Justin Baeder—The Now We're Talking! Walkthrough System

[00:01]

Welcome, everyone, to the Now We're Talking walkthrough system webinar. I'm your host, Justin Baeder, and in this webinar, it's my goal to give you everything I can from my book, Now We're Talking, to help you get into classrooms. So, to kick things off, if you have not introduced yourself in the chat yet, go ahead and just let us know, uh, where do you work and what do you do? What is your role? I'm going to assume that most people who are here are in some sort of instructional leadership role. Maybe you are an instructional coach.

[00:33]

Maybe you are a principal or assistant principal. I'm guessing that's probably the largest constituency we have here on the webinar. Or maybe you're a central office administrator or higher education professor who works with school leaders or aspiring school leaders. So let me know in the chat, and we will get started on the Now We're Talking Walkthrough System webinar. As you can probably tell, Now We're Talking is a book that I wrote on classroom walkthroughs, and I want to give you everything I can to help you implement the ideas in that book. Even if you haven't read the book yet, even if you have no intention of reading the book, I want to give you enough to go on so that you can get started getting into classrooms.

[01:12]

Because I have a three-part theory of action about classroom walkthroughs, about the value of getting administrators into classrooms, and it goes like this... If you can confidently get into classrooms every day, you can have feedback conversations that change teacher practice, and along the way, you will discover your best opportunities for school improvement. If you get into classrooms, good things will happen. Good things will happen for the teachers you supervise, and other good things will happen in your leadership.

[01:40]

So, my first question for you today is, does that sound plausible? Do you like that theory of action? Are we kind of on the same page about the value of getting into classrooms?

[01:51]

Give me a yes in the chat if so, or if you have other thoughts, let me know. Welcome, everybody. Wow, so many people have introduced themselves. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you, Shanita.

[02:03]

Thank you, Jenny. Great to see you here. Welcome, Joe. Welcome, Robin, and Therese, and Allison, and I'm skipping some people. I'm sorry we have so many people here. Thank you so much for being here.

[02:13]

Okay, lots of yeses. And let me know if you have other thoughts.

[02:16]

But I have, uh, had just a great response to this line of thinking. I mean, it makes a lot of sense that if we can get into classrooms as instructional leaders, good things will happen. And yet, I have a question for you that I think I can kind of guess what your answer is going to be. That tells me we have some room to grow as a profession. So here's the question. Answer this in the chat as well, if you would.

[02:40]

How often do you think most teachers get visited by an administrator? Not your teachers necessarily, just teachers in general. Maybe your mom was a teacher. My mom was a teacher. My mother-in-law was a teacher.

[02:53]

I know lots of teachers, so I have lots of perspective outside of my own professional circles on this question. Jeffrey says once or twice a year. Ken says twice a year, Allison says three times, Anna says once or three times, yeah. Okay, maybe we have some higher numbers, maybe once a month, maybe three to four times a year. Kathleen says not enough.

[03:14]

I think that is my conclusion as well. Not enough. My take, this is an unscientific survey, this is my informal impression from talking with lots of people over the last 25 years, my take is that the average teacher gets visited about... Once a year.

[03:30]

And that includes their formal evaluation observation. And you might think, well, wait, the formal is required, right? Okay, well, here's something I discovered. I was shocked when I discovered this. Not everybody does their required formal observations. A lot of people fudge, a lot of people say, sign here, and let's both pretend I came in your classroom this year.

[03:49]

That, I think, has happened to me at least once, where we're not even doing the minimum. And, you know, no shame, no blame. I'm not going to accuse anybody here of not doing their evaluations. But am I wrong about this estimate? Do you think I'm very far off in how often the average teacher gets a visit from their administrator? I think this is probably about right.

[04:12]

And if you think I'm off, I'm happy for you because that means you've probably been in an environment where the norm is much better, where people are in classrooms much more. Perhaps your district has been really intentional about this for a long time and has sent the message that, hey, administrators need to be in classrooms. Perhaps someone has given you a copy of my book and said, hey, this is how you get into classrooms. Go do it. I expect you to get into classrooms. I am excited when districts get their principals into classrooms.

[04:38]

Now, I will say, often districts that want to get their administrators into classrooms focus on the wrong levers. They push the wrong things. And we'll talk about what some of those wrong things are and why they get in the way on the webinar today. But it is possible to get into classrooms dramatically more than once a year. And the reason I know this is because people tell me when they succeed. My last two co-authors, I had co-authors on my second and third books, Heather and Keith, and they both were able to get into classrooms 500 times a year.

[05:09]

500 times, which is significantly more than, you know, 20, 30, 40. That, I think, is more typical. And we also keep track on something that we call the Classroom Walkthrough Scoreboard. We have had a small group of people keep themselves accountable by reporting in every week on how many classroom walkthroughs or observations they do. And that scoreboard recently crossed 5,000 total visits. And I think the next 5,000 are gonna go incredibly fast.

[05:34]

I'm very excited to make it easy to keep track. To make it easy for people to keep themselves on track with their classroom walkthroughs because I believe so many good things happen when instructional leaders get into classrooms. So, here's what we're going to talk about today to help you on that journey. We'll talk about feedback and the kind of warm and cool feedback that we typically give and why that doesn't really get us...

[05:58]

What we want, we'll talk about frequency, and why getting into classrooms often really is the linchpin of this whole thing. We'll talk about evidence-driven feedback conversations that get us into teachers' thinking, and not just, you know, our judgment, not just our perspective, but a true feedback conversation. We'll talk about why we can kind of lower the pressure, turn down the heat in any given visit, and have better conversations, and not create the resistance that keeps us out of classrooms.

[06:26]

And we'll talk about time and how to make this actually happen. Alright, lots of good comments here. Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you, Marlo.

[06:34]

Great points there. Alright, I want to first talk about a tension that we face. And I'm actually going to frame this as a polarity. I like the concept of a polarity between two things that are both good things. Impact and sustainability. We want to have an impact as instructional leaders, so what we're doing when we get into classrooms has to be substantive.

[06:58]

We can't just be, hi, and then leave, right? We can't just smile and wave and expect that to have a big impact on teacher practice. We have to actually do something meaningful when we get into classrooms. But too often, we overemphasize that side of the equation, and we forget about sustainability. So I think we need to worry about both sides and keep them in a healthy tension, or what experts call a polarity. I was first introduced to the idea of polarity management and the work of Barry Johnson by my friend Jane Kise, who has an excellent book for educators called Unleashing the Positive Power of Differences, Polarity Thinking in Our Schools.

[07:36]

We're not going to get into that a whole lot. I'm just going to share my polarity diagram for impact and sustainability because it shows that both of these are good things, but if we emphasize one at the expense of the other, we run into trouble. So we need to do something that is impactful. Right? We want to have deep conversations, substantive conversations, give evidence-driven feedback, help people actually change their practice. But if we only focus on that side of the equation, then we lose track of what it takes to make the practice sustainable.

[08:07]

And I'm going to guess that you have been asked to do some things as an instructional leader that were not very sustainable. If that is the case, give me a yes in the chat. If you have been asked to do things that you found unsustainable in your practice, give me a yes. And I have seen just all kinds of things. I've seen classroom walkthrough forms that had 50 fields that had to be filled out. I have seen requirements that principals do eight different kinds of walkthroughs on every teacher Every week.

[08:36]

And this was in a small school, so it wasn't a lot of teachers, but it was a lot of complexity. And I think, we'll come back to this polarity diagram here, but I think, often, we optimize for complexity. We think, well, this is a hard problem, schools are complicated places, teaching is complicated, so we need as complicated a system for instructional leaders as possible. And they can just make all that work, and great things will happen. I don't think that is a very good approach. I think that is an approach that is doomed to fail, because it does not optimize enough for sustainability.

