Draft Materials for the ILV Session at PIIC’s January 2016 …pacoaching.wikispaces.com/file/view/MATERIALS FOR... · Draft Materials for the ILV Session at PIIC’s January 2016

Draft Materials for the ILV Session at PIIC’s January 2016 PLO

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CONTENTS MATERIALS FOR THE JANUARY, ___ 2016 SESSION ON INSTRUCTIONAL LEARNING VISITS-----------------------PAGE 1

OVERVIEW OF THE INSTRUCTIONAL LEARNING VISIT (ILV) SESSION BEING OFFERED DURING PIIC’s JANUARY 11-13, 2016 PLO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PAGE 2 ACTIVITY 1: SHARING EXPERIENCES OF IMPLEMENTING ONE-ON-ONE COACHING --------------------------------PAGE 3 ACTIVITY 2: WHAT OTHER IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES HAVE THE PARTICIPANTS WORKED THROUGH THAT ARE STRUCTURED AS A “B-D-A” PROCESS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------PAGES 4-5 ACTIVITY 3: SUMMARIZING VISITING TEACHERS’/ADMINISTRATORS’ OBSERVATIONS -------------------------PAGES 6-8 ACTIVITY 4: JUST WHAT DOES THE ILV PROCESS INVOLVE ---------------------------------------------------------------PAGES 9-11 APPENDICES FOR ACTIVITY 3 AND ACTIVITY 4--------------------------------------------------------------------------------PAGES 12-14


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OVERVIEW OF THE INSTRUCTIONAL LEARNING VISIT (ILV) SESSION BEING OFFERED DURING PIIC’s JANUARY 11-13, 2016 PLO

Worksheet 1 below provides the structure that we will use to guide the collaborative activities that we will engage in during the Breakout Session on the Instructional Learning Visit at PIIC’s PLO in January 2016.

WORKSHEET 1 for the ILV SESSION

One-on-One Instructional Coaching Process

Instructional Learning

Visit Process

Other Collaborative Planning/Improvement

Processes in Which Coaches May Have Participated

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

The Worksheet’s three columns represent three kinds of improvement processes that we will be exploring during the session. In contrast, the rows highlight the three phases that are worked through during each of those processes. 1. Irrespective of the kind of improvement process, a couple of the critical BEFORE tasks that the staff undertakes are: (a) identifying the kinds of

improvements that may need to be made in student learning and achievement and (b) identifying the kinds of information that may need to be collected to help the staff to develop shared understanding of what learning/achievement problems students are encountering and just what is the status of the current instructional practices that teachers are using to help their students learn and achieve with respect to those problems.

2. During the DURING phase, staff visit classrooms and actually collect the data/information that they will need to productively engage in the work of making actual improvement.

3. Lastly, during the AFTER phase, the staff work to make sense of the information they have collected and to identify the next steps that they will take to address the problems they had initially identified.

(Note: Given the complexity of making changes in practice that actually improve student learning and achievement, it generally requires the staff to work through several cycles of the B-D-A process.)


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ACTIVITY 1: SHARING EXPERIENCES OF IMPLEMENTING ONE-ON-ONE COACHING (Estimated time for Activity 1: 25 minutes)

It is important that the planning and implementation of Instructional Learning Visits (ILV) build on the experiences of the teachers and the coach with the task of planning and implementing the One-on-One Model of Coaching and its B-D-A process. Therefore, we recommend that coaches who are exploring the possibility of planning and implementing an Instructional Learning Visit (ILV), begin by creating a brief description/story of a One-on-One Coaching experience that addresses the topics below: 1. Describe the specific purpose(s) that the coach and teacher identified during their BEFORE activity). 2. Describe the information that was actually collected during the classroom visit to help the coach and teacher achieve their purpose(s). 3. Describe how they specifically used the information that they had collected during the AFTER activities. For example:

(a) Describe the student learning and the instruction that they saw and heard during the classroom visit:

(b) Provide an analysis of what they saw and heard that helped them to identify possible explanations for what was being learned and not being learned:

(c) Determine possible ways of improving the learning activities and the instruction practices s/he observed, so that more of the students would learn the knowledge and skills that they needed to learn.

4. With their descriptions/stories in hand, encourage the coaches and teachers to compare and contrast their descriptions/stories and what they learned from sharing them.


