Learning Walks

Learning Walks 2011-2012

Three Falls Elementary- My first learning walk this year was at Three Falls Elementary.  I was able to visit two different fifth-grade classrooms and watch their math lessons.  Both teachers were teaching very differently from each other, but both had some great ideas that I was able to pick up on.

The first teacher was very engaging.  She had the students' attention for the entire lesson.  She used a lot of technology in her teaching and did a great job explaining the concepts to her students.

The second teacher I observed did not use quite as much technology in her teaching as the first teacher did, but she did have the students work together in small groups where the other teacher did not.

The biggest thing that I walked away with from this learning walk, was that the teachers at this school were highly organized and very positive with their students.  It was great to see how they had their classrooms organized and how they interacted with their students. 


Hurricane Elementary- My learning walk was helping out with PIE (Parents in Education) day at our school.  I was assigned to take a parent around to observe in several classrooms and to see what we do at our school.  I was able to visit classes in Preschool, Kindergarten, First Grade, Second Grade, and Special Education.  It was a great experience for me to see the different grades and how they are using technology in various ways.  I have not been able to see other teachers from our school teach until today, and it was a good experience to see first hand how hard all of the teachers are working.  It was also a good experience for me to be able to discuss what the parents saw and to answer any questions that they had about our school and what we do each and every day to help their students be successful.

Heritage Elementary- Amazing! From the moment that you walked into the doors of the school, Heritage Elementary has a positive feeling.  The secretaries were friendly and helpful and the rest of the staff was more than willing to help us out or answer any questions that we had.

I think that the program that this school is using to bring in extra volunteer aides during the day to help students with reading skills seems very effective.  All of the students, volunteers, or teachers that I talked to about this program could not say enough good about the work that was being done.

I was able to visit several fifth-grade classes and a couple of fourth-grade classes while I was at the school.  The teachers were all positive and were willing to discuss any questions we had during our learning walk.  There was a lot of cooperative learning going on at the school.  The teachers were using a lot of Kagan methods and the students seemed to be happy and willing to participate in what was being taught.

Each classroom that I visited was well organized and had the same positive feeling that I felt from the moment I walked into the school.  I saw a lot of great posters and visuals for fifth-grade science that I will probably try to take back and use in my own classroom.


Hurricane Elementary- Once again I was on a learning walk at our school.  This time I was able to visit fifth and third grade classrooms.  I was only able to visit two third grade classrooms because the third grade ended up going out to recess before my learning walk was over, but at least I made it to two of them.

It was fun visiting the other fifth grade classes.  I have worked with these teachers all year long, but I this is the first time that I have seen any of them teach.  It was a good experience to see how they were teaching math and what strategies they use to teach math concepts.  Some of them were using hands-on activities, while others were teaching whole-group.  It was good to compare the lessons being taught and see what seemed to be working, and what didn't.

Learning walks are always a good way to reflect on my own teaching and different strategies that I can pick up and use from other teachers in my own classroom.

Learning Walks 2012-2013

Heritage Elementary- Our school had a school-wide learning walk where we took turns visiting all of the different classrooms and observing what the different grades were teaching and how they were implementing our school goals for this year.

It was a great opportunity to see how all of the grades, Kindergarten - 5th, were working together and how they were teaching different reading strategies.  There are definitely some concepts that I will take from what I have learned on this walk and put them to use in my own classroom.

A few days later we met with each of the teachers that we observed and who observed us and we talked about what we saw in their classroom and had the opportunity to ask them questions about what we saw while we were there.  It was a great experience to hear what some of my colleagues observed while they were in my classroom and what they had to say about my teaching strategies.  It was a great way to reflect on my own strategies.

Sunset Elementary- Mrs. Empey and I were given the opportunity to go and observe how the 5th grade team at Sunset Elementary teach their Science Block each week.

They only teach science on Fridays for about 1 hour.  They bring all of the fifth grade students into one fifth grade classroom and they introduce the main science concept being taught.  After the concept is introduced, the students are placed into four different groups and they rotate into the four different classrooms to do hands-on experiments that go along with the concepts.  Each teacher is in charge of one of the hands-on experiments and they teach it four different times (once to each group).

After meeting with the teacher in charge of the science rotations, she said that she just focuses on the core standards for science and bases her lessons on those core standards.  The students each have a science journal and they keep notes of the experiments in their journals.  The journals are used at the end of the year to help them study for the Science CRT's.

It was an interesting way to see science taught.  It will definitely make me go back and think about how we are teaching science on our team and see if there are ways that we can incorporate some of what Sunset is doing into our own science curriculum.

Red Mountain Elementary- For this learning walk I wanted to focus on how technology was being used in the classroom.  Since our school went 1-to-1 with the iPads, I have spent a lot of time researching the best way to use this technology and was anxious to see how other schools were using their technology.

Red Mountain is not 1-to-1 like we are, but they are 1-to-2, so in other words, they have one iPad for every 2 students.  They are also using a "Flipped" classroom model with their vocabulary and their math lessons.  They have been using this model since last school year and are finding some great success with it.

One thing I really liked about this learning walk was how the teacher I observed used questioning in his classroom.  The students had to be on their toes to really think about the questions that the teacher was asking.  He said that his process for questioning comes from a science textbook that he read over the summer.  He gave me the name of the book and I realized it is the same book that I used in my science methods class at the college.  I will definitely be pulling that book out and reading about questioning and how I can use some of those strategies to ask higher-order questions in my own classroom.