THE SCENARIO:

Mr. Michaels, a second-year Assistant Principal, appraises Mrs. Hill, who has been teaching grade six math for four years. Mrs. Hill has been teaching a total of 10 years. Mrs. Hill teaches a mixture of on-level and advanced students. Parents have emailed Mr. Michaels to complain that students feel afraid of Mrs. Hill. Students report that she is mean and does not let them talk or do anything fun in her math class. They spend more than half of the class copying “notes” off the screen. They feel that math is boring and have told their parents that they are afraid that they will not pass the STAAR Math test because Mrs. Hill does not teach them anything. Students say that Mrs. Hill requires them to copy pages and pages of notes, sometimes up to ten pages in a class, and when they ask Mrs. Hill a question about a math problem, her response is, “Check your notes.”

Mr. Michaels decides to observe Mrs. Hill’s math classes during different periods of the day over the course of one week. . His initial observation involves visiting the first period class for twenty minutes. At the sound of the first-period bell, Mr. Michaels enters, scans the room and observes that students are quite and well behaved. He then observes Mrs. Hill conduct a six-minute warm up, introduce a lesson, using “I Do, We do, You do” and sees Mrs. Hill walk around, observing students working independently. Mrs. Hill checks on students while they are working and tells them that they may begin their homework.

Two days go by that Mr. Michaels is not available to observe Mrs. Hill’s class. However, he sends for several of Mrs. Hill’s students from different class periods and asks to see their math notebooks. He discovers that there are several
(8-10) pages of notes from the days following his initial observation in each of the student notebooks. He asks students about these notes. They tell him that almost the entire class period is usually devoted to copying pages of notes from the whiteboard. Students also tell Mr. Michaels that they feel intimidated by Mrs. Hill and are afraid to ask questions. He is wondering if what he saw in his initial observation was the proverbial “dog and pony show, “ and not reflective of what happens on a daily basis in Mrs, Hill’s classes – that it was for the benefit of the observation and not typical of what usually happens.

You are Mr. Michaels, the appraiser. Create a plan of action that addresses:

Describe what will you do first? Explain why this is the priority.
How will you determine an accurate, overall amount of active student engagement in all of Mrs. Hill’s classes? Describe what you will do.
Write 3-5 goals for Mrs. Hill to address instructional strategies that will increase student engagement. Include a plan that reduces the volume of notes students are required to copy during class.
Choose 3-5 Lemov strategies that Mrs. Hill can use immediately to improve instruction and address how students are feeling.
How will you respond to the parent emails?

Sample Solution