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ACTIVITY 2: WHAT OTHER IMPROVEMENT PROCESSES HAVE THE PARTICIPANTS WORKED THROUGH THAT ARE STRUCTURED AS A B-D-A PROCESS?

1. Activity 2 asks the participating coaches: Are there other improvement processes that you have participated in that have similar purposes and

processes as those described in the Overview? If so, write brief descriptions of those processes and what you learned from planning and implementing them.

2. Activity 2, then asks the coaches to: (a) share their descriptions, (b) compare the similarities and differences of their descriptions, and then, (c)

summarize what they learned from the sharing and the discussion in a chart like the one on page 5. 3. Additional activity, if there is time: To help the group of coaches to extend their discussion, there is provided below four examples of improvement

processes that involve in one way or another collaborative teacher planning, classroom visits, and actions based on what was learned during those visits. (Note: The ILV Guide being developed to help coaches and teachers to plan and implement Instructional Learning Visits, includes a list of resources that provide more detailed information about each example below.)

Example 1: Student Assistance Teams, Student Support Teams, etc. Collaborative efforts of teams of teachers and resource teachers to collect and analyze information about individual students who are exhibiting behavior and achievement-related problems that the teachers then use to plan and implement behavioral and instructional supports that might help those specific students to be more successful. This approach is sometimes referred to as Student Support Teams or Instructional Support Teams. Example 2: Lesson Study and Related Processes. The second example involve teams of teachers working collaboratively to collect data on why students are having difficulty learning specific knowledge and skills described by a particular Academic Standard, and then to use that information to revise instructional plans and practices. One improvement process of this type is named: “Lesson Study.” This process creates a team of teachers who are teaching the same lesson(s) and who have determined that a significant number of students are not learning what the lesson(s) are supposed to teach. Given the data on lesson effectiveness, the team works through iterative cycles of: (a) revising the lesson, (b) piloting the revision with a group of students, (c) observing the pilot, (d) assessing the effectiveness of the lesson revisions, and (e) determining whether the team needs to repeat the improvement process. Example 3: Professional Learning Communities. Another approach is related to the movement to organize school staffs into Professional Learning Communities. Each Community has a shared mission, a clear direction, collective commitments, and goals – all focused on improving student learning. Each Learning Community: (a) develops a collaborative culture with a focus on improving student learning, (b) engages in collaborative inquiry into identifying strategies that might help them to improve student learning, (c) has an action orientation (i.e., Learning by Doing), (d) a commitment to continuous improvement, and (e) a results orientation. Example 4: Improvement Work Aimed at Redesigning Teacher Evaluation. Over the past few years, educational policy makers have been encouraging educators at state, district, and school levels to design and implement more rigorous teacher evaluation systems. These systems include the use of: (a) learning walks to gather data about the extent to which teachers are using particular instructional practices in their classrooms, and (b) assessments that help teachers determine the extent to which those practices are helping their students to learn the knowledge and skills described in state academic standards.


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An ACTIVITY 2 WORKSHEET TO HELP SESSION PARTICIANTS TO SUMMARIZE

USEFUL INFORMATION FROM THE GROUP’S DISCUSSION Directions: List in the first column the improvement work experiences of the session participants. The chart then suggests that the participants summarize what they have learned from those experiences that might be relevant for the planning and implementation of ILV’s three phases (i.e., B-D-A). IMPROVEMENT WORK EXPERIENCE OF THE COACHES

WHAT HAS BEEN LEARNED FROM THAT IMPROVEMENT WORK THAT MIGHT BE RELEVANT FOR ILV PLANNING

THE “BEFORE” PHASE

THE “DURING” PHASE

THE “AFTER” PHASE


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ACTIVITY 3: SUMMARIZING VISITING TEACHERS’/ADMINISTRATORS’ OBSERVATIONS

Resource for Activity 3 below is a description by Elena Aguilar (a Transformational Leadership Coach in Oakland, California) of the efforts of teachers and administrators to address the needs of their ELL students who comprised 90 percent of the school’ student population. This activity first asks Coaches to: (a) read the description below of the visits that teachers and administrators made, (b) note what the visitors saw and heard, and (c) discuss what the visitors learned as a result of each visit. Note: There is a worksheet on page 8 that the Coaches can use for making their notes. The first column can be used to describe each visit made to schools. The worksheet then provides three additional columns. The second column can be used to note the questions that are actually being focused on during particular visits. The third column can be used to note the instructional strategies observed during particular visits. And, the fourth column can be used to note the kinds of evidence that are collected and considered during particular visits. (Note: Not every cell is used in each column of the worksheet.) After this summary of the visits, the Coaches are asked to reflect on: (1) the extent that these visits describe examples of the kinds the activities proposed for an ILV, and (2) the extent to what the teachers and administrators learned through these visits could be relevant for their planning of an ILV.

