Defining+Instructional+Practice

What is the Initiative? District-level curriculum leaders plan to build a classroom walkthrough (CWT) document aligned to the district vision created by the new superintendent for the 2013-14 school year. The walkthrough document will be used by both district-level and site-based administrators to collect data in order to gain a holistic view of curriculum and instruction in the district. Data will also be used to gauge the strengths and areas for improvement for specific schools. A specific number of walkthroughs will be required of all district-level leaders and site-based administrators each week in order to provide enough data to draw generalizations about teaching and learning. District-leaders will use the data to set district-wide professional development goals, and principals will use the data similarly to identify pedagogical needs and set goals to address those needs.

This tool will assess the culture and climate of classrooms and schools in the Newton-Conover School district. With a new Assistant Superintendent, new Chief Academic Officer, new Director of Exceptional Children, new Director of Elementary Education, and new Director of Accountability and Technology, the superintendent created this vision in order to provide a framework based on his previous experience in the district as the Associate Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction. The Chief Academic Officer and directors created the walkthrough based on the vision to gauge the areas of need as well as strengths as a means to create professional development goals for the 2014-15 school year. This video describes the purpose of the Classroom Walkthough:

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Describe the Problem: What is the current condition that needs to be improved?



Identify the Desired State: How will things look if/when the improvement is a success?


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Identify the Key Players: Who will be involved in initiating the improvement?

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 * The Superintendent created the district one-year transition vision.
 * The Chief Academic Officer (CAO) created the overarching plan for the walkthrough.
 * The CAO, Director of High Schools, Director of Elementary Education, Director of Exceptional Children, Director of Human Resources, and Director of Accountability and Technology worked together to create a DRAFT of the district’s Classroom Walkthrough Tool based on the district vision
 * The CAO and all directors engaged in individual walkthroughs to test the walkthrough. All came back together and suggested modifications to the tool.
 * The CAO and directors then engaged in collaborative walkthroughs together to retest the tool and to calibrate the tool by observing classrooms and stepping into the hallway to engage in discussions about both their individual responses to the CWT prompts and to the quality of the questions.
 * Final revisions were made by the CAO and directors.
 * The tool was piloted with principals in the district during a monthly Principals’ Meeting.

Develop Ownership: How will we get people to own the initiative?

Describe the Improvement: What does the project look like/involve?

This multi-faceted project involves all districts stakeholders in the adoption of a classroom walkthrough tool that reflects the superintendent’s vision for the district during a one-year transition year. The components below indicate the steps and stakeholders involved in creating the walkthrough.

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 * July 2013: Superintendent creates district focus – SUCCEED!



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 * August 2013: CAO and directors discuss the need for a district-wide classroom walkthrough toolto provide data in order to draw generalizations about teaching and learning in Newton-Conover City Schools. A classroom walkthrough provides clear documentation of the pedagogical practices in the district that can be presented and disaggregated in numerous ways - by school, by grade-level, by content-area, or by district.

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 * September 2013: District curriculum team members (CAO and directors) worked together to develop a draft of the classroom walkthrough aligned with the district vision.

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 * September – October 2013: District leaders piloted the walkthrough tool. During principals’ meetings, district and site-based leaders conducted collaborative walkthroughs and discussed classroom practice. Calibration consisted of comparing responses in the hallway immediately following each walkthrough. Leaders discussed subtle differences in interpretation of each concept and worked toward developing a shared understanding of concepts. After the walkthoughs, all leaders, met together to discuss modifications to the tool prompted by the collaborative walkthroughs. One example of a change initiated by the walkthrough was that principals wanted to add open-ended comments sections after each section of the walkthrough, not just at the end of the document. Leaders discussed pertinent observations or calibration conversations and revisited the resources made available by the CAO. The CAO also developed and secured digital resources to support each instructional element of the walkthrough. Principals can use these resources during PLC time, faculty meetings, grade-level/content-area meetings, or one-to-one with teachers. During this time, the CAO also worked for nine hours in Google Hangout of the course of six weeks with a Google Scripts expert from Research Triangle Park (RTP) to write a unique script that allows administrators to directly email the CWT to teachers upon completing the form . Providing clear, specific feedback regarding classroom walkthrough can serve as an opportunity to spark instructional conversations and allow the teacher to self-assess instructional practices.