[09:06]

We need to keep sustainability in mind because school leaders have a lot going on. You have a lot of hats that you wear. You have a lot of responsibilities other than getting into classrooms in most cases. You have discipline to handle. You have a budget to handle. You have other aspects of staff, you know, and dealing with human beings.

[09:25]

that take up your time other than simply getting into classrooms. So what I'm not going to tell you today is that you should simply prioritize classroom walkthroughs, that you should spend all day in classrooms and just let everything else pile up. No, that other stuff matters. You know you cannot leave that other stuff for too long or it's going to catch up with you in a bad way. So we need to plan for sustainability. We need to plan for impact.

[09:49]

And we need to watch out for the downsides of ignoring either one of those. But we need to come up with something that works. So if you're ready for something that works, give me a yes in the chat. I'm going to get right into it and give you my system, and hopefully you will have good questions about that. We can have a good discussion, and you can leave fired up and ready to go tomorrow. Let's first talk about what gets in the way.

[10:13]

Thank you for all the yeses there. Thank you, Betty and Tara and Shanita and Tammy. Excellent, excellent. Let's talk about some of the barriers. I think one of the first types of barriers that we need to talk about is just the dread. The dread of getting into certain classrooms.

[10:29]

Let me know in the chat. Think about some of your real people that you work with. No names, but think about the real people that you work with. What is it that makes you dread visiting certain classrooms? Let me know in the chat. You might think, well, that's my person who's going to call their union rep. Or if we don't have a union rep, at least they're going to gossip.

[10:49]

They're going to say, hey, what's he doing?

[10:51]

What's the big deal? What's going on? Why is he getting into my classroom? Negativity. Absolutely. You will have to manage the class.

[10:59]

I might have to deal with student behavior. Absolutely. They put on a show.

[11:04]

Yeah, what you're seeing might not be typical. You might get a special performance. I had, uh, one teacher who liked to have the students stop and set everything down and stand up and say, good morning, Mr. Baeder, whenever I would walk in the room. I had to say, oh, keep, keep on teaching, you know, don't, don't stop.

[11:19]

Uh, on, on my account, just keep on going. Yeah, they put on a show. Let's see. Yeah, discipline issues.

[11:27]

Yeah, and sometimes we, we're worried about both the discipline issues that we'll encounter in the classroom and the discipline issues that we'll not be able to deal with because we're not in the office. We worry about being a distraction. We know, oh yeah, we know that there needs to be a follow-up conversation, especially if there's something that we need to talk about. And yeah, the pile that's waiting for us when we get back. So it is no wonder, it is entirely rational that often we avoid getting into classrooms because it's work and it forces us to leave behind other work. And I think I can kind of break this down into three categories of resistance.

[11:58]

We have our internal resistance, the, oh no, what am I going to have to deal with when I get there or when I get back? We have resistance that can come from other administrators who might worry that we're making them look bad or might worry about the effect on their workload. And we have resistance from teachers. And again, all of these, I think, are fairly rational, fairly reasonable. These are, you know, reasonable concerns. And when it comes to our own internal resistance, yeah, we legitimately do have a lot of other things to do.

[12:27]

You have actual time-consuming work. You have the mental load of managing all that work and everything that you're not able to get to yet. You have so much to think about. Uh, if you have people who have a, uh, you know, just a very strong sense of professionalism and a very strong sense of practice, you might be worried, hey, I'm actually going to struggle to come up with something that this person needs to work on. I had, as a new principal, I had wonderful teachers, and I would rack my brain and worry, thinking, like, what am I going to say to this person that is going to have a positive impact on their practice because they're already so good? I don't want to show up and nitpick.

[13:03]

I don't want to show up and just find some fault in what is legitimately very good practice. And, on the other hand, I know I have other people... Who are going to have some nasty surprises waiting for me, right? It's like, why go poking in the back of the fridge?

[13:16]

Why open that container if I know I am not going to be happy with what I see in that container? And that is how some of our classrooms are, right? We think, okay, I don't want to open that carton at the back of the fridge. I don't want to get into that classroom that I've been avoiding because I know there's going to be something unpleasant waiting for me there, and I'm going to have to deal with it. If that is a situation that you have ever found yourself in, if that is a feeling that you have ever felt, give me a yes in the chat. You know there's a problem in a classroom, you know this person needs to work on some things, and it's just not something you've gotten to yet, or you have been working on it, and they're just not there yet, and you continue to have practice that you are not happy with.

[13:53]

Laurie says, I thought this was a me problem. No, this is an everybody problem, because every single school has teachers who are struggling, has teachers who are not as good as they could be, And that's our job. And when we confront those gaps, when we confront that practice that's not as good as we would like it to be, we feel a sense of guilt. And we'll talk about that in just a second. Let's talk about the other kinds of resistance real quick, and we'll come back to it, though. Sometimes, it can be awkward if you are the assistant principal, and you have a principal who has not established a track record of getting into classrooms.

[14:24]

That is the case for almost all assistant principals. If you're on this webinar, you're probably in the top 1% of assistant principals. And your principal is probably not in the top 1% of principals in terms of getting into classrooms. So this is an extremely common situation to be in where you are getting into classrooms a lot and your boss is not. Or if you are the principal, maybe somebody else is struggling. Maybe your assistant principals are saying, oh, that's nice for you, the principal.

[14:46]

You can delegate all your discipline to me. How am I supposed to get into classrooms? Well, we've got to work through those things as a team and be on the same page. As a team, and get into classrooms approximately the same amount, so that everybody on staff gets a common experience. And nobody looks bad, nobody feels like they're being singled out, nobody feels like they're being shown up. We can get on the same page about this.

[15:09]

And yet, even if you're the only administrator in your school, you might have other people in nearby schools who say, what are you doing? Why are you trying to get on the radar about getting into classrooms? Well, I think that's how we make the good things happen, is to get into classrooms. I think it's worth pressing through that resistance. Great comments here. Uh, Marla says, I'm glad to hear others feel this way for sure.

[15:30]

Yeah, great. Great to know you are not alone. There is one more dimension to this that I think is worth mentioning. If we're wondering, like, how did we get such complicated systems that are just impossible to sustain? I think, in some cases, people come up with complex things on purpose, either because they're central office administrators and it's kind of their job to come up with something to do at the district level, or because they want something to show that they're having an impact And they are taking this seriously, and they optimize for complexity as a form of competition with their peers. And that's how we end up with these Byzantine complicated walkthrough systems with all these forms, all these steps, all these meetings that get in the way.

[16:14]

So here's my best advice. We're only, what, a quarter of the way in, less than 20 minutes in. Here's my best advice for you. Keep it simple. Keep it simple, and you will have a practice that is more sustainable. You can still have an impact.

[16:29]

You can still make a difference in teacher practice with a simple system. Complexity is not your friend here. There are no prizes for complexity. And if there are incentives in your district for complexity, I think that's worth talking about and saying, hey, look, we've got these really arcane, complicated systems, a lot of boxes to check. I'm not sure that's the best way to get us there. Optimize for simplicity.

[16:52]

optimize for sustainability, and I think you will see good things happen as a result. One specific thing that I want to encourage you to get rid of, if you possibly can, is forms. Minimize the paperwork, minimize the documentation, just get into classrooms as much as possible. We'll talk more about the, uh, the forms in just a second, but what about the last form of resistance that comes from the teachers themselves? Again, I think we've got to recognize that a certain amount of resistance is rational from teachers. If they're not used to administrators being in classrooms, you might have surprised teachers if you started getting into classrooms in a new role.

[17:31]

You might have shocked people with the very fact that you showed up at all. Give me a yes if that has happened to you. If you've started getting into classrooms, maybe your first week on the job, and people are like, what? What are you doing here? I've never been observed by an administrator, much less a brand new one. And people often will have some concerns.

