In our last post on developing leaders as instructional coaches, we dove into the foundations of classroom observation, focusing on effective beginning-of-year practices. Once classroom foundations are set for the teachers we coach, it’s time to shift our observation eye to ensuring student learning is happening.
In today’s post, we’ll outline a framework for just that and offer a concrete example of this from the world of 3rd-grade math. You’ll see this example reflected in the text boxes throughout; we’ve also put the full example here for ease of reading and future reference.
Observation Preparation: Begin with the End in Mind
Being able to center student learning in your teacher observations requires preparation and, depending on your comfort with the content and grade span, a bit of time with the lesson materials.
First, leverage any curriculum maps, department or grade span meetings to select a high-value lesson to observe. With a bit of pre-planning, you can ensure you walk into an early fractions lesson in 3rd-grade math or a pivotal chapter of a class novel in middle school English – and not the weekly roundup quiz (unless, of course, this is part of the teacher skill you wish to develop!).
Today, we’ll follow the example of an early franctions lesson in 3rd-grade math.
Once you’ve selected your lesson, identify its aligned standard. (Pending curriculum, this may be provided or you may need to locate it yourself. If that is the case, we recommend CPalms as a resource, which allows you to search seamlessly by content → grade span → strand → standard.) Read the language of the standard and ask yourself:
- What does a student have to know or be able to show to demonstrate mastery of this standard?
MA.3.FR.1 – Understand fractions as numbers and represent fractions.
What do students need to KNOW to demonstrate mastery?
- A fraction is a number that represents a part of a whole.
- A fraction is made up of a numerator – which represents the part – and a denominator – which represents the whole.
- A fraction is expressed as a quotient, where the numerator is divided by the denominator.
What do students have to SHOW to demonstrate mastery?:
- Identify language that indicates “part” in a story problem to determine numerator.
- Identify language that indicates “whole” in a story problem to determine denominator.
- Write a quotient that expresses a part to whole relationship.
Once you have a general understanding of the standard, immerse yourself in how it unfolds within the lesson you’ll observe. To do this, craft an exemplar response to the lesson’s destination. First, look at the exit ticket, final written prompt, or culminating practice set. (It’s important to note here that if instructional material is low rigor or lacks alignment with the state standards, share that feedback right away. No other feedback will effectively move the needle if students aren’t engaging with the right material.) If multiple questions are asked, select the most rigorous and write out the response a student with full mastery would craft. Don’t forget to include all question and text markup strategies in addition to a final response to fully immerse yourself in the content!
A final key reflection allows you to place this lesson within its larger context:
- How does this question have students engage with content aligned to the end goals of the standard, unit, and year?
How is this aligned to the end goals of the standard, unit, and/or year?
- Asks students to decipher a part and a whole in a story problem, and write an accurate quotient representing the part-to-whole relationship
- Foundation to future fraction work in 3rd grade, including understanding the relative magnitude of individual fractions, as well as upcoming work in 4th grade, where students will be asked to perform mathematical operations using fractions
Observation Preparation: Understand the Possible Pitfalls…and Ideal Responses
With a clear end in mind, it’s time to prepare yourself for the possible breakdowns in student understanding or teacher practice that could occur – in order to come up with a plan to support. First, ask yourself:
- What are one or two likely areas of student struggle?
- Error #1: Students swap the “part” and “whole,” so they write the quotient as 10/3.
- Error #2: Students don’t write a complete number sentence, so their answers read “3/10” only.
Play out the teaching that you’d like to see in response to those error trends, asking yourself:
- How would the best teacher respond if this trend arises?
| Student Error | Teacher Response |
|---|---|
| Students swap the “part” and “whole,” so they write the quotient as 10/3. | Questioning Sequence:
|
| Students don’t write a complete number sentence, so their answers read “3/10” only. | Quick pause the class and prompt: “Don’t forget to add your label!” |
Just as we plan for student errors, great coaches also anticipate places teachers may struggle. A common teacher challenge in math is not attending to conceptual understanding; here are two ways this could play out:
- Error #1: Teacher doesn’t monitor student thinking as evidenced in annotations.
- Error #2: Teacher focuses solely on the procedure to get the answer, and stops at the right answer.
Finally, consider how an instructional coach could support if this does, in fact, play out:
| Teacher Error | Leader Response |
|---|---|
| Teacher doesn’t monitor student thinking as evidenced in annotations. |
If in-the-moment feedback is part of your coaching practice:
|
| Teacher focuses solely on the procedure to get the answer, and stops at the right answer. | If in-the-moment feedback is part of your coaching practice:
|
During Observation: Determine Feedback
When you get into the classroom, look out for teacher instruction surrounding the key components of mastery for this lesson. Are they spending class time on practice questions and discussion that will lead to mastery on the exit ticket? Are they using instructional strategies to ensure all students are engaged in the material during both interactive and independent moments? Are student errors being addressed in real time? When addressed, is the teacher’s response similar to the one you crafted or is there an opportunity to push the thinking even more on the students?
When you have a sense of your teacher’s focus area, don’t forget the “Get Better Faster” Guide, which offers expertly crafted action step language, meeting prompts, and practice guidance for your teacher meeting. You’re now minutes away from a solid meeting plan grounded in moving student learning forward!