Adapting QT Rounds for success in your school
*Fidelity means ensuring all four components of a Round are implemented as elaborated in QT Rounds workshops.
*Integrity means implementing QT Rounds in a way that honours its underlying mechanisms, namely: a shared vision of Quality Teaching, sustained time for critical analysis of practice, and a climate of trust to support teacher learning.
Modification: A PLC is formed across multiple schools rather than within a single school (e.g., two teachers each from two schools or four teachers from four different schools).
Benefits:
- Less release time required at each school which can reduce the need for casual relief teachers at the school level.
- Enables teachers to participate in Rounds by forming PLCs across locations, including in small, regional or remote schools.
Considerations:
- When schools are geographically close to each other teachers can travel between locations to do Rounds. QT Rounds Digital provides a mechanism for doing Rounds across schools, using online technologies, where distance is a barrier. rier.
Case study: Illawarra Sports High School and Gundagai High School
Spearheaded by Casey Norden and Allison Lloyd, Illawarra Sports High School and Gundagai High School teamed up to ensure their staff had the opportunity to continue their QT Rounds journey.
Read their full story: Digital quality teaching rounds
Modification: A PLC is formed comprising three teachers.
Benefits:
- Less release time required at the school level, which can reduce the need for casual relief teachers.
Considerations:
- The PLC should ensure all essential features and norms are maintained.
- The minimum number of teachers in a PLC should be three to foster rich coding discussions.
Case study: Lismore Heights Public School
Lismore Heights Public School has developed a unique, strategic approach to implementing QT Rounds with great success. The school reduced its PLC size to three and also used a non-teaching assistant principal as one of the PLC members for every QT Round. As a result, over the course of the year, all teachers at the school had a chance to participate in QT Rounds at least once, delivering profound benefits for both staff and students.
Read their full story: Boosting writing results at Lismore Heights Public School
Modification: A PLC is formed with a mix of classroom teachers and other school staff, such as a teacher librarian, EAL/D teacher, SLSO, 4th year intern, principal or other school executive member.
Benefits:
- Less release time required at the school level, which can reduce the need for casual relief teachers.
Considerations:
- The PLC should ensure all essential features and norms are maintained.
- Reinforce the turn taking protocol to flatten any power hierarchies within the PLC.
- Recommendation that the most senior and/or most experienced teacher in the PLC is observed first.
Case study: Lismore Heights Public School
Lismore Heights Public School developed a strategic approach to implementing QTR with great success. The school reduced its PLC size to three and engaged a non-teaching assistant principal as one of the PLC members for every QT Round. As a result, over the course of the year, all teachers at the school had a chance to participate in QTR at least once, delivering profound benefits for both staff and students.
Read their full story: Boosting writing results at Lismore Heights Public School
Modification: Each Round is completed in half a day rather than a full day.
Benefits:
- Less release time required, which can reduce the need for casual relief teachers.
Considerations:
- Reading discussions might need to be separated from other components of Rounds (see below).
- Reduced time for Rounds can mean less opportunity for rich, extended discussions and relationship building, and less professional learning.
- Conducting two half day Rounds on one day for a given PLC will reduce the opportunity for learning between Rounds and is strongly discouraged. If two Rounds are held on one day, different PLCs must be involved and the focus should remain on meaningful engagement.
Modification: The reading discussion is conducted at a separate time from the lesson observation and coding discussion.
Benefits:
- Less release time required and greater flexibility for staff.
Considerations:
- The reading remains important for building professional community and should take place around the time of the observation.
- Where possible, avoid encroaching on teachers’ break times. Scheduling of the reading discussion should be agreed upon by all PLC members.
Modification: Teachers film their own lesson to share with PLC members for viewing and coding at their convenience prior to meeting for group discussion.
Benefits:
- Host teachers can view their own lessons.
- Greater flexibility for staff.
- Less release time required which can reduce the need for casual relief teachers.
Considerations:
- Need to ensure secure sharing of footage and adhere to relevant privacy policies in your jurisdiction.
- Quality of filming can impact capacity to code.
- Recorded footage likely gives a more limited view of the lesson. This can be mitigated by recording via Zoom on two or more laptops positioned to gain teacher and student perspectives or, where available, asking classroom support staff to film lessons.
- Reduces time for group bonding/relationship building through shared experiences.
Case study: Tullamore Central School
To get QT Rounds up and running, Kelly and her leadership team got creative by using elements of QT Rounds Digital and other implementation modifications.
They began with a professional learning community (PLC) of the three school leaders to demonstrate how it could be done. After coming together for the professional reading discussion, they recorded a lesson for all three to code over the following 24 hours. Next, they came back together for the group coding discussion.
“We all walked away from the initial experience thinking, wow, this is powerful stuff,” Kelly said.
Read their full story: Implementing QTR in a rural school
Modification: Some components of the Rounds process are conducted digitally or online, while other components are conducted face-to-face. For instance, the reading is done either online or face-to-face; the lesson is filmed; the coding discussion is done face-to-face.
Benefits:
- Can support QT Rounds across school sites.
- Can support schools with scheduling challenges.
Considerations:
- Need to ensure secure sharing of footage and adhere to relevant privacy policies in your jurisdiction.
- Quality of filming can impact capacity to code.
- Recorded footage likely gives a more limited view of the lesson. This can be mitigated by recording via Zoom on two or more laptops positioned to gain teacher and student perspectives or, where available, asking classroom support staff to film lessons.
- Reduces time for group bonding/relationship building through shared experiences.
- Observing in person can produce different insights from observing the recorded lesson.
Case study: Tullamore Central School
To get QT Rounds up and running, Kelly and her leadership team got creative by using elements of QTR Digital and other implementation modifications.
They first started with a professional learning community (PLC) of the three leaders to demonstrate how it could be done. Then they came together for the professional reading discussion. Next, they recorded a lesson for all three to code over the next 24 hours. Lastly, they came back together for the group coding discussion.
“We all walked away from the initial experience thinking, wow, this is powerful stuff,” Kelly said.
Read their full story: Implementing QTR in a rural school
Modification: All components of the QT Rounds process are conducted online, using digital technologies.
Benefits:
- Enables teachers to participate in Rounds by forming PLCS across locations, including in small, regional or remote schools.
Considerations:
- Need to ensure secure sharing of footage and adhere to relevant privacy policies in your jurisdiction.
- Quality of filming can impact capacity to code.
- Recorded footage likely gives a more limited view of the lesson. This can be mitigated by recording via Zoom on two or more laptops positioned to gain teacher and student perspectives, or where available, asking classroom support staff to film lessons.
- Reduces time for group bonding/relationship building through shared experiences.
- Where possible, avoid encroaching on teachers’ break times. Scheduling should be negotiated and agreed upon by all PLC members.
Explore the research: QT Rounds Digital
Teachers in small, rural and remote schools face unique challenges, not least among them accessing high quality professional development.
On Tuesday 17 May 2022, Associate Professor Jess Harris led a webinar on the latest research on QTR Digital, the positive impact it had for teachers and students, and how this form of professional development can help with a range of challenges for schools and teachers in these contexts.
Watch the webinar: Supporting teachers in small, rural and remote schools
