Sunday, November 22, 2015

A Look At Classroom Walkthroughs

By Mattie Knight


Clinical supervision, or in other terms, classroom observation practice and feedback is a tool that is often used in evaluating the performance of teachers. However, its extent in which teachers are assisted to improve on instruction delivery is questionable. Owing to this, the classroom walkthroughs, which are not meant for evaluation but rather for the purpose of developing professionalism are rapidly increasing in popularity.

Instructional leadership is a very essential element in improving teaching and learning, it also plays a highly significant role in achievements of a student. For schools to adapt and respond, there must be existence of systems that are capable of creating the capacity to jointly process and apply the know-hows about learning and teaching. Learning within the school is nurtured when it becomes possible for a group to identify a problem, and come up with a collective plan to solve it.

The walkthrough model is an efficient method that gives an opportunity to collect data, involving institutional practice and provides feedback. For this method to be effective, the team of leaders is required to at least spend a third of their time in the classroom, when school heads spend their time in classes, teachers too will give a positive perception to the principal.

For teachers to have a positive change on quality, leadership style plays a major role. For any improvement to be realized in the school-concerted efforts have to be displayed by both the instructional leaders and teachers. This builds an environment that can sustain success of any organization when the concerned leaders play the roles of teaching others.

This model encompasses collection of data and evidence by use of random and constant visits to the classroom. The observation should take place between 2 minutes up to 40 minutes. This gives the basis of curriculum and instructional development in schools. Various schools have however invented their own models to be used in this task.

This model provides a specific response to the teachers with respect to evidence obtained and snapshot data collected. This feedback when presented to an observer, he or she is able to deduce relevant information about the operations of the whole process. The model gives an opportunity to learn from other participants, collect information on the student learning mode and the various instructional practices. This builds a better exchange of the conversation between the teacher and the student. This mode provides a mechanism for better learning and teaching practice.

During the worst time, the method is used as a compliance check. This ensures that teachers and tutors are always following the initiatives set by the management. The management should be aware when this method is used this way, the motivational levels of clients always go down. It should therefore be developed to create an ideal environment full of trust. This leads to better integration of both parties involved resulting to better results.

Restoring a walkthrough tool that is inadequate is not enough to independently transform a district or school walkthrough procedures into success. Various other factors should be put into consideration, like administrators making some time to visit classrooms, creation of a risk-taking culture, able instructional leadership, among others.




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