Teachers benefit in a multitude of ways when they visit classes. They can reflect upon and assess their own work when watching another teacher, which improves their teaching. Teachers can emulate the successes and avoid the failures of the teacher they’re visiting. And they get to experience class as a student--a feeling teachers quickly forget--including observing their fellow students in ways they can’t while teaching. Not only does that help teachers evaluate how lessons impact students, but it also helps them get to know the individual students better.
Most importantly, peer observation fosters productive conversation that leads to greater pedagogical development and interdisciplinary collaborations. Teachers genuinely want constructive criticism, especially from a peer (rather than an administrator that might be evaluating for a different purposes), and so are particularly receptive to feedback.
In my career, I can’t think of a time that I didn’t learn something from a classroom visit--be it something as small as a hand-gesture I saw an English teacher using to get his students to dig deeper into the text or to a way a teacher incorporated movement to keep her students energized and engaged. Even when I witness weak lessons, I still learn things not to do in the future in my own classroom. Weaker lessons can frequently affirm the positive strategies and practices I’m already employing in my classroom.
Given the amazing benefits, how do school administrators build a culture for classroom visitation that includes reflection and constructive dialogue?
The "Faculty 2 Faculty" Solution
I have always valued classroom visitation, but until this year, there was almost no culture for visitation at my school. In fact, it was awkward when I asked people to visit to their classes. And when I invited people to my classes, surprisingly few people accepted. We had an Instructional Coach who hosted “instructional rounds,” but the same two people were the only attendees. Despite a tough culture to overcome, we started a new initiative called “Faculty 2 Faculty” that has started to changed our culture for the better.
1. Make it easy
After consulting faculty, we heard that one of the biggest obstacles to classroom visitation was that it was hard to organize. Faculty felt they had to ask a colleague in advance, which meant they had to plan, and it meant they had to put themselves out there with an email or a conversation asking for something out of the ordinary. To alleviate these concerns, we created a symbol (seen below) that any teacher could use to signal to another teacher that they’d like to come in. That teacher can accept the guest by returning the sign or reject it with a simple palm stop sign. These symbols are an easy way to welcome a visit or acknowledge it isn’t a good day for it without any awkward interaction.
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| Two faculty members using the "Faculty 2 Faculty" symbol |
2. Build in reflection
Understanding that reflection is instrumental in improving performance, we created a fun card (see below) that teachers fill out when they attend another class. The purpose of the card is to celebrate good teaching and write down some actionable takeaways. The observing teacher writes, 3 ideas, 2 questions, and 1 complement. They then submit the card to the observed teacher. This ensures that both teachers reflect (double the Professional Development!).
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| Reflection cards from an organized "Faculty 2 Faculty" day |
3. Promote conversation
These reflection cards facilitated conversation between faculty members because the observing teacher had to exchange the card with the observed teacher. This proved particularly effective for professional growth because both teachers were learning together from the observation, the reflection card, and the conversation. The Faculty 2 Faculty program has been successful because teachers converse on equal footing. The visit is not an evaluation between a boss and her subordinate. It’s a collaborative process that benefits both people involved. In the same way that our dedicated Faculty 2 Faculty days created a chain reaction of visitation, so do these conversations. More often than not, the observing teacher invites the observed teacher to return the favor.
The feedback we’ve received about this program has been overwhelmingly positive. Teachers genuinely want to improve their craft, and they recognize classroom observations as way to do so. Teachers are thankful that this program gives a fun, low-stakes way to observe colleagues. And we’re thankful for the pedagogical conversations, the collaboration, and the excitement that it generates in our community.
