Profits Accrued From Instructional Rounds

By Toni Vang


Teachers should use tools that enhance or improve their teaching skills and methodologies. The instructional rounds enhances a culture of collaboration between the teacher and their colleagues. These rounds provide feedback to the teacher on how others are working when they sit down for a discussion. It will also act a reflection ground after classes on how well or bad they fared in their classes that day.

The rounds are used once in a while and they cannot be used all the time. Once a semester is okay. However, it has to get agreed upon when it will be done, it should not be something abrupt. The lead teacher is chosen depending on how professional he is, how well he can control a group and how well of a leader he is. He also should be a leader somewhere else which makes him command respect from other teachers.

The schools that are seriously into this have permanent lead teachers who run the process. There are some teachers who do not like the process as they think they are being analyzed or judged. They have to get taught to believe otherwise if they have to learn maximally and benefit a lot as well. No teacher should be forced into the group, it is completely voluntary. The very experienced teachers are chosen to begin with as the new ones have more to learn from them.

Smaller groups for conducting the rounds are preferred. A group of three to four teachers is okay not counting the lead teacher. The teachers have to alert their classes that they will receive other teachers in their class room for the exercise. The students have to understand that the teachers are learning from each other, just like what students do.

The observing teachers arrive when the lesson is going on. They knock at the door and once they are allowed in, they slowly walk to the back of the classroom and sit. They should not disrupt the class whatsoever. They take notes and observe how the instructor of that class works. They may choose to observe on a general level or just what interests them.

The rounds take no more than fifteen minutes to avoid too much disturbance to the students as well as so that the teachers can go back to their classes. The teachers need to take notes for future reference and also so that they cannot forget any point during the discussion. Moreover, they have to be very keen on what is going on since they have to try by all means to get something good from the lesson.

Once the observing team is out, the meet to compare notes and share the experience. Each one has to contribute on what they shared. They have to keep the discussion very objective and they have to try not to judge the instructor who was being observed. There has to be rules which must be followed throughout the process to make it fair.

When they sit around to discuss their observations, first they look at the positives then the negatives are discussed later. The negatives are not brought out bluntly since it would annoy or discourage the teacher in questions. Rather they use a polite and gentle language such as asking questions on what they were not comfortable with.




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