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I like this approach. As I reflect on my own visits to classrooms, though, I have the following question: often, the 10 minutes at the beginning are the time you (and the kids) get a sense of the teacher's "frame" for the class session -- not only what is to be done, but why, and how it relates to yesterday etc. Do you have that info from some other source, for your visits, or do you get at teachers' intentionality in some other way? -- Brian
Brian Drayton,
10/30/2001
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My initial answer about our own practice is that we are addressing a specific need to help our teachers that we hope turns out to be "just a stage they are in". We see them struggling right now to see that student's thinking is critical information for a teacher who wants to teach. What you point out, needing to know the broad frame of the teachers intentions by listening to them introduce a lesson is indeed critical information for us, but we forego it for now to get at this other goal. When the teachers are still so intent on showing procedures and expecting children to follow closely without varying or saying how they think about the use of the procedures, we look for ways to get them into children's thinking. We hope that we that the teachers begin valuing their students thinking and that we can revisit other concerns like whether they are able to set the broad reference frame to help children connect to big ideas and see the progress they are making or not in learning number, space, etc. Thanks for commenting!
Jeffrey E Barrett,
10/31/2001
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