Cape administrators use iPads to give immediate feedback from informal observations

Students across the Cape Henlopen School District have been using iPads in their learning for the past two years. Students at H.O. Brittingham Elementary School write plays using the Puppet Pals app; high school algebra students solve problems and collect and manipulate data.

Now school administrators across the district are also bringing iPads into the classroom as a tool for observing instruction and for giving teachers immediate feedback about what they see.

As a key component of the district’s Race to the Top plan, school administrators perform frequent, informal classroom observations on a daily basis. The plan for five-by-five walk-throughs sets a goal of visiting five classrooms for five minutes, five days a week.

In the walk-throughs, administrators look for evidence of effective teaching practices, and they record their observations on their iPads. Teachers and administrators have been trained to look for effective practices over the past several years. Before the iPads, administrators recorded their observations on paper and provided teachers with feedback via a handwritten note, but keeping track of it all proved cumbersome. With the iPads, using the Stride monitoring tool from Learning Focused, observation data is compiled electronically, and principals can send their feedback to teachers immediately through an email at the conclusion of the walkthrough. They can also generate periodic reports of what they are seeing in classrooms over time.

“The data generated in the walk-throughs are not directly used in teachers’ individual performance evaluations,” said Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Mike Kelley. “The idea is to assess the degree to which effective instructional practices are being implemented consistently in classrooms throughout the school. When principals report to their staffs that they’ve seen a particular practice implemented with a high degree of quality 70 percent of the time in the course of a month’s walk-throughs, they can engage teachers in conversations that lead to improved teaching and learning.” He explained that the schoolwide improvement focus ultimately helps individual teachers improve their instruction, and it helps administrators hone their skills as instructional leaders. The technology makes a complicated process more manageable.

Fred Best, assistant principal at Mariner Middle School, says the use of the iPads and the immediate feedback has helped him determine how he might be able to help teachers improve instruction or classroom management: “This has emphasized to me what I need to offer to staff in terms of assistance, but not in a formal way, in a more collegial way. More than anything, we can tailor the walk-though form to match what we have told the teachers we want to focus on.”

Mike Dmiterchik, Mariner’s principal, said that the five-by-five walk-throughs also help in other ways. “Both students and staff benefit from seeing administrators in the classes, caring about what goes on in the classrooms and modeling the use of new technology,” he said.  He thinks most teachers like the instant input: “It creates conversations about student learning - even if the conversations are electronic. I also think most teachers feel comfortable with the administrators in their rooms more often. When the formative, formal observation happens, the teacher is more comfortable knowing that the principal knows what happens in the classroom since he’s been in there many times over the course of the year.”

“The feedback I get from my administrators from the walk-throughs is extremely helpful,” said Lisa Morris, an English language arts teacher at Beacon Middle School. “Sometimes my administrators pose questions I never considered before or give me details about the lesson they observed.” This has caused Morris to do more self-reflection about her practice. “I sometimes think my students have grasped the concept, and they have not,” she said.

Morris sees that these walk-throughs have changed her classroom instruction as well. “One thing in particular I have changed in my instruction is summarizing,” Morris said. “When the walk-throughs started this year, my administrators didn’t want to see the students summarizing only at the end of a lesson, but for teachers to check for student understanding throughout the entire lesson in various ways.”

In addition to the iPads’ use for informal observations, the Cape Henlopen school board members now use iPads for their school board business. As part of the district’s technology initiative, the board members no longer receive lengthy paper board packets in preparation for each board meeting. Instead, all documents are saved electronically, and board members can access the material via their iPads.