New method from Harvard researchers analyzes school-wide trends by looking at how instruction is being received.
As school leaders work to improve classroom teaching, a new way of evaluating instruction—one that shifts the focus from the teacher to the students—is emerging.
Called “instructional rounds,” the practice is based on the way doctors make their rounds in a teaching hospital, using facts rather than value judgments to determine the effectiveness of instruction.
Because it looks at how well kids are learning rather than how well the teacher is teaching, and because it includes fellow teachers on the evaluation team, this collaborative approach to classroom evaluation is less likely to meet with objections from educators, its advocates say.
“Generally, when you are working with teachers to improve instruction, you’re focused on the teacher—[and] you go into classrooms to observe what the teacher does. This approach is really just the opposite,” said KUSD Superintendent Karen Poppen. “We’re really looking at the task the students are asked to do. What’s on the student’s desk is really the focus.” Read more ……
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