What is it?
About Rounds...
IR is based upon the work of Dr. Richard Elmore who adapted ideas from the professional practice of medical rounds used by doctors. When implemented at its best, IR work results in systemic improvement of learning at scale. Teaching and learning excellence is developed through distributed instructional leadership focused on rigorous teaching and learning with high cognitive demand in the classroom. The roles and actions of everyone in school systems become redefined by that which is necessary to result in the highest levels of student learning. Dr. Thomas Fowler-Finn, author of Leading Instructional Rounds In Education: A Facilitator's Guide, Harvard Press 2013, describes the process below.
The process begins with the formation of a network whose members commit to helping schools (and all network members) address problems of student learning. A school identified problem of student learning, called a “problem of practice” (POP) serves as the focus for each network visit to a school. The network members are scheduled to enter multiple classrooms in small groups, use expert and precise observation techniques, and take copious notes.
After observing in a majority of the classrooms, the network reconvenes and uses IR protocols to agree upon and analyze what was observed. This stage of the process, called debriefing, keeps the analysis on specific and factual descriptions, screening out personal judgments. Network debriefing results in a collection of precisely written "patterns" that provide a comprehensive picture of teaching and learning throughout the school-as-a-whole not identification of individual teachers or classrooms.
These school-wide patterns are then used by the network to predict what students would know and be able to do as a result of being educated in this school. The members conclude their work by taking on the central question of what would need to happen in this school and system-wide, including network and/or organization support, to address the POP and improve learning at scale. This later stage of the work, called “the next level of work,” results in recommendations cast as options for the school.
The network's generation of options includes ideas for what could be done next week, next month, and over the course of a year. These options take into account time schedules, resources, and necessary support at the school and network/district level. This work is explicit and concrete, offered with the expectation that the school will decide upon its own course of action, but action that will be taken and reported back to the network.
IR is based upon the work of Dr. Richard Elmore who adapted ideas from the professional practice of medical rounds used by doctors. When implemented at its best, IR work results in systemic improvement of learning at scale. Teaching and learning excellence is developed through distributed instructional leadership focused on rigorous teaching and learning with high cognitive demand in the classroom. The roles and actions of everyone in school systems become redefined by that which is necessary to result in the highest levels of student learning. Dr. Thomas Fowler-Finn, author of Leading Instructional Rounds In Education: A Facilitator's Guide, Harvard Press 2013, describes the process below.
The process begins with the formation of a network whose members commit to helping schools (and all network members) address problems of student learning. A school identified problem of student learning, called a “problem of practice” (POP) serves as the focus for each network visit to a school. The network members are scheduled to enter multiple classrooms in small groups, use expert and precise observation techniques, and take copious notes.
After observing in a majority of the classrooms, the network reconvenes and uses IR protocols to agree upon and analyze what was observed. This stage of the process, called debriefing, keeps the analysis on specific and factual descriptions, screening out personal judgments. Network debriefing results in a collection of precisely written "patterns" that provide a comprehensive picture of teaching and learning throughout the school-as-a-whole not identification of individual teachers or classrooms.
These school-wide patterns are then used by the network to predict what students would know and be able to do as a result of being educated in this school. The members conclude their work by taking on the central question of what would need to happen in this school and system-wide, including network and/or organization support, to address the POP and improve learning at scale. This later stage of the work, called “the next level of work,” results in recommendations cast as options for the school.
The network's generation of options includes ideas for what could be done next week, next month, and over the course of a year. These options take into account time schedules, resources, and necessary support at the school and network/district level. This work is explicit and concrete, offered with the expectation that the school will decide upon its own course of action, but action that will be taken and reported back to the network.
CISD PROBLEM OF PRACTICE:
Data indicates that student tasks are not at the Bloom’s higher level which stimulate a student’s thinking. Tasks are defined as opportunities for students to verbalize, write or demonstrate their thinking through collaboration, answering questions, completing group and independent work, discussion and/or reflections. Higher level thinking is defined as using cognitive processes at the apply, analyze, evaluate, or create level.
Castleberry Elementary 2014-15
Instructional Rounds – Initial Momentum Plan
ANALYSIS
· Teacher talk was 60% vs student talk @ 40%
· Student talk was at a Level 1 (see rubric).
· 67% of student responses were at Level 1, minimal talk, less than 3 words, 5 seconds or less.
· Tasks were 48% whole group, 52% small group, and no individual work.
· 81% of teacher questions were at lower level of remember and understand.
· 19% of questions were at higher level of Apply or above.
