INSTRUCTIONAL ROUNDS Liz City Richard Elmore and Lee

INSTRUCTIONAL ROUNDS Liz City, Richard Elmore and Lee Teitel April 21, 2010

OBJECTIVES AND AGENDA Objectives ü Identify the next level of work in your individual and collective practice ü Leave with ideas about what to do to make your practice more effective Agenda Warm-up Survey results Whole School (District) Improvement practices Lunch Next Level of Work Ongoing learning Wrap up

WARM UP—METAPHORS Which image best captures rounds in your AEA this year? Choose one. Turn to a neighbor and explain how this image captures your year.

SUPERINTENDENTS’ NETWORK SURVEY RESULTS—APRIL 2010 Number of Responses AEA 267 Great Prairie n=72 (out of 117— response rate of 62%) Response rates varied by AEA Prairie Lakes 4 3 2 10 Mississippi Bend 5 Grant Wood 10 5 6 8 9 Green Valley Northwest Heartland Keystone Loess Hills

WHO PARTICIPATED? I have hosted a rounds visit 22% 78% Superintendent Other 58% 42% Yes No

WHOLE SCHOOL (DISTRICT) IMPROVEMENT PRACTICES

LUNCH “A problem is nothing more than an opportunity in work clothes. ” – Michael Michalko

Next Level of Work

BUILDING A BETTER NLOW Goal for this session: Making NLOWs relevant, usable and used Connection to your practice– what is working and what is not Seeing NLOW in overall cycle of rounds and school, district, and network improvement How network practices and visit-specific information combine to better NLOWs So what: implications for your network practice

WHAT IS WORKING AND WHAT IN NOT IN THE NEXT LEVEL OF WORK ? Think about the NLOW portions of a recent network visit and prepare to talk with your colleagues about what is working well and what you are struggling with (or wondering about) in your network’s NLOW practices It may help to think about a visit where the NLOW went well and one where it felt less satisfying What makes a NLOW process a “good” one?

Seeing NLOW in overall cycle of rounds and school, district, and network improvement

INSTRUCTIONAL ROUNDSA LEARNING PROCESS Classroom Observations Network District-wide Initiatives

WHAT DOES A “BETTER”NLOW LOOK LIKE? Anchored by visit data and host needs and improvement processes Actionable and accountable Presented in usable (digestible) form Generative for host and network

WHAT NETWORK PRACTICES AND NORMS CONTRIBUTE TO A BETTER NLOW? Critical + Caring Connected to visit data (patterns, predictions) Consultative (to meet the needs of host) Connected to host improvement cycle Accountable

WHAT VISIT-SPECIFIC INFORMATION AND PREP CONTRIBUTE TO BETTER NLOWS? Clear TOA and POP Good information on what host school/district has done to address Knowledge base on relevant approaches

BUILDING A BETTER NLOW Network NLOW practices Visit-specific information • Critical + Caring • Connected to visit data (patterns, predictions) • Consultative (to meet the needs of host) • Connected to host improvement cycle • accountable • Clear TOA and POP • Good information on what host school/district has done to address • Knowledge base on relevant approaches A Good NLOW • Anchored by visit data and host needs and improvement processes • Actionable and accountable • Presented in usable (digestible) form • Generative for host and network

EXPERIMENTING WITH NLOW Reflective Questions or Statements? When is a reflective question a statement in disguise? What kinds of questions help hosts get new evidence? Making explicit the hypotheses (TOAs) of the visitors in framing NLOW Experimenting in your network– establishing and using criteria for assessing effectiveness of NLOW approach/form

SO WHAT: IMPLICATIONS FOR YOUR NETWORK PRACTICE Take a few minutes by yourself to think about 3 -2 -1 Three ideas that reinforced your approach to this part of the practice Two ideas or approaches that pushed your thinking about NLOW One way that you want your network colleagues to do NLOW differently in the coming year Share your thoughts with your network colleagues and make a plan for following this up

ONGOING LEARNING: HOW NETWORKS CAN/SHOULD FOCUS ON CONTINUED SUPERINTENDENT LEARNING?

ON-GOING NETWORK LEARNING What: Content– what are you trying to learn? Why: Why are we interested in learning this How: Images of kinds of network learning

Closing “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. ” Rabindranath Tagore