At South Hills High School in Covina-Valley Unified School District you will no longer see teachers gathering together in a big room to receive professional development that is delivered to them. Instead, you will often see teachers walking around the campus to collaboratively learn together.
Learning walks have become part of their professional development cycle. Why? Because the South Hills’ staff knows who the real experts are on their campus. So, how did they get to this place?
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Everyone had a say. The administrative team facilitated the conversation about the “what”,“why”, and “how” of learning walks. No ultimatums. Just conversations.
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Find the evidence of what’s working. Instead of looking for things that need to be fixed, the South Hills staff has committed to using learning walks as a way to capture the evidence of what is working.
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The power of less. Seven to ten minutes is the allotted time for learning from one another. Knowing that time constraint, the staff has made an agreement to look for evidence of just one instructional practice that supports their schoolwide focus.
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Teacher voice is a priority. After doing this for awhile now, South Hills has moved away from “telling” to “asking”. Prior to a learning walk, those walking meet with the teacher being visited and ask what they would like feedback around. Ownership matters.
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Communicating within 24 hours. A message is sent to the South Hills staff within 24 hours of the walk. And, the message is simple: A thank you. A list of the things that were observed. An invite to discuss next steps.
How does your school use learning walks as professional development?
The Walkthrough Tool
Evidence from a recent walkthrough:
Positives/Celebrations
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In all classrooms there was an opportunity for student to show what they know
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They were clear learning objectives and students were aware of the learning objectives
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Multiple instructional strategies within checking for understand were evident
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Students were able to make connections to the learning
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Evidence of dialogue (student talk) versus monologue (teacher talk) in all classes
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Evidence of purposeful cooperative grouping focused on on the student learning in (including productive struggle)
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Teachers were facilitators of student learning
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High level of student engagement with bell-to-bell instruction
