Conversation is the Key to Professional Growth

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Conversation is the Key to Professional Growth

Matt Renwick

Jan 29, 2021

Walkthrough forms and rubrics are tools we are sometimes pressed to use as leaders. Yet these tools do not facilitate teacher growth alone. It is the conversation between professionals, supported by classroom evidence, that actually leads to improvement.

Justin Baeder, author of Now We’re Talking: 21 Days to High-Performance Instructional Leadership, gives leaders a clear pathway toward our shared goals. I recently had a conversation with Justin on the subject, including:

why dialogue is more effective as feedback than only leaving notes,
the many benefits we see when we make classroom visits a habit, and
why it is essential that faculty are clear on effective practices.

If trying to faciltiate professional growth has felt out of reach, check out Now We’re Talking. It is a solid approach to supporting teachers in the classroom.

Take care,

Matt

P.S. Share this post on Twitter and include my handle in the tweet (@ReadByExample) to enter a giveaway for a free copy of Justin’s book!

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick (00:04):

Welcome to the podcast. We're happy to have you here and be here. I've had the pleasure of working with you through our local educational organization on instructional leadership. It's been very informative for me to watch you lead groups and just learn a little bit more about what principals need and how we can use, I wouldn't say simple, but I would say very practical strategies to be just more effective and making me think about ways to rethink my days. So a lot of this work is based on your book, Now We're Talking: 21 Days to High Performance Instructional Leadership, but you also have The Principal Center and you do a lot of work out of there. And you work with many principals from what I understand, can you just say more about The Principal Center? What it's about? What do you do and how do you help leaders?

Justin Baeder (00:55):

Absolutely. So at The Principal Center, it's our mission to build capacity for instructional leadership and a big part of that has always been around helping school leaders regularly get into classrooms because I believe that that's where the true work is being done. Right. You know, if we are to be instructional leaders, it only makes sense that we would spend a significant amount of time in classrooms where the instruction, where the learning is taking place. So that's a big part of what we do. And through all of our programs through the book, as you mentioned, it all comes down to those key interactions between instructional leaders and the teachers that work with.

Matt Renwick (01:34):

In the title of your book as it's suggested, professional growth occurs through conversation around practice. So how do frequent visits to classrooms help these discussions?

Justin Baeder (01:50):

Yeah, that's a great framing there that professional growth occurs through conversation because you know, it makes sense. We nod our heads and kind of agree with that, but a lot of instructional leadership really isn't based on that assumption, a lot of what's out there of what's being done in the name of improving teaching and learning is much more along the lines of directive feedback, or kind of drive-by feedback or, you know, feedback that's left on the doorstep or left on a sticky note or left on a form rather than a true conversation. So I think to have a true conversation adds a human dimension that really gets at how we change, how we make decisions as humans. So I don't want to understate the importance of the conversation aspect there, because it is something that often we overlook, we think, "Well, I'm the principal, of course, they'll listen to me."

Justin Baeder (02:42):

It can be a one-way conversation, but really, if we want people to truly be open to change, we have to be open to listening as well, and it does have to be a conversation. So to your question about how does our practice of getting into classrooms more contribute to that? I think a lot of it comes down to context, right. As a principal, you're required to be in classrooms X number of times a year, and X is usually a pretty small number, right? The one or two formal observations. And I have to ask Matt, when you were a teacher, did you ever get visited much more than that, or was it pretty minimal when you were a teacher?

Matt Renwick (03:22):

It was pretty minimal and, to be fair to my leaders, that was just the standard practice. I mean, I think walkthroughs are just coming into prominence. But it was once, maybe twice a year. Yeah.

Justin Baeder (03:35):

It's my experience as well. And I think that's the experience of almost everyone that you just don't see your principal or assistant principal who evaluates you all that often. And of course that's because they're busy, right. There are a million other things to do. There are fires to put out, metaphorically speaking, and sometimes literally, and there's just so much else that instructional leadership is always one of those important but not urgent kinds of things. But I think when it's always not urgent, we lose the frequency that makes it not really true that we can have quality over quantity. You know what I mean? There is this idea that like, "Oh, if you spend quality time with your kids, you know, it's not about the quantity." Well, I mean, to a certain extent, maybe quality matters more than quantity, but you can't really have quality without quantity.