TARGET/GOALS
Short term:
· Raise student talk level to Level 2 or higher from 31% to 35% >
· Increase Blooms Level of Questioning to Apply or higher from 19% to 22%>
Long term:
· Raise student talk level to Level 2 or higher to 40%>
· Increase Blooms Level of Questioning to Apply or higher to 28% >overall
STUDY
· Blooms Taxonomy
· Edutopia Student Talk Video
· Partner observations
· Pinterest for anchor charts – student response (vary by grade level need)
· Internal partner observations use of Instructional Rounds in Education will measure Level of student responses (rubric)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
· Training at Team Meetings October 10th
· Planning on October 13th
· Observations weekly
· Debrief from observations biweekly
INTERNAL ROUNDS PLAN:
· Internal partners will meet weekly (Thursday/Friday) from observations (Mon-Wed)
· Reflection will be due to Lancarte at biweekly meetings
· These will support our problem of practice by addressing the low level of student talk Level 1
· Blooms level of teacher instruction to be addressed with intentional planning – 1> subject per grade level for Fall Semester///-2 subjects per spring semester
· Johnson/Lancarte to document via walkthroughs to support Blooms Level of instruction concern
TEAMS
· Review of data
· Student response Anchor Chart discussion/purpose
· Intentional Planning – 1 subject or more to be a focus for Fall Semester
· Partner observations – use of rubric
· Schedule (see attached): Mon-Wed 1 – 20 min. observation of scripting of student responses
· Partner share/follow up Thursday-Friday
· Biweekly share of issues/observations/concerns/questions – whole campus
Instructional Rounds – Initial Momentum Plan
ANALYSIS
· Teacher talk was 60% vs student talk @ 40%
· Student talk was at a Level 1 (see rubric).
· 67% of student responses were at Level 1, minimal talk, less than 3 words, 5 seconds or less.
· Tasks were 48% whole group, 52% small group, and no individual work.
· 81% of teacher questions were at lower level of remember and understand.
· 19% of questions were at higher level of Apply or above.
TARGET/GOALS
Short term:
· Raise student talk level to Level 2 or higher from 31% to 35% >
· Increase Blooms Level of Questioning to Apply or higher from 19% to 22%>
Long term:
· Raise student talk level to Level 2 or higher to 40%>
· Increase Blooms Level of Questioning to Apply or higher to 28% >overall
STUDY
· Blooms Taxonomy
· Edutopia Student Talk Video
· Partner observations
· Pinterest for anchor charts – student response (vary by grade level need)
· Internal partner observations use of Instructional Rounds in Education will measure Level of student responses (rubric)
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
· Training at Team Meetings October 10th
· Planning on October 13th
· Observations weekly
· Debrief from observations biweekly
INTERNAL ROUNDS PLAN:
· Internal partners will meet weekly (Thursday/Friday) from observations (Mon-Wed)
· Reflection will be due to Lancarte at biweekly meetings
· These will support our problem of practice by addressing the low level of student talk Level 1
· Blooms level of teacher instruction to be addressed with intentional planning – 1> subject per grade level for Fall Semester///-2 subjects per spring semester
· Johnson/Lancarte to document via walkthroughs to support Blooms Level of instruction concern
TEAMS
· Review of data
· Student response Anchor Chart discussion/purpose
· Intentional Planning – 1 subject or more to be a focus for Fall Semester
· Partner observations – use of rubric
· Schedule (see attached): Mon-Wed 1 – 20 min. observation of scripting of student responses
· Partner share/follow up Thursday-Friday
· Biweekly share of issues/observations/concerns/questions – whole campus
RESULTS
TEACHER RESOURCES
Questioning Strategies:
Make your questions count.
Tell: Tell children the story by reading the text or having them read the text. Directly refer questions they might refer back to the text: "Let's look closely at the words and see what they say."
Suggest: This involves providing children with choices about what might happen next or possible opinions they might have. One might say to children, before reading the story, "Goldilocks is a girl taking a walk in the forest and is getting tired. Do you think she might turn around and go home, stop at a house she sees to try to rest, or just keep going on with her walk?" After reading the story, one might say, "Do you think Goldilocks felt satisfied, frightened, or calm?"
You will note that by giving choices, you encourage children to consider alternate representations of the events, but these are prescribed by the choices provided in the structure of the question. Their distancing is greater than when they are told to "stay in the event" as presented.
Ask a Closed Question: These questions generally elicit yes or no answers. They can bring students to different temporal areas or elaborations of details, but the extent of this is structured by the question. For example: Do you think Goldilocks knew how the bears would feel about her action? Was it a good idea to lie down in one of the bears' beds? Were the bears frightened of Goldilocks? Do you think the bears will ever leave their front door unlocked again when they leave the house?
