Transforming School Culture Through Lesson Observation

This book sets out a three-stage programme for lesson observation showing how a collaborative whole-school approach can transform the culture of the staffroom and improve outcomes for pupils. Focusing on the emotional environment of the classroom, the relationships between teachers and pupils, and teaching and learning outcomes, it will enable schools to provide a consistent approach to lesson observation where good practice can be celebrated and shared. Revealing the positive impact of the programme on pupils’ engagement and exam results, co-operation between departments and teacher wellbeing, the book: Provides clear guidance on implementing the programme and adapting it for different contexts. Shows how data can be used for both Ofsted and Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) inspection documentation. Adresses key issues such as culture, staff psychological contracts, the emotional environment of the school and leadership development. If you are looking to make real impact within your school and bring about change for the better, the three-stage lesson observation programme is the tool for you. This innovative approach brings consistency, parity and fairness to lesson observation creating a secure and safe environment in which pupils can learn and teachers can teach.

This book presents a series of cultural situations that could occur within the first one-hundred days of a school year: responding to entrenched vocabularies and behaviors, addressing professional and instructional bad habits, enacting alternative teaching scripts, leveraging a policy blindside, redefining the goals and practices of teams, and implementing outside-the-box programs. Each cultural situation offers a new school leader the opportunity to redefine the goals, values, and practices of an entrenched school culture—the Central High way. Administrators reading the title of this book may view one hundred days as an arbitrary number picked out of administrative thin air. I argue that disrupting and replacing organizational and instructional routines is a race against time. Every school day that goes by without some sign of creative destruction is one more day that comfortable organizational and instructional routines live on in main offices and classrooms. The idea for this book originated from a question I asked a former student of mine who had just signed a contract to become the principal of a high school. We were discussing the complexities of changing a school culture when I asked the following question: “What would you do on the first day in your new office to change your school’s culture?” The response to that question described a series managerial routines that all new administrators have learned to perform as they move from the classroom to the main office: organize the office, meet staff, tour the building, write a newsletter, examine data, and visit community venues. Nothing in this conversation described strategies for redefining the beliefs and values of an entrenched school culture. With this conversation in mind, I made it a point in my formal and informal contacts with school administrators to always ask the question: “What would you do in the first day in your new office to change your school’s culture?” The most common responses involved reviewing district documents, touring facilities, meeting staff, listening to stakeholders and managing systems. In each conversation, school leaders populated their responses with the current jargon of school reform: learning communities, data mining, standards-based curriculum, differentiated learning, common core standards, formative assessment, race to the top, continuous improvement, etc. While these responses encompass reasonable behaviors on the first day in the main office, not one of these actions possesses the capacity to connect educational values expressed in school mission statements—why are we here—to daily organizational and instructional routines. Each activity gives the appearance of leading, but produces no connections between beliefs, values, and practices. Although none of these responses would make or break a school culture, they do represent a pattern of thinking and behaving that holds out little possibility of fundamentally changing a school’s culture.

Reclaiming Lesson Observation explores the latest practice, thinking and research in lesson observation, putting teacher learning at its heart. Illustrated throughout with practical examples from a range of education settings, each chapter contains a rich variety of state-of-the-art, evidence-based case studies to demonstrate how new approaches to observation can be applied in practice. The book is split into four easily accessible parts: making the transition to ungraded models of lesson observation recent research studies in lesson observation peer observation, coaching and mentoring innovations in observing classroom practice. With a carefully chosen team of contributors, from senior leaders and managers to classroom practitioners and education researchers, this book provides an informed perspective on how to maximise the use of observation, and most importantly, implement proven successful schemes to improve the quality of teaching in the classroom. Reclaiming Lesson Observation is for all practising educators who want to break free from the constraints of performative lesson observation to redefine and reclaim it as a powerful tool for teacher growth, on which to build sustainable, collaborative communities of teacher learning.

Tapping into the existing resources and staff available within your school, The Revitalized Tutoring Center provides an effective strategy to improve instruction and student performance. This practical guide shares the blueprint, best practices, and resources necessary to create and implement a robust, embedded tutoring center. This dynamic peer tutoring model brings together teachers, peers, and community members in a support network that identifies students in need and facilitates individualized instruction. With a peer tutoring model in place, schools are better positioned to initiate and sustain a variety of initiatives such as PLCs, RTI, formative assessment, community partnerships, and service learning, while creating equitable access and opportunity for all. This book illustrates how instructional leaders can leverage existing resources in a sustainable and cost-effective way to implement a model that ultimately leads to cultural changes, innovation, and significant academic improvement.

Building on recent changes and debates surrounding the use of observation, this fully updated second edition of Classroom Observation explores the role of lesson observation in the preparation, assessment and professional learning of teachers, lecturers and educators at all levels and across all educational organisations. Offering practical guidance and detailed insights on an aspect of training that is a source of anxiety for many teachers, this thought-provoking book offers a critical analysis of the place, role and nature of lesson observation in the lives of education professionals. Updated to incorporate the latest research, policy and practical developments on observation, this new edition also includes greater coverage of research and developments in the field of observation beyond the UK. Enabling readers to use observation as a lens for understanding, informing and improving teaching and learning, and equipping them with structured frameworks for applying observation, this book includes sections on: Teacher autonomy and professional identity Performance management, professional standards and accountability Peer observation, self-observation and critical reflection Educational assessment and evaluation Peer-based models of observation Using digital technology to inform learning. Written for all student and practising teachers as well as teacher educators and those engaged in educational research, Classroom Observation is an essential introduction to how we observe, why we observe, and how it can be best used to improve teaching and learning.

Lesson Study in Initial Teacher Education highlights the importance of embedding lesson study within initial teacher education programmes, including building partnerships, making time to carry out collaborative inquiries using lesson study, and frameworks for reporting on lesson study projects.

Leadership in America’s Best Urban Schools describes and demystifies the qualities that successful leaders rely on to make a difference at all levels of urban school leadership. Grounded in research, this volume reveals the multiple challenges that real urban elementary, middle, and high schools face as well as the catalysts for improvement. This insightful resource explores the critical leadership characteristics found in high-performing urban schools and gives leaders the tools to move their schools to higher levels of achievement for all students—but especially for those who are low-income, English-language learners, and from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. In shining a light on the essential qualities for exceptional leadership at all levels of urban schools, this book is a valuable guide for all educators and administrators to nurture, influence, support, and sustain excellence and equity at their schools.

This book speaks directly to issues of equity and school transformation, and shows how one indigenous minority teachers' group engaged in a process of transforming schooling in their community. Documented in one small locale far-removed from mainstream America, the personal narratives by Yupík Eskimo teachers address the very heart of school reform. The teachers' struggles portray the first in a series of steps through which a group of Yupík teachers and university colleagues began a slow process of reconciling cultural differences and conflict between the culture of the school and the culture of the community. The story told in this book goes well beyond documenting individual narratives, by providing examples and insights for others who are involved in creating culturally responsive education that fundamentally changes the role and relationship of teachers and community to schooling.