Lee County Schools – Conducting eLearning Walks with the eWalk platform to ultimately increase student achievement
We began working with Lee County Schools in July of 2018. They have utilized eWalk within their Academic Services Division to conduct focused learning walks at each of their 124 schools across the district. Dr. Wanda Creel and her leadership team have detailed their learning walk strategy in the sections below:
Why are we doing eLearning Walks?
1. To build relationships, collaboration, capacity, and trust between the school and the A-Team.
2. To establish true partnerships with schools, so that we function as a team (schools and A-team).
3. To facilitate honest, authentic communication in a non-evaluative way.
4. To systemically and strategically identify and support the A, B, C’s.
5. To collect real-time actionable data.
6. To identify and provide resources to our schools.
7. To give the A-Team an accurate perspective of the schools current state.
8. To determine trends across schools to help inform A-Team guidance and network best practices in schools with similarities.
9. To ensure that Tier 1 is strong as we cannot fix what may be broken in Tier 1 with Tiers 2 and 3.
10. To ensure common messaging and communications.
eLearning Walks are an integral part of an intentional framework that supports all of our schools. The reports from eLearning Walks help facilitate focused conversations centered on improving student performance in the classroom using a common language. We are then able to provide individualized supports to our schools and evaluate the effectiveness of those supports in real time. We have stronger relationships between our district office and our schools which is foundational to achieving our system goals. eLearning walks have helped us exemplify the partnership we share with schools to ensure ALL students have the best opportunity to succeed.
How will we conduct eLearning Walks?
eLearning Walks
A team of 3-5 members with expertise in the school’s area of growth/need (from SIP and other data) will make school visits based on Tiers 1, 2, and 3. Frequency of visits will be determined based on the Tiered Schedule.
The teams will be consistent for the school year and specific to ES, MS, and HS.
Visits will be scheduled in regions (schools in close proximity) so that team time is maximized and travel time minimized.
eLearning Walk Protocol
- Learning Walks will be announced prior to a visit. For the first elearning walk, the team lead/members will meet with principal/administrative team.
- Length of Time for eLearning Walks Visit will be 2 hours.
- Classroom visits will be made individually. Only one team member will be in each classroom. There will be no groups in teacher rooms.
- Length of time in individual classrooms will be 5 to 10 minutes for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Teachers will receive a note from the team member who visited the classroom. - The school should continue as it normally would during elearning walks. No one should stop teaching or explain what is happening in class.
- eLearning Walk Team members may engage students.
- eLearning Walk Team members may visit classrooms, common areas, PLC’s etc.
- eLearning Walk Teams will provide feedback and support if needed or requested to principals as it relates to information discovered in the Learning Walk.
- eLearning Walks are non-evaluative and judgements will not be made. Support will be offered when needed. Principals may also request support.
- Will use the eWalk platform to collect data.
- The principal will receive feedback the same day with positives and next steps.
- Any follow up needed will occur within 48 hours.
eWalk has truly given the School District of Lee County a tool to systematize Learning Walks within our entire District. The data provided makes implementing the coaching cycle with teachers and administrators very meaningful and actionable. We have seen significant growth in the areas of focus.
What is the expected outcome of the eLearning Walks?
Increased student achievement in a safe, high performing learning culture