[17:49]

They will realize, oh, this could be an opportunity for a gotcha. I could be in trouble if this administrator sees something they don't want. So we have got to demonstrate right off the bat that we are there with good intentions. Yeah, if we get the, hey, uh, yes, how can I help you kind of reaction when we walk in the room? What's wrong? You know, do you need a student?

[18:07]

Are you here to pick up a student? Uh, that can be the assumption when we start getting into classrooms. So, just show up and be pleasant and... be present and pleasant.

[18:18]

Smile. Uh, this is not the opportunity to go hard on our first round of visits, but it's also the kind of thing that we need to be thoughtful and careful about. We want this to be something that is rewarding for teachers, that it's a pleasant experience for them. But we don't want to promise that our visits are non-evaluative. So, don't make a big speech, don't say, don't worry, these are non-evaluative, because everybody knows that's, that's not really true, right? Like, anything you see ultimately is going to shape your judgment, so nothing is truly non-evaluative.

[18:48]

But we do need to be low-key about this. We do need to be reassuring to teachers that we're not out to get them. Yeah, and you can give new staff, you know, if this is an established practice, yeah, that's a good thing to give, uh, give new staff a heads up about. Thank you, Susie. So, we can overcome all of this resistance, but we have to accept a couple of things. We are not always going to have great feedback.

[19:08]

Sometimes we're going to show up, and there's going to be just not much to say. Sometimes we're going to show up, and there are going to be huge problems that we can't fix on the spot. There's going to be more to deal with than we can deal with in the moment. And we're going to need to give it time in order to solve those problems. Right? If you have people who are really struggling, you're not going to fix them in your first walkthrough.

[19:28]

Of course you're not. It's going to take time. It's going to take work. It's going to take investment. But ask yourself, are you better off knowing what you're dealing with and seeing it for yourself and getting some detail on it than not knowing, than ignoring it, than kicking the can down the road? Give me a yes in the chat if you think you're better off knowing, even if you would rather not know, even if you'd rather not think about it today.

[19:52]

Yeah, I think it's... It's hard to avoid that conclusion, that it's better to know, you know, obviously we're on the hook once we know that we have a problem we need to deal with. If somebody's yelling at kids, if their classroom management is terrible, and we know, well, we have to do something about it. But, of course, we have to do something about it anyway, right?

[20:09]

We're on the hook anyway. This is our job, to be on the hook for teacher performance. So, better to know, better to deal with it, better to face it head-on. Now, when it comes to facing things head-on, often we try to be very, very direct in our feedback and give what I call fire and ice feedback. We try to give direct, warm, and cool feedback. You have probably been taught this approach.

[20:34]

It goes by many names. You might have heard things like Rose and Thorn, Warm and cool. Strengths and areas for improvement. Areas of excellence and areas of opportunity. Kudos and next steps. Wows and wonders.

[20:48]

Uh, you know, compliments and questions. We have all these different ways of phrasing what's basically the same thing. We get into classrooms and we have criticism and compliments. Those two things. And it's not that we shouldn't have opinions, right? It's not that we shouldn't form judgments about what we're seeing.

[21:03]

It's not that we shouldn't have an emotional reaction to what we're seeing. If you see a teacher yelling at kids or really struggling to manage their classroom, you should have feedback on that, and you should have feelings about that. That's totally fine. But what I think we should steer ourselves away from is this artificial structure that says, okay, whenever I have something to say to a teacher, or whenever I have to talk to a teacher, whether I have something to say or not, I need to smush all of my thoughts into a feedback sandwich. This is an artificial structure that I think...

[21:35]

Hamstrings us. It gets in the way because it forces us to have something nice to say, and then something critical to say, and then something else that is nice to say. Let me know in the chat, give me a yes, if you have been taught the feedback sandwich. Give me a yes if you've been taught the feedback sandwich. In the military, it has another name that I will not say on a webinar. You have probably heard of this many times in your life.

[22:01]

It seems to be universally known, and it seems to be taught by no one. This is not a John Hattie thing. This is not a Bob Marzano thing. This is not a Charlotte Danielson thing. This is not a Justin Baeder thing. No one has ever actually taught this as a best practice.

[22:16]

And yet, it's taught as a best practice everywhere. Everybody seems to use this, or at least think they should. And, uh, yeah, my teachers have requested that I not give feedback like this. I love that. That's great to hear. And I'd like us to think about why.

[22:32]

Why do people not like this? Why is this... difficult to deal with, and how do teachers think about this kind of mandatory, okay, first you get a compliment, and then you get a criticism or a suggestion for improvement, and then you get another compliment. What's, what's wrong with this picture?

[22:46]

What is going on here? Yeah, it glows and grows. Marla says, it seems fake. And, see, the thing is, even if it's not fake, the fact that it's mandatory, first a compliment, then a suggestion, then another compliment, the fact that that structure is mandatory introduces doubt about our sincerity, right? It makes it seem fake, even if we totally mean the feedback on any given day. Yeah, it can be disingenuous, people see through it, which affirms their motivation to resist.

[23:16]

Thank you, Robert. How else do people react to this? Let me know your thoughts in the chat.

[23:25]

Ooh, it sends mixed messages. That's a really good point.

[23:28]

Uh, thank you for that, Susie. Yeah. If we think a lesson is great and we force ourselves to throw in a criticism for no real reason, yeah, like, what's the teacher supposed to conclude about that? Or if a lesson truly is terrible and we know it and the teacher knows it, why are we giving two compliments and one suggestion for improvement? Like, what is going on with this structure, right? It confuses the communication.

[23:53]

It throws people off. And if you're wondering, you know, what is worth mentioning, what kinds of things should we talk about, a couple of

[24:14]

uh, categories that you might keep in mind. First of all, if something is good evidence, if you think, okay, I have an evaluation to do at the end of the year, and this lesson gives me some good, rich evidence that lines up with those evaluation criteria, that's worth writing down, that's worth talking about, and getting on the same page with the teacher about. Good stuff. Anything that is interesting is worth talking about. If there is an interesting phenomenon going on in the lesson or in the classroom, you know, Teaching is interesting if we allow it to be interesting. Talk about stuff that is interesting.

[24:47]

If you have something that is helpful to the teacher, maybe you actually do have a suggestion, and you really mean it, and you think it would be good for the teacher to implement it, you can say so. You can say, hey, take it or leave it, but I was thinking this might be helpful. What do you think about that? And then finally, if you have anything that you are genuinely curious about. I can't emphasize enough how much it makes a difference to be genuine in your curiosity and not just grill people. Like, often we ask people to explain themselves.

[25:13]

You know, talk to me about this. Tell me, why did you do that? In a way that makes them defensive without really satisfying any curiosity on our part. Like, as long as they give us a good enough answer, we didn't really care. We just wanted to make sure they had a good enough answer. Like, let's just have genuine conversations.

[25:29]

So, I don't know if you've seen these questions. Actually, let me know if you have seen these questions. They're in the book. They're in Now We're Talking. In fact, they're on the note cards as well. They're in lots of different places.

[25:38]

They're in my FAQ, so they're in the book. They're on the back of the note cards. There are ten of them. There's nothing really special about these. I came up with these pretty quickly. Uh, but what's special about them...

[25:49]

is that they center on evidence. And I'll zoom in here so you can read these a little bit better. There's a place in the middle of every question for evidence. And that's why it's important to actually get into classrooms, right? We're not just saying, hey, how is your teaching going? You let me know.

[26:02]

I don't need to stop by. No, we do need to stop by. We do need to see for ourselves so that we can talk about something specific. Charlotte has used them. Wonderful. Khalid's used them.

[26:11]

Shanita's used them. Wonderful. All right, I mean, these are free. Take a screenshot. Uh, if you go to principalcenter.com slash FAQ, they're also there.

[26:18]

They're not a secret. They're in the note cards. You can download the note cards. And what you'll find is that you don't actually need to use all ten of them or remember any particular question. Just the structure and your curiosity and the evidence will get you there. And you don't even have to ask the whole question.