Activity 3 Resource: Elena Aguilar’s Description of Teachers’ and Administrators’ Observations of ELL Students and Their Teachers (www.edutopia.org/blog/instructional-rounds/)

Teachers and administrators all over are trying to figure out how to support English Learners (ELLs). One of the schools that I work with, United for Success

Academy (UFSA), in Oakland, CA, has launched a concerted effort in the last year to address the needs of their ELLs who comprise some 90 percent of the

student body.

(1) Teachers at this middle school have engaged in professional development on a range of instructional approaches including explicit academic vocabulary

instruction, the use of sentence stems, and various structures for small group discussion.

(2) This staff has been working diligently, but it's been hard to measure the impact of their efforts. Written assessments don't give them a complete picture of

what students can verbally express -- of course, the intention is that spoken language will translate into high written performance, but these are also two separate

things.

(3) Enter Instructional Rounds: a process adapted from the medical rounds model that doctors use in hospitals. Instructional Rounds help educators look closely

at what is happening in classrooms in a systematic, purposeful and focused way. Given where United for Success Academy was this winter -- well into

implementation of a number of strategies to support ELLs -- it seemed worth trying.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/instructional-rounds/


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(4) The first step in an Instructional Rounds process is determining a "problem of practice." This is often framed as a question around which a site wants to gather

some data. UFSA's instructional leadership team proposed the question, "What are our students saying?" Almost all of the teachers, as well as the administrators

and a site-coach, participated in the rounds that took place over three days. In small groups, teachers visited four of their colleague's classrooms for 20 minutes

each, looking for evidence related to the problem of practice.

(5) One of the most challenging aspects with Rounds is that the evidence must be observational and non-judgmental. When visiting classes, UFSA's teachers

took notes on anything related to the question, "What are our students saying?" This included direct quotes from students, teacher-directions related to discussion

and dialogue, and quantitative data on how many students responded to a teacher's question or engaged in a group discussion. Noted were pieces of evidence

such as: "teacher asked a question and called on a student," "student glanced down at the sentence stems that were taped to his desk before responding," and

"student said... ."

(6) The Results: After visiting classrooms participants engaged in lengthy reflection and debrief protocols. They tried to make sense of the data they'd gathered

without jumping to conclusions or solutions. They discovered that there were many ways that students were engaged in discussion, (whole group, small group,

partner-talk) that some students demonstrated developing usage of "academic vocabulary," and that teachers were using a number of effective strategies such as,

"equity sticks," sentence stems, and modeling by using academic language. Teachers felt good; they saw evidence that they were on the right track.

(7) A Big Question Emerges: Looking at the data, one teacher posed a question that caused much reflection: Is it possible for one of our students to come to

school on Monday morning and not speak for the entire week? Could they actually travel through all their classes and never speak?

(8) Most teachers nodded their heads. One thing they'd all noticed was that there was less student-talk than they'd expected, assumed, and hoped. There were

invitations to speak, some structures were established, but there still wasn't as much talk as they wanted. And then as they thought about specific kids in their

classes, they reflected that, yes, it was possible that some students could go for a week, or two, or maybe even a month without speaking. Teachers began to think

and talk about how to address/change this.

(9) The Research: As a school improvement coach, I've been in dozens, perhaps hundreds of classrooms where ELLs predominate. Over and over I notice that

kids aren't talking much. The research also says this. It seems as if every other week there's an article saying that ELs need to speak more, need structure and

support and a bank of words to choose from, and more than anything, they need to speak to each other more. I often want to tell teachers, "Just let them talk!,"

but I know how that might be received.

(10) Instructional Rounds was a powerful process at UFSA for teachers to get in to each other's classrooms and see what students are saying, doing, and learning.

After Rounds, many teachers reflected, "We need to get our kids talking more, every single one of them." I'm excited to see what happens in the next few of

months as they implement more refined strategies for ELLs. And in mid-April, they'll engage in Instructional Rounds again.