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 * __October 2013__ : The CAO introduced the classroom walkthrough to principals during the monthly principals’ meeting byproviding professional development on elements of the walkthrough. The CAO shared the stages of development of the walkthrough tool and shared resources on each element of the walkthrough. The leaders then completed small-group walkthroughs together, came back and provided feedback regarding the tool. The CAO and directors made final modifications to the tool after three rounds of collaborative walkthroughs and calibration sessions.

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 * __November 2013__ : The CAO worked with the Google Scripts expert to finalize the Google Script, developed a short presentation about the walkthrough for principals to share with teachers, then created a Screen-Cast-O-Matic video to guide principals about how to use the presentation to alleviate anxiety and help teachers understand the purpose of the walkthrough. Developed a wikispace to provide tools and resources for principals to share with teachers, and polled district and site-based leaders about the number of walkthroughs to be expected each week, created [|__an article for the NCCS Compass__], the district’s online curriculum newsletter, to share information about the walkthrough with all district stakeholders. All district leaders and site-based administrators voted, using Google Forms, on how many walkthroughs they deemed appropriate per week. The CAO averaged the responses and discussed the outcome with the superintendent. Although leaders determined that seven walkthroughs per week was a sufficient number, the superintendent expressed his desire to reduce the number of required walkthroughs per week to five per administrator and shared that until further notice all walkthroughs should be collaborative to continue work with calibration.

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 * December 2013: The CAO and curriculum leaders will establish a district schedule for walkthroughs based on feedback from principals and directors, will begin to pull walkthrough data to review at the school and district level during monthly stakeholder meetings, and eventually will use the data to create a professional development plan for the 2014-15 school year.

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 * December 2013 – June 2014: Leaders and teachers will use the CWT, analyze data, and discuss the strengths and areas for improvement at each site and across the district.

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 * Summer 2014: District leaders will use data from the CWT as well as other data points (standardized test results, etc.) to create a comprehensive professional development plan that will become part of the district’s strategic plan to be developed before the onset of the 2014-15 school year. Principals and district leaders will agree on the professional development. The CWT will also be reviewed and revised prior to August 2014 to look for evidences of the professional development slated for the 2014-15 school year.

In order to ensure that this school improvement initiative will be successful, it has been important to have buy-in from all leaders. Sharing each step of the process with site-based administrators, allowing them to provide feedback and suggestions, and including them in the pilot phase of implementation is imperative to the success of this initiative. Furthermore, use of the CWT with fidelity, ensuring that the agreed upon number of walkthroughs are conducted each week by all district and site-based leaders, will also be an important part of ensuring successful implementation.

The CAO and curriculum team must follow up as well as become partners with the site-based administrators to demonstrate the commitment of the district to the initiative. Reviewing the data monthly and discussing the implications of the data will also build a sense of community and shared purpose among all stakeholders.

How the leaders discuss and use the data and how they make decisions regarding professional development will be contingent upon each leader’s commitment to implement the process for CWT use with fidelity and the monthly data discussions during principals’ meetings.

How will we Implement: How will we use the PDSA Cycle to develop and refine our plan? What is our plan to test the improvement? (small scale)

The PDSA cycle was used to develop the CWT and during the piloting phase.

Plan: The curriculum team used the district focus (SUCCEED!) to plan together how to use that focus to develop a classroom walkthrough.

Do: The team worked together to develop a walkthrough document aligned to the district focus. All stakeholders (CAO, Director of Elementary Education, Director of High Schools, Director of Exceptional Children, Director of Accountability and Technology, and Director of Human Resources) all agreed upon the components of the tool.

Study: Individual and small group walkthroughs yielded elements of the tool that needed to be tweaked, components that needed to be added to the document, and clarifications that needed to be made. For example, “Projector” needed to be added to the list of technology tools that were being used in class, and the option “Multi-age” needed to be added to the grade level of students.

Act: Changes were made before the –DSA section of the cycle was repeated with principals. The PDSA cycle will be revisited on a larger scale once implementation begins.

Plan: The development of the tool and its alignment, testing, and discussions with district leaders has taken place. The CAO’s development of tools, resources, presentations, online news articles, and information regarding the CWT all lead up to the full implementation of the tool.

Do: District-level and site-based leaders will implement CWTs as part of their daily practice.

Study: The district-level and site-based leaders will review the data collected from the classroom walkthrough document and make collective decisions on district needs, site-based needs, and next steps.

Act: The leadership team will then develop a comprehensive professional development plan for the 2014-15 school year based on the data from the CWT and other data sources.

Consider the Organizational Culture: How do we expect the culture to influence our implementation? How can we purposefully implement the culture? How will we leverage: · Innovators · Early Adopters · Early and Late Majority · Laggards

The superintendent of Newton-Conover City Schools is a forward thinking, innovative young leader. In 2012, he was named the Outstanding Young Educator for North Carolina by NCASCD, and he was a National Finalist for the ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award. The superintendent has assembled a bright, young, and creative district staff that is working closely with principals to establish a culture of data-driven improvement; clear, transparent, and consistent communication; and purposeful dialogue to meet the needs to students and stakeholders. The CWT establishes an opportunity for leaders across the district to discuss openly the strengths and areas for improvement in their schools and across the district. The district-level staff is qualified and willing to provide school-level, PLC level, or individual teacher level support, resources, and training. Holding both district-level leaders and site-based administrators accountable for the CWT implementation will also help ensure that all stakeholders buy in. Revisiting the data from the CWTs each month and providing follow up on specific instructional components of the tool based on the data will be imperative to successful implementation and both short-term and long-term decision-making.

District-level leadership acknowledges that over the course of the next few months, it will be important to leverage innovators, early adopters, early and late majority, and laggards as implementation begins. Innovators, those who fully implement the plan for CWTs in their school and begin instructional rounds with small groups of teachers, will be asked to share their experiences during principals’ meetings and will be asked to share their implementation plans with colleagues. If they have modified the process or added additional elements relevant to their stakeholders, leadership will ask them to discuss this experience as a way of supporting their colleagues. Early adopters likewise will be asked to share their successes or concerns. In terms of early and late majority, our implementation plan provides systems and procedures to support initial use of the new tool. Leadership’s commitment and use of the collected data for collaborative conversations during principals meetings will provide change safety for early and late majority buy in. Laggards will be asked to meet individually with their director or the CAO to discuss concerns or support they need to implement the district plan with CWTs. District-level leadership will support site-based administrators with the implementation and will volunteer to provide one-on-one support or engage in collaborative walkthroughs. For laggards who do not fulfill the obligation to collect data using the district CWT, documentation will be provided to the principal on the [|__NCCS Leader Feedback Form__]. This form gives district-level leaders the opportunity to share successes of district-level and site-based leaders have experienced as well as areas for improvement for the superintendent to gain a holistic view of principals, APs, and district leaders from multiple perspectives.

Evaluation: How will we know it is/was successful (Can we speak to Guskey’s five stages?)

Evidence of success will include the following:

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 * Identification of needs based on CWT data collection that lead to the development of a clear, specific professional development plan for the 2014-15 school year
 * Quality CWT data discussions at monthly principals’ meetings regarding school and district trends
 * Reports of principals having CWT data discussions with their School Improvement Teams (SITs), faculty, and grade-levels/departments
 * Identification of specific individual coaching opportunities based on CWT data

(Robert, I am not sure that we can really address too deeply into Guskey since this school improvement initiative is NOT actually PD. It is the way we are creating a plan for what PD is needed. Does this make sense? I have tried to write a little something below to address Guskey as I think his work will be crucial after PD goals and the plan for PD is created based on the data we collect. Please feel free to add or change any of the information you see below.) Heather, I see what you mean about the direct fit for Guskey. I do think anticipating how/where it fits, and acknowledging it will let Kofi see that we are thinking the initiative all the way through.

Thomas Guskey (2000) defined five critical levels of professional development evaluation. This school improvement initiative sets the stage for the district to implement professional development aligned to the specific needs defined by the data collected from classroom walkthroughs. Data from the CWTs will ensure that all stakeholders understand the need for the professional development and help establish buy in. Will there be training to inform teachers of the purpose of walkthroughs? (Stages 1 & 2 could apply here) When will walkthroughs be fully in place (Stage 3) The classroom walkthrough will be in place fully by December 2. A spot check on the consistency of use will hit (Stage 4) Spot checks will be every month during Principals’ Meetings. The Curriculum Team (CAO and Directors) meet weekly. Spot checks will also take place during this time. Is there a point at which student achievement should be influenced by the continuous culture of walkthroughs in the district? (Stage 5) The goal is that the district be able to pinpoint specific areas of professional development needed to improve student outcomes.

References

Fullan, M. (2006). Change theory: A force for school improvement. Centre for Strategic Education, 157, 1-15.

[|Kachur, D. S., & Stout, J. A. (2013).Engaging teachers in classroom walkthroughs. Alexandria, Virginia USA: ASCD.]