Implementation
In following these guidelines, Marshall was able to make around 4 visits per day of 5-10 minutes each, meaning that he saw his entire staff in a 4-week cycle. In an academic year he was able to get through 7 or more cycles thus seeing staff much more frequently than before. A chart was used to keep track of visits to ensure that teachers were seen at different times and with different classes, thus broadening the range of experiences and making the visits more genuinely representative.
Not surprisingly, there were challenges. Maintaining the schedule was the main one, since a busy principal can always find other things to do or allow other matters to get in the way. However, this problem could be overcome by sharing the workload with other senior and/or middle managers. Marshall made a point of never writing anything down in the classroom to maintain a less formal and less threatening atmosphere so remembering key points and making brief notes afterwards also proved tricky at times. Finding the opportunity to give feedback was also problematic. However, Marshall also found that these feedback sessions often led to longer discussions with staff about pedagogy and he also found he had an excellent grasp of what was going on in the classrooms of his school. The feedback, an essential feature of the system, tended to fall into 4 main categories;
- Praise
- Reinforcement
- Support
- Criticism
When visiting classrooms, the style varied. If a teacher was in didactic mode, he would simply sit at the side and observe but if the students were active then he would circulate and talk to them about their learning.