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.

In order for the teachers to improve on their quality, leadership becomes very basic. The improvement of schools relies much on working relationship between teachers and instructional leaders. It becomes possible to sustain the success of an organization when leaders become teachers for 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.

A classroom walkthrough is aimed at providing direct and specific response to teachers on grounds of snapshot observed. This feedback is then offered to a person, or the observer can provide report showing the patterns that were noted during walkthrough. Walkthroughs have been capable of providing opportunities on; learning from other participants, gathering data about student learning and instructional practice, stimulating collegial conversation on teaching and learning, among other opportunities.

At its worst, a walkthrough can be seen as a compliance check with administrator strutting around classrooms and schools to enforce some top-down initiatives. Progress is very limited when teachers usually wonder on ways to avoid falling in trouble rather than on how they can collaborate with admin to improve things for learners. At their best, these walkthroughs are seen as part of the ongoing formative process of assessment that finds administrators and teachers engaged in system of reciprocal accountability.

Using an inadequate model is of no benefit to the school. Better systems should be used alongside this method. Various administrators should therefore set aside enough time to make visits to various classrooms. This helps creates an instructional leadership alongside other benefits.




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