A Value Added Decision: Learning About Learning Together
The process is designed to examine and analyze learning in the moment as it happens with students. As a professional development strategy, Collegial Learning Walks are designed for teachers in all disciplines and grade levels who teach students from all socioeconomic and ability groups. By looking at learning first, we can begin to see together, as we mediate each other’s thinking, which strategies are truly engaging students in their work, what makes the work we design engaging to students, and how the work is making it possible for students to transfer what they learn to a new and different context.
Absolutes in a collegial learning walk:
With teacher permission, a group of 3 to 5 members walks in the classroom avoiding time when the teacher is in direct instruction. The short classroom visit is designed so that the participants on the walk can ask students specific questions getting at what the student is learning, how he will know when he has learned it, and what he will do with what he has learned.
Everyone talks to different students.
No one writes anything down.
Immediately following the 5-6 minute classroom visit, the group debriefs the experience adhering to a strict protocol.
No judgment enters the picture
The experience is designed to cause reflection in the 3-5 participants about their own teaching experience and grow the group’s knowledge about learning
What’s the immediate and long-term payoff for learning walks?
The power of the process resides in the mediated conversation that immediately follows the 5-6 minute classroom visit.
Please review the following video to illustrate how learning walks make a difference with instructional leadership and learning for all involved:
