This fall, Lori Snell will become an assistant elementary school principal, leaving her role as Instructional Coach/Partner at Enterprise High School in the Enterprise (AL) City Schools.
A 15-year veteran educator, Lori shared this coaching reflection with colleagues in the Instructional Partners Network online community in late May. It’s clear from her story that the time and effort put into trust-building reaps huge dividends!
by Lori Snell
I have been putting this off for a while, but I know it needs to be done. I have enjoyed reading everyone’s reflection about their year. My reflection comes with joy and sadness as I close out this chapter of my career.
I would like to use a timeline to describe how much our faculty has grown this year. I am so proud of them and the strides we have taken.
First 9 Weeks
We began this year by implementing instructional rounds for the first time. My faculty of almost 140 was distraught and confused to say the least. The consensus was that teachers were coming in to evaluate other teachers and grade their performance.
The purpose of our rounds was to consider student engagement, and we stressed the importance of focusing on the students and not the teachers. We ended our first nine weeks with teachers creating affinity maps that displayed categories describing the kind of student engagement they saw in the classroom.
There was a feeling of relief among the 30 teachers that were able to participate, and our hope was that the positive experience they had would spread to others members of the faculty by word of mouth.
Second 9 Weeks
We held a “Learning Fair” where teachers led different sessions (topics included formative assessments, learning targets, technology, collaborative learning, differentiation, scaffolding, etc).
Our faculty was able to choose the 3 sessions to attend and spend time with colleagues learning about things they could immediately implement into their classroom. This professional learning opportunity was by far the biggest hit of the year. The feedback from this PD catapulted us into our next instructional rounds and gave us a better focus for our classroom visits.
Third 9 Weeks
Teacher feedback from the “Learning Fair” indicated that they loved being able to choose their sessions, enjoyed working with colleagues, took ownership in their learning because it was relevant to their needs, and it was led by “real” teachers that know what teachers are dealing with every day in their classrooms.
After reading this teacher feedback, the teachers participating in the next instructional round decided we should narrow our student engagement focus to the factors that are most engaging for adults and students (student led learning, student choice, real-world relevance, technology, collaboration).
The best artifact to come from this was an explanation of instructional rounds created by a classroom teacher and shared with the faculy, who then visited that teacher’s room during rounds.
Fourth 9 Weeks
In our final instructional round, teachers began looking at what factors of student engagement were most significant to learning (and which were of least importance).
Unanimously, teachers voted that a student centered classroom with student centered lessons was the most important factor. If this was evident, all other factors would fall into place.
Our school hosted a Powerful Conversations Network instructional round in May and our efforts to become more student centered by offering more student choice, student collaboration, and making lessons relevant were reaffirmed by what our visitors from other schools observed in our classrooms and shared with us.
At our final faculty meeting, all instructional round and learning fair data was displayed for everyone to take one last gallery walk. We still had 30-40 faculty members who were not able to participate in rounds, and I wanted to make sure everyone could see and understand what the rounds process was about before going into next year.
The thinking shift from “evaluated” to “engaged”
I am so proud that our faculty grew from the old mentality of being “evaluated” or “judged” to really opening their doors and having conversations about teaching and learning. We still have a long way to go, a lot to talk about, and many faculty members who need the opportunity to participate in rounds, but we are really moving toward becoming a Professional Learning Community!
Reflections on being an Instructional Partner
My greatest reflections have come in the last couple of weeks. I accepted a job as an assistant principal at an elementary school. I am really stepping out of my element. I love my job and the relationships I have developed as an IP and I am sad to leave what I have put my heart and soul into. However, I am also excited for this new opportunity. I am setting expectations for myself to not only be an administrator, but be an “Instructional Leader” because that is what drives me.
As I talk with young applicants who are looking to follow me in this role, I begin to realize what being an IP really is. I explain to them that everything I do is the exact same as what I would do in the classroom. The only difference is my audience is adult learners instead of students.
I must motivate these adults to want to learn. I must be strategic in how I plan every learning opportunity. I have to differentiate for all my learning styles. I have to provide small group and one on one learning opportunities.
As we continue to grow our culture into a growth mindset, I only wished that I had stressed to my faculty more that PD is not something I am doing to them. It is not even me trying to teach them something because they are doing it wrong. It’s about them taking ownership of their own professional growth.
I hope they begin to view PD as an opportunity for a group of professionals to come together and talk about what is important to them –”teaching & learning”! As educators, we will have challenges and changes every year, every day. We need to maximize the time we spend working with one another to communicate and develop solutions to those challenges and changes.
My Five Fundamentals
In sharing my final thoughts, I am going to steal from two athletic coaches. Our head football coach gave a motivational speech at our last collaborative day. He has all of his football players write on an index card three adjectives they want other people to use to describe them. The goal is to live every day making those words true!
Another coach describes five characteristics that serve as the cultural foundation of their program; character servanthood, thankfulness, unity, and passion. These are my 5 fundamental characteristics/beliefs that I will live everyday to uphold, whether I am a teacher, instructional partner, assistant principal, or superintendent:
• service
• hard work
• humility
• collaboration
• passion
Words will never be able to express the gratitude I have for everything I have gained from being a part of this awesome experience! I believe in this Instructional Partners Network!!
Lori Snell is a 1994 graduate of EHS and taught science in the Enterprise City Schools for 11 years. She graduated from Troy University and earned an M.S. in Administration from Alabama State University. She became the EHS Instructional Partner in 2013.
