Witnessing the Work: A Privilege

Champions know that success is inevitable; that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. They know that the best way to forecast the future is to create it.

Michael J. Gelb

The purpose of this post is to provide feedback regarding the recent supervisory walkthrough that I conducted with Kim Kazmierczak at your school.  For those of you that have been in the district the past six years you know that I do not typically provide feedback to you directly after these walkthroughs, your principal does this. The reason I have not provided feedback in the past is because the supervisory walkthrough is an opportunity for the principal and I to review the implementation of your school improvement initiatives. This process provides concrete help for principals regarding teaching and learning at their school.  The complex demands of the principalship require this type of “coaching” relationship.  Bottom line: supervisory walkthroughs are designed to help the principals lead their school. However, the Humanex data indicated that teachers would like direct feedback after these events and upon reflection I couldn't agree more.  Feedback is an essential element of effective communication and helps us reflect on our practice so here it goes….

The focus for the walkthrough was around your look fors of on-task and ownership, specifically the indicator related to student displays of work. I know that Kim is going to provide specifics on examples of what we saw so rather than be redundant I want to share my overall impressions about the work I observed at Wilson.

While many of you were administering district assessments we were still able to discern a lot about the learning at Wilson as we closely analyzed work displays. These displays communicated what is valued in your school and three themes emerged. 

First,  it is clearly evident that you value writing and not just writing for writing's sake, but as a response to reading and thinking. Someone once said writing is thinking on paper. If we want to help our students get to deep levels of comprehension they have to engage in writing, which is why it was so exciting to see students writing in social studies and science.  The volume of writing included with your student work clearly communicates that the focus is helping our students think deeply about important content. 

Second, I also learned that Wilson teachers value not only the "what" of learning, but the "how".  This is demonstrated by the many displays of student work that include the process involved for the learning. The use of graphic organizers are everywhere and they indicate that as a school you collectively understand that students need to not only learn content, but may need a process to help them think about and organize the information. Providing graphic organizers as a support that help students get to the big curriculum concept are a great scaffold for our students. 

Finally, I learned that you understand the power of feedback.  A large number of displays included feedback for students on sticky notes. While a time consuming practice the dividends for student learning are tremendous. It is difficult to improve if you don't know what your strengths and weaknesses. I know you have identified formative assessment as a strategy for your school improvement plan and from the displays it is evident that you have started this important journey. 

As you may have noticed besides looking at student displays of work I like to talk to students. The reason for this is because both the displays and students’ voices communicate the learning. We can’t hit every moment of great instruction so looking at work and talking to students help tell the story about learning in your classroom and school.  What I learned from your students is that they think Wilson is a safe place to be where students are respectful to each other and teachers care about their learning. I wish we could have captured the looks on a couple of students faces when they talked about their working that was displayed. Truly priceless.  

One of the best parts about my job is conducting walkthroughs as it provides me an opportunity to see the real work that is happening in our classrooms, both by teachers and students. I know that your work is complex, but it is evident by watching you in action that you are up to the challenge. Thanks for all of your hard work. It is making a difference that is visible throughout your school.

Enjoy the holiday season with your family.