Justin Baeder (04:24):

You know, if I'm going to spend time with my kids, I want it to be frequently, right. I want it to be all the time, not just a little bit here and there, but very high quality. I'd much rather have a lower stakes, more frequent opportunity to get into classrooms than just that big once a year everybody's prepared for it, we've protected against any interruptions. I would rather run the risk of being interrupted or getting sidetracked or not seeing something that's all that interesting by coming more often and having more chances because it's in that frequency that you get the context that you need to really understand what you're seeing to be able to put it all in perspective rather than just be kind of a stranger to the classroom. Just like, I don't want to be a stranger to my kids and say, "Hey, I'm, I'm here for some quality time." We really got to invest that time in the relationship and in building the awareness of what's going on in every classroom, what's going on with our curriculum, knowing our students and what they're working on as learners. So I think all that context is hugely relevant for the feedback that we provide to teachers in those conversations.

Matt Renwick (05:29):

That's a good point you make is, I'd rather be interrupted while I'm in classrooms and at least I'm making the time, prioritizing that. And if I have to be pulled away, so be it, but at least I'm making that attempt. And as you mentioned, you value efficiencies of getting in there frequently, as well as the effectiveness. They seem to work hand in hand, the more times we're in there, the more context we receive. How did you arrive on three visits per day?

Justin Baeder (06:01):

Yeah, I think three a day just seemed to be the sweet spot for me. It's not impossible to keep it in your head, like you can kind of tell if you've done three visits a day. It's enough that you have to really strive for it. It's not going to happen that easily. You have to really push yourself to get into classrooms three times a day, but it also gets you around to each person on a pretty regular basis if you have about 30 teachers, I think 30 is a typical kind of average. Some people have 45 teachers and some people may only have 15 that they supervise. But if you think about an average number of teachers that a given administrator supervises, you can get around to everyone roughly every two weeks, if you visit three people a day. Sothat to me is what makes it the sweet spot andgoing two weeks without seeing somebody it's not too much and it's not too little. They're not sick of you if you've dropped by every two weeks, but you also are not a stranger to the classroom.

Matt Renwick (06:56):

That's exactly, I have 30, around 30 in my school. And especially during the pandemic I've noticed when I have not been there as much because of just the situation, I feel a little like I'm missing out on what what's happening. We don't have an instructional pulse as they call it. So in order to have these conversations be productive, we were talking before about school-wide expectations and having clearly spelled out practices or strategies, a framework to be able to have conversations around. So what strategies do you find effective? Not just for clarity, I think is important, but also for commitment of everyone to say, "Yeah, I, I hear what you're saying but also that I agree with that practice and I'm going to try it."

Justin Baeder (07:44):

Yeah, I think establishing a common vocabulary really is the first step. And sometimes we think we have a common vocabulary, but what we really have is common buzzwords or common terms without common definitions. I think the biggest opportunity in most schools is to simply get more familiar with the existing evaluation language. You know, it's easy to be reminded to pull out the evaluation rubric at the beginning of the year for goal setting and at the end of the year for writing the final evaluation. But if that's the only chance we have to use that language as our vocabulary, when we're talking about practice, it's just not going to be that familiar to us as leaders. And certainly not to teachers. You know, if they're only using this language for a two hour window every year, then it's just not going to reach that level of a shared vocabulary, a shared understanding.

Justin Baeder (08:39):

So I encourage people to look at their existing evaluation criteria. If you have a rubric like Charlotte Danielson's very high quality rubric that describes very clear criteria, you know, very clear areas, it's broken into domains and components. Those are all broken out very, very neatly. And then there are levels of performance for each component. And when we use that language on a frequent basis, we look at that rubric and we say, "Okay, I see this word is in this column to describe this practice," we start to sharpen our vision and get on the same page in a conversation so that we're not just using a common buzzword. We're not just saying, well, we both use the term differentiate. So we know what that means. We're using language in a more precise and leveled way because we're drawing from that common document that serves as our shared framework.

Justin Baeder (09:31):

And then I think we can also establish that kind of language that's unique to our school. You know, there are certainly things in every school that distinguish your school from other schools that make it a unique place. And being able to describe that in specific terms, if you think in terms of that Danielson framework format, if you can break an expectation into components and then describe levels of performance for those components, you're going to be in great shape and you're not going to be limited to just the buzzwords. And I think that's the key thing is to really be specific about what you mean. And I think the commitment comes just from having input, having a voice in developing those expectations.

Matt Renwick (10:11):

So you can take some of that language and make it your own thing, is what you're saying, as long as it's aligned with how we're being evaluated, but also really how it's related to success for kids as well. But you can parse out that language too, to make it work within the identity of your own school. So it's not just lockstep with an evaluation tool.

