learning process

Fail Forward!

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Theory of Action: Examples Theory of Action: Examples •IF we monitor students’ progress through multiple assessments over time, THEN we will be able to assess our instructional effectiveness and develop focused intervention strategies.

•IF we develop a deep understanding of the pedagogical knowledge base among our instructional leaders, THEN administrators and curriculum instructional leaders can support and impact high quality teaching by providing teachers with specific, results-oriented feedback that impact student learning.

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Theory of Action? Theory of Action? • IF the algebra-for-all vision is compelling and people

have good motives and work hard, THEN students will take algebra and succeed at it.

At your tables use the criteria to determine why this example is not an effective theory of action

Skillful Leader II

Theory of Action- Second ThoughtsTheory of Action- Second Thoughts

The key implications for practice are these:

• We need to have a vision that reflects where the school is going.

•A theory of action should be developed collaboratively to reflect how the vision will be realized and how teachers will operate in the classroom.

•The theory of action should be a living document and should be reflected upon regularly.

•Discussions about the validity of the theory of action should incorporate a wide range of opinions.

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Observable data and experiences

I select: data

I add: meanings

I make: assumptions

I draw: conclusions.

I adopt: beliefs (about the world.)

I take: actions (based on my beliefs)

Skillful Leader II

Recognizing and Climbing Down From

the Ladder of Inference

Source: Peter Senge et al, Schools that Learn, 2000, 71.

Documents

Skillful Leader II PA Rounds Walk Jan 2010. MAKING THE SHIFT TO LEARNING-FOCUSED AND COMMUNITY-FOCUSED SUPERVISION Skillful Leader II