Thursday, November 6, 2014

Instructional Rounds at AVC

Recently we had a team of administrators give us feedback on our best practices in the classroom.  This information was enlightening and really helped our teachers see the need for the Instructional Rounds.  Through this eye opening feedback we were able to target two goals to focus on:

1. Increase student talk by 10%
2. Increase higher level questions by 10%

Focusing on the student talk, we are using sentence frames to help our students begin to speak in complete sentences and think in complete thoughts.  We also have put in intentional planning of two higher level questions through out the entire lesson cycle. 

Through walkthroughs and peer coaching, AVC teacher have made a conscious effort to ensure our students are using complete sentences, by scaffolding the use, not accepting answers with our them being in sentence form, and providing a safe environment for our student to converse in.  Moving into the peer coaching part of the instructional rounds, teachers have observed each others practices and gave practical feedback for improvement. 

I am so proud of my teachers ability to take concrete data, to improve their instructional practices in the classroom.