By Tasha Kellett, Manager, School Development
School design is never done. It is a continuous cycle of reflection, action, and iteration fueled by a deep understanding of the students and communities the school serves and a clear vision for what the school needs to be. At Springpoint, we help educators across the country design, launch, and continuously improve new high school models. Through this work we have learned that engaging regularly with high-quality, developmental feedback provides school leaders with critical support in assessing where their school’s vision is being met and where there are gaps that need to be addressed.
In order to provide our school partners with high-quality, developmental feedback, Springpoint designed a school visit process called the Springpoint School Observation. A small team of current and former educators conduct each visit, providing school leaders a fresh perspective on their school’s work and offering thought partnership to support continuous improvement. Since 2014, Springpoint has conducted 107 of these visits across 22 districts and charter management organizations.
What is developmental feedback?
Developmental feedback is rooted in the understanding that schools are continuously evolving. We believe that schools can and will improve with effective leadership and support. Developmental feedback meets schools where they are on their continuous improvement journey. It is not meant to be evaluative but rather to provide ideas that can guide leaders toward the highest leverage next steps on their path to realizing their vision for students’ experience.
Thought partners who have led change in their own schools can provide invaluable insights from their experiences. Opening the door to feedback from a fresh set of eyes can also provide leaders the space to step back from their day-to-day work, revisit their school’s goals, and look to the future.
How does Springpoint’s School Observation Visit support schools and their leaders through developmental feedback?
There are many mechanisms for evaluative feedback in schools, from city and state report cards to individual teacher evaluations. But these forms of feedback are not often designed to provide the person or school with a thought partner to reflect on their own practice and make an actionable plan for growth based on their own stage of development. Springpoint designed our School Observation Visit process to collect high-leverage qualitative data, provide developmental feedback based on the evidence collected, and collaborate with school leaders to make meaning of the findings within their individual school’s journey.
The School Observation Visit process holds a mirror to a school’s practice over two days. The observer team captures qualitative data on day one through classroom observations, student work review, and stakeholder conversations. The team returns on the second day to engage in a dialogue with the school leader about these observations and to offer suggestions for how to continue to make progress towards school-wide goals. It is structured to provide leaders with rich, real-time qualitative data that can help to:
- build reflection capacity to assess their own strengths and stretch areas as a leader;
- inform their school’s continuous improvement through ongoing inquiry and iteration;
- support them in assessing their team’s progress toward implementing schoolwide goals; and
- support their school teams in understanding their current school practice and launch critical school-level conversations and reflection around culture, rigor and relevance, and the efficacy of their school model.
This process elucidates schoolwide trends that surface over the course of a daylong visit and helps school leaders identify where those trends do or do not align with the school’s vision. We know that there is no typical day in a school building, but triangulating qualitative data from classroom walkthroughs, reviewing student work, and conducting stakeholder conversations can provide significant insights into how a school’s work towards its goals is progressing.
What does developmental feedback look and feel like?
Developmental feedback is most powerful when it is grounded in evidence and fosters a truly two-way conversation about what that evidence means for students and for how a school or educator’s practice must shift to reach their vision. At Springpoint, we believe there are a few best practices for generating useful developmental feedback and some important mindsets that create the conditions for a constructive experience.
- Emphasize and engage in asset-based feedback, exploring and discussing identified strengths as a means of continuing to build on core skills and approaches.
- Offer appropriately bite-sized feedback that intentionally supports educators in identifying their highest-leverage, immediate next steps aligned to long-term school goals.
- Personalize feedback to the educator and the school, being cognizant of their context, goals, and stakeholders.
Approach the conversation with a learner’s stance, both individuals giving such feedback and receiving it; come to the table with a curiosity about the perspectives, experiences, and knowledge each person brings to the table.
Luke Bauer, principal of Urban Assembly Maker Academy shared his reflections on the experience by stating, “Getting developmental feedback from professionals that have ‘been in the shoes’ of founding principals is invaluable. The keys to its success are having a shared understanding of the school or organization’s look-fors, time to visit classes, and most importantly, listening to student voices. Visits to UA Maker Academy have led to celebrations for our school community and also provided opportunities to rethink strategies being used if they are not having the intended outcome.”
How can schools implement developmental feedback as a regular practice?
While observation visits that provide developmental feedback can be key to building a culture of continuous improvement, it is not the only way to foster a shared commitment to feedback and iteration. Some schools may implement rich professional development, for example, or go all-in on structured instructional coaching. Others may prioritize formal and informal professional learning communities (PLCs). And, best of all, some schools will implement a mix of several approaches that work best for their school community.
We’ve supported many schools as they build this muscle among practitioners. School Observation Visits, along with Springpoint’s tools, protocols, and best practices, can familiarize leaders with key practices and expose them to new ways to build in inflection points around continuous improvement efforts. Skillful leaders pull crucial levers like involving stakeholders, modeling a growth mindset, and grounding continuous improvement work in a sense of their school’s mission and purpose in order to create a culture that welcomes this level of self-assessment and reflection.
Tasha Kellett joined Springpoint in 2017 and serves as the organization’s Manager, School Development. Tasha applies her experience with communications, program coordination, public policy, and teaching to manage Springpoint Observation Visits, support the implementation of innovative school models, and develop resources for partners. You can read more about her journey to Springpoint here.