Monday 25 January 2016

The Vital Things To Note Concerning Classroom Walkthroughs

By Walter Barnes


This is a practice that is commonly found in many organized schools. It is basically the act of frequently visiting students learning rooms looking for specific particular or specific instructional practices. This is mostly done by principals and sometimes supervisors. Classroom walkthroughs is today being used as evaluation tools by numerous schools all over the world.

School principals face one challenge of ensuring that effective and efficient instructional leadership is provided always. Apart from basically hosting assemblies, managing schedules and instill disciplining in students, school heads are usually expected to have the skill and knowledge to generally make positive impact on teaching and also learning process.

The main role of walkthroughs was not actually to evaluate but rather to professionally develop teachers professional skills and ensure they deliver as expected of them. This is the sole reason why they have become quite popular. The practice is a trending nowadays or its on the rise. This practice is very vital for all schools.

When the skills of a person are improved, the quality of service they deliver or offer significantly improves and students under their care perform well. Due to the completion that exist between schools, principals are now willing to embrace walkthrough with an intention or aim of improving the overall school performance.

Many teachers actually do not approve of this method of evaluation since they feel as if they are being diminished or spied upon by their principals. School heads or leader usually work in an environment that is very stressing and if it is true that exercises relives stress, then such principals should be among those people considered healthy due to the walking they do around the school. This technique of walking through was borrowed from the work of famous author known as Carolyn Downey.

There are quite a number of elements in the practice. But these elements will vary according to the exercise purpose. The generally elements include brevity, dialogue and focus. These walks are designed in such a way the principal get to visit several classes in a day so brevity will be of essence. About focus, are the efforts put by the principal to make sure that teachers and the administration is reading from the same page.

A famous scholar by the name of Sather E. Susan believed that walkthrough is very significant step towards influencing or bring real change to all learning institutions. This is by bringing the administrators very close to classrooms or lecturer halls and influencing teacher to become instructional leaders. One teacher once said that walk-throughs usually allow people to see clearly where they intend to go, with their students or pupils best interest in their mind.

The labels commonly used for walkthroughs are, data walks, learning walks, rounds, mini observations and instructional as well as reflective walking through. The benefit a school gets from such walks include, acquiring additional or extra data and information concerning learning and teaching of students and promoting collegial as well as collaborative conversations. The benefit that a teacher derives from the walks include reflecting on own curricular practices and instructional delivery, identifying their professional development requirements and lastly promoting collegial dialogue that is reflective with the school principal. For students, they get a chance to participate in school improvement programs.




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