Cutting Edge Technology Provides Wealth of Feedback for Teachers

One of the age-old questions in education is how to gather information about teaching practices in a practical, time effective manner. Often times, the feedback process begins with what is called a formal observation. In such an instance, an administrator or instructional leader observes a teacher for a full class period or for several such class periods in succession. The observer records instructional behaviors either in longhand or on a laptop. Later he or she collapses those materials and reviews them with the instructor in a post-conference setting.

Though providing relevant feedback for the teacher, this traditional process is extremely time-consuming for both the observer and the teacher who often have full schedules already. In addition, sitting in on a teacher’s class for such a length of time tends to be more than a little artificial as the presence of the observer often affects both teacher and student behaviors. Therefore the collected information may not in fact be all that accurate.

The Walk Through Concept
Many administrators/teacher leaders find they can get an excellent sense of classroom instruction practice by doing simple pop in visits of brief duration and making those visits far more frequent. That way the observer is able to see various classes as well as a number of teacher practices. In fact, the walk through concept or practice is actually more consistent with the business supervision model dubbed Management by Walking Around.

Though this practice is very effective for the observer/administrator, giving him or her a snap shot of what happens in a classroom day after day, it has not been easy to provide teachers a wealth of feedback with this method. If the goal is to help teachers improve instructional practices, the walk through process can be somewhat lean on meaningful feedback for those seeking to improve their craft.

New Technology Delivers Both Aspects
Given that scenario, a new tool developed by the folks at the Great Schools Partnership appears to address the time crunch yet provide teachers a wealth of feedback. The new iWalkthrough™ system fits perfectly with the Management by Walking Around philosophy as it enables administrators and teacher leaders the opportunity to do brief pop in classroom visits yet compile some extremely useful data for teachers.

The iWalkthrough is compatible with nearly all portable electronic devices (Palm™ and Windows CE™ handhelds, Tablet PCs, smart phones). The key features though, are a number of slick pull-down menus that enable a trained observer to obtain a quick snap shot of what they see in the classroom. Though simple and easy to use, the pull-down menus clearly are the key elements of the device and are based on extensive school research regarding the key instructional practices that impact student learning.

The Process
The iWalkthrough handheld device allows the observer to enter some very basic data prior to entering the classroom or upon exiting if the observer chooses to wait.The initial basic information to be entered includes the teacher’s name, content area, grade level and class size range. Each of these basic pieces of data is available through a simple, quick pull down menu.

Once an administrator or fellow teacher enters the classroom, he/she quickly makes note of the following. Is it the first ten minutes of a class period, the middle of a class period or the last five minutes? A simple pull down menu allows for an immediate check off. Next up, the observer identifies the apparent student engagement level using four separate options, 0-50%, 51-75%, 76-90% or 91-100%.

As one key aspect of the visit, the observer quickly assesses the Bloom’s Taxonomy level evident at that point in the lesson. Other pull down menus allow for simple check offs for the classroom configuration (traditional rows, horseshoe, or circles) and whether the instruction is lecture format or individualized with group work. Another pull down menu allows the observer to assess the teacher and student interaction levels; for the teacher is he or she presenting, monitoring, coaching or conferencing and for the students are they discussing, responding to posed questions, or are they peer conferencing?

Other pull down menus allow the visitor to record a simple yes or no to teacher technology use, student technology use, evidence of task differentiation, student choice in the learning task, and whether or not student work is prominently displayed in the room.

All of the standard menu items are based on extensive research into key teacher behaviors but the software also allows for additional pull down menu options for questions that could be site specific.

Simple, Time Effective Process

The tool allows administrators or other instructional leaders to make a five to ten minute classroom visit yet dial in on the instruction they witness. During the training process, observers are encouraged to observe in the room then record after they leave so as not to be a distraction to the students or the teacher.

To be effective, the Walk through concept must be done frequently, with observers visiting the classrooms multiple times. Because the device is convenient to carry and the process so time effective, administrators and teacher leaders can do a number of such visits to several different classrooms in the time it would have taken to do one such formal observation previously.

But it is later, after the data has been collected from a multitude of such visits and collapsed by the software that the device shines. The iWalkthrough can generate customized reports that easily sort, compare, and visually display a wealth of data.

Web Based, Information Rich Data
The web based technology of the iWalkthrough ensures that all recorded data may be collapsed easily. That means a large number of relevant reports are available to all staff (not just administrators/teacher leaders) with appropriate reports available through a hierarchical password protected environment.

Most importantly, the tool serves to provide teachers direct feedback about their classroom practice. For those with a mind set towards continuous improvement, the iWalkthrough could well be the device that provides the greatest amount of feedback regarding an individual teacher’s instructional practice. For school leadership, the device in turn provides a picture of the collective practice of the entire teaching staff.

Reports can be generated indicating an individual staff member’s data or for the total staff. Comparisons can be done by department or by grade level, student engagement level versus the teacher instructional technique used, levels of Bloom’s taxonomy being utilized and either student engagement or teacher technique, etc.

As a simple concept, data can be collected to determine student engagement at a specific grade level. Is this an issue for ninth graders? Is it an issue for 12th graders? If the classroom is teacher-centered, what are the corresponding student engagement levels, etc.?

Lastly, the iWalkthrough system features four complementary tools. The differences essentially are varied pull down menus for high schools, middle schools, elementary schools and athletic programs (the athletic program module is currently being piloted at three sites with input being gathered for appropriate pull down menus).

Next up, we talk with David Ruff, Co-Executive Director of the Great Schools Partnership about the development of the tool, the research that went into the various pull down menus, and how the device is leading to enormous classroom improvements in those schools implementing the technology.