Don’t Feel Guilty About Classroom Walkthroughs
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses how principals can get into classrooms more consistently by simplifying walkthroughs and aiming for daily visits.
Key Takeaways
- Aim for 500 visits - Getting into classrooms about three times a day adds up to roughly 500 walkthroughs in a school year.
- Consistency matters most - Daily classroom visits build trust with teachers and increase your influence on instruction over time.
- Classrooms give you unique information - You learn things in person that never show up in reports, data dashboards, or secondhand conversations.
- Simplify the process - Long walkthrough forms can become a barrier, so reduce the paperwork and make visits easier to sustain.
- Start with smile-and-wave visits - An initial low-pressure cycle of brief visits helps you establish presence before adding notes or feedback later.
Full Transcript
Don't feel guilty if you didn't get into classrooms that much this year. If you are a school leader, you probably feel like you could have gotten into classrooms more this year, and you probably feel a little bit guilty about not getting into classrooms more. And the number of classroom walkthrough visits that I recommend in a year is about 500. If you get into classrooms three times a day, you'll get into classrooms about 500 times a year. Yeah.
And it's my goal to help you figure out how to get into classrooms every day regardless and still get those other things done. You know, if there is discipline that needs to be handled, if there is work supporting teachers other than getting into classrooms that needs to get done, like, yes, you need to do that work, and I want you to do that work, and I don't want you to feel guilty about it. But I do want you to find a way to get into classrooms consistently. Because what that's going to give you is two things. If you get into classrooms every day, you're going to get stronger relationships with teachers. They're going to get used to seeing you.
They're going to have a higher level of trust. There's going to be more openness. You're going to have a bigger influence on their practice. And you are going to have information that you would not otherwise have. As a decision maker, you will get information from being in classrooms and talking with teachers that you can't really get any other way. It doesn't show up in a report.
People aren't going to bring it to you. It doesn't show up in your data. You've got to be in classrooms to see it. So, if you're thinking, okay, next year, I really wanted to get into classrooms more, great. Keep that goal in mind. And if you think of things that are standing in the way, think about whether they really need to stand in the way.
One of the things that often stands in people's way is they give themselves a big, long form to fill out, and that's just not sustainable, right? It's too hard to fill out the form, they run out of time, and it becomes too daunting. So let the form go and get into classrooms and simplify it as much as possible, right? If you do as little as smile and wave on your first visit, that still gets you into classrooms. And if you want to...
ramp things up in a subsequent cycle. We have something called the three-cycle startup plan, where we say, in the first round of visits to each teacher, just smile and wave. Don't give yourself any paperwork, any homework at all, and then you can start to take notes in subsequent visits. But the bottom line here is, don't be discouraged. If you got into classrooms this year, great. If you didn't get into classrooms as much as you wanted, that's normal.
Pretty much nobody gets into classrooms as much as they want. But I also want to celebrate our members who did get into classrooms 500 times or more. I see those stars appearing on our classroom walkthrough scoreboard, and I'm here to tell you, you can do it too.
