How To Use Your Walkthrough to Actually Improve Instruction

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👋 Welcome back to Harper Haven, your weekly blueprint for building a joyful and high-performing school for students and staff… without burning yourself out. This is where you can get practical tools and have honest conversations about what it actually takes to lead schools that are excellent and sustainable.

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In this this issue…

💜 The Leadership Reality: Walkthroughs should fix instruction, not just document it.

💜 The Leadership Move: Stop treating Walkthroughs like “Mini Evaluations.” Start by quickly leveraging the strengths while coaching to the gap.

💜 Field Notes: Your step-by-step guide for what to do in classrooms during walkthroughs.

#LetsDoThis #ForTheCulture
— Alicia Harper

Most walkthroughs are designed to document instruction instead of actually improving instruction.

What it looks like it this: leaders walk in, sit down silently in the back of the room, take notes, and walk out. Sometimes they send a follow-up email (sometimes they don’t). And… nothing actually changes in the classroom.

Or the school.

What’s probably happening is something along the lines of:
— You’re collection too much data and acting on too little of it
— Your feedback is vague (Ex: “Ensure you have stronger questions”)
— You’re not showing teachers the throughline between your feedback and what to do tomorrow
— Your observation is not connecting to the larger pattern in the building… or the larger instructional goal for that time of the year

You and your team are well-meaning. I know my team and I were.

But this is a great way to feel like you’re doing something, while what you’re actually doing is just “checking things off your to-do list,” instead of instructional coaching.

Walkthroughs should be designed to build collective clarity, not just individual awareness.

Before you even plan and execute a Walkthrough, make sure your entire staff is crystal clear on several things: (1) the whole-school instructional focus, (2) an exemplar of said focus in their content area, (3) how often they’ll receive feedback on said focus, (4) what types of feedback they’ll receive, and (5) how they’ll know if they’re on track to meeting the goal.

There’s a time and space to actually evaluate your teachers.

This ain’t it.

This is the space to quickly assess what’s going on in relation to your goals/priorities, look for trends in the school, coach teachers, and leave the class instructionally better than you found it.

Walkthroughs are not the time to try to fix everything. Instead, it’s the time to improve one thing.

Narrow your focus on one instructional priority.

A few examples: rigorous lessons at or above grade-level standards; high-quality questions to drive strong discourse; strong and visible student thinking; consistent data-collection to support intentional feedback.

Then, ground your entire walkthrough system in that one focus.

You’ll be looking for one thing.
You’ll be coaching on one thing.
You’ll be following up with feedback on one thing.
You’ll be tracking trends and planning for further PD on one thing.

Once you’ve done the work to figure out one instructional priority, it’s game time!

Let’s say your one instructional priority is this: strong and visible student thinking.

When you walk into the classroom, ignore everything else.
(Okay, if you’re a control freak anything like me, you won’t be able to fully ignore it. 😆 Notice it, but don’t coach on it.)

Lock in on:
— What is the task students are asked to do? Is the work at or above grade level standards, or watered down?
— What do you hear teachers saying? Are there enough high-quality questions to drive strong thinking?
— What do you see students doing? Are all students doing the thinking, or just a few?
— What does the student work look like? Are students copying what the teacher wrote on the board, or do they have opportunities to deepen their thinking?

This is not an evaluation… We listen and we don’t judge.

This is an opportunity for you to quickly assess if the teacher’s instruction meets the vision for the one instructional priority you’re going after.

If the teacher is asking high-quality questions that’ll lead to strong discourse, then that’s your leverage. If students are compliant, but not actually thinking, then that’s your gap.

It’s important that you remain objective and jot down exactly what you see. This isn’t about what you’re feeling — it’s about supporting teachers in their craft.

Write down what the task is.
— Example: Complete 5 multiple choice questions on main idea.

Write down what you see teachers doing & hear them saying.
— Example: 9 out of 24 students writing; others waiting around

Write down what you see students doing & what you see in their work.
— Example #1: Checked in with 3 students who scored 100 on the last quiz & told them to copy what’s on the board.
— Example #2: Checked in with 3 students who were 2 points away from passing the last quiz and asked them to point to a resource in the room that can help them complete their work.

If your walkthrough notes can’t be read in 30ish seconds, then they might be too long.

Keep your language as precise as possible.

Start with a positive.
Name what you see the teacher doing & saying.
Name the task & what you see students doing.
Connect this to the one instructional focus.
Give a clear next step.

Example:
“Good job pitching a highly rigorous lesson. I know how much you believe in your students and what they’re capable of doing. I noticed during independent work, 9 out of 24 students were writing, and the rest were waiting or off-task. I’m also seeing that you checked in with Students A, B, and C, and they all scored 100 on last week’s quiz. When I think about our instructional focus, this tells me (1) the task isn’t getting all students to show their thinking yet, and (2) the students who need the check-in aren’t yet getting it. I want you to adjust the task so every student has to produce a written response before discussion. How does that sound?”

That’s it.

After the walkthrough, take a step back and ask:
— What’s the trend(s) I’m seeing across classrooms?
— What’s the gap that’s showing up most?
— Where are the bright spots that I can use to show examples in my school?

Then use the trends you’re seeing to plan your next PD, where you’ll repeat the cycle all over again of: communicating the vision, modeling the exemplar, practicing in PD, and communicating what you’ll be looking for during walkthroughs.

Rinse. Repeat. And watch your instruction improve across your school.

Be sure that you’re NOT:
— Giving 5 pieces of feedback at once
— Giving vague feedback
— Using evaluation language
— Going after new priorities every week
— Keeping the data to yourself by not coaching the teacher

And especially… confusing presence in classrooms with impact on instruction. Those two are not the same.

Each week, I share tips and tricks on how to build strong schools through sustainable systems and real-life case studies that you might have missed. Take five minutes to get caught up!

Everyone’s talking about these posts so join the conversation:

💜 Everything doesn’t have to be monetized — sometimes people just need to be in community. We’re talking about that here.

💜 This work is deeply personal for me… and it all started with my biological mother. Check out my reflections here.

💜 Thinking of starting a biz? I went to the NYC Creator Economy Event and left with so many gems on how to make sure the funds are right and tight. Check it out here.

💜 I’m training for my 5th half-marathon and while some days I feel really LOCKED IN and strong, some days are ROUGH. Check it out here and here, and cheer me on!