Originally, my personal goal this year was just to get in more classrooms. As an assistant principal at a highly impacted high school, that’s no small feat! By the day, the hour, and minute events or situations arise that make visiting classrooms on a regular and consistent basis difficult. However, this year I’ve committed to being creative in how I structure my day so that I can commit to making classroom visits the priority they are and should be.
Visiting classrooms is just the tip of the iceberg. Visiting teachers without providing feedback seems like such a valuable missed opportunity, so I revised my goal to include providing feedback. I set this goal for two reasons (1) to better support my teachers and (2) to help foster a culture of growth. If we are celebrating our successes in teaching and learning, as well as having conversations about areas of growth– then ultimately we all win (and I like to win)! Our students get the benefit of a great teacher, we empower teachers and build capacity, and I get to learn more about my teachers and students in the process!
I’m reading a fantastic book on PLCs which completely made it all come together. Here were my thoughts…I want my teachers to grow and use best practices. I can share those practices, but what will it take for those practices to begin to impact learning? In the book it cites an educational study by Joyce & Showers, that says that coaching feedback and peer observation have an 85% impact on whether teachers understand knowledge and skills, a 90% impact on if they actually learn the skills, and a 80-90% impact on if they actually apply skills in their classroom.
This was an important take-away because modeling and low-risk feedback only have a possible 10-15% impact on whether or not teachers applied the skills in their classroom.
That’s was a game-changing piece of information!
Stay tuned for updates on my action steps in making this goal a reality!
As a preview, here are some up coming topics for the blog. š
Things I’m thinking about:
-how can I update my Google Forms to help provide feedback
-how do you navigate radio calls and other important and not so important issues so that I keep teaching and learning in the forefront of what I do?
-having crucial high-stakes feedback conversations
Lead. Learn. Grow. 
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