Bumping Up Your
Walkthroughs:
Recognizing and Coaching for
Instructional Rigor
Presented by
Alisa Braddy and Denise White
Inspire and Engage Consulting Services LLC
www.inspireandengage.com
The Brain’s Three Questions
1. Where am I?
2. Who are all these people?
3. What are we going to do
today?
Dr. Robert Sylwester
About Us
Alisa Braddy Denise White
• Classroom Teachers
• Instructional Coaches
• Worked with teachers
and principals
throughout the US and
Canada
Bumping Up Your Walkthroughs
Discuss how walkthroughs can become an opportunity
for instructional coaching.
Identify strategic ways to address the lack of rigor you
observe during classroom walkthroughs.
Understand the research supporting the effectiveness
of these strategies.
Learn specific strategies to provide your teachers with
in order to bring rigor to life in their classrooms.
Use Classroom Walkthroughs as
a Coaching Opportunity:
It’s What the Teachers Want
• “Leaders can vastly increase their leverage by
becoming coaches because coaching is a
communication process that connects people
to performance.”
• “The higher the level of response and follow up
by the supervisor, the higher the staff rated
their supervisor’s effectiveness.”
The Heart of Coaching, Crane 2002
Coaching through Walkthroughs
• “The best walkthroughs give teachers
relevant real-time data on their
instruction…which should be specific and
descriptive to the level of performance
observed.” (Skretta, 2007)
• Be prepared to give teachers strategies
that specifically address the observed
behaviors and performance.
What You Have
Observed
and
What You Can Suggest
What You Have Observed
• Too much teacher-talk
• Disengaged or merely ”compliant”
students
• Ineffective guided practice
#1
Implement
Collaborative
Structures
“Isolation is the enemy of
improvement.”
-Tony Wagner
The Global Achievement Gap
College and Career Ready
In a survey of over 23,000 employees across
industries and locations
• More than 2/3 reported that their job requires more
collaboration than it did three years ago
• 60% said their day-to-day work requires regular
coordination with ten or more people
FCW, Cattie, 2012
Research on Collaboration
• Cooperative learning demonstrated
improvement of student engagement and
retention of classroom material (Johnson and
Johnson, 2009).
• Cooperative learning methods improve
students' time on tasks and motivation to
learn, as well as students' interpersonal
relationships and expectations for personal
success (Johnson and Johnson, 2009).
Research on Collaboration
• Collaborative discussion-based practices
improved comprehension of the text and
critical-thinking skills for students across
ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
(Journal of Educational Psychology, 2009)
• Studies show that when students are
engaged in collaborative tasks, dopamine is
released which serves as a self-rewarding
system and increases retention of information
(Willis, 2012).
Collaboration
Working together
toward a common goal
Using a structure that
provides:
•Positive
Interdependence
•Individual
Accountability
•Equal Participation
•Simultaneous
Interaction
Group Work
Working together
toward a common goal
Reciprocal Teaching
• Find a partner and identify yourselves as either “A” or
“B”.
• Partner A teaches Partner B the first problem while
Partner B “coaches” as needed.
• Switch roles and Partner B teaches the second problem
to Partner A as Partner A “coaches” as needed.
1)
27 + 5 =
2)
19 + 6 =
Playing Card Discussion
1. Draw a playing card from the deck.
2. Form a discussion group with the people who are holding the
same numbered card.
3. Take turns answering the questions that match your suit.
4. Be sure to ask whether anyone in your group has anything to
add about your topic.
5. Discussion continues until all group members have discussed
their topics.
Playing Card Discussion Questions
SPADES: Discuss and describe the main characters in
the book.
CLUBS: Discuss the setting of the book. Why is it
important to the story? How would the story be
different set in another place or time?
DIAMONDS: Discuss the most important event(s) in
the book. Why were they so important to the
development of the plot?
HEARTS: Discuss the theme of the book. What
message is the author trying to communicate and
how does he/she do it?
Common Core State Standard:
Speaking and Listening
SL.1.Prepare for and participate
effectively in a range of conversations
and collaborations with diverse
partners, building on others’ ideas and
expressing their own clearly and
persuasively.
Have you ever
observed
something like this?
What You Have Observed
• Students with their heads down
• Students getting out of their seats at
inappropriate times
• Pencil-tapping, chair-rocking, gumsnapping
• ERGO
#2
Embed
Movement into
Instruction
Research on Movement
• A workplace study done by Galen Cranz found
that sitting in chairs for more than 10 minutes
led to the following:
• Reduced physical and emotional awareness
• Decreased productivity
• Increased fatigue
Benefits of Movement
• Increased math, reading, writing
scores
• Positive personal relationships
• Decreased depression, anxiety, fatigue
• Decreased disruptive behavior
(from Journal of School Health, Aug. 2011)
Clock Appointments
12
Explain how the economic impact of
the Great Depression has affected
current economic legislation.
