Pineville ISD Uses eWalk to Close the Achievement Gap

Providing precise, immediate feedback to a teacher following a classroom visit is something most school administrators strive to do. Unfortunately, many principals  hand write observations on paper and can’t share these notes with teachers in a timely manner. Such was the case at Pineville Independent School District in Kentucky before they adopted eWalk as their classroom observation system last year. Gary Perkins, an education consultant working for the district, told members of his school board recently, that administrators are now providing immediate email feedback to each teacher about observations in the classroom using eWalk. “This new system allows teachers to see a picture of their classroom through the observers eyes,” said Perkins. For instance, the observer can tell if the teacher has a tendency to accidentally look at certain parts of the room, while teaching and ignoring another area of the class, he told the Board. Media-X’s support team worked with Perkins and his colleagues to set-up a template for the observations. He says the eWalk template Pineville developed, focuses on three different areas: “What we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess the learning going on in the classroom.”

Pineville’s eWalk templates is focused on instructional strategies

The district is working to close the student achievement gap by focusing on instructional strategies such as whole group, individual learning, etc. The district’s Superintendent and Principals observe each classroom using eWalk on their iPads every two weeks to monitor progress.

Gary Perkins, Educational Consultant with Pineville ISD

“The teachers have been very positive and appreciate the comments we provide,” says Perkins. “We find this is making a diffence with our teacher evaluation program, as we collect formative data with eWalk on instructional style.” He believes this will help provide more meaningful summative comments for the formal evaluations. Board chair Anne Combs says the system is good for teachers. “This is a great addition for getting the message across,” she told the Middlesboro Daily News recently. Gary Perkins says eWalk has been well worth the money the district spent on licensing. “This system is very reasonably priced compared to what we were using before. The customer service team for eWalk is very helpful and allows us to change the template anytime to fit our needs,” he told the Board. At the end of the year he and his colleagues at Pineville ISD will be reviewing what worked well and what adjustments need to be made to the template. He will be working with Media-X on revisions for next year. Media-X is proud to work with Gary and his team. We are excited about the work they are doing and  look forward to assisting them in their use of eWalk.