A quick guide for a successful experience

Objective

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The objective of todays work is about learning from our experience by describing observed practices, developing a more acute understanding of our own continuous improvement efforts, and taking control of our own learning in ways that are more likely to lead to sustained improvement over time.

Goals: To learn from one another in a respectful and asset based manner; To be descriptive when using the 5 Dimensions of Teaching and Learning; To have fun.

Problem of Practice

"of all the things we could pay attention to in classrooms, we're going to focus particularly on one of the 5 dimensions of teaching and learning."

The 5 Dimensions of teaching and Learning will guide and focus our observations: What strategies are the teacher and students using? In what ways do teachers use the strategies?

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Today we will be working on Description. Description is the core practice on which observations are based. The kind of observing we will be doing focuses not on teachers themselves, but on the teaching, learning, and content of the instructional core.

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By description, we mean the evidence of what you see--not what you think about what you see.

The questions that will guide our work during our observations include: 1. What is the task that students are working on? 2. In what specific ways are the teacher and students interacting in relation to the task?

Examples of Judgmental and Nonjudgmental Descriptions

Description Includes Observer's Judgment 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Fast-paced Too much time on discussion, not enough time on individual work. Excellent classroom management Teacher used effective questioning techniques with a range of students Teacher read from a book that was not at the appropriate level for the class. Teacher had good rapport with students. Student conducted a very sophisticated lab experiment.

Description Without Judgement 1. 2. 3. 4. Teacher asks, "How did you figure out this problem?" Student explains. Students followed directions in the text to make circuit boards. Teacher said, "Write the words that I spell in the blank spaces. S-P-O-T. D-O-T. P-O-T." Task: Find different ways to create a total of 31. Student 1 writes in math journal: 5+5+5+5+5+5+1=31 10+10+10+1=31 Student 2: 20+9=03 student 3: 41-10=31 2+3x3+16=31 5. Student 1 asks student 2: "What are we supposed to write down?" Student 2 replies: "I don't know"

When observing a classroom, we want to be on the bottom of the ladder of inference.

When we discipline ourselves to stay in the descriptive mode, we are likely to notice more accurately what is happening in the classroom and our inferences will be on a firmer evidentiary foundation.

What it looks like in practice

When we are learning to see, we start off with three questions rooted in the instructional core: 1. What are teachers doing and saying? 2. What are students doing and saying? 3. What is the task?

The secret to capturing great observation notes is to continually ask yourself, "What is the evidence?" "What am I seeing or hearing to make me think what I am thinking?" Remember, we want to remain on the bottom of the ladder of inference.

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Think of evidence in terms of grain size. Small, Medium, and Large

Sometimes fuzzy is beautiful; sometimes it is not

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Grain size is a photography term. When an image is fuzzy, the grain size is large. When an image is sharp, it has a very small grain size.

The more general the description is, the more room there is for fuzziness or interpretation .

Large-Grained and Fine Grained Evidence

Large-Grained Evidence 1. Lesson on the four main causes of war 2. Teacher questions students about the passage they just read 3. Students practicing higher-order thinking skills. 4. Teacher introduced the concept of fractions and had students apply the concepts in a hands-on activity. 5. Teacher checked frequently for comprehension. 6. Teacher made curriculum relevant to students' lives. Fine-Grained Evidence 1. Teacher: "How are volcanoes and earthquakes similar and different?" 2. Teacher: "Boys and girls, today's number is 30. Who can give me a string of numbers that go up to 30?" 3. Prompt for student essays: "What role did symbolism play in foreshadowing the main character's dilemma?" 4. Students worked individually even though they were in groups. Each worked on their own paper and didn't talk with others. 5. Students made up questions about the book they'd just read.
Taking Notes--Things to look for... First, get yourself oriented to the classroom. What grade is it? What content area? How many students are there? How many girls? How many boys? How many adults are there? How many minutes into the class are we? It takes about a minute to note these facts. Then look at the task. What are students being asked to do? What are they actually doing? Look at patterns of interaction. Is it teahcer-student-teacher? Do students talk with each other? Do students initiate conversation, or are they always responding to the teacher? What questions are being asked? Who is asking them? What are the responses to the questions? How much time is spent on what activity? Also notice the time periodically throughout the observation as part of mapping what we see.

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It is important to refrain from talking about the classroom visits until we sit down for a formal debrief of our observations. Stick to the evidence. During the debriefing, the conversation should only include evidence. Participants can help one another learn to restate judgmental statements in descriptive form. Prompts--like, "what's the evidence that supports that idea?" or something more playful like, "just the facts, ma'am!"-encourage colleagues to push each other when they hear someone slip into the normative language that masks specifics of practice.

Share talk time: "Everyone speaks once before anyone speaks twice."

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The Debrief Process

1. Read through your notes 2. Put a star next to the observations that seem relevant to the problem of practice (CEL 5D). Try to pick at least one piece of evidence for each of the sub dimensions. 3. Write the observation on a sticky note. 4. Post on the wall chart paper evidence from your observation for each sub dimension with a sticky note. 5. In partner groups: Share your evidence and discuss what patterns you notice across the evidence. 6. Help each other stay in the descriptive voice: "What did you see/hear that makes you think that?" 7. Whole group talk. What data did people notice?

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Actions

Prediction "If you were teaching your class today, what would you put into practice?"

What causes the learning we want to see in our classrooms? What specific teaching moves, what kinds of tasks or assessments, and/or what forms of student engagement lead to powerful learning for students?

The following are reections from an expert: What I found that was most powerful was emphasizing that the purpose of observing someone else was to determine what does what I saw mean to me." The key is self reection of MY own practices, not what someone else did or did not do. If you are using a rubric, use only observable, somewhat observable or not observable. Not observable can be the most powerful, but you have to be cautious. You dont want to hear she should have....she could have... you want to hear (coach) people say; While not observable in this lesson, I was/am thinking that if I were teaching a similar lesson, I could do/add this or that to ensure students understood the success, criteria/purpose, etc." You want them to see a lesson and then reect upon what they do in their lessons that is aligned with what you/they want to see. You dont want them to talk about the teacher, only themselves. I noticed that the purpose statement was posted, and referred to three times during the lesson, that makes me wonder if I refer back to the purpose multiple times during my lesson, and if I am checking for understanding. State out right that when educators see a lesson they think about What I agreed with, and what I would do differently. Often times they make claims and judgments as opposed to what we want, which is evidence and impact. Evidence is easy impact is tougher, as that requires some type of formative assessment. Just keep coming back to; because of what I saw, this is what it means to me. The most important thought: Because of what I saw, THIS is what it means to me and my practice.