Justin Baeder (10:32):

Yeah. And I think people should feel free to add to it, not to say that we have different standards here, but we have unique things that we care about here that are more directly applicable to what our teachers are teaching. You know, like one thing to keep in mind about Danielson and other evaluation frameworks is that they're designed to cover everything for every subject, every grade, K through 12. And that means that they're easier for us to use as administrators, but they're not very specific as to what teachers are doing. So if you have a math department or if you have a kindergarten team, they are going to be doing things in particular ways that are worth getting on the same page about that are worth establishing common expectations for, but it's not the level of detail that you're gonna find in an existing rubric, like the Danielson framework. So being able to develop that in-house is just an incredible professional development exercise. And then you have an asset that you can use for improvement. It's a great tool to have developed internally.

Matt Renwick (11:27):

And that's where the ownership comes in because you're absolutely creating an agreement around those kind of terms, but on your terms. In Your book, you note this too and I could definitely relate. You said as expertise grows and you've addressed some of that low-hanging fruit right away, they're more easy wins, leaders sometimes feel this sense of urgency to be critical. And that's not always the best approach. How do you resist that stance in what should we do instead?

Justin Baeder (12:00):

Yeah. Great question. So this is a hill that we're all going to encounter in our climb to get into classrooms more, you know, the first opportunity is that low-hanging fruit, right? Like if maybe you're new to a building and your predecessor did not get into classrooms very much at all. Well, you start getting into classrooms, you're going to see some opportunities for quick wins that have been missed for years, and you're gonna be able to provide feedback that makes a big difference right away. And that's going to feel great. You're going to feel like a true instructional leader. Your teachers are going to be hopefully pretty happy about it. Maybe you've had to shake some things up a little bit, and people have gotten the message that they're not just going to be totally ignored and left alone, but after you've taken advantage of those quick wins, you're in a slightly difficult position because it's like, what do you do next?

Justin Baeder (12:47):

Do I continue to just kind of ratchet up the pressure? You know, if the next opportunities are a little harder one, if it's not going to be quite so easy to make those improvements, because we already solved the big problems we already took advantage of the easy opportunities. Do we just get more critical? And I think especially for experienced teachers, it can be really hard to find something that would constitute a big improvement. You know, we can make a little suggestion. "Hey, have you thought about doing this instead of that," but often the teacher has thought about doing this instead of that, they're an experienced professional. They've been down this road before. They've tried a lot of the things that are going to occur to us to try, and it can start to feel a little bit like we're just trying to find fault.

Justin Baeder (13:32):

And I think that's especially true when we don't have expertise in or experience in the same grade level or same subject area as the teachers we're working with. They can feel like our well-intended efforts to lead continuous improvement are just an unending kind of ratcheting up of the criticism. So I think that's a challenge that could on the one hand encourage us to kind of back off and give up. But I think it's an opportunity to get more curious and to say, "You know, the problem is not that teachers need to worry about smaller and smaller things and I needed to be more and more critical. The challenge for me now as an instructional leader is that I need to get more curious and I need to be willing to go deeper into our curriculum, deeper into the pedagogy of subjects that I've never taught." So that my feedback that I have is going to be based on a deeper understanding than I had before. It's not that we need to be more critical; it's that we need to go deeper to really understand the kinds of decisions teachers are making once they've solved those kinds of low-hanging fruit issues.

Matt Renwick (14:38):

I was just in a first grade classroom. I don't know if it was first grade; it was a primary grade that they were doing some letter writing and they had scaffolded parts of the letter. And I had never taught primary. It was intermediate. And so maybe in the past, I would've said, "That's too much scaffolding," or not enough. And I just instead asked, "How do you decide how much scaffolding, how many sentence stems do you decide?" How do you decide that? And she went into just a very great explanation of, we've been out for a month and a half, and I felt like I've had to increase my scaffolding so kids can be successful right away. She was able to explain that and explain her thinking, but maybe she'll walk away and say, "You know, maybe the kids are ready sooner." I don't know. But I liked that suggestion of being curious. I also liked the suggestion in your book of clustering your classroom visits, at least in the beginning around a grade level or department. And you mentioned before creating context, and how does that work when you're in the same subject area or age level, and how does that help your visits?

Justin Baeder (15:44):

So a lot of it is context and some of it's just efficiency, right? If you are heading out of the office to go visit classrooms, in most schools, there's some sort of geographic clustering. You might have a first grade wing or a science building. If you're on a large high school campus, you might have a fifth grade hallway, so just geographically, it's easier to go from one room to a room right next door to it. But it also does provide context in the sense that often teachers are teaching the same subject at the same time. So you can see one part of a lesson in one classroom, and then the continuation of that same lesson in a different classroom. And you'll know more about both clips of instruction that you saw, so to speak, because you were in that other classroom, you can see an entire lesson. Sometimes it would work.

