The Case for Face-to-Face Debriefs After Observations

More and more schools are making short classroom visits part of the teacher evaluation process—a big improvement over the traditional once-a-year dog-and-pony show. When observations are brief (10 minutes), frequent (about once a month), and systematic (seeing different parts of lessons), administrators are in touch with what’s going on in classrooms, teachers get frequent feedback, and there’s great potential for an ongoing dialogue that affirms and improves teaching.

What should that dialogue look like? Conscientious administrators want to follow up with teachers as quickly as possible, so they might send a text, leave hand-written “glows and grows” on the teacher’s desk, or email notes—often suggesting a face-to-face meeting. Most teachers are hungry for feedback and curious about what the boss thought, so they appreciate getting something right away. 

That sounds good, but life in schools is so hectic that follow-up conversations are often skipped, which robs the process of the powerful potential of face-to-face conversations. If texts, emails, or handwritten notes are all that teachers get, the process is unlikely to improve teaching and learning. Here’s why.

Problems with quick written feedback

First, in short classroom visits, supervisors observe only about a quarter of the lesson. True, they can see a lot in 10 minutes, but it’s possible to misunderstand what’s going on. The supervisor doesn’t know, for example, what happened just before the visit, why one student was so sullen, and whether the lesson was ultimately successful.

Second, feeling the need to take detailed notes limits supervisors’ ability to walk around, check out classroom displays, look over students’ shoulders to see what they’re working on, and ask questions like “What are you learning today?”

Third, when a supervisor sends “low inference” notes (an expectation in many schools), a comment that is supposed to be objective—“Danny had his head on the desk”—can be heard as a criticism.

Fourth, written feedback often fails to communicate nuances that make up a lot of face-to-face conversations—tone of voice, facial expressions, body language. It’s not surprising that teachers often misunderstand supervisors’ written comments. 

Fifth, it’s tricky to convey criticism in writing. That’s why administrators often pull their punches and avoid addressing mediocre and ineffective practices, especially after short classroom visits.

Finally, performance anxiety lurks in the minds of even the best teachers, and when an administrator is typing away on a laptop, the teacher’s blood pressure might rise: What is he writing? 

Can these challenges be overcome?

Some administrators claim it’s possible to take good notes while walking around, figure out the broader context by chatting with kids, eyeball the assignment and classroom displays, and send a well-crafted email with helpful suggestions. This requires a high skill level, and even if a supervisor can pull it off, there’s still a problem: no dialogue, no teacher agency, probably no buy-in, and in most cases it feels top-down and paternalistic.

What if the email is followed up with a face-to-face conversation? The teacher is often on the back foot, filling in what the supervisor missed and correcting misunderstandings. Then the write-up has to be revised—extra work for the supervisor and an admission of what was missed. This dynamic is hardly conducive to a good dialogue about pedagogy and curriculum.

The logical conclusion: Administrators should hold off sharing feedback until they talk to the teacher. But is that practical? I often hear from school leaders that scheduling face-to-face debriefs is difficult, making quick written feedback the best way to close the loop with teachers.

This may be efficient, but is it effective? Sending write-ups (or rubric scores) before a conversation greatly reduces the chance of making a human connection, building trust, seeing what teachers are dealing with, appreciating good practices, coaching in ways that improve student learning, and spreading good practices around the school. And if teachers suspect that artificial intelligence was used, all bets are off.

A better process

That’s why having face-to-face conversations before written documentation is a far better sequence, and most teachers prefer it—provided that debriefs are prompt and handled well. Here are some suggestions for supervisors: 

• Be considerate of teachers’ time by keeping conversations short (around 10 minutes) and fitting them in at times that are convenient for teachers.
• If possible, meet in the teacher’s classroom when students aren’t there, providing a home-court advantage and making it easier to look at artifacts and student work. Teachers appreciate this humble gesture by supervisors.
• Come to the conversation with a few handwritten notes from the mini-observation; it’s not necessary to have lots of evidence unless the goal is building the case for dismissal.
• Start the conversation with a specific compliment on what was going well. Teachers may think they’re about to be served the “feedback sandwich,” which is why the next step is so important…

• Show curiosity and get the teacher talking about the lesson by asking questions like “What happened just before I came in?” “What did you hope I would notice?” “Why was that student so excited?” “Did you get your intended learning results?” 
• Based on what the teacher says (and what was observed during the lesson), decide on one leverage point: an idea on how even more learning might take place. 
• An important point: There doesn’t have to be a criticism or suggestion. With a superb lesson, the feedback can be 100 percent appreciation.
• Agree on an actionable next step, which might be trying a new strategy for checking for understanding or sharing an effective practice with the faculty at an upcoming meeting. 
• Follow up by sending a brief summary (no more than 150 words) electronically, to which the teacher can respond—but this is not necessary if the summary is accurate.

Can administrators handle this? 

I believe 95 percent of school leaders can because the process puts teachers at ease, invites nondefensive reflection about specific classroom events, and liberates supervisors from the tiresome old scripts.

This process is also time-efficient. Each mini-observation, debrief, and write-up takes about 10 minutes, so one cycle is 30 minutes. Given a reasonable supervisory caseload (20–25 teachers) and the goal of observing teachers once a month, that computes to an average of two mini-observations a day—only 60 minutes. 

Only 60 minutes: I know what you’re thinking, and I understand the challenge; I wrestled with it every day as a principal. But time management is about putting first things first, and every school leader’s number one instructional and equity goal is more good teaching in more classrooms more of the time. Naturally there will be days with zero classroom visits, but a regular routine of mini-observations and debriefs is the heart of effective leadership.

In sum, here are the components that make this process doable and maximize instructional impact: frequent visits, prompt debriefs on the teacher’s home turf, keeping things low-tech and low-key, hearing the teacher’s perspective, praising good work, focusing on one coaching point at a time, and following up with brief written summaries. All this makes effective use of time, brings out the best in administrators, and helps teachers own what’s working in their classrooms and constantly think about how they can do even more for their students. That’s a win-win for everyone.