Classroom Visits: More Than Just Observations

It is fundamentally important for administrators to be in classrooms. For teacher's, this opportunity gives a moment where their work can be seen outside of a normal observation time slot. As a teacher, I often would ask my administrator to attend various lessons or activities going on in my classroom. I left my door open so that they understood I was comfortable with that and welcomed their visit.

As an administrator, I take a very proactive approach to getting myself into classrooms for daily visits. Yes, this requires me to carve out time to do so, but it is well worth my effort upfront to clear a portion of my schedule. Whether it is assisting in a writing lesson and conferencing with students or just sitting with students as they learn a difficult math concept, getting into classrooms helps to inform me of both student and teacher perspectives in the classroom.

I have been able to have more meaningful discussions with teachers after visiting their room and getting a better understanding for their teaching style and relationship with students. Just visiting for an observation, probably 40 minutes, would not give me enough information to have those conversations. I am now able to link together the teacher I know outside of the classroom, who participates in professional development and dialogue, with who they are inside their room with students. I begin to learn what is important to them and what their strengths are instructionally and how I can build on those strengths.

Visiting classrooms beyond scheduled observation time, also allows me to develop a different relationship with students as well. Now I can comment to the student about what I saw when I was in the classroom. Again, it doesn't matter the subject it matters more how I can use what I observed to start a conversation with a student or students. These informal conversations are like gold in my pocket.

Is this difficult to accomplish? Yes! Some would even say, that it really isn't necessary. I beg to differ. Things that are difficult to accomplish can be very easy to cross off our to-do list, but they are often the things that we need to do the most.