9
3
Discuss why the HawleySmoot Tariff Act was not
successful in ending the
Great Depression.
Do you agree with George Bush that
Reagan’s economic plan is “Voodoo
Economics”? Why or why not?
1. Move around the
room; stop with signal.
6
2. Record name of person.
Discuss the Laffer Curve and why it is
so controversial.
3. Take turns discussing the topic.
4. Repeat as directed. Keep your clock!
Box It
1. Carry your Box It sheet and your pencil as you
mingle to the music.
2. When the music stops, partner with the person
closest to you.
3. Select a box to work on with your partner.
4. Your partner will sign your box to indicate you
worked together to fully and completely address
that question.
5. When you are finished with that box, hold up
your paper and find a new partner.
BOX-IT
Directions: Choose a question to investigate with your partner. Discuss and record your answers. Be sure
to cite evidence from the text. When you are finished, sign each other’s boxes beneath that question.
1. Explain the causes
and effects of the
Hawley-Smoot Tariff
Act. (pgs. 192-195)
2. Compare and
contrast the
contemporary Laffer
Curve to the HawleySmoot Tariff Act. (pgs.
199-202; 192-195)
3. Explain why George
Bush called Reagan’s
economic policy
“Voodoo Economics”
(pgs. 203-205).
Box It
1. Carry your Box It sheet and your pencil as you
mingle to the music.
2. When the music stops, partner with the person
closest to you.
3. Select a box to teach your partner.
4. Your partner will sign your box to indicate you
taught and he listened to you teach.
5. Trade roles.
6. When you are finished with that box, hold up
your paper and find a new partner.
BOX-IT
Directions: Choose a problem to teach your partner. When you are finished, your partner will sign the box
beneath that problem. Trade roles.
1. 27 X 8 =
4. 33 X 2 =
2. 35 X 5 =
5. 67 X 4 =
3. 93 X 7 +
6. 42 X 4 =
Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up
1. On an index card, write two things you have learned.
2. At the signal, stand up, put your hand up, find a partner
NOT sitting at your table, and give him/her a high five.
3. Listen actively to one another as you share your first idea.
4. When you finish, put your hand up and find a second
partner with his or her hand up and give a high five.
5. Share your second idea.
6. Return to your seat when finished.
Common Core State Standard:
Speaking and Listening
SL.1.Prepare for and participate
effectively in a range of conversations
and collaborations with diverse
partners, building on others’ ideas and
expressing their own clearly and
persuasively.
Have you ever
observed
something like this?
Uncle Joe drove Caleb to the football game and
dropped him off. “I will be back to pick you up
when the game is over,” said Uncle Joe. A few
hours later, Uncle Joe pulled into the parking lot
and watched the students streaming out of the
stadium cheering and high-fiving each other. As
Caleb climbed into the car, Uncle Joe remarked,
“Well, it looks like your team won the game!”
Where did Uncle Joe take Caleb?
Who drove Caleb to the football game?
#3
Increase the
Rigor of
Questioning
What Makes a Question
Rigorous?
• Rigorous questions ask students to infer,
analyze, and/or synthesize.
CCSS Anchor Standard for
Reading
1. Read closely to determine what
the text says explicitly and to make
logical inferences from it; cite specific
textual evidence when writing or
speaking to support conclusions
drawn from the text.
Creating Text-based Questions
To ensure that questions require
textual evidence AND are rigorous,
start by drawing a conclusion from
the text.
Conclusion
Question
Answer
Question Stems for Text-based
Questions
• How does the author let you know that
_____?
• What in the text helps you understand
_____?
• Based on the information in the text, how do
you know that _____________________?
• What words or phrases in the text help
explain what ______________ means?
• What did the character do or say that lets you
know that _________________________?
Uncle Joe drove Caleb to the football game and
dropped him off. “I will be back to pick you up when
the game is over,” said Uncle Joe. A few hours later,
Uncle Joe pulled into the parking lot and watched
the students streaming out of the stadium cheering
and high-fiving each other. As Caleb climbed into
the car, Uncle Joe remarked, “Well, it looks like your
team won the game!”
What in the text helps you understand how
Uncle Joe knew that Caleb’s team won the
game?
“Empowerment is the natural
complement to accountability.”
Sergiovanni, 2002
Empower Your Teachers Every
Time You Do a Walkthrough!
See You in July!
Please come to our session on Thursday,
July, 10th:
Next Gen Assessments: Ready or Not, Here
They Come!
Contact us:
Alisa Braddy and Denise White
Education Consultants
Inspire and Engage Consulting Services
www.inspireandengage.com
Like us on Facebook
www.inspireandengage.com