Instructional Supervision WSU Principal Preparation Program

November 18, 2015

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Our Mission The Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) is a nonprofit service

arm of the University of Washington College of Education dedicated to

eliminating the achievement gap that continues to divide our nation’s

children along the lines of race, class, language and disability.

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Equity Is a Key Principle of Our Work

Equal Outcomes

Fairness

Access and Support

Respect for Differences

Achievement of Every Student

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Equity

Foundational Ideas

1.  If students are not learning they are not being afforded powerful learning opportunities.

2.  Teaching is a highly complex and sophisticated endeavor.

3.  Practice of sophisticated endeavors only improves when it is open for analysis and critique.

4.  Improving practice in a culture that is “public” requires reciprocal accountability.

5.  Reciprocal accountability implies a particular kind of leadership to improve teaching and learning.

6.  Leaders cannot lead what they don’t know.

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Foundational Ideas

•  Of the foundational ideas, what resonates most?

•  What is most challenging?

Two-Part Equation

Common language for high-quality instruction

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Knowing how to lead for that

Instructional Anatomy

Instructional Leadership

Instructional Effectiveness

Increasing the knowledge, skills and expertise of the

teacher.

Changing the role of the student as learner.

Increasing the level and complexity of the

curriculum/content.

Text/Task “Content”

Student Teacher

Context

The Instructional Core: We can increase student learning by…

CHILDRESS, ELMORE, GROSSMAN, KING. Public Education Leadership Project, 2007

Learning Target & Success Criteria

Hone skills to support a coaching conversation

•  Articulate a personal practice goal around observation, analysis, and organizing a coaching conversation

Conversations with teachers

•  What process do we use to prepare for a conversation with a teacher?

•  What are we prepared to listen for in a conversation?

•  How do we advance conversations focused on improving teaching and learning?

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Foundational Skills for Conversations

Ø Non-judgmental noticing

Ø Citing specific evidence linking student learning and teaching practice

Ø Asking authentic questions to better understand a teacher’s decision making related to specific evidence

Ø Using a strength-based approach

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Observing – Examining our Process

•  What do you tend to look/listen for?

•  What biases might you bring to classroom observation?

•  What might you see or hear that would put you in a judgment mode?

Description With Judgment

“The teacher read from a book that was not at the appropriate level for the class.”

“There was too much time on discussion, not enough time on individual work.”

“The students conducted a sophisticated lab experiment.”

Description Without Judgment

“The teacher read from a 7th grade text.”

“Students spent 45 of 55 minutes in a group discussion. Students spent 10 minutes on individual work.”

“Teams of students conducted a lab experiment using a 5 step inquiry method to measure transfer of energy in plants. Students asked questions of each other: How can we be sure our findings are accurate, and How will we validate our findings?”

Adapted from A Presentation of the National Reading Technical Assistance Center.

Observing – Foundational Questions

•  What do I see?

•  What do I see that makes me say that?

•  What else do I see?

From the work of Abigail Housen and Visual Thinking Strategies, New York.

Descriptive Observation: Learning to See, Unlearning to Judge

•  Helps us to search for cause and effect relationships between what we observe teachers and students doing and what students actually know and are able to do as a consequence.

•  Keeps us focused on analyzing what we see going on in the classroom vs. debating what constitutes effective instruction.

City, Elmore & Fiarman, Instructional Rounds in Education, Chapter 4.

Carrie: A teacher at your school

• Carrie is working on giving her students tools for taking more ownership of their learning.

• Carrie wants her students to engage in cognitively demanding conversations around their writing, specifically around revision.

• She believes they rely too heavily on her for feedback.

• She wants to give students more choices around the revisions they make and wants to support students in having more effective conversations in pairs or groups.

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Noticing: Sharing Observations

In your notes, highlight what you noticed related to Carrie’s area of focus:

• What did you notice?

• Where does this evidence “sit” in your framework?

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Sharing Observations and Calibrating Evidence

I noticed ________.

¢ Why do you think that?

¢ How do you know?

¢ What is your evidence?

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Analyzing Notes – Strength-Based

• What can the teacher do? (Code with a “c”)

• What is the teacher on the verge of being able to do? (Code with a “v”)

Defining Can and “Verge of”

• Can means there is strong evidence that the practice is in place (with intention) and effective.

• Verge of means there is evidence of the practice in place (with intention) but it may not be as effective as it needs to be.

Preparing Evidence

• Based on strengths – “cans.”

• Links teacher practice to student learning.

Share evidence using the following stem:

“I saw _______ and it resulted in

students ________.”

Conversation as a Data Point

• Conversations, like observations, are a data point.

•  In an observation, we learn about a teacher’s instruction.

•  In a conversation, we learn how a teacher is thinking about their instruction in relation to student learning, their goals and an instructional framework.

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Wondering

Is there anything about the teacher’s thinking or decision-making do you want to know more about?

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Conversation as a Data Point

• What do you want to know about the teacher’s intentions related to her area of focus?

• What do you want to “listen for” in relation to how a teacher thinks about her area of focus?

A “Wonder” is / is not

IS a genuine question to help you learn from the teacher and helps prepare you to listen for the teacher’s thinking

IS NOT

A suggestion in disguise

A yes/no question

Feedback

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Wonder: Possible Question Stems Ø How did you make decisions about… [who to call on,

who to check in with]

Ø What is your vision for… [how students should participate in…, how students should show their understanding….]

Ø What did you learn from/about your students today when you…/when they…?

Ø Talk me through… [your thinking about…, your planning

for…, what you noticed when…]

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Foundational Skills for Conversations

Ø Non-judgmental noticing

Ø Citing specific evidence linking student learning and teaching practice

Ø Asking authentic questions to better understand a teacher’s decision making related to specific evidence

Ø Using a strength-based approach

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Learning Target & Success Criteria

Hone skills to support a coaching conversation

• Articulate a personal practice goal around observation, analysis, and organizing a coaching conversation

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