[26:37]

You can say, hey, I noticed, you know, students really seem to understand this aspect, but they really seem to be struggling. With this other aspect, what did you... And just kind of trail off. You don't even have to ask a whole question.

[26:47]

And then, the key here is you let the teacher talk. I think sometimes we have not great feedback conversations because we think, well, I have to do all the talking, right? I'm the instructional leader. I'm giving feedback, so I have to do all the talking. No, you don't. You don't have to do all the talking.

[27:04]

You can do as little of the talking as possible, and as long as you do these two things, cite evidence and suggest some sort of direction, you can let the teacher talk and have a great conversation. And a lot of people will feel like they had a great conversation if they got to do most of the talking. And if you are doing a lot of listening and a lot less talking, you will find that this is much more sustainable, much more doable than if you have to think up everything to say So, somebody type that in the chat for me, if you would. Let them talk. I think that is a good takeaway, maybe not the number one takeaway from today, but probably a top five takeaway. Let them talk.

[27:42]

Type that in the chat, if you would, just as a reminder to everybody here. All right, back to the idea of doing too much. Forms are where we tend to do the most, where we tend to do too much. Thank you, everybody. Yeah, let the teacher talk. Shutting up was the most powerful leadership move I made.

[28:01]

Charlotte says, wonderful. Let him talk. All right, let's talk about forms. It is very, very common to make a form that looks something like this. Usually the form is derived from the, either the district's priorities, maybe there's an initiative going on, maybe there's something that the district is trying to promote, and that drives the creation of a form, or maybe it's a set of look-fors that you have as an individual, but often, it's all of the evaluation criteria that make their way onto the form. And this may be done at the district level, it may even be done at the state level, where you're given a form with all of your evaluation criteria on it, and you're told, get into classrooms and fill out this form every time.

[28:41]

If you have done that, you know some of the challenges here. What are some of the challenges with filling this out every time you get into classrooms? You've got, in the case of Danielson, you've got 22 components across four domains. What are some of the challenges of trying to fill this out in a single observation? Yes, Mary says, not everything can be seen in one visit. There's no way you're going to see 22 different components in one visit.

[29:12]

Even if you stayed, like, all day, you couldn't do it. Let's see. You miss what's happening in the room because you're so focused on completing the form. Absolutely. The longer the form, the more distracting it is, right? The more boxes you have to literally check or write something in, uh, the more we're going to not really be able to pay attention to what's going on.

[29:31]

It's very time-consuming. Yeah, like, there's almost no conceivable lesson where you could see all of this. And some states have recognized that, okay, Domain 1 is planning and preparation, so whatever our planning and preparation domain is, we're not going to put that in the actual observation form. Other states do include it. Uh, Domain 4 is professional responsibilities. Often that's not in there either.

[29:52]

And we have to find some other way, like through artifacts or reflections or something, you know, to comment on those areas. But even if we limit ourselves to domain two and three, like the classroom management, the instruction, the actual teaching and learning, that's still a lot. And on any given day, we may not see very much. It may be very, very difficult to gather evidence for more than a handful of those. So, if we turn everything into a form, like, I don't know what it is about the temptation to turn everything into a form, like, it feels like we're controlling reality. We're saying, okay, these are the things that matter, these are the things I want to collect evidence on, so I'm just going to put them on the form, and then it'll happen.

[30:29]

Well, what really happens if that form is too difficult to fill out is we just don't fill it out, right? We can't make evidence up, and we don't, you know, you may have people making evidence up if you're making them fill out a form that has too many boxes, but often, we just avoid it, right? We have too many criteria, too many look-fors, too many fields, too many steps, too many boxes to type in. The longer the form, the less people will actually use it. The other dimension, of course, that's going on here is that those criteria were probably written not at the lesson level, but they were written to evaluate teacher practice overall for the entire year, including things they do outside of class time, including things that span multiple units and lessons, including things that cannot be observed in one single class period, and including some things that can't really be observed at all. So I think one of the big reasons that we struggle as a profession to get into classrooms consistently is because we're holding on to a lot of practices that we've been taught that don't really come from anywhere, right?

[31:29]

There is no real research behind the idea of using a walkthrough form, ...behind the idea of giving warm and cool feedback, or a feedback sandwich, and behind the idea of scoring a walkthrough, right? The idea that you can give teachers a rating on a rubric at the end of the year, I think, is one thing. I think that's a pretty well-established practice.

[31:49]

I don't think there is any established validity to the idea that you can walk into a classroom for five minutes, give the teacher a score, and have that mean anything real... And yet, these are things that often people are required to do. So, if you're in that situation where you're saying, okay, Justin, that sounds great, but my district requires this, or my state requires this. Well, we're working on it.

[32:13]

We're working on change. You can be a part of... advocating for practices that actually work. And I would love to know, based on what we've talked about so far, if you didn't have to use forms, if you couldn't use a form, if you couldn't use a feedback sandwich, people had told you, no more feedback sandwich, what would you do?

[32:33]

If you were forced to never again use a form, never again give a feedback sandwich, what would you do? How would you approach walkthroughs, and especially the feedback for teachers? Let me know your thoughts.

[32:49]

And I'll keep an eye on the chat. Lots of great comments coming in. Yeah, a timely conversation. Often people just want a chance to touch base, right? They just want to connect. They want to know that they weren't misunderstood.

[33:01]

Like, hey, I'm glad you stopped by today. I wish you had come 10 minutes earlier, because we had just done something really cool, and then the part that you saw probably didn't make any sense without that, but thank you for coming by. You know, I just want to fill you in. Like, people really want to be understood. Yeah, people want you to have good notes. Taking accurate notes that you can share, I think, is very powerful.

[33:19]

Shows a lot of trust, especially if you give the teacher your notes. Um, one kind of random tip here, if you take notes, take a picture, and then give the teacher your own copy of the notes to keep before you leave the room, that goes a long way. Yeah, take notes, give them to the teacher, talk with the teacher. immediate feedback, uh, keeping a running Google Doc. I've seen a lot of people do that successfully. That can definitely work.

[33:42]

Love it. Yeah. Listen and follow up, follow through. Absolutely. All right. Let's talk about the theory of action again.

[33:51]

I introduced this briefly earlier, but I believe these three things go together really well and lead into the recommendations that I'm going to give you for how to approach walkthroughs. If we get into classrooms every day, We can have conversations that change practice. Maybe not every time, but we will have lots of conversations that do change teacher practice because we are having so many conversations with teachers. And in the course of those conversations, we will figure out where our best opportunities for school improvement are. We will figure out what to budget for. We will figure out what to prioritize.

[34:22]

We will figure out What kind of people we should hire. We will figure out who needs to be on an improvement plan, who needs to work with a coach, who needs a little bit of extra attention. But we will only figure that out if we are in classrooms a lot. We have to not let the perfect and the complex be the enemy of the good and the consistent. If we want to have impact, we can't optimize just for impact. We have to optimize for sustainability as well.

[34:47]

So I want to give you a specific target that I've mentioned already that probably went in one ear and out the other. I find that it's very hard for this number to really sink in because it's such a big number. But the number is 500. I believe that everybody here today can get into classrooms 500 times a year. Type that number in the chat, if you would. Just type it in, hit enter, 500.

[35:07]

I believe you can do that. Ooh, and a good question before I lose it. Betty's asking, when do we find time to have the feedback conversations? When you can, if you can. And if you can't, that is okay, too. You probably will not have 500 feedback conversations a year, so be selective and say, okay, if there wasn't really anything to talk about, I'm just gonna say, hey, nice to see you today, bye.

[35:27]

People appreciate that, right? If they know you just saw them pass back some papers and then, you know, go over them for a minute and you're not going to have any earth-shattering feedback, it's okay to say, like, I don't have any earth-shattering feedback. Nice to see you today. Bye. That is totally fine. So be selective.

