One of the ways we want to support teachers and students across the district is to implement learning walks. This may sound scary at first, but we hope it will lead to continuous improvement and success for teachers and students.
First things first. Learning walks are NOT observations or walk throughs tied to evaluation, personnel files, salary or anything of the kind. They are opportunities to collect data across a campus or district for continuous improvement. The point is to analyze the data to find trends. It’s formative assessment. As data is collected, names of teachers and students will be left off and only grade levels and campuses will be recorded. FAQ Who will conduct the learning walks? It depends. Instructional coaches, curriculum specialists, principals, and teachers will make up the teams, but they will vary each time. At some point in the future, employees of other districts may take part. Usually 2-3 people will be in your room at one time. While we are in training ourselves, we may have more people in a room at one time to calibrate. What should you do if we come in? Keep doing what you are doing! Don’t switch gears. We might not even be looking at you! It could be that we are collecting data on books, furniture, or notebooks. Perhaps we are each going to ask 3 students a common question. We will be out of your room within 5 minutes. This will feel more normal over time. *If it is just not the day to come in, let us know and we will leave- no questions asked. What will happen with the data? At first, the data will be used simply to get a pulse of the district. Think of it like conference data when you pull up to a student and ask, “How’s it going?” In a similar fashion, we will use our learning walk notes to think strategically about ways to support teachers in the future. We’ll look at overall trends by grade level and/or campus. We’ll analyze the data to support teachers, rather than evaluate. Later, we might share the data with campuses to help determine a specific grade level or campus goal. Data could also be used to plan future professional learning. Sometimes data can be used when making purchase requests (bookshelves, furniture, white boards, document cameras) or time requests (planning time, prep time, master schedule, etc.). How often will this occur? We hope to have learning walks regularly. We certainly won’t get to every grade and every campus each time, but we will cover ground each week. Will you notify me if you are coming to my room? At first, we will let your campus or grade level know ahead of time. Again, we won’t get to every classroom. After a while, we will probably not send notifications. Is this voluntary? In short, no. The point of a learning walk is to learn about the district universally. We are not evaluating individual teachers and students. Are there any consequences to this? Truly, this is just data collection. You will not be penalized (unless students are being harmed).
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