For the upcoming fourth quarter, the Shawnee Mission School District will use an app called McREL Power Walkthrough, hoping to give principals a deeper look into each classroom to provide feedback about teaching strateigies seen in class.
By fourth quarter, SMSD principals will dedicate half an hour a day to checking boxes on Power Walkthrough for specific teaching strengths seen while observing a class, like how a teacher chooses to provide students with helpful feedback during a lesson.
Their goal for the new app is to evaluate the methods used by teachers to outline, reinforce and give feedback for learning.
The walkthroughs will allow the principals and department-heads to observe and input information about the teachers’ different approaches to instructing students. They will record data on the tecniques used in teaching the class, like outlining an assignment with a helpful rubric or having daily objectives made clear before each lesson.
According to assistant principal Britt Haney, the app will allow the best teaching strategies to be incorporated across the school.
“We’ll just look and see what percentage of classrooms are doing different aspects of the best teaching practices,” Haney said. “If we see an aspect of a teaching technique that we would like to see incorporated in school even more, we can then follow up with professional development on that and have the discussions to try and get teachers to do more of it.”
The board of education authorized the district to spend up to $52,750 on the app, only being accessible to the 125 principals and assistant principals through the district. The funds will also go to a required two-day training to teach principals how to use the new software.
According to Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Dr. Darren Dennis, the funding for the software comes from Title IIA, a supplemental federal fund.
Though the app is supposed to benefit the school in different ways, English teacher Erica Jackson has experienced classroom walkthroughs for years and feels she hasn’t seen any benefits and this app is not worth the funds it needs.
“We had some program in the past and it gathered data, but I haven’t seen how that data has been beneficial,” Jackson said. “So I haven’t seen the connection yet between the new app and the benefits, therefore I question the use of that money. I mean, that’s more than what it costs to pay a new teacher’s salary.”
Jackson does agree and understands the importance of principal involvement during class time but she feels the district should consider prioritizing different things other than expensive applications.
“Those teaching strategies can be better accomplished or done more effectively if class sizes are smaller,” Jackson said.
According to Haney, this new software will allow principals to check on instructions in classrooms and identify student’s needs through school.
“We’ll be looking at the different teaching strategies that are being used as well as checking for understanding,” Haney said. “Asking questions like is there practice going on in the classroom, are there assignments done in class, out of class, what kind of student feedback are we seeing. Just better discussions for us as a staff to have moving forward.”
Before this app, a google form was used to evaluate classrooms in order to send it to the district office. The district office wanted to compare data with other schools that also use the software so that they could see how those schools are using the data to make improvements in how teachers reinforce lessons or present assignments to the class.
“The administrative team, all the principals, we’ll kind of identify those talking points and then we’ll bring them to our department chair meetings, and then that will drive professional development as a staff moving forward,” Haney said.
“In time, it will help to provide instructional feedback to staff which in turn will lead to a better classroom experience for students,” said Shawnee Mission North principal Jeremy Higgins.
After the app has been fully developed, it is expected that principals and department-heads will be seen doing short, daily walkthroughs by the end of the school year. In the long run, it is hoped that this app will help spread more effective teaching methods district-wide.
Related
Leave a Reply