This ASCD Study Guide is meant to enhance your understanding of Improving Student Learning One Principal at a Time, an ASCD book written by Jane E. Pollock and Sharon M. Ford and published in February 2009. The questions that follow are designed to enhance your understanding of the book and help you make connections between the text and your personal and professional situations and experiences.

You can use this study guide before or after you have read the book, or as you finish each chapter. The study questions provided are not meant to cover all aspects of the book but rather to address specific ideas that warrant further reflection. Most of the questions are ones you can think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or are reading) Improving Student Learning One Principal at a Time.

Introduction

1. Layne is a principal willing to make changes to his supervisory practices within the context of his district evaluation procedures. In what ways do your district's procedures allow for flexibility regarding supervision?
2. As a conscientious teacher, Mike is concerned about the percentage of his students who are not achieving as he believes they can. Teachers in this situation often are reluctant to inform their supervisors about student failures, believing that the failures may reflect poorly on their teaching practices. Is it the responsibility of the supervisor to inquire about student progress or the responsibility of the teacher to inform the supervisor about students who are struggling? What can you, as a supervisor, do to make teachers more comfortable discussing this issue with you?
3. Principals sometimes find that complying with district expectations for teacher evaluation makes it difficult to establish a cooperative working relationship with teachers. What ways have you found to help teachers be receptive to useful and effective feedback aimed at improving their instructional work with students?
4. As you conduct pre-conferences with teachers and classroom observations of the lessons they deliver, which aspects of each of these activities focus directly on the improvement of student learning? Do you believe your current focus on student learning has resulted in significant achievement gains? In what ways?

Chapter 1: From Inspection to Improvement

1. This chapter recounts some past social, political, and technological influences on teaching and supervision. Can you identify similar external forces that influence supervision and teaching today? Are the effects on student learning positive or negative?
2. Today, there are many excellent supervision approaches and models available to principals. What aspects of these models have you found most helpful in your work with teachers?
3. Which aspects of your supervisory work have you found the most difficult or troublesome? How might you go about improving these aspects?
4. Historically, the field of supervision has moved from a primary focus on inspection (aimed at deciding which teachers to retain and which to dismiss) to the present focus on improvement of teaching practices. Do you see any remnants of the inspection mind-set in today's supervision practices? What positive changes in student learning would you attribute to the evolution of supervision?

Chapter 2: Supervision and the Teaching Schema for Master Learners

1. How might you (or how do you) use the Schema to complement your current system of supervision?
2. As a supervisor, what indicators do you have that your supervision has been effective in improving teaching practice? In improving student learning?
3. If you are currently using or plan to use the Schema when working with teachers, what adaptations, if any, would you make to each of its components: G-A-N-A-G?
4. If coaches or teacher mentors in your school are interested in using the Teaching Schema for Master Learners, what staff-development initiatives would be necessary to ensure adequate training and support?
5. In your classroom observations, what do you notice about teachers' deliberate use of feedback to improve learning? In what ways might you help your instructional staff improve their feedback practices?

Chapter 3: The Beginning of the Lesson

1. How can you best assist teachers in setting "just-right" measurable goals for lessons? What might a teacher and you, as classroom observer, look for as signs that students clearly understand lesson goals?
2. Techniques for beginning classes must be changed frequently to capture student interest. When helping a teacher select an appropriate goal-sharing technique for a given lesson, what factors about the lesson or about students (e.g., age, readiness level, background knowledge) do you consider?
3. Successfully moving students from their current knowledge base toward a lesson goal requires a teacher to know—not assume—what prior knowledge students possess. What suggestions might you make to teachers to help them plan ways to access prior student knowledge?
4. A teacher stimulates student interest by helping students' see how their prior knowledge can form a foundation for new levels of learning. To practice helping teachers generate ways to access prior student knowledge and stimulate student interest, choose a topic for a grade level in your school and develop three ways to "fire neurons." Repeat this exercise with other topics and grade levels.
5. Choose a subject area and grade level, and then review the related district curriculum document. Is it really "teacher ready," or does it need to be "unpacked" further into measurable statements?

Chapter 4: The Middle of the Lesson

1. Consider a lesson you recently observed. Did the teacher take different instructional approaches to teach declarative and procedural knowledge? What learning modes or activities engaged the students?
2. What strategies can you recommend to a teacher to improve the ways that students gather and organize declarative knowledge?
3. What strategies can you recommend to a teacher to ensure that students draw upon higher-level thinking skills when applying declarative knowledge?
4. What strategies can you recommend to a teacher to improve the ways students learn and practice new procedural knowledge?
5. What strategies can you recommend to a teacher to improve the ways students practice or apply procedural knowledge?
6. In what ways can you help all employees in your school foster the development of nonacademic, self-regulating skills and character traits (e.g., trustworthiness, effort, responsibility, and respectfulness) that students need to succeed in life?

Chapter 5: The End of the Lesson

1. It is important for students to experience a lesson ending that has a meaningful connection to the lesson goal. With this in mind, what advantages do self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and other student-generated methods of lesson review have over a traditional "teacher review"?
2. Consider the best lesson endings that you have observed. What factors made them work for learners?
3. This chapter lists many alternatives for ending lessons, divided into categories. Select one method from each category, and think of ways that this method reinforces student learning in relation to lesson goals. Also, considering the ways that ending activities stimulate students' desire to learn more, create unique lesson endings to add to those presented in this chapter.
4. Why do you think it is so important to vary lesson-ending activities?
5. Post-conferences take on an extra dimension of effectiveness when the supervisor and teacher consider ways to transition between that lesson's ending and the next lesson's beginning. Consider how Bloom's taxonomy can guide a teacher's selection of lesson endings that will stimulate higher-level thinking at the beginning of the next lesson.

Chapter 6: Improving the Plan Book and the Grade Book

1. Do you regularly ask teachers to share their grade books along with their plan books when you meet with them to discuss student performances? Why or why not? How might an examination of grade-book data change your discussions with teachers?
2. Consider ways that software might boost your ability to help teachers apply the data they collect. What role might software, such as electronic grade books, play in enhancing communication about student learning? What professional development activities would be necessary to ensure teachers know how to get the most from this software?
3. This chapter covers various reports on student learning that electronic grade books can generate. What kinds of reports would you like to see? What data would be most helpful to you? To teachers? To parents? To students?
4. Data gathered during classroom observations and pre- and post-conference discussions with teachers become meaningful through association. What kind of connections are you making with this data? For example, does a teacher's assessment of student progress toward benchmarks and objectives align with grades in his or her grade book? Are there clear connections between classroom assessments and district or state curriculum expectations?
5. What do students say about the quality of instruction in your building? Do you believe their observations are accurate? How might you determine the validity of these concerns? What course of action might you take to dispel unfounded concerns and address valid ones?

Additional Questions for Reflection

1. What questions would you add to this study guide?
2. What questions do you still have about using the Teaching Schema for Master Learners in your supervision framework?

Improving Student Learning One Principal at a Time was written by Jane E. Pollock and Sharon M. Ford. This 150-page, 7" x 9" book (Stock #109006; ISBN-13: 978-1-4166-0768-7) is available from ASCD for $19.95 (ASCD member) or $25.95 (nonmember). Copyright © 2009 by ASCD. To order a copy, call ASCD at 1-800-933-2723 (in Virginia 1-703-578-9600) and press 2 for the Service Center. Or buy the book from ASCD's Online Store.