Thursday, March 12, 2009

Instructional Leadership for 21st Century Learners

I just finished attending the most recent in a series of workshops I've been involved in over the last 2 years titled 'Leading for Today's Learners'.



This series of workshops, attended by over 140 administrators in the province of Alberta, was focused on the instructional leadership needed to maximize the teaching and learning process. I'm paraphrasing here, but the premise is that we know an awful lot about how kids learn, and about what makes effective teachers, and that as the instructional leaders in our schools we need to know what to look for when we are observing and working with teachers in their classes.



The result of last year's work across the province was the creation of an observation rubric to help leaders identify, and discuss, different things taking place inside our classrooms for the purpose of increasing student engagement and student learning. The rubric can be found on the Galileo website by clicking HERE.

The work this year was focused on the use of the rubric and on discussing administrator practice in using it.

In my humble opinion, this rubric would be a great resource for anyone observing teachers and students learning in a classroom, and I hope to make the use of it my focus for the rest of the year during my classroom observations.

Cheers!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I think that there is a great deal already known about how students learn and this rubric is particularly useful in determining the best course of action in curriculum planning. I'm currently studying for my Counselor Education Degree and have found it very useful.

Anonymous said...

You, probably, were mistaken?

Anonymous said...

And all?