Discussing Data with Teachers - Guiding Improvement

FirstSchool team member Sam Oertwig talks to a teacher about a piece of data indicating that this teacher's students are spending less time on oral language development than before.  They spend a few minutes together reflecting on why that might be the case and consider some potential tweaks to the teacher's existing instructional strategies.

• This teacher isn't sure why her usual emphasis on interacting with students and allowing them time to talk isn't showing up in this round of data collection.  How does Sam help this teacher reflect on some possible explanations and identify areas of potential growth?
• If applicable - Think about an area of your instruction that you would like to improve.  What about your students' learning needs is prompting you to make that change?  Is there a way to build off of your existing practices to make them even more effective?
• If applicable - Think about a time when you provided a teacher with feedback about an area of potential growth.  Were you able to build from that teacher's existing strengths to suggest concrete ways to expand his/her practice?