Note: The Session facilitators took a crack at completing the page 8 Worksheet. Be sure to ask for it at the end if this activity,

so that you can have the fun of comparing your summary and the summary of the facilitators.


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POSSIBLE WORKSHEET FOR SUMMARIZING VISITING TEACHERS’/ADMINISTRATORS’ OBSERVATIONS

Description of Visits Made

Evolving Questions Asked

Instructional Strategies Noted

Examples of Evidence Collected


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ACTIVITY 4: JUST WHAT DOES THE ILV PROCESS INVOLVE? Directions: Activity 4 asks you to engage in the following three activities to answer the above question: 1. Use the worksheet on page 10 to develop a draft comparison of the One-on-One Instructional Coaching Process and what might relevant for an

Instructional Learning Visit Process (see additional directions on that worksheet). 2. Read critically two sets of resource materials that summarize ideas generated in previous PIIC PLO Sessions on Instructional Learning Visits. Circle those

ideas that you think would be most relevant to your design of an Instructional Learning Visit. Resource 1: Some Key Elements of the Instructional Learning Visit. This resource presents a short paragraph outlining a small number of possible

elements. It then highlights seven tasks that the Coaches may need to undertake. Resource 2: PIIC Description of the Development of the Idea of an ILV. This resource highlights four understandings that PIIC staff have developed

through discussions at PIIC Conferences. It stresses the important relationship between One-on-One Coaching and the Instructional Learning Visit Process.

3. Develop a graphic that illustrates what the Instructional Learning Visit Process might involve. Draw on the worksheet you completed on page 10 and on the content that you found to be most relevant in Resources 1 and 2. Be prepared to share your graphics and explain their logic with your colleagues..

Note: The Session facilitators took a crack at developing a graphic of the ILV Process. Be sure to ask for it at the end if this activity,

so that you can have the fun of comparing your graphic and the facilitators’ graphic.


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Worksheet: Comparison of the Instructional Coaching and the ILV Processes Directions: The most efficient way to complete this comparison task is for the members of the Study Group to first outline in column 1 the major processes that have made up the One-on-One Instructional Coaching process in which they have participated. After reaching consensus regarding those processes, the Study Group then uses the second column to describe any processes of the Instructional Learning Visit that you believe are similar to particular One-on-One Instructional Coaching processes. Take time at the end of this activity, to create a summary chart that shows your consensus about the relationship between One-on-One Instructional Coaching process and the ILV process. (Note: The chart arbitrarily has eight rows. You should not assume that this means that you need to come up with seven processes in each column. You should just record in Column 1 the processes that you have experienced during One-on-One Instructional Coaching, and then note in Column 2 which of those processes could be reflected in the ILV process.)

Column 1:

ONE-ON-ONE INSTRUCTIONAL COACHING PROCESS Column 2:

INSTRUCTIONAL LEARNING VISIT


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Resource 1: Some Key Elements of an Instructional Learning Visit (ILV) The PIIC Instructional Learning Visit (ILV) is a non-evaluative collaborative process that used the B, D, A cycle of consultation to develop norms and protocols for each phase of the ILV process. The purpose of instituting the ILV process is to help practitioners improve instructional practice, build teacher capacity, and improve student learning. It is also a process that fosters collaborative problem solving, shared learning, and ongoing conversations about teaching and learning.

1. The ILV is facilitated by an instructional coach. 2. The instructional coach forms a study/planning group(s) of coached teachers as participants. 3. The instructional coach and the coached teachers write agreements for the group(s) with respect to norms and protocols for each phase of the

process. 4. The group(s) must make sure the ILV process is confidential. 5. The group(s) must learn the difference between descriptive and judgmental language, and then use only descriptive language to make

comments about the visit. 6. The group must gather evidence (documentation) for each phase of the process. 7. The ILV’s main goal is to build a collaborative school culture that continually addresses school improvement.

