For teachers to continuously improve, we must have healthy levels of trust in the institution where we teach, along with a strong sense of mission and vision and a deep desire to be effective with students. In addition, we must be engaged in a culture of continuous quality improvement that includes a commitment of money, appropriate resources, time, and personnel. There should be a robust school PD budget, a specific yearly plan for professional development days tied to the school’s improvement plan where teachers are resourced to “practice” PD in classes with students, availability and resources to attend outside PD professional conferences and join organizations, paid in-house PD opportunities during the summer for topics such as innovative education and curriculum development, time in the school schedule to collaborate with colleagues, along with a systemic program for administrative class visits and Reflecting Conversations (based on the Cognitive Coaching model), tied to teacher renewal, growth, and evaluation – that help teachers reflect on and improve their practices. Class visits and targeted conversations are foundational components for building a school culture for continuous quality improvement, while helping teachers build habits toward being reflective practitioners. However, not every teacher enters into being visited and having conversations with the same level of comfort. Herein lies a few opportunities for growth. Ideally, before the start of the school year, the principal’s team establishes a schedule for (walk-through) class visits – unique to each teacher. New teachers are visited more frequently per semester than well-established, higher-functioning educators. Teachers who are on corrective action plans from the previous year are visited more frequently than those who are not. Teachers who struggled in the previous year are visited more frequently than those who did not. Reflecting Conversations happen typically within 48 hours of the class visit. The intent of class visits and Reflecting Conversations is to provide teachers time to build reflective habits when it comes to their professional practices. During the fall semester, I visited 43 classes that led to 45 Reflecting Conversations (using the model). Class visits are brief (10-20 minutes), where immediate, objective, rubric-based observations and questions are given to help teachers reflect on their practices – feedback primarily focused on what students are doing in classes. What I observe is limited because my class visit does not encompass an entire 70-minute period; but, my visits are foundational for having Reflecting Conversations with teachers, that are typically scheduled within 48 hours after the visit and grounded in a Cognitive Coaching framework that includes the following prompts that are the same for each conversation and are given to each teacher, in advance (these questions are embedded into the email that teachers receive immediately after the class visit):
What is perhaps most important during post-class visit Reflecting Conversations that last about 20 minutes is that we talk about what happened in the class (which is the point) or that the teacher perhaps generates an ideal picture of what could happen during class, that teachers take with them into the future – to think about and act upon. Based upon my experiences, Reflecting Conversation participants generally fall into three categories. And for each category, I use specific strategies to help build reflecting habits. Expert Reflective Practitioners Expert Reflective Practitioners are high functioning. They successfully navigate PD to increase student learning. When these teachers experience PD days during the academic year, when they attend PD conferences, when they take advantage of professional organizations or summer opportunities, they concretize specific, doable, action steps (take-aways) and implement and track success in their classes, with students. They don’t do everything. Instead, they focus on a particular narrowed goal tied to practicing the PD. They aren’t perfect; the PD they learn is usable. These Expert Reflective Practitioners attend post-class visit Reflecting Conversations prepared: they have looked at class visit observations and notes from the visit rubric, and they are eager to engage in conversations about the feedback and about their work with students. Some have even looked at the conversation prompts in advance. And a few even write written reflections ahead of the Conversation, in response to the prompts. These teachers reflect about their experiences and our profession of secondary education. During Reflecting Conversations, these educators easily discuss classroom dynamics, their curriculum, what students do during class, and what they (the teachers) do to improve student learning. During a recent Reflecting Conversation, one teacher talked, with ease, about his class, from start to finish: We talk informally before the bell rings. We get down to business with a quiz. I take time to read students’ notes during one-on-one conversations at the podium up front: what did they write and not write. I correct notes and offer suggestions. Students do a partnering activity to discuss and review. We have a brief class discussion about the results of the quiz. We have a “big event” input session that lasts about 15 minutes. After that, we have a session where students “do something and use” the input session information – practice. We end class with “take-aways.” Toward the end of Reflecting Conversations, Expert Reflective Practitioners reflect on their own reflections from the Conversation, to identify concrete actions to think about and do, when they go back into their classrooms. Here are a few examples:
