and see that teacher make substantive instructional improvements .
As a new principal , this was my go-to approach , and I soon recognized some very real challenges . First , this approach dangerously assumes that principals have the necessary time to provide consistent , ongoing coaching to teachers .
In their book “ Leverage Leadership ,” Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Brett Peiser present the following scenario : “ Consider a principal who is committed to observing class instructions as often as possible . If the principal observed every teacher in his or her school for 15 minutes a week , she would be among the most diligent school leaders in the country . Yet even at this breakneck pace , she would see only 1 percent of the week ’ s learning and teaching time . For all her attentiveness , this principal is watching her students through a peephole .”
In his book “ The Principal ,” Michael Fullan further explains this challenge placed on principals : “ It ’ s as if the system has unlimited supervisory capacity and that principals have all the time in the world to change teachers one at a time .” Principals simply don ’ t have the time to personally provide effective coaching to all teachers who need it .
A second challenge with this approach is that some principals immediately start moving down the observable best-practices checklist , which focuses primarily on teaching , not necessarily learning . As a result , a teacher displaying all of the outlined bestpractice behaviors on an observation tool may be deemed highly effective , yet still have many students learning at low levels .
In their article “ How do Principals Really Improve Schools ?,” Rick DuFour and Mike Mattos warn : “ Classroom observations can be meaningful and beneficial to some extent , but principals should not use them as their key strategy for improving their schools .”
Most of us love being in classrooms and coaching teachers , but often struggle to find enough time to engage in effective coaching relationships with even a few teachers . As a new principal I knew I could not abandon this good approach , but I also realized that I needed to find some other approaches that allowed me to more consistently reach a higher proportion of my teachers .
With all the things clamoring for our attention , it can be gratifying to step out of the craziness of the school office , work closely with a teacher , and see that teacher make substantive instructional improvements .
A better approach : Building team capacity
Gettin ’’ good players is easy . Gettin ’ ’ em to play together is the hard part . — Casey Stengel This better approach was to improve teacher learning by increasing the capacity of my teachers to work in a collaborative team .
In their book “ Leaders of Learning ,” Rick DuFour and Bob Marzano claim : “ Time devoted to building the capacity of teachers to work in teams is far better spent than time devoted to observing individual teachers .”
In “ Teaming Up of 21st Century Teaching and Learning ,” Thomas Carroll and colleagues found that “ when teachers are given the time and tools to collaborate they become lifelong learners , their instructional practice improves , and they are ultimately able to increase student achievement far beyond what any of them could accomplish alone .”
This approach asks teachers to take ownership of their own learning , and only works if teacher teams know how to effectively work together and actually do so consistently . Many of us provide consistent time for our teachers to work together as teams . Yet , we all know as DuFour and colleagues warn in “ Learning by Doing ”: “ collaboration does not lead to improved results unless
people are focused on the right work .”
Back to my first year as principal . While I still tried to consistently spend time observing and coaching a small number of teachers , I also tried to be more consistent in observing and helping teacher teams . These initial visits left me surprised at my teachers ’ lack of knowledge about how to work as an effective team .
They were spending a lot of team time on schedules , materials , copies , field trips , gripes , gossips and just chatting . Our district had been using a teaming framework for years , so I had assumed that my teachers were simply resisting what they knew to be the best practices of teaming .
One of my rock-star teachers set me straight a few weeks later when she explained , “ Honestly , we don ’ t really know what we ’ re supposed to be doing during team time . We believe in the idea . We just don ’ t know how it ’ s supposed to work . If you ’ ll teach us , we ’ ll do it .”
In “ School Reform from the Inside Out ,” Richard Elmore explains : “ For every increment of performance I demand of you , I have an equal responsibility to provide you with the capacity to meet that expectation .” Overall , my teachers were quite strong instructionally , but had never really been taught the totally new skill set required
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