BLT Manual

MONITORING HIGH-YIELD INSTRUCTIONAL PRIORITIES

Instructional Priorities

Critical Questions to Ask About Instructional Practices and Techniques

Walkthrough Tool

Are learning intentions, success criteria, and relevance of lesson posted in the classroom? Are learning intentions clear and concise and help students understand the purpose of the lesson? Is the assessment tied to the learning intentions? How will students know they met the success criteria? Are all students actively engaged in the learning by saying, writing, and/or doing? Does the pace of the instruction allow for frequent student responses? Is the teacher familiar enough with the lesson to present it in an engaging manner? Are directions clear, straightforward, and concise? Are skills introduced in a specific and logical order (e.g., easier to more complex)? Is there frequent and cumulative review? Is there explicit use of prompts, cues, examples, and encouragement to support the students? Do students have sufficient opportunities to practice skills independently? Are the skills and strategies included in instruction clearly demonstrated for the student? Are students receiving timely prompts that indicate what they have done correctly and incorrectly? Do students have the opportunity to use feedback to continue the learning process? Are critical vocabulary explicitly taught before students are expected to use vocabulary in context? Are students able to say, define, and use critical vocabulary? Are common academic vocabularies (e.g., system, change, perspective) explicitly taught across all content areas? Does the teacher provide intentionally planned discussions around complex texts and academic content that are essential for student mastery? Do classroom discussions allow for students to co-construct knowledge through interaction between reader and text, teacher and students, as well as student to student? Do structured classroom discussions include scaffolds such as sentence stems, word banks, discussion prompts, and structured partnering? Does the learning task include appropriate scaffolds to ensure student success? Have data been analyzed for the purpose of strategically creating small groups to target specific skills/concepts? Have data been analyzed to precision partner students for better learning results?

Teacher Clarity Canyons Observation Rubric (TC-COR)

Teacher Clarity

Opportunities to Respond: Data Collection, Observation & Reflection Tool (DORT) (PDF)

Maximizing Opportunities to Respond

Explicit Instruction Observation (EIO)

Explicit Instruction

Classroom Observation Feedback Form (COFF) (PDF) Explicit Vocabulary Observation Collection Tool (EVOCT) (PDF)

Feedback Cycles

Systematic Vocabulary Instruction

Structured Classroom Discussion Targeted Observation Tool (SCDTO) (PDF)

Structured Classroom Discussion

Scaffolded Instruction & Grouping (SIG) Observation Form (PDF)

Scaffolding & Grouping