Learning is symbiotic in our classrooms....teachers and students

As a principal I have a unique vantage point when I enter a classroom. My role is to assess student learning and to assess teacher learning. The focus used to be on how skilled the teacher was at standing in front of a classroom and delivering the content. Student focus was on how well they could memorize what the teacher was saying, long enough to regurgitate it back onto the test on Friday. Regurgitate sounds a little gross, but one of it's definitions is: repeat (information) without analyzing or comprehending it. This is exactly the opposite of what we want from student AND teachers. We need students to learn the content, understand the content, and most importantly, know why it's important, why it works, how it connects to other subjects in school, and how it connects to life.

Teacher learning is very similar. Research shows that teachers make, during a 6 hour day with kiddos, 1,500 educational decisions. That's about 4 per second.

And what do these decisions yield? Data. 

And teachers LOVE data. (Principals LOVE data.) This is where things are different now for teachers.

Previously: Data meant something that went on a report card; something to write on the top of a paper in red ink to send home; something for the students and parent.

Now: data gives teachers instant feedback on their instruction. Effective teachers look at this data, this feedback, and learn from it. They change their instruction. They adapt their delivery. They regroup students, reteach skills, and ask their peers "Hey! Your class did awesome on that assessment and mine didn't. What did you do differently than me?! Can you teach me?"

This is why you see teacher sharing students during our intervention time. This is why teachers meet for an extra hour every Monday morning, during their prep times, during grade-level assemblies, while standing in the hallway. Teacher efficacy has the greatest impact on student learning and our teachers are always LEARNING how to be more effective.

This is also why they're so tired on Friday afternoons. They're working harder than ever before. :)