Don't Ding Teachers for What You Don't See During a Brief Walkthrough

Teachers should never be dinged for what an administrator doesn't see during a classroom walkthrough.

And I see this problem all the time when administrators get into classrooms with some sort of checklist or list of look fors of what they're expecting to see when they get into a classroom.

And often people's own teaching experience kind of shapes what they're looking for and what they're expecting teachers to do.

But I think we have to remember that a lot of teaching is invisible, right?

When you get into a classroom, you're seeing someone who is doing a lot of behind the scenes thinking, doing a lot of behind the scenes planning and other work.

but they're making a lot of decisions that are not directly observable.

And in my second book, Mapping Professional Practice, Heather and I talk about the idea of observability bias, that it's easy for us to get drawn into what is easiest for us to observe, right?

It's easy to be distracted by what we see and not really think about all the things that are hidden from us, the invisible thinking and decision-making that teachers are doing.

And it's easy to draw the wrong conclusions about a teacher's practice if all we're focused on is what we can see.

Now, I believe that what you can see when you get into a classroom is very important.

The evidence that we can actually observe and document is really critical, but it doesn't stand alone and it needs to be paired with conversation.

So if you've seen my first book, now we're talking 21 Days to High Performance Instructional Leadership.

The talking part is really crucial when it comes to classroom walkthroughs and understanding as a leader what you're seeing when you're observing a teacher at work.

We have to talk about practice.

We have to talk about the evidence that we're observing and we have to talk about the teacher thinking that's going into whatever it was that we observed and one resource i'll share with you if you go to principalcenter.com feedback you can download these but these are open-ended kind of evidence-based questions that get the teacher talking and if you're a teacher you may want to see these just as a as a way to give yourself a chance to explain what you are doing and what you are thinking and often Explanation feels defensive.

Like if you explain yourself, it can feel like you're on trial or like you're trying to make excuses.

But I don't think that's the right way to think about explanation at all.

I think all teaching requires explanation to be really be understood.

You can't just observe someone and know what they're doing, what they're thinking, how they're teaching because teaching doesn't work that way.

Teaching is intellectual work and it has to be explained.

So you need the opportunity to articulate your thinking, your reasoning, your decision-making, everything that's going through your head.

if you want your practice to be understood.

And if you're an instructional leader who wants to understand teacher practice, you cannot just observe and take notes and fill out forms and do paperwork and things like that.

You have to also talk with the person whose practice you are seeking to understand.

So you can download these questions at principalcenter.com feedback.

And if you are interested in getting into classrooms, I highly recommend the Instructional Leadership Challenge.

If you go to principalcenter.com slash challenge, that program includes this book and you can get $80 off with the coupon code walkthrough.