“For classrooms to be cultures of thinking for students, schools must be cultures of thinking for teachers.”

– Ron Ritchhart, Principal Investigator for the “Cultures of Thinking Project,” part of a research study at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Staff at Tyee Middle School are guided by this quote and it influences their professional development.  One form of professional development that enhances staff learning is Instructional Rounds, which are held quarterly.  The rounds are based on the collaborative investigation and problem solving model practiced by resident physicians in teaching hospitals, and adapted to fit education.  Just as medical rounds is one major way the medical profession builds its norms of practice, during this all day, voluntary session, the group focuses on one topic and forms an inquiry question to consider and explore.  At the end of March, the rounds session focused on social emotional learning.  It was the tenth time the school held this type of professional development.  Each round is facilitated by Tyee teacher Janel Hershey and the school’s Instructional Technology Curriculum Leader Bill DeMartini.

The rounds are designed for small groups with collaboration in mind.  Six teachers participated in the social emotional learning round.  Some were part of a Professional Learning Community (PLC) focused on this topic, and others were just interested in learning more.  They spent the morning developing inquiry questions, then observed four classrooms and debriefed their findings in the afternoon.  DeMartini stressed that the sessions are personalized for the group and “what’s most authentic for them,” he said.

Although the middle school level has not yet adopted a social emotional learning curriculum, teachers still strive to meet the social learning needs of the students in their classes.  This group of teachers explored thoughts and ideas about the following two questions regarding social emotional learning: How do teachers connect and build relationships with students while still teaching the subject matter content?  What type of support, empathy, caring and concern is evident between students during peer to peer interactions?

Takeaways from the social emotional learning Round were very individualized because each group member had the time to think about how this applied to them personally, said Hershey.  “It allows a lot more freedom to have teachers work with what they can get out of it for themselves,” she said.

“I think to reflect on my own practice is the most powerful part of it,” said Katie Parker, sixth and seventh grade language arts teacher.

Parker participated in a previous round and had trust in the practice.  “I had some pretty specific goals starting out the day, and I felt like this was a process to really help me be moving towards my goals,” said Parker.  Her biggest takeaways were: the importance of asking students questions to understand their learning and experiences, the importance of sitting down with students at their table group and finding opportunities to know students as best as possible.

Sixth grade science teacher Paul Hopp said he’s going to implement peer review and peer praise in his class based on his experience during rounds.  Classmates will compliment one another on a job well done, and critique one another’s work.

“I wish every teacher had an opportunity to do it (rounds) because it’s refreshing,” said Hopp of the experience.  “You learn so much watching another person teach.”

All staff is encouraged to participate in rounds.  “I think what’s important to us is that the teachers want this process to continue,” said Hershey.  “We want to make sure as a whole staff people are feeling that this is a valuable way to invest professional development funds.”  This year Tyee’s PTSA paid for all of the substitute teacher costs for the full day releases.

Grateful for the contribution by PTSA and supportive of the process, Principal Aaron Miller said,  “This is a practice built on the principle that our teachers’ learning impacts our students’ learning.  It’s a practice that honors our teachers by relying on teacher leadership and the tremendous professional expertise already here.  And, by participating in the process, I think our teachers are modeling for our students the kind of reflective learners and thinkers we all want our students to become.”