These next steps generated from teachers toward the end of Reflecting Conversations are specific and doable. During these Reflecting Conversations, I continue to affirm and encourage. I note-take and immediately provide teachers with their self-reflections and take-aways as reminders of what they said. I also connect teachers to professional organizations and other colleagues who affirm and encourage them. Finally, I invite these Expert Reflective Practitioners to serve as teaching models for our learning community. I refer other educators to them – to visit their classes and observe best practices. Emerging Reflective Practitioners Emerging Reflective Practitioners respond well to observations from class visits and Reflecting Conversations, because they feel a high level of trust in the process and are open to developing their own reflective skills based upon outside input. Often, though, their classes are not as high functioning because specific problems exist that hinder the learning process during the class. These problems are clearly identified through class visit observations. Here are a few examples:
When these problems are clearly identified through class visit objective observations, teachers have an opportunity to read about the problem on the visit rubric and they begin to talk through the problem during Reflection Conversations, with the potential of developing strategies and solutions. During Reflecting Conversations, these Emerging Reflective Practitioners typically have read the rubric feedback. This Conversation is often an opportunity to problem-solve. During these Conversations, I employ elements from an additional Cognitive Coaching framework, the Problem-Solving Conversation. If a problem noted in the observation feedback is identified and acknowledged by the teacher, there are a few questions I use to help the teacher problem solve:
Through Problem-Solving Conversations, Emerging Reflective Practitioners begin to not only understand classroom problems, but also strategies to solve the problems. However, when it comes to solutions and strategies, these teachers may not have the resources. By stepping out of this conversation, I often ask “Can I provide you with some strategies?” These concrete strategies then become the “take-aways” that teachers use when heading back into their classrooms to solve their problems. Often, teachers are relieved and grateful for new tools, and they are eager to use them in the classroom. Future class visits and Cognitive Coaching Conversations become real consolations when there is evidence that specific and identified problems are solvable with specific strategies. Hesitant Reflective Practitioners Teachers who are Hesitant Reflective Practitioners rarely provide evidence of reviewing class visit feedback and usually don’t attend the originally scheduled post-visit Reflecting Conversations without multiple reminders or reschedules. Though they ae a small minority of educators in the building, these educators may find themselves disorganized, too busy to acknowledge the post-visit email, and they don’t create time for Reflecting Conversations. Perhaps, because of competing responsibilities, they don’t value time for this self-reflective practice. Often, they are not highly engaged in the school’s process for growth and renewal. There are excuses Hesitant Reflective Practitioners use for missing post-visit Reflecting Conversations, even when they know they have the option to set a new date and time: they forgot to read the post-class visit email and rubric feedback, they are busy doing many things at the school and don’t have time, or they have scheduling conflicts. Even though they receive written feedback, they may not review and use the feedback in meaningful ways that they communicate or that is visible (played out with students) in their classrooms. Perhaps they prefer a different type or mode for feedback than observations and through writing and talking. Perhaps such teachers see class visits and Reflecting Conversations as merely “jumping through hoops”. Therefore, these vehicles for the delivery of reflective PD are not useful to them. When Reflective Conversations happen with these teachers, they show a high level of discomfort, even though the conversation prompts are given to them in advance. During the initial part of the conversation, these teachers are anxious, unprepared, nervous, and agitated. The general feel at the start of these Conversation is uncomfortable. These teachers do not easily communicate what they do in the classroom, have limited responses to how their classes unfold from the start to the finish, cannot verbally communicate what students are doing in their classrooms, and are often unsure about what they do to impact student learning – because either they do not know research-based, best practices or they have not received and implemented effective teaching and learning resources. Often, during Reflecting Conversations where educators are invited to focus on themselves, Hesitant Reflective Practitioners avoid being on task by complaining about structures and policies within the school and its leadership and talk about factors in the building that they have little or no control over. Even though there are clear prompts to help teachers move through these Reflecting Conversations, these teachers take the conversation in other directions, by not addressing the prompts. Sometimes, they voice sarcasm in their responses to questions. These are avoidant strategies. When such conversations are intended to help teachers self-reflection, these educators often see Reflecting Conversations as threats: to autonomy in their classes, to their employment, or to a spirit of entitlement they may have developed over time. Ultimately, such teachers also tend to place the blame for their discomfort, their challenges, and their feelings and actions upon others. These are challenging conversations. With Hesitant Reflective Practitioners, I often abandon the Reflecting Conversation framework, replacing it with listening sessions, whereby we build trust, so teachers begin to feel heard. However, once I can resume helping them think through their practices, here are a few strategies I use:
Building reflective practitioners relies on research-based conversation frameworks. It also depends upon being able to meet teachers where they are by pivoting during conversations, using effective strategies that challenge educators to stretch and grow. Happy New Year! For additional articles, take a look at my education blog.
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Pete MussoAssistant Principal, Curriculum & Instruction Archives
May 2022
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