Scott Wisniewski, principal of Pompton Lakes High School in northern New Jersey, has started a new tradition: he shares daily Instagram posts featuring upbeat, positive messages and photos from the school, according to an article in Education Week and summarized in an Education Slice brief.
Recently his focus has been on celebrating teachers, highlighting their contributions through informal classroom observations.
“It gives me an opportunity to highlight the teachers and just let them know I appreciate all that they do,” Wisniewski says.
His method includes more than 300 classroom walkthroughs each year, allowing him to gain a comprehensive understanding of teaching styles. His approach helps alleviate the anxiety teachers often feel during formal observations.
Eric Fox, assistant principal at Jenks High School, says it’s easier to do walkthroughs and offer feedback when he has a prior relationship with teachers.
With teachers he knows well, Fox says he can have a quick chat in the hallway after a walkthrough to discuss how the class went, and what help that teacher may need.
For newer teachers, or teachers he doesn’t know too well, Fox carves out 30-minute blocks to give feedback on a lesson he’s observed. Even in these chats, Fox says he tries not to lead with questions that would make teachers uncomfortable or unsure of how to answer.
To avoid “gotcha” questions – “Tell me what you liked about the lesson” — where teachers are unsure of the right answer, Fox tries to understand how the teacher planned the lessons, the reasons they chose the practices they did, and whether there were any problems that cropped up, even outside of what Fox observed in the short window he was in class.
Fox tries to make his classroom visits more frequent because he believes the more visible he is to teachers, the more comfortable they’ll get with him in the classroom.
Principals should also take time to build personal relationships with students when they come in for observations, says Chance Manzo, a special education teacher from Maywood, Ill
“If the administration doesn’t have a relationship with the students, you will end up with a situation where the authority figure walks in and immediately can put students on edge,” he says.
Building the relationship is a sign of respect—and it can also make the observations more authentic, Manzo says.
Says Fox: “There’s a cultural foundation that needs to be laid before we can get to successful walkthroughs and observations.”
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