Ask an Open-Ended Question: These are the questions that open up the fullest range of distancing possibilities and open up students to the largest possibilities for accommodation of their thinking and elaboration of their existing understanding about what they are reading about or otherwise considering. For example: How would you describe the scene from Mama Bear's point of view? From each of the bears' points of view? How did Goldilocks' feelings change at each point along the story? What were all of the consequences of what Goldilocks did, positive and negative, for herself and for others? What other stories have you read that are like Goldilocks and the Three Bears in some way? What are all the ways that the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is similar or different from the story of The Three Little Pigs? From Chicken Little?
The Two-Question Rule: This means to follow a question with another question that probes for deeper understanding. For example, if you pass someone in the teachers' lounge and ask, "How are you today?" and they say, "Fine," the two-question rule would have you ask something like, "No, how are you really feeling today?" This second question demands a higher level of cognitive and emotional processing than the first question, which can be answered more automatically or in a safe way. That second question requires the person you asked to think about how they really are feeling, to decide if they want to tell you, and even if they do, how much they want to tell you.
For the story, here are some two-question rule sequences:
Would you have gone into the house they way Goldilocks did? ... What if you were really, really hungry? What do you think about what Goldilocks did after she broke the chair? ... What would you have done? How long had it been since the bears left the house?... How can you be sure?
Note that you don't have to use the two-question rule for every student or every question. Irv's research over the years found that by asking that second (or third) probing question even 10 to 15 percent of the time, students start to expect it and begin to think more deeply before they answer, anticipating that added question.
So you can see how the way teachers ask question, whether about what is being read in novels, nonfiction, or just about the actions observed in the classroom among students, creates deeper understanding and advances cognitive and emotional processing in all children, even if they are not actively participating. Here's a suggested read for this summer: Educating the Young Thinker: Classroom Strategies for Cognitive Growth.
Make your questions count.
Tell: Tell children the story by reading the text or having them read the text. Directly refer questions they might refer back to the text: "Let's look closely at the words and see what they say."
Suggest: This involves providing children with choices about what might happen next or possible opinions they might have. One might say to children, before reading the story, "Goldilocks is a girl taking a walk in the forest and is getting tired. Do you think she might turn around and go home, stop at a house she sees to try to rest, or just keep going on with her walk?" After reading the story, one might say, "Do you think Goldilocks felt satisfied, frightened, or calm?"
You will note that by giving choices, you encourage children to consider alternate representations of the events, but these are prescribed by the choices provided in the structure of the question. Their distancing is greater than when they are told to "stay in the event" as presented.
Ask a Closed Question: These questions generally elicit yes or no answers. They can bring students to different temporal areas or elaborations of details, but the extent of this is structured by the question. For example: Do you think Goldilocks knew how the bears would feel about her action? Was it a good idea to lie down in one of the bears' beds? Were the bears frightened of Goldilocks? Do you think the bears will ever leave their front door unlocked again when they leave the house?
Ask an Open-Ended Question: These are the questions that open up the fullest range of distancing possibilities and open up students to the largest possibilities for accommodation of their thinking and elaboration of their existing understanding about what they are reading about or otherwise considering. For example: How would you describe the scene from Mama Bear's point of view? From each of the bears' points of view? How did Goldilocks' feelings change at each point along the story? What were all of the consequences of what Goldilocks did, positive and negative, for herself and for others? What other stories have you read that are like Goldilocks and the Three Bears in some way? What are all the ways that the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is similar or different from the story of The Three Little Pigs? From Chicken Little?
The Two-Question Rule: This means to follow a question with another question that probes for deeper understanding. For example, if you pass someone in the teachers' lounge and ask, "How are you today?" and they say, "Fine," the two-question rule would have you ask something like, "No, how are you really feeling today?" This second question demands a higher level of cognitive and emotional processing than the first question, which can be answered more automatically or in a safe way. That second question requires the person you asked to think about how they really are feeling, to decide if they want to tell you, and even if they do, how much they want to tell you.
For the story, here are some two-question rule sequences:
Would you have gone into the house they way Goldilocks did? ... What if you were really, really hungry? What do you think about what Goldilocks did after she broke the chair? ... What would you have done? How long had it been since the bears left the house?... How can you be sure?
Note that you don't have to use the two-question rule for every student or every question. Irv's research over the years found that by asking that second (or third) probing question even 10 to 15 percent of the time, students start to expect it and begin to think more deeply before they answer, anticipating that added question.
So you can see how the way teachers ask question, whether about what is being read in novels, nonfiction, or just about the actions observed in the classroom among students, creates deeper understanding and advances cognitive and emotional processing in all children, even if they are not actively participating. Here's a suggested read for this summer: Educating the Young Thinker: Classroom Strategies for Cognitive Growth.