[35:42]

If you have 100 conversations or 250, wonderful. That is far more than the average, and they're going to be better conversations because you are able to be selective. But we've got to get into classrooms a lot for that to happen. But when I say a lot, like, three a day is really all it takes. It is not an incredible amount of time. Five or ten minutes each at most, maybe 15 minutes if you have a feedback conversation as well.

[36:06]

So we're not talking about more than 45 minutes, even in the worst case scenario. This is not a huge chunk of your day. It's certainly not all day every day. It's certainly not two full days a week. This can be a small but important part of your practice. I do recommend some sort of, you know, acknowledgement to the teacher.

[36:22]

We don't want to just, like, skulk in and skulk out and not say anything. Like, that can be a little weird. So be friendly. You know, smile and wave as you enter and leave. And, you know, let the teacher know if you don't really have anything to talk about. That's totally fine.

[36:35]

And then if the teacher wants to talk to you about something, often they will flag you down and say, hey, I wanted to explain what you saw today because I know it's probably not going to make sense if I don't explain it. And that's a wonderful thing. When we get into classrooms frequently, we can start to establish a cadence with each teacher that keeps us up to speed on what's going on in their classroom and gives us a sense of what their practice is like. So two weeks per teacher is the magic number. I want to see every teacher I supervise every two weeks. If you've got a 36-week school year, that means you see everybody 18 times per year.

[37:10]

And back to our number at the very beginning, 18 times per year, like, that's more than most people will be observed in their first 18 years. So we are talking about dramatically more interactions than most teachers are used to. You want to get into classrooms every day so that you can get to every teacher every two weeks, and you want to keep a pretty consistent rotation here. Now, a couple of things that I don't recommend as far as visiting. First of all, if you have an admin team, don't try to visit everybody. Like, if you have 75 teachers or 120 teachers, don't say, okay, I'm the principal, I want to visit everybody.

[37:41]

Because you're not going to get to them on a two-week basis. It's going to be a couple months in between visits. Focus on the teachers that you supervise. You probably supervise about 30 teachers on the high end, maybe 40. If you have more than 40, talk to me, because I think we need to make some adjustments there. Uh, there may need to be some advocacy, because that workload starts to get unsustainable much past 30.

[38:01]

But if you have 30 teachers, you can get to everybody every two weeks, and that, I think, is the sweet spot. And you can, you know, do some things to make this more efficient. You know, you can visit people whose classrooms are nearby, back-to-back. I often would like to see the same lesson in different classrooms, like, go to the first grade wing, see the same math lesson in all three first grade teachers' classrooms, and then I know a lot more about the lesson, and I have a lot more context for talking with the teachers. Uh, but you can do that geographically if you have different buildings on campus, or the, you know, do the second story, or the portables, or whatever. Um, it doesn't matter that much.

[38:33]

Uh, do whatever is the most convenient for you. But, what I would do is be consistent about it. So, maybe that first cycle, it doesn't matter. The second cycle, you know, establish an order and then stick to that order. Because if you jump around, you're gonna start missing people. You're gonna start visiting just the people who are easiest and nicest.

[38:51]

And the people who are more difficult, farther away, grumpier, you're gonna start avoiding them. So just keep that same cycle. And the note cards are a great way to do that. So if you haven't used the physical note cards, the nice thing about the note cards is you keep them in a stack, you visit the top three teachers, and then you put their note card on the bottom of the stack, and then they make their way back to the top as you get through everybody else. And if you miss somebody, You leave their note card on top of the stack so you get to them tomorrow. So you don't let them go to the back and just get skipped entirely.

[39:15]

Leave them on top. Even if they get visited, like, slightly out of order because they were out sick or something, you still get to them. So, uh, do that with the note cards. Repertoire also keeps track of that automatically in the app so that you're always being reminded, okay, you missed this person. They need to be up next. Keep them in order.

[39:31]

Let's see. Other questions here. Are there different metrics for district administrators over multiple buildings? Uh, yes. I think in that case, I would just strive to get into classrooms with your administrators when you observe. So, you know, if they may not be getting into classrooms when you're not there, hopefully they are.

[39:47]

But have them take, you know, take you with them. Maybe you want to see five or ten classrooms when you stop by, just to be able to see more. I think doing a cycle one... where you very quickly walk through a lot of classrooms is a good approach for central office administrators.

[40:02]

And then if you want to stay longer in a few classrooms, you can always do that. But yeah, the more classrooms you can get into per visit, you know, otherwise you're spending so much time driving from campus to campus that it's not that much time in classrooms. So I think, you know, doing those visits with the administrator, trying to get around to a lot of classrooms just to see what you're dealing with is helpful. Uh, the app is Repertoire. It's part of our Instructional Leadership Association membership. Uh, and I'll give you a link to that later on.

[40:28]

Alright, let's talk about the core of the model. What I call the seven keys to sustainable impact. These are the make-or-break characteristics of classroom walkthroughs. There are seven of them, and if you have nine on your mental list, I'm going to guess that some of them break the model. So here's what I have on my list for characteristics of effective classroom walkthroughs. First of all, they are frequent.

[40:55]

We've been talking about 500 a year, every teacher every two weeks, three a day... 15 a week, however you want to calculate that. We've got to get into classrooms frequently, or else this whole thing is just hypothetical, right? If we are not getting into classrooms consistently, we are doing something that is basically imaginary and theoretical and is not going to have an impact, no matter how great it seems on paper, no matter how much complexity we've built in to impress people, it's not going to make a difference if we're not doing it frequently.

[41:23]

So frequency is the starting point. Second, they need to be brief. We cannot get into classrooms frequently if we draw things out too long. These cannot be 45-minute visits. These cannot be hour-long visits. 5, 10, 15 minutes at most.

[41:37]

Third, they can't just be fluffy smile and wave walkthroughs forever. They need to be substantive. We are actually going to talk in-depth about teaching and learning some of the time when the situation warrants it. Not every time, you know, not every visit to every classroom is very substantive, but when the situation warrants it, we want to have a good, substantive conversation. We want that conversation to be open-ended and kind of driven by what actually happened in the classroom, what we saw. We want that conversation to be based on the evidence of what we saw, so we're always going to cite the evidence that we saw.

[42:11]

We want to refer to our evaluation criteria, so number six is criterion-referenced, and then number seven, ultimately, conversation-oriented. The conversation really is the goal. The conversation is the purpose. Not filling out a form, not checking a box, not crossing someone off our list, but the conversation itself is the point. So you may not always have a conversation, but show up, and if it makes sense to have a conversation, do, and we will have a sustainable impact on practice with less paperwork, less complexity...

[42:43]

So, I have given you the probably most valuable part of the book. You don't have to buy it. Does that sound good? Can you do those seven things? Let me know in the chat if that sounds good. And let me know also in the chat, how does that stack up against common walkthrough practices, like using a form?

[43:02]

What is missing from that list? What is different from that list? I've got the list on the screen again. Frequent, brief, substantive, open-ended, evidence-based, criterion-referenced, and conversation-oriented. What is different? Let me know what you think.

[43:17]

What do you think? Is this the right list? Is there anything you would add? Anything you would remove?

[43:29]

I'm not offended if you have thoughts on that. But I think we've got to give ourselves a practice that we can stick with. If you are going to do something 500 times a year, it is going to need to be fairly sustainable, right? It's going to need to be fairly streamlined, fairly simple. Another characteristic you might notice here is, like, there's not a lot of homework, right? It's not get into classrooms all day and then do homework all night, fill out the paperwork, All night, and, you know, then you will have an impact on practice.

[44:02]

That is not the key to success here. Yeah, it's doable once you start using it on the daily three times a day. Thank you, appreciate that. Uh, great question here from Brendan. If the state requires the form, then simplification is key. Any exemplars?

