Eduleadership
in search of performance, productivity, and vision
Introducing Atul Gawande, Educator
Mar 14th
One of my favorite authors on improvement and performance today is Atul Gawande. His insights have profound implications for educational leaders, and he may be one of the most influential reformers to come along in a long time.
But you won’t find him at Teachers College or ASCD. Atul Gawande is a surgeon.
In Better, he writes about numerous aspects of improvement in healthcare. In The Checklist Manifesto, he explores the power of checklists to reduce errors in complex fields such as aviation (where checklists are ubiquitous) and medicine (where he hopes to make checklists part of standard practice). I finished these two books in a day or two each, and am working on his first book, Complications, now.
In addition, Gawande writes regularly for The New Yorker.
Here’s Gawande in a recent appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in which he talks about The Checklist Manifesto:
Clearly, there are many parallels between the challenges in healthcare and those faced by educators. I will soon have more to say on The Checklist Manifesto and Better from an educator’s perspective (you can subscribe to email updates using the form in the sidebar of this site).
Gawande will be in Seattle on May 3 if you’d like to hear him live.
Feedback for Performance: Low-Hanging Fruit
Nov 15th
When giving feedback to improve the performance of those you supervise, where do you start?
If something is painfully wrong, it’s obvious where to focus your attention. If you observe practices that are harmful to students, unethical, unprofessional, or unsafe, it’s easy to know what to address first.
Most of the time, though, we need to provide feedback that isn’t so obvious. When someone is generally doing a good job, how do we decide what to mention, knowing that we have a limited bandwidth for giving constructive feedback?
In this situation, the critical question is “What changes will lead to the largest gains in performance?” More to the point in classroom settings, “What changes in practice will have the greatest benefits for student learning?”
These questions stand in contrast to the typical starting point for feedback, which is the “I noticed…have you thought about…?” line of coaching. Too often, what we notice from a lesson observation is based on a personal interest or pet issue, not the opportunity for improved results.
For example, if I know from informal observations that a teacher’s greatest challenge is adequately preparing for math instruction, I should not allow myself to be distracted by minor areas for improvement that I identify during a formal observation. While it’s important to cite specific evidence when providing feedback, leaders must be purposeful in collecting evidence that will support feedback in the areas of greatest need.
What is the low-hanging fruit for each person you supervise? What feedback would improve their performance the most? Think about it as you prepare for your next observation or discussion.
Feedback for Performance
Nov 1st
If we want to get better results, we can change the working conditions, the inputs, or the actions we take to do the work. As individuals, we often don’t have much control over the inputs or conditions of our work, so the primary point of leverage for improvement is the set of actions we take on the job.
In order to do our work better, we need to get a perspective from someone else on how we’re doing, and how we might do better in the future. This, at the most basic level, is what feedback is.
For an expert supervising a novice, the process of giving feedback is straightforward – observe, describe (with reference to a standard for excellence), celebrate successes, and make suggestions for improvement.
But for principals supervising more experienced staff, the challenges vary. Providing constructive (and not just complimentary) feedback to master teachers is no easy task. Another challenge comes when attempting to provoke thinking to challenge long-established habits or practices.
What challenges do you encounter in giving (or receiving) feedback? What have you found to be effective in improving performance in your organization?