That moment when…
It’s last period, you’re fighting off a cold, and you had a late night dealing with who knows what, so your lesson isn’t as polished as you would like it to be. All of a sudden, you see your door creep open and your principal walks in. As you look around your room, you quickly assess the engagement of your students, the posted material on the board, and the current status of your classroom, to ensure that the next 5 – 10 minutes goes as smoothly as possible.
Keep calm…and read on.
RELAX…it’s going to be ok. By the end of this blog you will be able to handle this scenario in your sleep! (ok…well don’t actually sleep in your classroom. That would look really bad, but you know what I mean.)
There are 3 things that all principals would love to know as soon as they walk into your classroom. As a matter of fact, if you take a few moments before each day and “train” your principal (and students) to know where to find the answers, you will always be prepared.
In my classroom, I developed a comprehensive mastery based system that intentionally included all of these components. But in your classroom, you have your own systems, and your own routines. I just want to help you make sure your bases are covered.
Let’s look at 3 things your administrator is going to want to know within the first 5 seconds of entering your classroom.
1. What are your students learning?…and are they aware of it?
Posting learning targets or objectives on the board is a great habit to get into. I always suggest having learning targets posted on the board in the front, back, and sides of your classroom for easy reference.
This, however, is not useful if students don’t interact with those learning targets. Before staring any lesson, have your students write goals, discuss those goals, and share them with the class. The first 5 minutes of any class can save a lesson by increasing student focus and engagement. Through these daily discussions, your learning targets should become something students interact with every day.
This means that even when your principal tapped “that one student” (that always makes you nervous) on the shoulder and asks “what is your learning objective today?” or “what are you learning about right now?”, they can confidently answer or quickly reference posted or written information to provide a response. Posting targets also clues your principal into what’s going on in your classroom.
2. What are your students supposed to be working on?
As your administrator walks around your classroom, is it clear to them and your students? What your students are supposed to be working on should be clearly stated on the activity, posted on the board, or being described in some way.
It is always a good practice to assume that nothing you say is being fully heard by your students. If one of them was zoning out during instructions (they never do that, right?) where would they look and how would they know what they are supposed to be working on? If these questions can be easily answered by the learner, then they will also be easy to find and answer for your principal as well. This reduces frustration, classroom management issues, and other classroom disruptions which is always a plus!
3. Where are your students in mastery of the content? How will they know?
This is probably the most difficult, but also most beneficial, piece of information you can explicitly and regularly share with your students. I suggest keeping a progress tracking board in your classroom. This serves as a visual reference for exactly where every student is on their journey to mastery of the standard or content you are working on at any given time.
This also means that your principal can take one look at the board and know where every single student in your class is. Some way for students to track their progress should exist so that both you and the learners know where they are and where they need to be at all times. Your principal will appreciate it and be impressed when you can articulate exactly how every learner is doing at any given moment. You should also make sure how you are assessing your students’ knowledge is explicit and understood by anyone completing a given learning task.
If you have all of these things covered, you are probably good to go! If you are wondering what some of these looks like or how to implement them in your classroom, considering taking our free online course,developed to help teachers like YOU! Seriously, it’s totally free.
If you have your own way to prep for the “anytime” or unexpected visit to your classroom, I’d love to hear about it! Please comment here of feel free to email me anytime.
