Why Is It So Important for Instructional Leaders to Get into Classrooms?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder explains why being in classrooms regularly is the single most important thing instructional leaders can do.
Key Takeaways
- It's not mainly about evaluation - The primary purpose of classroom visits is to build understanding and relationships, not to judge
- Presence enables leadership - You can't lead instruction if you don't know what's happening in classrooms
- Everything else follows from this - Better feedback, better decisions, and better support all start with being present
Transcript
Why is it so important for instructional leaders to get into classrooms?
I think there's this perception that it's all about feedback, that teachers need our suggestions and tips.
But if you ask teachers, that's not really what they're looking for.
The random feedback is not so helpful.
What teachers want is to be known, to have their practice seen regularly so that when there's a formal observation, something that's more high stakes that goes in the evaluation, that there's context for it.
And that means as instructional leaders, we have to show up frequently.
I recommend visiting three classrooms a day every day because that's going to get you around to about 500 classrooms a year or about every teacher about 18 times.
And that makes formal observations and high stakes evaluations and all that kind of stuff much more effective and much more trustworthy.
So if you want to get into classrooms in the coming year, check out the Instructional Leadership Association at principalcenter.com slash ILA.