Classroom Visits in a Virtual Environment
August 10, 2020
Classroom observations can be a key strategy for improved teaching and learning, provided that they are conducted in a manner that gives teachers constructive and immediately applicable feedback as well as a chance to engage in a substantive conversation about their work with students and colleagues. The challenges of effective observation were hard enough in the world of live instruction and are even more difficult in the virtual and blended learning environments most schools are facing in the fall of 2020. This article considers how to apply the best practices in classroom observation in any environment – live, blended, and virtual.
Protocols for classroom visits range from hyper-specific, with checklists and automated reporting, to vague wandering about with little clear feedback to teachers. Teachers report that it is especially frustrating to have observers walk through their classroom and leave without providing any sort of communication directly with the teacher. They loathe the post-it note with a “Good Job!” accompanied by a smiley face, an empty gesture devoid of specific feedback. The only thing worse, they tell me, is the silence that follows many walk-throughs, rounds, or other observations that fail to give specific feedback to the teacher who was observers. In many schools in the spring of 2020, there were no observations at all of virtual classes.
Kim Marshall, the editor of the Marshall Memo and author of Rethinking Teacher Supervision and Evaluation (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and The Best of the Marshall Memo (2020), has coached principals in the US and internationally on effective observation techniques. He notes that it is essential for the faculty to understand that role of the principal and other observers is just that – observation. They are not lurking mysteriously in the shadows, either in on-line classes or the classroom, but are engaged in a thoughtful and transparent practice designed to improve teaching and learning.
Ideally, Marshall says, classroom visits should be short, frequent, and unannounced. The observer doesn’t have a checklist, but rather needs to get a sense of what is going on. Is there a clear learning objective? Is there evidence of interaction among students and clear checks for understanding? In the virtual and blended environment, this means that the principal must have access to every class. In order to avoid disruption when the principal observes a virtual class, it is essential that the principal is listed as a “co-teacher” or has a similar technical credential that will allow the principal to walk in without asking permission and engage in chats with individual students. When the principal does not have access to a virtual class, Marshall notes, it is the equivalent of the door being locked and chewing gum placed in the keyhole. We would never tolerate that in a live classroom, and we should not allow it in a virtual environment.
Some districts have established protocols in which student cameras are turned off, a practice that Marshall vigorously challenges. In a regular classroom observation, the principal is not merely looking at the presentation by the teacher, but at the engagement by the students. Too often teachers receive the message that observers are watching a performance by the instructor rather than evidence of learning by students. Marshall says that one of the most powerful questions to ask a student during any observation – live or virtual – is “Tell me something you learned today that you didn’t know before.”
In the virtual and blended environment, Marshall notes that student engagement can be illusory if the only evidence of that is the submission of homework. While 100% student engagement may seem elusive in a virtual environment, it is a vital objective for every school. Therefore, teachers must master the details of breakout sessions, response software, and tenacious follow up. Marshall suggests that when students are not engaged, schools must have a clear and consistent effort to find out what is preventing engagement, and that may include enlisting the aid of school psychologists, social workers, and other students. The absence of engagement may be due to many causes, including indifference by the student. But before we come to that conclusion, we should consider that students at home might be caring for siblings, dealing with limited bandwidth while parents and other students are all using the same connection, or any number of distractions that inhibit their active participation in class. When teachers punish disengagement with failing grades and zeros for missing work, we fail to get to the root cause of disengagement and further disadvantage students who are learning from home.
The effectiveness of observation ultimately depends upon the conversation afterwards, Marshall concludes. Whether this is done by interactive video or telephone, it’s especially important that this is in the form of one to one communication between the principal and teacher. E-mail and automated electronic forms based on checklists that are often used after observations are ineffective because they lack any human interaction or emotional connection with the teacher. Moreover, only in a live conversation do the teachers have the opportunity to explain their perceptions of what was happening in the classroom.
In my conversations with hundreds of administrators during the shut-down, it is clear that they are overwhelmed concerns about safety, technology, and communication with students, staff, and parents. There doesn’t seem to be much time for classroom observations any more. But quality teaching is more important now more than ever, and it is not possible to pursue the goal of educational equity without a focus on effective instruction.