Circulate and Monitor

Whether your preferred lingo comes from Robert Marzano, Anita Archer, APL, or Madeline Hunter, the concept is the same.  When students are thinking, writing, saying, or doing in our classroom, we must be present and available.  This helps promote on-task behavior and allows us to more accurately recognize understanding (or lack of it) and provide assistance or coaching as necessary.  On a day-to-day basis, this is one important way we discover the extent that our instruction was effective and efficient.  

ASOT Elements: E23, E24, E33

Tips:

• Have a mantra, and post it somewhere where you will see it easily and frequently.

• Assess yourself at the end of a lesson or day of teaching.  Even better, record yourself teaching a lesson or lesson segment, and see yourself from a more objective perspective.

  • Did I circulate and monitor EVERY time students were thinking, saying, writing, or doing?

  • Did I get to all parts of the room or all students?  (Research shows that teachers tend to hang out in the front of the room toward their dominant hand side.  Check yourself on video.  Is this true for you?)

  • Did monitoring reveal understanding of the content or task instructions or did I find myself reteaching certain things often?

  • How engaged in the target task we the students? To what extent did circulating and monitoring (or lack of it) affect on-task behavior?

Be With-It

• Marzano's work encourages us that withitness can be a learned!  The Art and Science of Teaching (2007, p. 140-143) recommends several specific actions that teachers can employ to be more with-it.

  • Being proactive

  • Occupying the entire room

  • Noticing potential problems

  • Using a series of graduated actions (e.g., looking at the student, moving in the direction of the student, confronting the behavior)

Walk Around.  Look Around. Talk Around.  

• Anita Archer's mantra is a good way to remind ourselves to circulate and monitor!  

Be On Your Feet, Not on Your Seat!  &  Management By Walking Around

• The professional development group APL gives us these two phrases as reminders. 

Research & References:   Marzano, The Art and Science of Teaching, 2007, p. 140-143; Marzano, Classroom Management that Works, 2003; Sharer, Anastasio, & Perry, Teaching: The Book, 2007, p. 54; Archer, Explicit Instruction, 2011