[44:18]

What I would do, Brendan, in that case... Okay, the state hopefully is not going to require as many visits as you're doing. What I would do is I would take notes and then fill out the form later, less frequently. Right?

[44:31]

Because you're not going to have enough evidence from any one visit, probably, to fill out the form, and it's a lot of work to fill out the form, so you might fill out the state-required or district-required form after five walkthroughs, or, you know, two in a month, if you're required to fill out the form once a month, is going to give you, you know, more to work with, and, you know, just more opportunity to get the evidence you need. To fill out that form. Okay, two, two, two formals and two informals a year. I think that's very doable. Uh, but I would still get into classrooms every day so that you have, you know, basically 18 per teacher. And you're going to be in a great position because you have lots of knowledge, you have a very strong relationship with each teacher, you know their practice inside and out, and most importantly, you have a lot of evidence.

[45:10]

You have a lot that you can say. Okay. All right, so how do we get started? I saw that question earlier in the chat. How do we get started? I want to give you a three-step startup plan for visiting every teacher three times across three cycles, starting with something that is very simple.

[45:29]

Now, what I don't want you to start with is what I think of as, like, campaign promises. You don't want to make a big speech to your staff and say, guess what, everybody? I went to a webinar, and this year's gonna be different. I am a changed man. I am a changed woman. Everything is gonna be different this year.

[45:46]

I'm gonna get into classrooms every day. You're gonna get feedback from me every day. It's gonna rock your world. I'm gonna knock your socks off with what a great instructional leader I am. I'm gonna tell you what's what. I'm gonna help you improve.

[45:58]

All of those promises tend to fall flat, because you know what? Every other administrator who has preceded you has made that speech. Every one of those promises has been made and broken. I personally have made some of those promises and broken them because I did not have a plan for sustainability. I was over-promising, I was over-committing, and I was committing to something that I could not follow through on. So I want you to avoid those grand promises, and I want you to set yourself up for success And give yourself something that you can stick with rather than crash and burn, right?

[46:33]

The big speech, the big promises, the ambition for frequency and quality of feedback, the not leaving enough time for other work, the promising that it's non-evaluative, the not having time to deal with emergencies, like, all of that... We've been down that road before, right? Have you been down this road before? Have you experienced this where you, like, you really try?

[46:55]

You do your absolute best. You tell yourself this year is going to be different. Like, I've done it. You've probably done it, right? We have all been there where we think, okay, I'm serious now, and that was all it took. I needed to be serious, now I'm serious, and it's gonna work.

[47:08]

No, you don't just need to be serious. You are serious from the beginning. What you need is something that is actually sustainable. So keep this simple. Here are the three cycles. Uh, this is in our classroom walkthrough toolbox.

[47:19]

If you're a member, you'll find this in your dashboard. Uh, very easy plan to follow, but I'm gonna give it to you now. You can take a screenshot of this. If you would like, here is the three-cycle startup plan. Cycle one, visit every teacher you supervise back-to-back, just at once. One day, you can get it done in an hour.

[47:37]

If you get interrupted, you can get back to it. You know, no more than two days. Um, you know, if you have a very crazy first week of school some years, you know, you might give yourself the entire first week. But probably, like, the first hour of school, you can get this done. And if you are just starting now, you can get this done tomorrow. Or the, whatever the next school day is, you can get...

[47:55]

Cycle one done, because it's so simple. All you have to do... Here, we'll practice it right now. All you have to do is smile and wave.

[48:02]

That is all you have to do. We're gonna leave off substantive. Remember, substantive was on our list of the seven keys to sustainable impact. We're gonna leave off substantive. We're gonna leave off criterion reference. We're gonna leave off evidence-based.

[48:12]

We're gonna save that for cycle two and three. We're just gonna show up and be present and pleasant. We're gonna smile. We're not gonna look stressed, even though we are stressed. We've all got the gray hair and the wrinkles that come with being an administrator. We're going to be present and pleasant.

[48:26]

We're going to pay attention. We're going to be glad to be in classrooms. We're going to be glad that nobody can yell at us right now because we're just sitting there listening to a lesson and having a good time. And then we're leaving. We're not giving any feedback. We're not leaving any notes.

[48:40]

You might say, nice to see you today. But, like, don't even slow yourself down that much. Save the note for cycle two. Just get around to every classroom. Can you do that? Give me a yes in the chat if you can do that tomorrow or whenever your next day of school is.

[48:54]

Is that doable? I don't think there is a person in this profession who can't visit every classroom for a minute. And that is intentional. That's why it's cycle one, because everybody can succeed. It requires no skill other than smiling, and I believe that you have the ability to smile and the ability to wave and be, you know, a positive presence in classrooms. You can't fail at this.

[49:15]

Just go do it. Get it done, and you'll have broken the ice, you'll have gotten started, and people will be somewhat used to seeing you in classrooms, so that when you come back the next day, you're not going to get to everybody on day two, when you start cycle two, you're going to get to just three people. And over the following two weeks, you're going to get around to everybody a second time. In cycle two, you do want to stay for a few minutes. You do want to make your visits substantive. You're not going to worry a whole lot about evidence, you're not going to worry a whole lot about feedback or documentation, you're just going to be there, and you're going to soak it in, You're gonna show interest, you're gonna be positive, you're gonna smile and nod and understand what's going on, and just be a presence in classrooms.

[49:55]

And then when you finish that cycle, you've been around everybody a second time, this'll take about two weeks plus a day for cycle one, then you start cycle three, and then you start taking some notes. Now, to make this a little bit easier on teachers, you don't have to bring a laptop. You don't have to bring a device. You don't have to be typing up your notes. You don't have to make it feel like a formal observation. Your notes can be very simple.

[50:16]

You can take a legal pad, tear off the page, leave it with the teacher. Just take a picture, and you've got it in your records. Leave it with the teacher. If you want to do a nice note card, like on school stationery or school letterhead or whatever, leave the teacher a little note. Say, hey, nice to see you today. Here's what I saw.

[50:30]

Let me know if you want to chat. And you can tell them if you want to chat, but usually, you know, it can be kind of a low-key thing, and you will start to get into feedback conversations that will change teacher practice. Now, we can't force that, and I think that's the part that we have to recognize here. We can't force the impact of any one feedback conversation. You're gonna have some observations where, like, nothing important is happening, and that's okay, they're just handing back papers, and you're not gonna have any earth-shattering feedback, and you're gonna have other observations where the person is really struggling, and you do have some good feedback that the person really needs to implement, but they're not going to, right? You're not going to move that rock today, but you are going to get started.

[51:08]

You are going to start learning, you are going to start nudging in the right direction, and putting the pieces in place to change practice. But it's only going to happen if you get into classrooms a lot. And you're only going to get into classrooms a lot if you start. So here is my commitment question for you. Can you do this? Is this doable?

[51:26]

I already asked. I asked it early. But give me a yes again if you can do this. Because, you know, I believe in you. I don't have any doubt. Like, this book has sold 15,000 copies.

[51:35]

Lots of people have written to me and said, you know, I'm not any kind of genius or superhero, but I've gotten into classrooms 500 times a year. And let me tell you... I have never gotten into classrooms 500 times a year. This is people who have written to me after I was done being a principal, after I wrote the book, and told me, yes, this actually works.

[51:52]

I wish I had gotten into classrooms 500 times a year myself, but you have an opportunity that I did not have as a principal. You have permission to streamline things. You have permission to simplify things for yourself and make this a sustainable practice. And it all starts with getting into classrooms once. Can you do that? I see an absolutely.

[52:14]

Lots of yeses, lots of exclamation points, lots of capital letters. I love it. Okay, couple of logistics, couple more things to talk about. Uh, who should I visit? I think I mentioned this, but you want to limit your visits to the teachers you supervise, because otherwise the frequency is going to suffer. If you have 75 teachers in your school, you're not going to get to everybody every two weeks.

