Sunday 3 May 2015

Benefits Brought About By Instructional Rounds

By Toni Vang


Teachers should use tools that enhance or improve their teaching skills and methodologies. The instructional rounds enhances a culture of collaboration between the teacher and their colleagues. These rounds provide feedback to the teacher on how others are working when they sit down for a discussion. It will also act a reflection ground after classes on how well or bad they fared in their classes that day.

The rounds are used once in a while and they cannot be used all the time. Once a semester is okay. However, it has to get agreed upon when it will be done, it should not be something abrupt. The lead teacher is chosen depending on how professional he is, how well he can control a group and how well of a leader he is. He also should be a leader somewhere else which makes him command respect from other teachers.

In some schools they are also called instructional coaches, people who other teachers can listen to. Some people feel uncomfortable with such arrangements thinking that they are being valued, which is not necessarily the case. The teachers who are observed do so on a voluntary basis. However, some veterans in the field can also be chosen to demonstrate how it works to those who are new to the rounds. Any teacher can volunteer his or her class for the rounds.

The small groups that have been formed are no more than five people. This is so that they can be easy to manage as well as for the observation circle to get completed faster. Moreover, the students ought to be informed first so that they cannot feel intruded into since they are also part of the learning process, without them the program would not be there in the first place.

The rounds are done in a real class, during a real class time and with real students. This is because a practical lesson ought to be as it will be in real life. The learning process will be more fruitful this way too. There are seats at the back of the class preserved for them. They need to avoid any noise or disruptions to the class as much as possible. Failure to this, they will end up being more of a bother to the students which is not worth it.

The rounds take no more than fifteen minutes to avoid too much disturbance to the students as well as so that the teachers can go back to their classes. The teachers need to take notes for future reference and also so that they cannot forget any point during the discussion. Moreover, they have to be very keen on what is going on since they have to try by all means to get something good from the lesson.

Once the observing team is out, the meet to compare notes and share the experience. Each one has to contribute on what they shared. They have to keep the discussion very objective and they have to try not to judge the instructor who was being observed. There has to be rules which must be followed throughout the process to make it fair.

When they sit around to discuss their observations, first they look at the positives then the negatives are discussed later. The negatives are not brought out bluntly since it would annoy or discourage the teacher in questions. Rather they use a polite and gentle language such as asking questions on what they were not comfortable with.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment