A team of ten ADSB administrators attended an Instructional Rounds training session at Harvard Graduate School of Education located in Cambridge, MA at the end of April. The session was linked to the work of multiple initiatives, specifically the System Implementation and Monitoring (SIM), Leading Student Achievement (LSA), the work with Steven Katz in developing the board’s Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and the implementation of the Board Leadership Development Strategies (BLDS) plan.

 

In October, Stefanie Reinhorn, Faculty Member of the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Boston, Massachusetts travelled to Sault Ste Marie.  ADSB invited Stefanie to consult and to provide important, hands-on instruction for our Principals, Superintendents and Director.   She is an advanced doctoral student in the Education Policy, Leadership and Instructional Practice strand of the Education program at Harvard.

 

The process of Instructional Rounds begins with the formation of a network whose members commit to helping schools and network members address problems of student learning. A school’s identified problem of student learning, called a “problem of practice” (POP) serves as the focus for each network visit to a school.  The network members are scheduled to enter multiple classrooms in small groups, use expert and precise observation techniques, and take careful notes.  After observing in a majority of the classrooms, the network reconvenes and analyzes what they have seen and heard.  The debriefing results in the creation of a comprehensive picture of teaching and learning throughout the school as a whole.

 

As part of the Board’s Leadership Development Strategy, professional learning opportunities have been designed and facilitated by experienced school and system level leaders. One of the core modules is Network Learning. The training supported the planning and preparation for the Leadership Summer Session held in August which included Principals, Vice-Principals, Senior Administration and Board Department Managers.