[52:31]

You can adjust. I was talking with someone about this, uh, the other day. If you're in a smaller school and you only have 15 teachers each and there are two administrators, okay, great. Do your teachers one week and the other teachers the next week. Keep that two-week rotation. Nobody's being seen by any one administrator more than once a week, and that's fine.

[52:49]

Uh, if you're in a very small school... Like, my co-author Heather only had a handful of teachers, and, like, three a day would get her into every classroom, like, 60 or 70 times a year. That's too much. Uh, you know, you can slow it down a little bit.

[53:00]

If you're in a very small school, you probably wear more hats. But for most people, it's gonna be three a day, two-week rotation, because they have about 30 people. All right, uh, let me know what other logistics questions you have, um, and think about that two-week cadence. That's, that's really what we want to go for here. Everybody's numbers are going to be a little bit different, but, uh, you know, how are you going to make that two-week cadence matter, and, and why does that matter? I'd love to have your thoughts or your questions about that.

[53:29]

But he's asking, so we only give a quick note of positive, on-task things we saw. Um, you can. I would say don't make that a rule for yourself, because sometimes you're not going to feel like it, and sometimes the teacher's going to tell you don't mean it. So it's like the feedback standards, like, don't do it if you don't mean it. Don't do it if you feel like it, you know, the situation doesn't call for it. It's fine.

[53:47]

I think people like to hear a positive thing. Um, but I wouldn't give yourself any particular homework. Like, go with the flow and have the conversations that you feel like you need to have. And I think you're going to see a bigger impact that way. Oh, this is a great question, too. I didn't put this in my slides, Ken, but thank you for asking.

[54:03]

Would you aim to get into new teachers' classrooms more often? I would say maybe, but not as part of this cycle, right? New teachers tend to need more support anyway. They need, probably, a mentor. They might need somebody to coach them. You might have some things that you take people through when they're new to your building or when they're new to the profession.

[54:22]

In addition to this, but I wouldn't work them into this particular rotation more often. I would just keep the same rotation, and then if you have other things that you need to do, like, hey, you know, I really want to go through planning with you and, you know, get a good sense of how you plan. Just do that in parallel to it, and that'll be the extra that the new teachers get. Often, new teachers are getting support from a lot of people. They might have six different people that are working with them, their content person, their coach, their mentor, you know, it can be a lot. Uh, let's see.

[54:51]

Our PE teachers team teach. Should we do them all at one time? Yeah, I think it depends on, like, what's going to allow you to talk about that person's practice, right? Because if they're not the one making instructional decisions, you know, you've got to talk about their decisions. You don't want to talk about, like, hey, what was it like when you were in the room and somebody else was calling the shots? Like, you know, get to a situation where they're making decisions, and that may be more of a curriculum question.

[55:12]

You know, you may have to... you know, talk with them and get more of a sense of kind of where they're coming from. And that's true for anybody who teaches something that's very different, if it's not, like, a core academic classroom, especially at the elementary level. If you're working with your music teacher, they may have to give you some thoughts for you to have, you know, a paradigm for kind of how you can be helpful to them and get a sense of their practice.

[55:37]

Susie's asking...

[55:45]

When you go into classrooms, is it always observation only, or do you engage with the students or provide extra support in some way? I always struggle with what I should be doing. Not a good sit-on-the-sidelines person. I think that's a great question. You know, if it makes sense to be involved, you know, if students are working in groups and the teacher's helping them, and you could also help, I think it's fine to help.

[56:03]

You know, if students are working on essays, you can encourage. If they ask you how to spell a word, you can tell them. I don't think you have to do, like, a... You know, pretend I'm not here, zip your lips kind of thing.

[56:11]

I think that's fine to be flexible about. I don't love the approaches that are like, here, I will maximally interrupt every time I visit your class. I think that can be a little bit rude. And there are people who insist on, like, taking over the lesson whenever they visit. I'm not a fan of that, but I think it's okay to participate, absolutely. Kind of help out the teacher a little bit.

[56:31]

Uh, okay, good deal. Let's talk about the what, and we are running out of time here, so we will, uh, wrap things up here in just a minute. Just a little bit more about what to actually do. Yeah, to not sit on the sidelines. Um, you know, I think be present and pleasant, smile and wave, come in quietly and pleasantly. Uh, you can kind of non-verbally gesture, like, you know, keep on going, don't, you know, don't stop on my account when you get there.

[56:56]

Uh, pay attention. One thing to pay attention to is, like, what is the teacher's instructional purpose? What are they striving to do in this lesson? Um, and try to get a sense of their goal, and try to think about your evaluation criteria. And you might not get a lot of evidence for any particular evaluation criteria. on any given day, but you can kind of have those criteria in mind, you know, so that you're paying attention to the right things.

[57:21]

You can talk with the teacher and students if the lesson allows it. You know, I don't like to interrupt, but, you know, if there's downtime, students are working, maybe it works to, uh, to talk with people. Uh, and then in terms of documentation, I would do, you know, minimal documentation, date and time in cycles one and two, and then take some notes in cycle three, give those notes to the teacher, save a photo or save them in your app, whatever you're using. And then, uh, the good stuff happens in the conversation. We've already talked about the 10 feedback questions where you cite something that you saw, ask a kind of open-ended question, listen to the answer, uh, press for elaboration, but don't grill the teacher, you know, make it kind of a low-stakes conversation. And as a result of doing that a lot, I believe you will be in the best possible position when it comes to final evaluations.

[58:06]

If you've been in classrooms 500 times by the end of the year, you will have an enormous amount of perspective and written evidence on every teacher's practice. So when you do see those 22 criteria, you think, okay, I've got to evaluate 30 people on 22 criteria. Well, good thing I have 500 pages of notes to help me. It is very, very doable. You can use tools to search through those notes and find things that are relevant. We've been building some tools to help with that.

[58:31]

Uh, Shanita, I think it's fine to take notes during the conversation. Uh, I think if you get lost in the conversation and forget to take notes, that's fine, too. Uh, you could send a follow-up email if there's anything you really want to make sure gets documented. Like, if somebody identifies an action step or commits to changing something, you could remind them of that. I think that's fine. Yeah, I like to walk around and see what students are doing or listen to conversations students have when collaborating.

[58:51]

Yeah, love it. Uh, question, at what point do you recommend introducing the formal evaluation template to teachers? How do we let teachers know where they are on the rubric we're using? I would say start using the language as early as possible and give people the paperwork as early as possible. But I do believe that we are evaluating their overall practice, and as, you know, as much as possible, we want to defer judgment on that while giving people feedback that helps them get on track. So, I think there are some tricky questions there around, you know, if somebody is not on target to be satisfactory, if they need to be on an improvement plan, we probably need to get on that.

[59:26]

Um, but I don't like introducing ratings into this process, because I think usually we don't have enough information, and it forces kind of short-term decision-making in a way that I think is unhelpful. Um, one more thing I want to touch on just briefly, uh, when it comes to scheduling... People tend to schedule their walkthroughs in one big block, like, 9 to 10 a.m. or 9 a.m. to noon.

[59:49]

And they say, okay, well, I'm serious about it now. I scheduled a big block. And then, of course, like, the fire department shows up, a parent shows up, your boss shows up, and you don't get to it. I think it is much better not to block off a whole bunch of time in one big block and instead just find some little times. You know, okay, right before recess, I'm going to go get into classrooms. And then I'm going to go out to recess.

[60:07]

And then after recess, I'm going to go get into classrooms again for a couple of minutes. Or, you know... Right, in the transition, back from lunch, or, you know, whenever it makes sense in your calendar. If you can find five or six times a day that are short...

[60:19]

You can get into classrooms for three of those times, even if you fail for the other two or three times, and you'll be on track. Um, plan times when you're already out of the office, or when you know, like, if I'm sitting at my desk, I'm just gonna start clicking through emails, it's not a good time for me to be at my desk at, you know, 1.30 in the afternoon. Get up then, get into classrooms at a variety of times, um, but don't just schedule, like, 9 to 10 a.m. I think that tends to not work very well.

