Accelerating the Rate of Teachers’ Professional Growth

(Originally titled “Stone Soup: The Teacher Leader’s Contribution”)

“How can we improve instruction faster?” is the driving question in this Educational Leadership article by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo. He bemoans the fact that most teachers in U.S. schools are observed only once or twice a year, and often the feedback from these observations is unhelpful because it’s constrained by cumbersome processes and intricate evaluation instruments. The traditional approach may be necessary to make summative judgments, he says, but it rarely provides coaching for improvement.

Here is how Bambrick-Santoyo is addressing this challenge in the nine charter schools he manages in Newark, New Jersey. 

• Increase the number of educators giving feedback to teachers. His principals recruit their strongest teachers to observe colleagues and give detailed feedback in face-to-face coaching conversations. By reducing the number of teachers per observer, weekly classroom visits become possible. “With this level of support,” says Bambrick-Santoyo, “teachers… get more feedback in one year than most teachers do in 20.” The teacher leaders still have a full schedule, but their extra duties are reduced commensurate with their coaching load.

• Comment on only one key item per classroom visit. This might be as simple as the teacher scanning the classroom to make sure all students are on task or prompting students to go back to the text to find evidence for their statements. “No one ever became a master teacher – or a doctor or Olympic skier – overnight,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. “We get better at what we do by perfecting one small element of our craft at a time, ideally with the aid of an expert who gives us the right bite-size feedback at the right time.” The observer’s job is not to make a list of everything a teacher could do better (the traditional approach) but to focus on what will make the teaching more effective for students tomorrow. “Narrowing the focus is incredibly powerful, as every seasoned coach knows,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. “What makes bite-size feedback effective is that the leader can follow up the next week and affirm that [the teacher] has mastered the skill.” By taking one step each week, teachers can experience incredible growth in the course of a school year.

• Practice. “Multiple cooks don’t spoil the broth,” he says, “as long as they’re using the right recipe… Practice is at the heart of all high-quality coaching.” In feedback sessions with teachers, his principals and teacher leaders role-play what will happen in the classroom. And in periodic meetings, instructional leaders watch videos of feedback meetings and practice effective approaches until they become habits. Within each school, leadership teams give each other feedback on their feedback, prepare for teacher debriefs, and plan and practice professional development. 

“Stone Soup: The Teacher Leader’s Contribution” by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo in Educational Leadership, October 2013 (Vol. 71, #2, p. 46-49), www.ascd.org; Bambrick-Santoyo can be reached at pbambrick@uncommonschools.org. 

From the Marshall Memo #505