Instructional Leader Shares What Matters Most in the Classroom

The Instructional Leadership Challenge surpassed 3,000 school and district participants earlier this year and continues to grow.

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I recently received this email from a California school leader who is making her way through the 21-day Challenge, and it rang true to so many of the stories we’ve heard since we launched the program: 

I’ve been watching the videos from the Instructional Leadership Challenge. The points that Justin makes about the current state of walkthroughs and teacher evaluations [infrequent, sometimes punitive, not as actionable or meaningful as they could be] are spot on, and I’d like to change that. 

For example, last year we were asked to make sure lesson objectives were written on the board—but I remember being a teacher and I remember how on some days, I just didn’t get it up there because of the busy profession I had chosen. It doesn’t matter how organized you are; so many things happen that sometimes you fall behind.

The content you are teaching and what the students are actually learning is what matters the most. 

I’ve never been able to see that in the 5 or 10 minutes I spend in a classroom during a walkthrough.

So I want to improve on actually GIVING frequent, meaningful feedback to teachers so they can improve their practice.

Check out an earlier reflection on the Challenge here, join the ongoing discussion on twitter via #ilchal, and if you haven’t already signed up for the free, self-paced program, get to it!