[60:44]

Uh, let me know your preference on this. I find that some people are schedulers, and some people are not. Give me a not if you're not a scheduler. I personally am not, but I definitely understand. My wife is a scheduler, you know, has that perspective that if it's not scheduled, it's not gonna get done, or you might make yourself a checklist. You know, whatever level of intentionality...

[61:03]

I like flexibility, personally, but that's kryptonite for some people, so let me know what your preference is. If you need to tell yourself, I am going to go observe Justin at 11.32 a.m. or it's not going to happen, great, go for it, put it on your Google Calendar, you know, write yourself a sticky note. If you just want to wander around and look at your note card and say, oh, look who's next, here's the note card on the top of the stack, I guess I need to go see Justin, let me find a time to do that.

[61:26]

Oh, look, Justin's got fourth period math right now, I'm going to stop by. Great. Do whatever works for you. Yeah, some people have a combination. Uh, we tend to be driven to deal with interruptions a lot, so a lot of us end up kind of, uh, ADD in, uh, jumping around. Like, that's just the demand of the job, is you have to jump around to a lot of different things, so... Do what works for you.

[61:45]

If you need to impose some order on that with the schedule, great. Um, do whatever works for you. Just make sure you get into three classrooms a day, and you will be in great shape. A couple of tools that we have available. If you do want to type your notes, I think handwritten is great, but if you want to type or if you want to talk, you can do that in Repertoire. We added a Talk It In button where you can just, like, observe for a few minutes, go out in the hallway, say what you saw, and then it'll be kind of typed up in outline format.

[62:11]

That is a new feature, and then we've had the typing for, I think, 11 years now in Repertoire. It'll remember what you type. It'll suggest feedback phrases that you've used before or that you have in your database, so that can be a big time saver. And you can just email the notes to the teacher, you can say, hey, here's what I saw today, anything like that. Or you can do handwritten notes, take a picture, And Repertoire does allow you to save a picture, either of a standalone note, or if you took notes in your planner. So you can print a planner page every day, and then take a picture of that planner once you've written in it, and then as long as the teacher's name is somewhere by those notes, it'll match it up and say, okay, these are the notes from Justin's classroom, these are the notes from Mary's classroom, and it'll create an entry for them for that day, and get it all into a database, because...

[62:56]

Like, often, it's nicer to have handwritten notes. It's nicer to take handwritten notes. It's nicer to give the teacher handwritten notes. It's just inconvenient for documentation purposes. You want them typed, so that's automatic now in Repertoire.

[63:07]

So you can just print that planner for the day or the week, and then take a picture. And you can also write in your schedule. I personally like to write out my schedule, so I think through it. Obviously, you can print your calendar, too, but, you know, sometimes it's nice to just think with pen and paper. Uh, you also can get an email from Repertoire that'll tell you who's up next.

[63:29]

It's exactly the digital equivalent to the note cards. So you can say, okay, you have not been in Diana's classroom. in, you know, two weeks, so now it's time. Uh, you haven't seen third period yet at all, so why don't you go at 10.20, and you can see writing. Uh, you can get a daily email that will send that to you.

[63:44]

You can tell it how many teachers you want to be suggested. It defaults to three. If you want that five days a week, you can have it go out 6 a.m. five days a week, or whatever you want. That is automatic.

[63:54]

We also have added a new view recently in Repertoire that shows you how many times you've seen each person and kind of who's up next. And, uh, we have that at the team level as well in our multi-user version. Uh, you can also print custom note cards. So, by default, the note cards are blank and you write in the teachers. If you have your teacher roster in Repertoire, you can print the actual schedules, and if you don't have the schedules, you can take a picture, and it'll read that off the whiteboard, or wherever the schedule is, and then that can help you find the best time to visit, because there's nothing more frustrating than saying, okay, I'm gonna go see Michael right now, you get to Michael's room, and oh, it's his prep. Or you need to go talk to Michael, and it's not his prep, and he doesn't have one, because you already missed it, so...

[64:32]

Having schedules is very, very handy for flexibility. Um, if you are looking for the multi-user version of Repertoire, that is on our Binder K12 platform, so feel free to check that out. It has some multi-user features, and we can set things up for your district so that everybody has the same criteria, the same language. Uh, we can do some district analytics. Let me know if you're interested in that. Uh, are there printed instructions for Repertoire?

[64:56]

Uh, there is Help Chat, and just reach out if you, if you need help doing anything. Um, but yeah, give it a try. Um, whether you use any particular tool or not, get into classrooms. I hope I've given you some permission to let go of some things and some confidence in your ability to get into classrooms every single day. And let me know again. Can you do this?

[65:17]

Have I convinced you to believe in yourself, and have I convinced you to actually do this? Give me a yes in the chat if you can get into classrooms. Maybe this is not your first webinar with me. Maybe there was something else that you have been holding on to, and you've been thinking, okay, I need to fill out this 50-page form, and as long as I can do that, I can do everything else Justin says, and finally get into classrooms. And today you realized...

[65:38]

Okay, I've got to let that 50-page form go. It is not going to happen. I want to get into classrooms. I want to talk with teachers. I want to have good feedback conversations. And that means I need to streamline.

[65:48]

That means I need to simplify. Give me a yes in the chat if that is you. Ooh, I see a lot of them already. All right, some takeaways, some action items. Go do cycle one tomorrow. You need nothing.

[65:59]

Just go get into every classroom. You don't even need to keep track. Just physically walk around your campus until you've been to every classroom. Uh, if you miss anybody because they're out sick, come back the next day. But you can have cycle one done in one to two days. And you will be off and running.

[66:15]

In your second cycle, I want to encourage you to use those note cards, because as I mentioned, they have room to write out the teacher's schedule, or you can just take a picture of the teacher's schedule, and then, uh, in our member dashboard, you can print out a new note card with the schedule printed, then you can keep track of your visits on those note cards moving forward, or in repertoire, or both. A lot of people do both. I've been talking a lot about the book. I've told you everything that I think you need to know to get started from the book.

[66:44]

The book is Now We're Talking.

[67:18]

You can listen to the audiobook and psych yourself up and give yourself every strategy, every advantage, and every streamlining tip for getting into classrooms and having feedback conversations with teachers.

[67:46]

Charlotte says, I bought it for my entire team. Wow, thank you very, very much. I'm always curious, uh, who is out there, uh, who's bought the books and what they think about them, because, uh, like I said, about 15,000 people have bought the book, and I'm really, uh, glad that that is the case, and I hope people... are using it.

[68:00]

I'm sure there are some copies collecting dust. Maybe you have already bought the book. Maybe you physically have it and it's on your shelf. Uh, and today was the kickstart you needed to actually put it into practice. And you have my permission not to read it. If you're so busy getting into classrooms and you got what you needed today, it is okay if you don't read the book right now.

[68:16]

Maybe you read it next summer. That is totally fine. But give it a try. Get into classrooms and let me know how it goes. Thank you, Robert. That is really great to hear.

[68:26]

Alright, thank you very much for being here, Kay Lynn. We will call it good here. I've kept you too long already, but thank you so much for your time. Uh, if you want the book, uh, a trial of the apps and everything, principalcenter.com slash talking is the way to go.

[68:44]

And thanks for checking out the audiobook, the hard copy book, and thanks for your time today. Have a wonderful day, and send me an email if I can be of assistance with anything. If we have any questions I didn't get to, my email is just justinatprincipalcenter.com. Same email you got the webinar reminders from.

[69:01]

You can reply to any of those, and I should see those. I think those will go to justin@principalcenter.com. Email me anytime, and I would love to hear from you. That is it for today. Thanks so much for being here, and I will see you around.

[69:12]

Have a great day.