DoDEA 21st Century Schools · Professional Learning

Teacher Led
Rounds

A practitioner's guide to planning, facilitating, and sustaining rounds at your elementary school.

Overview
What Are Teacher Led Rounds?

Teacher Led Rounds (TLR) are a structured, collegial process where small groups of teachers visit classrooms together — not to evaluate, but to learn. Teachers design the focus question, conduct the observations, and lead the debrief. Grounded in Harvard's Instructional Rounds framework and adapted for teacher ownership.

Why it fits your school: In a DoDEA 21st century building, your open spaces, co-teaching structures, and maker zones give observers a rich, varied environment. Rounds help your team name what is actually working in those flexible spaces — and what to try next.
What Rounds Are NOT
✗A teacher evaluation or observation tool
✗A way to report back to administration
✗A critique of an individual teacher's practice
✗Informal drop-in visits or learning walks
✗An opportunity to share opinions about classrooms
What Rounds ARE
✓A shared inquiry into a Problem of Practice
✓Evidence-based — record what students do and say
✓Descriptive, not evaluative
✓Low stakes, high trust, teacher-owned
✓A catalyst for collective professional learning
👁️
Descriptive, Not Evaluative

Observers collect evidence of what students are doing — not judgements about teacher quality.

🛡️
Low Stakes, High Trust

Nothing observed is reported to admin as evaluation data. Teachers own and protect the process.

🔍
Inquiry Focused

Every round begins with a shared question. Debrief conversations return to that question, not to opinions.

🤝
Collective Learning

Patterns across classrooms teach us more than any single observation. The debrief is the heart of the work.

Connection to co-teaching: Rounds are one of the most powerful ways to study co-teaching in action. Your Problem of Practice can focus directly on student talk during co-taught lessons, how both teachers are positioned, or how students use flexible learning zones.
Structure
The Four Phases of a Round

A complete round takes 2–3 hours. Each phase has a distinct purpose. Together they form a complete professional learning cycle.

01
30–45 min

Pre-Brief

  • Review or establish Group Norms together
  • Revisit the Problem of Practice — what are we looking for today?
  • Clarify the observer role: collect evidence, not opinions
  • Assign observation lenses if helpful (student talk, task level, co-teacher positioning)
  • Walk through the observation form — agree on what counts as evidence
Facilitator tip: Ask each observer to write one evidence sentence before entering rooms — it primes descriptive, not evaluative, language.
02
45–60 min

Classroom Visits

  • Visit 3–4 classrooms, 10–15 minutes each
  • Move quietly; crouch to be eye-level with students where possible
  • Record direct evidence: exact student words, actions, task descriptions
  • Avoid evaluative language — no "good", "struggling", "not engaged"
  • In co-teaching rooms: note how both teachers and students are positioned
  • Stay focused on students, not the teacher
DoDEA spaces tip: Use the variety of your building — observe in the learning commons, a co-teaching classroom, and a maker zone for rich cross-context data.
03
45–60 min

Debrief

  • Begin with evidence sorting — what patterns did the group notice?
  • Use the Notice / Wonder / Implication protocol (see Tools tab)
  • Connect findings back to the Problem of Practice
  • Generate 2–3 actionable implications for instruction
  • No classroom identifiers — protect host teacher anonymity in early rounds
This is the most important phase. Do not cut it short. A rushed debrief wastes the entire observation window. Protect this time fiercely.
04
15–20 min

Next Steps

  • Each teacher names one thing to try in their own practice
  • Set the date, focus, and host classrooms for the next round
  • Update the school Round Log
  • Optional: host teacher shares one brief reflection
  • Celebrate the group's courage and commitment
Year-Long Plan
Implementation Roadmap

A school-year plan for launching Teacher Led Rounds, built around your three goals: improving instruction, building a collaborative culture, and supporting co-teaching. Click any phase to expand the detail.

The Anchor Question
Problem of Practice Builder

The Problem of Practice (PoP) is the shared inquiry question that focuses every observation and debrief. A strong PoP is specific, observable, and connected to student learning. Use the builder below to draft yours.

Build Your PoP

Select a focus area and observation lens to generate a starting question. Refine it with your team.

Your Problem of Practice will appear here once you make selections above.

Weak PoP Examples
✗Are teachers doing a good job?
✗How are students engaging?
✗Is co-teaching working?
✗What do good lessons look like?
Strong PoP Examples
✓To what extent are students doing the academic talking during co-taught lessons?
✓What types of tasks are students working on across different co-teaching models?
✓When both teachers are active, what evidence do we see of student peer collaboration?
✓How frequently are students self-selecting learning zones, and what tasks are they doing there?
Key test: Can you stand in a classroom for 10 minutes and collect clear, written evidence to answer this question? If yes — it is observable. If it requires inference — revise it.
Protocols and Tools
Ready-to-Use Resources

Everything your team needs to run a round — an observation form, a debrief protocol, and a norms builder to co-construct group agreements with staff.

Observation Evidence Form

Record only what you SEE and HEAR. No interpretations. Print one per observer per classroom.

Rounds Observation Form
Notice / Wonder / Implication Debrief Protocol

Use this structure for every debrief. Click each phase to see facilitator prompts.

Group Norms Builder

Select the norms you want to adopt with your team. Most powerful when teachers choose them together — use this as a starting menu, not a mandate.

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