While walking my building throughout the course of the week, I visited many classrooms and observed how their classroom setup contributed to the lessons being taught, as well as the teachers' instructional style. Many rooms were setup in a manner that was conducive to the cooperative learning instructional style.
What I found interesting was that many of the classrooms were set up as cooperative learning classrooms, but that was not what was going on. There was a lot of direct instruction going on throughout the duration of the class. I believe direct instruction is beneficial, but it does not meet the needs of all students. We as educators must use a variety of teaching modalities to meet those needs. The question I began to ask myself was, do our teachers know how to teach within a cooperative learning framework? This year, our Instructional Coach is pushing the use of centers, and working on ensuring teachers know how to effectively use centers to maximize instruction within an 80 minute block, and improve classroom management.
During that week, I actually subbed for a couple teachers. One teacher had his class setup with five stations. Students would spend the allotted amount of time at each station and then rotate. Students were able to move smoothly throughout the classroom without bumping into each other or needing to move any of the desk. Each station was a bit different. Two stations used technology while the other three were traditional using manipulatives and graphic organizers. There is a classroom set of laptops in each classroom. Their use depends on the lesson being taught. The other class I covered had a setup that was unstructured. I attempted to teach within the setup, but could not. Students were not seated so that everyone had a clear view of the whiteboards and the plasma screen. The passage ways around students desks were obstructed by other desks and student chairs. I had to reorganize the room to make things work.
Observing how a teacher sets up their room and seeing how they operate within that set up, can assist in how we set up for professional development. We have to give the same consideration for space allotment and teaching style to teachers, that we expect them to give for their students. The way we run professional development workshops should model what we expect to see in the classroom.
I have been observed by several individuals who request things they cannot model for me. As a teacher, I would vow to my students that I would never assess them on something that i have not modeled for them first. I take the same philosophy into administration.