Justin Baeder (16:32):

It doesn't always work out this way, but sometimes it works out that you spend 45 minutes visiting three classrooms, you see an entire lesson, you just see a different part of it taught by three different people. And that gives you, you know, it saves you the difficulty of being in the dark about where this was going, or what happened before, earlier in the lesson. You have three times as much context for the lesson that way. I would say the other thing that it allows is more direct comparison between the approaches of different people, because when you see side-by-side, same curriculum, same age group of kids, same day. It allows you to see more clearly the contrasts between different people. And sometimes your feedback can just be advising the person to do what you just saw there. You don't even have to tell one person that you're getting this from their teammate next door. But it really helps with the specificity of the feedback, because you can see those, you know, those comparisons between classrooms.

Matt Renwick (17:30):

That's kind of had an influence on professional learning communities, for example, when you're then meeting as teams and you're a part of that community, that collaboration versus using their time to have them explain to you what what they did, and you can let me get kind of a continuation. The last question I had is, it's just an ongoing debate of whether informal classroom visits should be evaluative or non-evaluative. I've always tried to approach it myself, as what I write up, my notes are not going into your evaluation. I mean, you could put it in there as an artifact and you walk and teachers have, but-one teacher said, but you can't unsee instruction. Right? And you can't forget about it. I mean, that has to influence your judgment, and she's not wrong. So where are you at, on this issue right now with walkthroughs and where it falls along, the support versus judgment spectrum.

Justin Baeder (18:33):

That's just it, right. That you can't unsee something. Once you know, it, it's going to factor into kind of your holistic judgments. You know, even if it's not a specific criteria that you evaluate someone on, if you develop a concern or if you see something really great, you're going to remember it, it's going to affect the way that you pay attention. It's going to affect what you notice and how thoroughly you document. So I advise administrators to never say that their visits are non-evaluative. Like, never say that anything is not evaluative because truly nothing really is not evaluative, if you're aware of some facts are going to factor in. But what we don't want is for everything to feel high stakes, right? We don't want every single walkthrough to feel like the teacher is on trial. And part of the whole point of getting into classrooms more frequently is to avoid this problem of those one or two formal observations, being "it" right? Feeling like this is a high stakes opportunity. This is my one chance to show that I'm competent for the administrator. This is my one chance to give the teachers any useful feedback. Like the frequency is inversely proportional to the stakes, right? The more we're there, the lower the stakes. The less we're there, the higher the stakes of each individual visit. So I feel like those go together.

Matt Renwick (19:48):

That's a good point too. You're going to see a lot of good things too. And those could be also a part of someone's portfolio of artifacts, if that's something that you have to collect. And so it does go both ways, but I do like that point too, just the more you're in there. And I have noticed that too, people are just used to me coming in and it really is lower the stakes when I'm actually coming in with the formal observation. It's just, "Oh, it's Matt again." No more different. It's just another day. And he's been in here how many times? So the book is Now We're Talking: 21 Days to High-Performance Instructional Leadership. I've been applying these ideas myself working with Justin. I have found them very helpful. And where do you find The Principal Center resource? And you have a lot of nice resources on that site.

Justin Baeder (20:40):

Yeah. We have a lot of free resources. If you just go to theprincipalcenter.com, and down at the bottom, one in particular that I think would be for your listeners is the note cards, just for keeping track of classroom visits. And we have software and everybody's got software they use for this, but I found that a lot of people really liked just having a physical note card. So we have a note cards template that you'll see there, at theprincipalcenter.com/notecards, where you make a note card for each teacher and you take three of those note cards every day, you visit those three teachers, write down the date and then put those note cards on the bottom of the stack every day, you've got your three teachers to visit and you keep that consistent rotation. However you want to organize them by team or department or whatever. It's a great way to make sure that you don't skip anyone. There are some feedback questions on the back. So highly recommend checking those out.

Matt Renwick (21:27):

And the principals in our group have been using those. And they've said that same thing, I feel like I'm in the classrooms more and they liked that quick opportunity for feedback. Really it's kind of an accountability system just to make sure I'm getting in classrooms. Well, thanksJustin. This was great. Thanks for being here.

Justin Baeder (21:47):

Well, thanks, Matt. It's been a pleasure.