Essay on Developing and Empowering Instructional Leaders

Observation/Feedback is a professional development methodology that motivates practitioners to critique, evaluate and reflect instructional practices. The approach is often equated to teacher evaluation and can take a range of forms, including mentoring, peer coaching and supervision. The paper provides reflections of personal experiences about two cycles of peer-conferencing, observation, and evaluation as an instructional leader provides assesses an instructors classroom performance. The teacher evaluation approach involves the formal pairing of practitioners for assessment of particular instructional techniques and strategies that ought to be incorporated into the teaching repertoire, as well as to collect feedback on the instructional styles.

The approach involved a set of observations and feedback conferences that were held during the oversight period. The logistics for conferences and observations were set up by the professional development coordinator and offered guidance on feedback and observation approaches. It was conjectured that the teacher would improve professional growth through analysis and reflection of instructional practices (Shambaugh, 2017). He teacher was required to embrace novel instructional strategies for effective implementation within the classroom environment. It is believed that observations were critical in the enhancement of reflective practices for both colleagues. Positive feedback from the endeavors of the teacher was immense in changing behaviors foster determinations for continual improvement.

The approach involved two processes, feedback, and observation. Therefore, the teacher was allowed to set parameters for a range of activities based on participants needs, staff availability, and cognitive styles (Lim & Zhong, 2007). Instructional leader played multiple roles throughout the process, providing new strategies and coaching process before the real process. The cycle was repeated throughout the period building on the outcome of previous findings. The pre-observation conference allowed both the instructor and instructional leader to emphasize on goals for improvement of instruction, identification of the focus of the process, determination of the observation period, and discussion of objectives of the lesson, as well as address special problems (Shambaugh, 2017). The observation focus was narrowed through the use of an observation instrument. The leader concentrated on target elements of the instruction and provided feedback for the same. The phase allowed for the collection of pertinent information before the commencement of the observation process, subsequently enhancing the reliability and validity of the outcomes of the process.

The leader recorded the lesson in the format of a narrative, with quantitative remarks where necessary. The comments were recorded under specified topic areas and all classroom activities allocated time for review. The flow of the lesson was reviewed under the practice and presentation headings to provide clear feedback about each category. Time is also an aspect that was given primacy during the evaluation process. The entire presentation was recorded for purposes of determining the clarity of communication and various forms of interactions. The post-conference evaluation offered an opportunity for both participants to reflect on the process and hare the information collected. The process focused on the strengths of the participants and possible areas for improvement.

Anecdotal information collected from the process indicated that benefits of the process were immense and the feedback allowed teach to better comprehend teaching styles for professional development. The teacher was encouraged to improve his professional skills, as well as recognition, foster collaboration, and encourage student development and growth. These feedbacks were critical in fostering collegial relationship and encourage the teacher to work extra hard to improve his instructional outcomes. The coaching process was found to be an important approach to professional development because of its effectiveness in imparting knowledge.

References

Shambaugh, N. (2017). Joint Professional Development of Teacher Candidates and

Mentoring Teachers in Using Project-Based Learning for 21st Century Learning Outcomes.

Lim, J., & Zhong, Y. (2007). The Interaction and Effects of Perceived Cultural Diversity,

Group Size, Leadership, and Collaborative Learning Systems: An Experimental Study. Information Resources Management Journal, 19, 4, 56-71.