eWalk/Classroom Walkthroughs

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Permalink Reply by Bo Bailey on November 4, 2009 at 6:27am

Our Admins do eWalks weekly and are seen looking at many different things in the classroom. In the beginning we used to receive emails with their notes attached. The notes would be very vague and usually a large check list of items they were looking for (mostly items that had to be on the wall). Then about a half a year into the process everyone stopped getting them and we're told this is not a gotcha. It is being used for to help Admin see the building as a whole. The problem that happens is they load your name to a form and then look for 5 mins at your teaching. If your walls do not display what you are teaching then you could be considered a teacher in need of a corrective action. I see our schools spending lots of time trying to figure out what to hang on their walls and less time working on designing great lessons. The eWalk is a tool that you must look to see what you truly want to see. If it is objectives on the wall then your schools should know that is the primary thing your looking for. If it is a teaching style then again it must be guided to see this. At this time I will question if the eWalk has helped our schools grow or just progressed us into more busy work to satisfy the form they have to fill out. How to improve it. Use it to study a grouping of teacher, area, new strategies. A great way to use it might be to study say a new way to implement teaching for a team of teachers who are using new concepts that you want to help them hone in on the best practices. So watching them for say a week or two and then all sit down an look at where you might be getting hung up at and where the best practices are working. As a professional I find that just like a business sometimes we need someone on the outside to look for ways to increase production. When fresh eyes take a look they can find the small things that could make a huge gain in classroom production. Besides who wants to use an eWalk just to bounce in and out of rooms never to really see where the improvements can be made unless its on the walls.

On the other hand I see the Admin coming in and out as a great thing. My students do not even notice them when they enter and leave. My classroom is very interactive and lots of active students engaged in learning. Many times we have to pass an iPod Touch or Laptop to the Admins because they want to play too. This is great for students to see Admins engaged in their classes and as a teacher I always invite my Admins in. I know their job is stressful and they need times like this to remind them of why they put up with some of the wonderful parents and state level items they have to put up with.

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