Resource 2: PIIC Description of the Development of the Idea of an ILV

Over the past year, PIIC staff have been offering sessions at PIIC Conferences on possible ways of expanding PIIC’s Model of Effective Coaching to include coaches and teachers in making collaborative visits to each others’ classrooms that help them to learn from each other how to strengthen their instruction in ways that improve their students’ learning and achievement. Through these Conference sessions, the following understandings have been developed and reinforced: 1. Instructional Learning Visits must address the purposes of all school improvement work—namely: the improvement of student learning and

achievement with respect to the PA Core Content Standards. 2. The design and implementation of an Instructional Learning Visit must build on the successful implementation of a coaching program whose

coaches have built positive relationships with teachers, whose teachers are comfortable in inviting their coaches to visit their classrooms, and whose classroom visits have over time become more structured through the collaborative use by the teachers and their coaches of a Before-During-After process aligned with the purposes of the current improvement work of the school and/or the district.

3. The purpose of Instructional Learning Visits must complement one-on-one coaching by involving small groups of teachers in collaborative improvement efforts, facilitated by a coach. As with the one-on-one improvement efforts of a coach and a teacher, these collaborative efforts are structured in terms of multiple cycles of B-D-A activities.

4. A general example of the cycle of an Instructional Learning Visit is suggested by the attached graphic. This graphic reflects the content of the book: Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning (2009). That book helped PIIC staff to create a graphic that reflects the following B-D-A framework:


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TWO APPENDICES FOR USE BY THE SESSION FACILITATORS

Activity 3 Appendix: Facilitators’ Summary of School/Classroom Visits Described by Elena Aguilar Activity 4 Appendix: Facilitators’ Example of a Graphic of the “Instructional Learning Visit” Process


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Activity 3 Appendix: Facilitators’ Summary of School/Classroom Visits Described by Elena Aguilar

(Note: Summary was prepared by the developers of the ILV Guide for interested members of PIIC.) Paragraph

Questions Asked

Instructional Strategies Observed

Examples of Evidence That Could Be Collected

#1

How To Support ELLs? What are the needs of ELLs?

#2

PD on a range of instructional approaches for teaching ELLs: (a) explicit academic vocabulary, (b) use of sentence stems, and (c) use of a various structures for small group discussions.

#3

How to measure what ELL students can verbally express?

#4

What is happening in classrooms in a systematic, purposeful, and focused way?

#5

What is the “problem of practice?” What are students saying?

Visiting classrooms for 20 minutes looking for evidence related to the “problem of practice.”

#6

Collect: (a) direct quotes from students, (b) teacher directions related to discussion and dialogue, (c) how many students responded to a teacher question, (d) how many students engaged in a group discussion, (e) how many students answered a teacher question by looking at sentence stems taped to their desk, (f) actual student answers to a teacher’s question.

#7

(g) In what ways were students engaged in discussion? (h) How many students demonstrated usage of academic vocabulary?

#8

Is it possible for one of our students to come to school on Monday morning and not speak for an entire week? Could they actually travel through all their classes and never speak?

(i) One thing all teachers noticed was that there was less student-talk than they expected, assumed, and hoped for. They also noted that there were invitations to speak and some structures (to foster group discussion), but there still was not much student talk.

#9

Articles on ELLs-related research said ELLs need to speak more, ELLs need structure and support, a bank of words to choose from, and more than anything, they need to speak to each other more.

#10

Instructional Rounds was a powerful process…for teachers to get in to each other’s classrooms and see what students are saying, doing, and learning. What will they see in mid-April when they will engage in Instructional Rounds again?

Teachers will implement more refined strategies for ELLs.


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Activity 4 Appendix: Facilitators’ Example of a Graphic of the “Instructional Learning Visit” Process

Adapted from the book Instructional Rounds in Education, Harvard Education Press, ©2009.

BEFORE (The Plan)

Establish a purpose by selecting: A focus for a lesson Identify a problem of practice

to be addressed by the lesson

DURING (The Visit)

What are the students saying and

doing? What are the teachers saying and

doing? In the context of what content are

students and teachers working? How do the tasks that students are

doing demonstrate their learning of the content?

AFTER

(The Debrief) All participants develop an integrated

description of what they observed All participants analyze their

descriptions to identify patterns All participants consider what changes

are needed to improve student learning All participants use what was learned to

use with the next cycle of the Instructional Learning Visit

Repeated Cycles

Tasks


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ACTIVITY 4

WHAT CAN BE LEARNED BY TEACHERS VISITING TEACHERS?

(Insert the graphic on this page)


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Documents

Draft Materials for the ILV Session at PIIC’s January 2016 …pacoaching.wikispaces.com/file/view/MATERIALS FOR... · Draft Materials for the ILV Session at PIIC’s January 2016